Kimber cable "how much"
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Soldato
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Lucid, no matter how many times you repeat yourself, it doesn't change the fact that you don't have any evidence to back up your position.
"Let your ears decide" - to do that, you need to remove the bias
"the comparator wrecks the sound" - citation needed (again, that's easy enough to prove, and is done in pretty much every ABX test, it's a weasel get out clause)
"you need an expensive system to notice the difference" - citation needed, again
"mains conditioners change the sound" - citation needed
"everything changes the sound" - citation needed. Real world examples where people can tell the difference between x and y
Let's take a step back - how do you think companies like kimber develop new products? Earlier you spoke about hi-fi as if it was some kind of art, but surely it is engineering, and therefore driven by science? If you can accept that, then why do you reject science when it comes to evaluating the end result? And I go back to earlier - why don't any of these companies publish their research?
Speaking of research - the papers that the likes of Russ Andrews produce are irrelevant pseudoscientific nonsense. It's all well and good demonstrating in theory that a cable can possibly change a sound, but the only thing that matters is the end result.
And finally, can we put the whole "come an listen for yourself" thing to bed now? It's completely missing the point and a I think I've already pointed out, it's like the homeopaths who tell you to try their magic beans to see them work.
"Let your ears decide" - to do that, you need to remove the bias
"the comparator wrecks the sound" - citation needed (again, that's easy enough to prove, and is done in pretty much every ABX test, it's a weasel get out clause)
"you need an expensive system to notice the difference" - citation needed, again
"mains conditioners change the sound" - citation needed
"everything changes the sound" - citation needed. Real world examples where people can tell the difference between x and y
Let's take a step back - how do you think companies like kimber develop new products? Earlier you spoke about hi-fi as if it was some kind of art, but surely it is engineering, and therefore driven by science? If you can accept that, then why do you reject science when it comes to evaluating the end result? And I go back to earlier - why don't any of these companies publish their research?
Speaking of research - the papers that the likes of Russ Andrews produce are irrelevant pseudoscientific nonsense. It's all well and good demonstrating in theory that a cable can possibly change a sound, but the only thing that matters is the end result.
And finally, can we put the whole "come an listen for yourself" thing to bed now? It's completely missing the point and a I think I've already pointed out, it's like the homeopaths who tell you to try their magic beans to see them work.
Soldato
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95% of cable companies simply buy cable in reels from China for peanuts and don't make their own from scratch - only a handful do - it's often a simple rebranding exercise, so the same reel type could be found on a £5/m cable and a £50/m one, just the latter 'looks nicer'. If my speaker wire was highly visible in a room, I'd pay more for looks, certainly yes.
True silly-money cable and other such things, there's no logical conclusion one extract from it other than it's a simple exercise in a few opportunists trying to get rich people to essentially give their money away to them. The fact that companies like Virtual Dynamics have gone kaput shows that at least some people with a lot of money realise this.
With a speaker company, they charge massive amounts for their flagship stuff because of the R&D that has gone into it, that it's all hand-made, the components and materials (I'm building some active speakers at the moment, and the cost of the electronics alone has been several hundred quid because they use high grade capacitors etc), there's a reason for it. They probably make a bit of a profit but they're not taking the ****, and the tech filters down the line into the cheaper stuff over time. If someone buys a £15,000 speaker cable, then I'd say the vast, vast majority of that money is just going straight into the owners pockets as they laugh all the way to the bank, because it doesn't cost much to make make a reel of wire look nicer. Put a new sleeve on it, talk about technical sounding stuff that doesn't apply to a cable's performance in an way (raising the inductance and resistance, or the capacitance does), call it SUPERMEGACABLE SERIES 3! Sell a few of them, that's your annual salary paid for. Release SUPERMEGACABLE SERIES 4 the next year, voila!
EDIT - in terms of system synergy... I'd rather go for as transparent and accurate/natural as possible (never 100% do-able), and then it's a case of what type of house-sound from xyz speaker company is the most preferable to my ears. If the speakers are bright, instead of going on an elaborate mission to tame them, I'd just get less bright speakers.
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But a Veyron is worth the money, because of the engineering that has gone into it and the end result that all of that produces. It's a lot more significant than just a piece of wire. It's not comparable.
The best I can offer is you sit there blindfolded for listening tests where all you know is that music is playing but not which cable is in use. Let your ears decide.
That's not going to prove that one cable is better, and certainly not that it's £25k better, only that one cable sounds different to another. If you're interested in a different sound, then I imagine you can find one for less than that amount of money.
I've always thought with these ridiculous cables that it would be cheaper to use multiple digital connections (which cannot affect the signal in any way) leading to an amp in or next to each speaker (ie with a 5.1 system instead of a decoder amp box just a splitter box sending individual signals to decoders-mono amps next to or built into the speakers). The length of analog cable would then be minimised, you could even use solid bus bars welded to the contacts of the amp output and speaker terminals inside. Such an arrangement would cost less than these cables and would measurably decrease any cable affects. Even with this I'm sure no human would be able to successfully ABX such a system against basic 12 gauge copper cable with corrosion resistant connections.
A Veyron is a poor example really. I know you are not the one that has made it, I'm just saying. If you take a £1.7m Veyron, compared to an average £10k car, the cost difference is nowhere near as much, as the difference between decent budget speaker cable and magic £21k Kimble cable.
