Stereophile doubles down on the snake oil!

[mcdn]

There’s a whole top of page article on why cables matter: https://www.stereophile.com/content/colloms-cables

It’s worth a read just to witness the mental gymnastics at play.

 

[Purité Audio]

It’s really pathetic, Colloms why would you believe one single word, shameful.
Keith

 

[Ageve]

At its simplest, it comprises a pair of insulated wires a few meters long of moderate—say, half an ohm—loop resistance

Half an ohm? Are they using sewing thread?

 

[amirm]

"The seemingly high cost of good cable is an inevitable consequence of often-arduous prototyping followed by a costly manufacturing run."

Ah, no. When we had our retail operations, cable companies would constantly visit us. Their first sentence on why we should carry their line? "We give you 65% margin!" I have had detailed discussions with cable companies at audio shows with my "dealer hat" on, discussing bling factors of cables and what sells and what doesn't on that front. Folks are so naive here....

 

[mcdn]

You’ve got to wonder if something systemic was going on like lead in the baby formula when that generation were growing up

 

[Mart68]

''It was not practicable to test wholly unsighted''

Of course it wasn't. Just embarrassing.

 

[Talisman]

I would have preferred not to read it. This is just an attempt to scam people, the writer is supposed to have enough expertise to be responsible knowingly for an attempt to scam readers to favor commercial partners who pay for advertising space and "articles" like this.
This cannot be in good faith.

 

[Scrivs]

Wow. And there went what integrity was left at Stereophile, lame

 

[mcdn]

It does seem deeply weird even by Stereophile standards.

 

[Mart68]

maybe sales of expensive cables are tanking?

 

[mcdn]

I would have preferred not to read it. This is just an attempt to scam people, the writer is supposed to have enough expertise to be responsible knowingly for an attempt to scam readers to favor commercial partners who pay for advertising space and "articles" like this.
This cannot be in good faith.

With any luck the top hit on google for "stereophile why cables matter" will be this thread

 

[obsessive9119]

This paragraph is amazing

Then consider stocking issues and the potential for product returns when the hoped-for improvement is not readily apparent when a cable is installed in a customer's system. What's more, a dealer needs excellent fieldcraft to reliably demonstrate the sometimes-elusive benefits that can come from cable substitutions. And then there's the markup.

Cables are expensive because of the restocking costs when people find out that they’re bullshit; because you have to hire really good sales people to sell bullshit; and because of markup.

Sign me up!

 

[JiiPee]

The claim that a typical speaker cable has a resistance of 0.5 ohm is enough to show that the writer is either a clueless clown who pulls his numbers out of his rectum, or he selects the numbers fully knowing that they don't represent reality, in order to cheat the readers.

A simple null-test between a cheap supermarket cable and a 1000$ audiophool cable is enough to show that claiming "it is a matter of optimizing the transmission of the more subtle information that describes recorded acoustic, instrumental detail, the performers, and, not least, dynamics and rhythm" is pure BS.

The rest of the text follows the same line. The writer should be feathered and tarred, as used to be the custom to handle snake oil sales men.

 

[Talisman]

The claim that a typical speaker cable has a resistance of 0.5 ohm is enough to show that the writer is either a clueless clown who pulls his numbers out of his rectum, or he selects the numbers fully knowing that they don't represent reality, in order to cheat the readers.

Perhaps for our reviewer the standard length for home audio cables is about 70 meters, this would explain the resistance of 0.5 ohm on a 2.5mm section cable.
More likely this simply confirms that there is bad faith, the value is so ridiculously wrong that even just out of curiosity he could have checked with a simple Google search or with a banal question to chatgpt.

 

[pjug]

Perhaps for our reviewer the standard length for home audio cables is about 70 meters, this would explain the resistance of 0.5 ohm on a 2.5mm section cable.
More likely this simply confirms that there is bad faith, the value is so ridiculously wrong that even just out of curiosity he could have checked with a simple Google search or with a banal question to chatgpt.

Alternative facts. You probably used The Engineering Toolbox or similar. The editor fact checked using The Charlatan's Toolbox.

 

[Gorgonzola]

There’s a whole top of page article on why cables matter: https://www.stereophile.com/content/colloms-cables

It’s worth a read just to witness the mental gymnastics at play.

Maybe unfair, but to me it seems Martin Colloms has been muddying the hi-fi waters for long time.

At the end of the article John Atkinson refers to a 1995 article by Malcolm Omar Hawksford entitled, "The Essex Echo 1995: Electrical Signal Propagation & Cable Theory". That article seems to deal with the speed of propagation of signals within cables, arguing that aspects of the cable, e.g. diameter, can adversely affect transmission.

Since I'm no electrical engineer, scientist, or mathematician it's all gobbledygook to me but might be comprehensible to other people. The question is -- allowing for its from validity -- is it relevant to audio signals?

 

[TheKoC]

"The seemingly high cost of good cable is an inevitable consequence of often-arduous prototyping followed by a costly manufacturing run."

Ah, no. When we had our retail operations, cable companies would constantly visit us. Their first sentence on why we should carry their line? "We give you 65% margin!" I have had detailed discussions with cable companies at audio shows with my "dealer hat" on, discussing bling factors of cables and what sells and what doesn't on that front. Folks are so naive here....

An unscrupulous dealers dream, really. A low-sophistication, zero-maintenance product with huge margins, what's not to like?

 

[HalSF]

The actual practical months-long nightmare of wasting time enacting the psychotic ritual of comparing high-end cables using the worthless criteria of sighted listening and a mind infested with daft ideas of “strain relief” and burn-in, is poignantly described in this passage:

We still must get those cables home and patiently try them out. Upon arrival, they are likely to need some mechanical relaxation and strain relief, gentle reflex bending in all directions following release from their packaging. Electrical running in and conditioning, too, often result in subtle improvements over time, maybe as much as months, with no guaranteed outcome.

“With no guaranteed outcome”! It’s like something from a particularly surreal Oliver Sacks case study.

 

[Keith_W]

Maybe unfair, but to me it seems Martin Colloms has been muddying the hi-fi waters for long time.

Out of curiosity, has anyone read his book? Is it worth reading?

 

[Palmer]

The actual practical months-long nightmare of wasting time enacting the psychotic ritual of comparing high-end cables using the worthless criteria of sighted listening and a mind infested with daft ideas of “strain relief” and burn-in, is poignantly described in this passage:

We still must get those cables home and patiently try them out. Upon arrival, they are likely to need some mechanical relaxation and strain relief, gentle reflex bending in all directions following release from their packaging. Electrical running in and conditioning, too, often result in subtle improvements over time, maybe as much as months, with no guaranteed outcome.

“With no guaranteed outcome”! It’s like something from a particularly surreal Oliver Sacks case study.

When Mogami cable became a thing in LA in the 80ies in building recording studios, the ladies that were hired to stroke and caress the cabling were amazed that Mogami was soft and flexible on arrival already - compared to the old, stiff cabling that was used previously...