Posted on 10/04/2007 9:32:58 AM PDT by Notary Sojac
Our rant about those $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables found its way to the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), and Randi offered $1 million to anyone who can prove those cables are any better than ordinary (and also overpriced) Monster Cables. Pointing out the absurd review by audiophile Dave Clark, who called the cables "danceable," Randi called it "hilarious and preposterous." He added that if the cables could do what their makers claimed, "they would be paranormal."
We see that the Pear Cable company is advertising a pair of 12-foot "Anjou" audio cables for $7,250; that's $302 a foot! And, as expected, "experts" were approached for their opinions on the performance of these wonders ... Well, we at the JREF are willing to be shown that these "no-compromise" cables perform better than, say, the equivalent Monster cables. While Pear rattles on about "capacitance," "inductance," "skin effect," "mechanical integrity" and "radio frequency interface," - all real qualities and concerns, and adored by the hi-fi nut-cases - we naively believe that a product should be judged by its actual performance, not by qualities that can only be perceived by attentive dogs or by hi-tech instrumentation. That said, we offer the JREF million-dollar prize to - for example - Dave Clark, Editor of the audio review publication Positive Feedback Online.
This is not Randi's first clash with audiophile reviewers who claim to hear differences between various pieces of exotic equipment. He promises a million dollars (which he has waiting in an account for them) if any can prove in double-blind scientific testing that their extraordinary claims are true. None have stepped up so far.
How can the music breathe wo/ oxygen!?
MV
Ping to you Stickman.
You’ll like post #11 lol
As much as I hate the sale-hype and warranty-hype of today’s big-box
stores, I do have to give credit to at least one good fellow at the
Best Buy in West Los Angeles.
I went there with my IMPOSSIBLE-to-please boss and with the Best Buy
fellow’s help find a reasonably priced HDTV to replace his old TV.
He did such a good job with my too-often unreasonable boss that
I tried to palm him a $20 bill as a gratuity.
He said “thanks, but company policy dictates I can’t take that. Thanks anyway.”
Maybe I was just shell-shocked by all the hype thrown my way at
Best-Buy and Circuit City...but this fellow sure seemed to break the mold.
Larry Craig can.
I should have added to my earlier post 44 to you...
BUT most of the Big Box personnel I’ve had to deal with...I wouldn’t be
too busted up at putting them out of a job.
Sad, but true.
All I can think is that the managers/CEOs of these companies have
never shopped (incognito) at one of their own stores.
Good. Audiophiles are nuts, and most probably support Ron Paul.
What would I know, I’m a scratchy FM bebop jazz buff.
Well, all I can say is that not everything in my life is political, and I can still commend the work of those who don’t feel obliged to battle for every cause I support. I view that as part of what separates me from the DUmmies.
Best when listened to from another room via two Dixie cups tied together by a string.
I believe there is a strong minority of Kuchinich backers in the audiophile community as well.
What kind of string do you use? The very best runs about $80 a yard, you know.
The potophiles were smoking heavily that day. I grew up in the turn table era. Every advance since those days has been a significant improvment over the turn table.
I have a fairly high end system and have been reasonably happy using VBR encoding of mp3s.
I do NOT notice much of an improvement when going do a lossless codec like FLAC or APE. Should I?
Unfortunately, I also did NOT notice much improvement when I bypassed my PC sound card and went to a a straight USB out to a DSP. Should I?
I appreciate your informed opinions.
if you want real fun, hook up a good pick up mic to your edison horn, and convert your old wax cylinders to mp3 :)
yes.
you can’t tell the difference, therefore they aren’t better.
Why would you expect Randi to bother with global warming or lack thereof?
we’ve got a couple good ones. there’s also a difference to be heard in how clean the horn is. when it sits as a decoration for years between playing, collecting dust, the sound deteriorates until its cleaned.
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