At the end of the day, it's just wire as you say, however good it is. The difference in research and technology that went into the two is not even comparable. Bugatti accomplished something fantastic when they created the Veyron, can the same be said of Kimber with their £21k cable?
One doesn't need to be a technician in order to appreciate how good the Veyron is, but it seems one must be an audiophile in order to appreciate £21k worth of cable. Short cable at that. Only 2.4m. It's not like you are getting a lot for your £21k.
I'd be interested to know what it would cost someone if they wanted around 5m of this cable. A bit less probably. £38k maybe? instead of £42k. Just for arguments sake, let's say an other 2.4m costs £17k. What exactly does that extra £17k buy. Superior sound quality compared to having of 2.4m cable? Not really.
If buying an expensive painting is also used as a comparison to buying such expensive speaker cable. Similar money spent again, will buy a different painting. You are might get something completely different in style, but the purchaser will be able to enjoy something different. Similar goes for someone who buys an expensive car. If they buy a different car, it offers a different experience. The same money spent again on another 2.4m of the £21k cable buy you what? The ability to place your speakers further apart.
Lucid hit the nail on the head with his first line in this thread. "It's all degrees of madness".
You can't prove whether one cable is "better" than another. They will all have different electrical characteristics and the characteristics that suit different systems will be system dependant (yes, cables do sound different and I have a degree in Electronics so can at least substantiate why they sound different).
The question is: is it worth the money.
Unfortunately, you can't answer question that for me, nor can I answer the question for you.......
So... would it be fair to say that if someone listens to 2 cables, and states that cable B is better than cable A that there is no way that science can prove them wrong?
Exactly which is all I gather Lucid has said from the start, value is subjective. Just kinda like wine.
Soldato
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The people that pay £xxxx for a cable are convinced it works and won't hear otherwise. The people that refuse to pay more than £x for cable are convinced the expensive cable is a waste of money. Neither will be convinced otherwise and it's all subjective anyway.
I'm in the waste of money camp, but then I'm happy with my modest system and enjoy the music. I could spend more on every component, but would I get more enjoyment? Probably not. At the end of the day, if you're happy with your system, great, if not, fiddle to your heart's content.
I'd never advocate someone spending a lot on a system MUST spend 20% or whatever on cables, but if they tried cheap cables and expensive cables and they were prepared to pay for the perceived benefit, whether tangible or no, then if it makes them happy, why not let them?
From what I've read, there are a greater quantity of convincing articles proving cables a waste of money than otherwise, but there is always a small percentage who think the expensive cable is better. Maybe they're just randomly choosing, but maybe, just maybe, to them it actually sounds better?
I'm in the waste of money camp, but then I'm happy with my modest system and enjoy the music. I could spend more on every component, but would I get more enjoyment? Probably not. At the end of the day, if you're happy with your system, great, if not, fiddle to your heart's content.
I'd never advocate someone spending a lot on a system MUST spend 20% or whatever on cables, but if they tried cheap cables and expensive cables and they were prepared to pay for the perceived benefit, whether tangible or no, then if it makes them happy, why not let them?
From what I've read, there are a greater quantity of convincing articles proving cables a waste of money than otherwise, but there is always a small percentage who think the expensive cable is better. Maybe they're just randomly choosing, but maybe, just maybe, to them it actually sounds better?
Please define better....
I'll try... if someone listened to 2 cables, and said that cable B sounded better because-:
1) It had a deeper bass and more extended treble.
2) The soundstage, in terms of size and depth was wider, taller and deeper.
3) As a result the sound was much more transparent and detailed because there was more separation, or space, between performers allowing the listener to hear more clearly each member of the band sing/play their instruments.
Could science prove that the listener was wrong?
Man of Honour
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Breitling don't say they count seconds better than Casio.
Soldato
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Start from the beginning
Can aperson tell the difference between cable A and B? If not, then why are you even talking about how one sounds BETTER than the other.
And yes - Lucid is right. Value is subjective. But the comparison between wine is ridiculous - you can taste the difference between one wine and another under controlled conditions for starters
Heres a question for you all - Say the kimber cable does sound different, because it acts as a high pass filter, and so influences the sound quite dramatically. Would that justify its price tag?
oli you've quoted me but don't seem to have made any attempt to answer my question. I know several people who claim they can hear differences between cables and other components. What I'm asking is whether or not science can prove them right or wrong. Specifically, what would science measure and what instruments would scientists use to do the measuring?
Fidelity, obviously. Does waveform in = waveform out?
Given that it almost certainly doesn't for any cable ever likely to be created, the question is then whether the imperfections it introduces are more or less pleasing. I doubt they could ever be £25k pleasing. I really seriously doubt it.
Associate
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You can use instruments to measure factors such as frequency response and distortion for instance, but it's sort of irrelevant because if someone is convinced they've heard a difference, they'll simply claim that their ears picked up on something the instruments didn't, and it would be impossible to prove otherwise.
Really, there's only one scientific way to verify that a claimed audible "difference" is genuine as opposed to a placebo effect, and that's a properly conducted double-blind test, repeated over a sufficient number of iterations to reduce the probability of successful guesswork to near zero.