The Great Cable and Interconnect Swindle: An Etiology

[orgel]

Yeah, even though I think prufrock has a good idea and support his efforts, there are some issues. Another complicating factor, besides establishing a base level for quality or functionality, is how absolutist is the premise? When we assert, "Cables don't make a difference," are we talking about all cables? Or is there a continuum along which some cables make less of a difference and others make more? (Of course everything's subject to debate, but I'm thinking along the lines of, say, hard drive cables at one end of the spectrum and speaker cables at the other.)

 

--David

[orgel]

Quite apart from those problems, which must be faced and unravelled one by one, because measurements are objective, if any uncertainty exists whether measurements do or do not quantify all relevant, meaningful sonic attributes, we can say with a certainty they do not, as a fully objectivized understanding would be free from doubt.

 

Wow! You should roll with that. You could be the Tea Party's William F. Buckley. You can refute any reasonable argument with that line of reasoning. It's kind of bizarro-Cartesian: I doubt you; therefore you must be wrong.

 

--David

[orgel]

Here is a little info on how Noel Lee started Monster cable.

 

How Monster Cable got wired for growth: Noel Lee's story - Apr. 30, 2009

 

Thought to be a $100 million per year business according to this article in 2009.

 

http://www.mitcables.com/pdf/uhf_mit.pdf

 

And the above describes MIT's start.

 

AudioQuest has a history page on their site. Kind of interesting ... has their take on how the expesnive-cable thing got started. No aircraft, though.

 

--David

[orgel]

How much of this contention over expensive cables is fueled by envy?

 

I guess it's possible in some cases, but my cable agnosticism is firmly rooted in an extremely limited capacity to take things on faith. Note this part of your quote:

 

"Envy is not the wish for the object or advantage that provoked the envy. Rather, envy is

the much darker wish that the superior would lose the object or advantage. Envy is the perverse

pleasure, the malicious joy (Schadenfreude), that is felt when the superior fails or suffers."

 

I'm completely fine with other people having expensive cables and enjoying them. My issue is whether it's worth the money (and the cable-swapping time) to put them in my system. (Lord knows I loves me some Schadenfreude, but cable envy doesn't seem to get me going. Perhaps it's because the Freudian aspect doesn't resonate.)

 

To me, the beauty of testing and measuring is that they provide a means to determine the way forward, in the direction of better sound. I realize some trial-and-error is absolutely necessary, but I figure the more guiding principles I have to go by, the sooner I can make the right decisions and get back to the music. Are esldude's tests perfect? Is Julf's idea for the listening survey completely foolproof? I'm sure either would acknowledge that they're not. But they're a start at examining the issue in a rational way, of "nibbling away at it." To me, discouraging this kind of exploration, and thereby rejecting the possibility that it could lead to some useful, practical information, is problematic in a "dark" way.

 

--David

[orgel]

It is easy enough for consumers to test cables in their own systems, with very little risk, and then return the cables if they do not provide increased enjoyment. If the cables do provide increased enjoyment, it hurts no one else to go ahead and make the purchase, whether they actually "work" or not.

 

But, if trusting citizens are enticed by the outright lies which are common in political advertisments to elect the wrong President, and Congress, all citizens suffer the consequences for many years (in the case of the Supreme Court appointees made by the new leader, perhaps for our lifetimes).

 

Agree completely. Audio cables don't have a lot of potential health or safety effects, nor serious financial impact beyond the cost of the item itself. They don't violate human or civil rights or harm animals. As long as a cable doesn't destroy other components, it's hard to see why you'd want to go to "go after" a manufacturer or incur the trouble and expense of regulating the industry. You might as well go after Toyota because they charge more for a "special edition" with gold badges or fake mahogany trim on the dash. I think in this case, the focus ought to be on getting good information out there about what cables can or can't do, targeting the extremely small group of consumers who would devote a moment's thought to this subject, and this is probably best done non-governmentally.

 

Figuring out how to provide health care for citizens without the costs devouring the economy, or how to prevent moneyed special interests from controlling public policy, or how to salvage our educational system, seems like a much higher priority, and nothing's being done about any of those things, it seems.

 

--David