And you think monster cables are expensive?
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Even if my last name were Gates-Kennedy-Walton, I would still not spend my money on a pair of these cables.
I work at a high-end audio retailer. We sell Cardas cables:
They are over $900 retail for a 1m RCA cable pair and over $4300 for an 8m pair.
They sound incredible if you have the equipment to hear the difference but you have to have an amazing amount of expendable cash to do it.
They are over $900 retail for a 1m RCA cable pair and over $4300 for an 8m pair.
They sound incredible if you have the equipment to hear the difference but you have to have an amazing amount of expendable cash to do it.
skidog said:I've got my order in!!
Yeah, right! That's way too much money for a cable but I guess if they are selling them it's because there is a demand for them.
I guess that if you a really hard core audiophile then some of these cables would be worth it as long as you had the equipment to go with it. While I was parusing through ebay I came across some audio gear from the 80's such as a 3 head cassete deck that new was more than a yugo and had a current bid of $465 on it, I think it was called a dragon deck or something along those lines.
RandallA said:
What are ya talkin about, those cables made my 20 year old Technics stereo sound like the big boys!!
By the way that avatar looks like something Iron Maiden would have on an album cover.
skidog said:What are ya talkin about, those cables made my 20 year old Technics stereo sound like the big boys!!
By the way that avatar looks like something Iron Maiden would have on an album cover.
You got it. That's one of Eddie's picture from the Live After Death album. I'm still living the 80s music and Iron Maiden still rocks! Well at least for me.
My 4 yrs. old daughter likes to watch the concert specially when Eddie shows up on stage.
I worked for a high end home audio speaker manufacture. Our speakers ran from $2000 a set to over $16,000 a set. When we went to the CES show we took over $40,000 worth of speakers to show. We paired up with a tube amp company for the show and their stuff retailed for $8,000 an amplifier. We had over $75,000 in audio equipment in the room to show with. But the cables that were given to us for the show cost over $100,000. That was for speaker cables, inter conects, and power cables. The speaker cables came with special little holders to keep the cables of the floor.
A $4300 cable is all nice and good, but the real question is do you sell gold plated toslink cables?gawfer said:
RandallA said:
Iron Maiden totally rocks!! I still have a concert shirt, can't remember which concert, that has never been worn.
I constantly scan the Sirius stations for Maiden and was rewarded the other day with Number of the beast!
Iron Maiden - you betcha.
$1000 audio cables - hogwash.
Belongs with all the other urban legends and werewolf sightings.
I've seen some of the technobabble the Monster reps spew.
Are you familiar with the term FUD?
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Make people paranoid enough, and they'll believe anything.
"....oh, maybe your ears aren't good enough to tell the difference...."
In that case, I don't need those cables !
$1000 audio cables - hogwash.
Belongs with all the other urban legends and werewolf sightings.
I've seen some of the technobabble the Monster reps spew.
Are you familiar with the term FUD?
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Make people paranoid enough, and they'll believe anything.
"....oh, maybe your ears aren't good enough to tell the difference...."
In that case, I don't need those cables !
Anole said:
Finally a voice of sanity!
The ONLY thing you can do to any speaker cable to make it better is to make it larger. If we were talking high frequencies (and by that I mean far above audio frequencies, in the R.F. range) then stranded wire might be better than solid wire because very high frequencies tend to travel on the surface of the wire, whereas D.C., household A.C., and audio frequencies use the entire wire. But most cable sold for audio purposes tends to be stranded anyway.
The real problem is that regular (e.g. cheapo) speaker cable tends to be of very small gauge AND people nowadays want to pump a lot of power through their speakers (nothing like going prematurely deaf, but I digress). So along comes a "premium" cable company and they make much larger gauge cable (which is good) with very finely stranded wires (which is expensive AND unnecessary).
The dirty little secret is that you could go to an electrical supply house, get some heavy duty appliance cord, and it would work just as well. Even zip-type lamp cord (which is usually about 18 gauge) is larger than the cheapo speaker wire.
