In the latest
News from the Moronosphere, McIntosh Labs have moved on from yesterday's bi-wires. Their $80,000.00, 1000 watt monophonic amplifier sports terminals for tri-wiring. That's one more than bi-wiring, for those who are counting. My obvious question was why they didn't pull out all the stops, and go for quad-wiring? Since this had been worrying me, and since I hadn't read anything from
Darko or
What Hi-Fi about it, I decided to do some independent investigatory work, and phoned McIntosh support. I was fortunate to reach Mactavish Mcfool, product engineer and marketing maven (known as the Big Mac by his Binghamton colleagues), who took time from his busy schedule to explain it all to me.
McFool said that while it might seem more symmetrically intuitive to go with four hook-up wires, their in-house listening tests (done after a late night candle light Ouija board session, where they attempted to call up the spirit of Frank McIntosh and Gordon Gow, but whose spirits refused to show up for unknown reasons) validated the ancient saying,
omne trium perfectum: everything that comes in threes is perfect. He then explained the religious nature of tri-wiring: how the tri-wire can represent not only the Hindu Trimurti, but also the Christian Trinity, thus confirming the spiritual wholesomeness of the triwire schema. Not only that, but the Big Mac told me how everyone knows that "the third time is the charm."
I said, "Yes... I see. But what about the idea that 'three strikes and you're out'?" Or 'bad news comes in threes?' Or 'three's a crowd'. Wouldn't those technical theorems argue against tri-wiring?" McFool thought about it, and admitted as much, but then told me how everything in high-end audio is a trade-off. However, he hinted that the top-secret Mac Skunkworks are devising a new Quinto-Wire half-mono amp (requires two dedicated amps for mono--one amp for each half of the waveform) that will make even tri-wiring obsolete, and skip the quad-wire debate altogether. It should sell for less than $200,000.00. The downside is that you will need four for stereo, and five times the hook-up wire. But in return you'll definitely get audio Nirvana. And blue meters. Four of them... one per amp. Each meter will cover half of the waveform, so you'll really be able to tell what's going on with your system.
Well...after hearing it, that convinced me. I mean, who can argue with science?