GR Research B24 AC Cord Review

[ROOSKIE]

When I worked in the industry in the UK, a 'respected' cable brand made in the south of the UK offered a 60% profit margin for stocking their range of cables - purchase a £350 GPB retail cable for 116 GBP trade price ex-VAT and made a profit margin (not mark-up) of £175 GBP ex-VAT on every cable you sold. If you asked for a discount you would first be offered a mega discount on the cables or offered them free as that was where the obscene profit margins were.

The sales team would push the most revenue making items, to be honest they were not rubbish but were severely over-priced, the What-Hi-Fi type magazines did us a all a favour and spread the myth that at least 10 - 20% of a hi-fi budget should be spent on cables etc.

Yes and to be fair I also worked in HiFi for a short year and passive speakers were also often marked up 75% and at least 50%. Yet at that time electronics had little margin and TV's had zero - even losses. (sales folks were supposed to sell extended warranties on TV's and were pushed hard for that, every TV was pitched as time bomb waiting to be warrantied.)
So everyone was supposed to spend a huge percentage of their budget on speakers. You might say smart but really it was driven by profit motives and not any sort of wider purpose. I think that is still the case, however the costs of producing electronics have dropped by degrees and the prices have gone up (at least in the luxury price classes) so electronics have reasonable margins often now, especially expensive ones. The budget stuff still has a cup of coffee profit margin.

Anyway this was around the time Monster cable was really starting to brew up some pricey RCA's and Speaker wires, sometimes sales folks would just take them off a rack and include them without even a thought on a big sale.

 

[Blumlein 88]

snip......

A side note I just bought a new LA90 for $875 to gain 15 or 20dB's in SINAD performance. By the new "inaudible" standard I guess that I wasted my money.

In fact you probably did waste your money if it was for lower SINAD. It might well not be an audible difference.

 

[ROOSKIE]

A side note I just bought a new LA90 for $875 to gain 15 or 20dB's in SINAD performance. By the new "inaudible" standard I guess that I wasted my money.

Is that the only reason for purchase?
If so, yes that was a waste of money. That ought to be clear.

Seems like a nice product for many reasons but I would much rather have more power. In any case if you only purchased to gain 15-20SINAD over what would have already been transparent then woops. Might as well have bought this power chord

 

[Doodski]

Yes and to be fair I also worked in HiFi for a short year and passive speakers were also often marked up 75% and at least 50%. Yet at that time electronics had little margin and TV's had zero - even losses. (sales folks were supposed to sell extended warranties on TV's and were pushed hard for that, every TV was pitched as time bomb waiting to be warrantied.)
So everyone was supposed to spend a huge percentage of their budget on speakers. You might say smart but really it was driven by profit motives and not any sort of wider purpose. I think that is still the case, however the costs of producing electronics have dropped by degrees and the prices have gone up (at least in the luxury price classes) so electronics have reasonable margins often now, especially expensive ones. The budget stuff still has a cup of coffee profit margin.

Anyway this was around the time Monster cable was really starting to brew up some pricey RCA's and Speaker wires, sometimes sales folks would just take them off a rack and include them without even a thought on a big sale.

Wowow. I retailed gear for 9 years in the 80's and early 90's and we never had those kind of mark-ups in Canada. What country where you retailing gear in?

 

[DualTriode]

Is that the only reason for purchase?
If so, yes that was a waste of money. That ought to be clear.

Seems like a nice product for many reasons but I would much rather have more power. In any case if you only purchased to gain 15-20SINAD over what would have already been transparent then woops. Might as well have bought this power chord

The point is:

If there is clearly a measurable difference some folks will pay the price. Thanks to John Yang.
If there is no clearly no measurable difference why buy it?

Related:
The GR cord clearly measures better. (just a little joke, it was not tested as a power cord.)

DT

 

[amirm]

In your graphic you show 15 or 20dB improvement over the other tested cord tested using the cables as a interconnects. So your test clearly shows the GR cord as the superior product.

It is and I noted that. This was stated on the graph:

And text right below it:

The GR research B24 is indeed less receptive to AC noise inducement. As shown though in green line, even if you used any of these AC cord as an audio interconnect, their noise still be inaudible!!

I couldn't have been more clear about this yet objection after objection is raised.

A side note I just bought a new LA90 for $875 to gain 15 or 20dB's in SINAD performance. By the new "inaudible" standard I guess that I wasted my money.

This comment again indicates you are not understanding the subject.

I suggest reading these AES Papers:

“Noise: Methods for Estimating Detectability and Threshold, ” Stuart, J. Robert, JAES Volume 42 Issue 3 pp. 124-140; March 1994
“Dynamic-Range Issues in the Modern Digital Audio Environment, ” Fielder, Louis D., JAES Volume 43 Issue 5 pp. 322-339; May 1995

Failing that, my short overview of them here:
Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-range-how-quiet-is-quiet.14/

 

[amirm]

The GR cord clearly measures better. (just a little joke, it was not tested as a power cord.)

