So when did "cables" (aka "cabling") become a Thing?
From my own memory, I'd say it started around the mid to late 80s, speaker cables maybe a bit earlier.
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
So when did "cables" (aka "cabling") become a Thing?
there was this one place that had an odorless/colorless liquid for fire suppression that was not conductive. first, it was not flammable, it was not poison (but you could not drink it) and the guy was dropping cd players and cell phones into it and they would work under 'water'. the crowd around, we tried to find out what the heck it was, snake oil? whatever - they were not talking. A few years after the show I notice the company - which I now forget) was outta biz so perhaps it was made from endangered species, but that was fun.
You mean like HDMI 18 gig high speed 4K HDCP 2.2 compliant cables.A significant amount of audiophile HiFi equipment comes without cables at all. I remember when the Japanese majors were putting really high quality cables in with TOTL products, but dealers around the world made it pretty clear they didn't want cables at all and they soon went back to cheapies or none at all. They wanted the add-on sales.
Consider even in the 70s, Kenwood shipped their LO7m with a super braided 1m mega-cable and wait for it, a directional 30ft screw lock, gold plated cable pair with the LO7c preamplifiers.
I remember us pulling out the Yamaha LC-OFC cables out of boxes where the customers didn't 'need' them.
I'm not sure that audiophiles 'upgrade' esoteric cables once they've spent the money on them. I think they stay in their systems indefinitely.
What the cable industry needs to do is follow the fashion/fragrance/sports shoe/bicycle guys. They have 2016,2017,2018 ranges with 'breakthroughs' and styling that renders last year's models ugly and obsolete. They need prominent 2018 printing on the cable jackets so audiophile friends are impressed. 2017 models can be clearanced cheaply in stores etc.
I give you a Polt'esque: "Hihihi - Nikolausi!" for that. But yup, that's probably not too far off - although I additionally seem to have a bit of an Austrian colouration in my personal dialect, probably from watching ORF (Austrian TV) a lot during my childhood and youth.
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
I remember reading an open letter in Stereophile magazine from the owner of Audioquest after this same Blogger (Mark W.) exposed their falsified Youtube video of cable performance made by one of their vendors. In every field, it is always good to have skeptics to help flush things out. Out of controversy comes awareness of truth.
It still makes me kind of sad that a company that makes a product as nice and budget friendly as the Dragonfly is so steeped in cable voodoo.
Their headphones are quite nice too.
I for one, am proud of the membership here at AK, with some judicious editing and pruning from the Moderators, in allowing a thread about cables to grow to 12 pages. Will wonders ever cease.
Agreed. hjames, our moderator has shown remarkable patience with this thread. This proves the independence of AK as a forum. Well done.
I recognize those Discwasher Gold-ens, as I've had a pair for decades, but had totally forgotten who made them. Their record brush was a superior product. Maybe their golden patch cords were ahead of their time...August 1976
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I don't think so. I'd rather think they're sometimes so concentrated on their mission to try to prevent other people from spending their money on false premises, that they don't really notice, if people base their buying decision on other, different premises or don't even care about the correctness of the premises, as long as they're pleased with the product/result. I.e., to me most people in the objectivist camp seem to have honest intentions - but they don't always have a talent for diplomacy, so that some don't notice, when their honorable quest for truth turns into a questionable crusade for truth.
You know, similar to those, who will always suggest the products, solutions or even ways of doing something they chose for themselves, regardless of whether that really fits to an advice seeker's request or not. Like for example those, who will still try to talk someone, who explicitely stated that he wants to buy a new turntable, into a used one, even if that person has already mentioned, that he or she is aware that this will most likely mean less good price-performance.
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
Sounds like you got some chip on your shoulder. I think there's something in the rules about giving Moderation back-handed compliments. Let's keep the focus on cable culture (not technology, physics, yawn, etc.).
That's fine. IMHO the reason the cable discussions have "moderated" (no pun intended) was the sudden departure of one of our most zealous cable mavens which created a vacuum of sorts that thankfully hasn't been filled.I did not think it was back-handed.
The reason the thread was kept open (I assume) is that the thread is not about the benefits of expensive cables. The subject is about how some vendors and a "society" tried to squelch one person's revealing of something shady