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.
There is absolutely no difference between an original CD and your burned copy or a iTunes download of the same bitrate 44.1/sec .. the speakers in your car either aren’t up to the job or more likely the road noise is making the sound muddy... digital is digital , a 1 or a 0 , nothing in-between..
Sure you do.
You may not have a stand alone amplifier but the head unit in your dash has one built in.
Depending on make, year and model of vehicle (1997 ford Explorer for example) it may be a separate factory amplifier that is located under the front or rear seat and looks like nothing more than a black box.
Every radio/CD/cassette in-dash unit has an amp. Otherwise, you wouldn't hear much at all from your speakers.
Monoprice.com?
I purchase all of my cables there.
That’ll work! However, I don’t think wife will let me get away with it.
All my connections were purchased for rock bottom prices at monoprice.com and I am certain they perform just as well as any high dollar, fancy cable people claim are superior.
Reading a cable review/cable buying guide a while back the author proposed several scenarios to query salesman with and ways to tell if they are lying. One of them was if they tell you the cables have a break in period, they are liars and immediately leave their store.
On cable comparrisons he had a great suggestion. Tell the sales guy to take his high dollar cables and the cheapest they sell into the listening room and that you will switch them out for each other several times and if he can tell you with accuracy which is connected at that time over and over, you will buy the higher priced cables.
Guarantee no salesman will take you up on it.
<Johnny Carson voice> "I did not know that." </Johnny Carson voice>
...none of their speakers are THX certified...
Not surprising given the extremely, extremely high standards required for THX certification....but I wouldn't say that their products all suck.
I've owned Bose speakers and have always been pleased with their performance. Overpriced? Yes. Over-hyped? Yes.
But speaker cables? No.
These cables are cheap. Randi just needs to check out the Nordost Valhalla interconnects at $3,300 a meter. He will immediately hear the difference and quickly fork over that Million to purchase the cables.
Absolutely worth it.
Actually there are quite a few reasonably priced speakers that are THX certified, Onkyo has a set.
Here’s the funny thing with Bose, ever notice that their display is always far away form all other speakers so you can’t compare them side by side, that and they’re always set up a certain way so they’re close to you.
None the less, they don’t honestly “suck” but most mid range speakers actually sounds far far better, I have a set of Jamo speakers that walk all over Bose.
What do you think of Bose headphones? I use headphones for my PC because the sub on my 7.1 system keep the neighbors awake if I use it in my office. I’ve got a set of Bose around ear headphones that are better than any headphones I’ve used yet, but I haven’t used a great many headphones either. If there are better sounding ones (around ear fit) I’d certainly like to know.
I believe Bose prevailed, btw.
I’ll be honest and say I really don’t know, since I seldom if ever use head phones.
My advice is to poke around www.audioholics.com
They usually have great advice and info.
Let’s not forget quantum dots, the Tice clock and outboard cable break-in hardware, just to name a few.
Were all the various media recordings made at the same time during a single performance/session from the same microphones?
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