You need to watch Danny's video to understand why I tested this. He claims the AC cable filters noise. The only way I could show that was by isolating the cable itself and seeing if it is less susceptible to noise pick up. It was. But not in any material way.

 

[DualTriode]

It is and I noted that. This was stated on the graph:

And text right below it:



I couldn't have been more clear about this yet objection after objection is raised.


This comment again indicates you are not understanding the subject.

I suggest reading these AES Papers:

“Noise: Methods for Estimating Detectability and Threshold, ” Stuart, J. Robert, JAES Volume 42 Issue 3 pp. 124-140; March 1994
“Dynamic-Range Issues in the Modern Digital Audio Environment, ” Fielder, Louis D., JAES Volume 43 Issue 5 pp. 322-339; May 1995

Failing that, my short overview of them here:
Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-range-how-quiet-is-quiet.14/

It is and I noted that. This was stated on the graph:

And text right below it:



I couldn't have been more clear about this yet objection after objection is raised.


This comment again indicates you are not understanding the subject.

I suggest reading these AES Papers:

“Noise: Methods for Estimating Detectability and Threshold, ” Stuart, J. Robert, JAES Volume 42 Issue 3 pp. 124-140; March 1994
“Dynamic-Range Issues in the Modern Digital Audio Environment, ” Fielder, Louis D., JAES Volume 43 Issue 5 pp. 322-339; May 1995

Failing that, my short overview of them here:
Dynamic Range: How Quiet is Quiet?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-range-how-quiet-is-quiet.14/

What you were not clear about is "inaudible" being the new standard.

 

[hansik]

When can we expect a comparison between power supplied by windmills vs nuclear vs coal?

 

[wwenze]

The earth is round, but if you measure some parts of the earth individually, you will find that some parts are flat.

 

[amirm]

When can we expect a comparison between power supplied by windmills vs nuclear vs coal?

I could do propane vs hydro. Our generator runs on the former and latter is produced by the power company.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Wowow. I retailed gear for 9 years in the 80's and early 90's and we never had those kind of mark-ups in Canada. What country where you retailing gear in?

USA, Audio King. Typical was 60% on both car and home audio. This was mid 90's. We had a lot of American brands though so maybe that was it, plus the Canton USA distributor was based here in town then.
Big home speaker lines carried there were

Boston Acoustics
Klipsch
Martin Logan
Canton
Deff Tech
and a few others

They did custom home installs as well and had pretty decent car audio stuff with some famous clientele.

It was a pretty nice store with a handful of shops & positioned right in $$$ between the Bestbuy's/Cuircuit City's and the Hi end luxury shops. This was also back when Bestbuy was not nearly as big nor were their location super sized. They started here in my city and they grew fast in the mid and late 90's. So Audio King, was much physically bigger than Bestbuy in terms of display size and had quite a nice array of display rooms.

Accommodations pricing, which has nothing to do with mark-up was also nuts. The prices were insanely low - I wonder if that is still a thing.

 

[beagleman]

What you were not clear about is "inaudible" being the new standard.

Are you meaning to say, that Amir does not always mention "Audibility", when comparing one noise reading to another?

 

[mhardy6647]

As I noted in the review, company claims that the 24 wire cable is better for source components. And that their 16 wire cord is better for amps. Don't ask me to explain their logic. I just work here.

Sounds like some sort of weird numerology. Not something as banal as powers of two (i.e., 24 is right out)... maybe something to do with 3 and 8. Now, back in my CB radio days, I knew what "3s and 8s" meant... but I rather doubt the concept's been ported over into the audiophile wire world.

 

[kencreten]

I heard Ethan Winer talk about expensive power cables in a video. Paraphrasing, "what about the 400 feet of Romex in the walls?" But... if looks are all that matters - this cable, might, do it. I'd prefer to have a much cheaper good looking cable option, though. Heh.

 

[kencreten]

Well, he’s still less of a charlatan than nordost….

In the general world of charlatanism - he's much less!

 

[kencreten]

Big ass cable should be used with big ass amp, no? Let’s get those 15 Amp juices flowing!

And as usual, @amirm didn’t read consider the description:



No wonder you couldn’t hear any difference

Those electrons - they care deeply about burn in time.

 

[mhardy6647]

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[Blumlein 88]

Those electrons - they care deeply about burn in time.

I think you are on to something. Seems like no matter the gear the optimum burn in is 200 hours with few exceptions. So it makes sense if this is a property of the electrons and not the gear. Now that's what I call Science.

 

[ta240]

When can we expect a comparison between power supplied by windmills vs nuclear vs coal?

Windmills sound airy, nuclear is bright yet warm and coal is dark sounding.