Ah, but you go to a store and you listen through one of those devices that purports to show the difference between regular wire and the expensive wire. Well here is the question you should be asking yourself - what, exactly, is in that little black box?
Let's suppose, just hypothetically, that they have a coil of a few hundred feet of "regular" speaker wire (which is, of course, the smallest wire they can find - think the stuff that connected the speakers on your first stereo when you were a kid) and then a few hundred feet of their wire. In the first place, the smaller wire will have much more resistance and that alone will make it sound like crap the minute you try and push any significant power through it. But also, if they coil up the wire in just the right way, it can act as an inductor. Another name for an inductor is a choke coil, and a choke coil blocks higher frequencies while passing lower ones. So, there goes your high frequency response.
I just get REALLY suspicious of "black box" demonstrators because you cannot see what they've got inside, and since they want to demonstrate their product in the best possible light, who knows what "tricks" might be employed?
I'm certainly not denying that larger gauge wire makes a difference - it really can, especially at high power levels or on longer runs. And I'm not denying that finely-stranded wire is easier to work with, and lays flatter on the carpet! But if you don't want to pay a high price, it's certainly possible to use large-gauge wire that's not so finely stranded (and doesn't come with a pricey brand name), and to many people it will sound exactly the same.
Now I realize some people will argue the point, but what I have found is that that some people are "brand name snobs" that think that ANYTHING with a well known brand name on it is better than anything without one. Hey, if you feel that way, fine, it's your money. All I know is that everything I've ever learned about how wire conducts electricity suggest that in this particular application, it's the size (of the wire) that's important - everything else is appearance and marketing shinola!
And on the professional side of it, every bit of audio and video production in this country runs through 12 cent a foot Belden or equivalent. Somehow, I think that the people who build TV stations and recording facilities know a bit more than the marketeers that came up with this.....stuff.
Here's another expensive set: Nordost Valhalla at $3300/M.
These reviewers crack me up, it sounds like wine tasting:
It was immediately obvious that the Valhalla interconnects were something special. They had a clean, open, airy sound, and moved the soundstage boundaries out, to farther than I had ever heard in my system.
These reviewers crack me up, it sounds like wine tasting:
It was immediately obvious that the Valhalla interconnects were something special. They had a clean, open, airy sound, and moved the soundstage boundaries out, to farther than I had ever heard in my system.
I grew up directly under the airport flight path for Sea-Tac and saw all the greats & not so greats that ever played in Seattle and any more than a well constructed cable would be over kill for me as my hearing is just not what it should be.
Jordan
Jordan
ridiculous!
pardon me if i offend anyone.....but that kind of money for A/V cables is crazy! If you want high quality cables then make your own out of high quality connectors and solder your connectors to RG-6 quad. It does not cost that much and is very high quality. I would put the impedence and shielding of my homemade rg-6 quad Audio/video cables against most any of those high $$$$$ cables. I use mine with Harmon Kardon and bose equipment with absolutely no problems. I think the other is some hopeful marketing propaganda!
pardon me if i offend anyone.....but that kind of money for A/V cables is crazy! If you want high quality cables then make your own out of high quality connectors and solder your connectors to RG-6 quad. It does not cost that much and is very high quality. I would put the impedence and shielding of my homemade rg-6 quad Audio/video cables against most any of those high $$$$$ cables. I use mine with Harmon Kardon and bose equipment with absolutely no problems. I think the other is some hopeful marketing propaganda!
So you pay >$500 for cable that you plug into a fifty cent RCA jack? Gimme a break. Those people have more dollars than sense. I am truly saddened by our society that has people stupid enough to fall for this junk. But I know there are plenty of them around. I just got an email from one who got a $4,983 check from Bill Gates for forwarding email to Walt Disney Jr. I'll bet he blew the whole check on $500 per meter audio cables
