# Audiophiles called out
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [January 2, 2008, 8:39am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090 "2008-01-02T08:39:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chino](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/chino)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 8:39am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/1 "2008-01-02T08:39:35Z")
> **[James Randi Offers $1 Million If Audiophiles Can Prove $7250 Speaker Cables Are...](https://gizmodo.com/305549/james-randi-offers-1-million-if-audiophiles-can-prove-7250-speaker-cables-are-better)**
>
> Click to viewOur 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)...
lol this is awesome, goes along with some of the threads of late… i am totally on board with this callout
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### Author:  [@Nikuk](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Nikuk)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 8:46am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/2 "2008-01-02T08:46:25Z")
This is akin to RC’s $10,000 “A watt is a watt” challenge… that has stood for ~10 years now.
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### Author:  [@ZOMGVTEK](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/ZOMGVTEK)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:00am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/3 "2008-01-02T09:00:56Z")
Apparently some guy my dad knows mathematically proved there could be about a .2% difference between pure copper speaker cable and something else. And believe it or not, any wire in a system can affect the sound, without question.
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### Author:  [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:45am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/4 "2008-01-02T09:45:40Z")
BRB, going to go grap a DC function generator and a pair of oscilloscopes. I’ll be back when I’m a millionare.
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### Author:  [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:48am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/5 "2008-01-02T09:48:18Z")
Nevermind.
> 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.
Publicity stunt. You’re supposed to “prove” something without the only simple quantitative analysis that could prove it. :ham:
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### Author:  [@66impalass](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/66impalass)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:48am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/6 "2008-01-02T09:48:55Z")
I think there is some one that took it and proved him wrong, but at the same time they were using $100 a foot monster cable speaker cables… don’t quote me on this, I will see if I can find it on audiogon forums.
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### Author:  [@RobHimself](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/RobHimself)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:50am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/7 "2008-01-02T09:50:08Z")
> [@ZOMGVTEK](#):
>
> Apparently some guy my dad knows mathematically proved there could be about a .2% difference between pure copper speaker cable and something else. And believe it or not, any wire in a system can affect the sound, without question.
this is without a doubt true but when it comes to a 12 foot cable its kind of laughable.
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### Author:  [@cdvma](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/cdvma)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:55am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/8 "2008-01-02T09:55:25Z")
One of my favorite web pages:
[http://www.ilikejam.org/blog/audio/audiophile.html](http://www.ilikejam.org/blog/audio/audiophile.html)
Also a guy was interviewed where I work and was asked if he thought A/B tests were a good idea (which are you take two different signals A and B and switch between them not knowing which is which). He said no which was a bit of a surprise and when asked why he said “because it makes audiophiles look like idiots”. Its true with things like these cables. Nobody can hear the difference.
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### Author:  [@theblue](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/theblue)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 9:59am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/9 "2008-01-02T09:59:07Z")
as somebody on the lower end of audiophile I can and have heard a difference in character by just changing speaker wire. It doesn’t take much to notice a difference between copper vs. pure silver vs. lamp cord.
with most equipment you run into other things being the weakest link a lot sooner.
if you give the average person a $100 bottle of wine and a $8000 bottle and ask them to pick the most expensive by taste a lot of people will fail that – but does it mean the $8000 is a rip off?
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### Author:  [@cdvma](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/cdvma)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 10:01am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/10 "2008-01-02T10:01:29Z")
> [@theblue](#):
>
> It doesn’t take much to notice a difference between copper vs. pure silver vs. lamp cord.
Yes, that is true. At some point the wire needs to be able to handle the power and frequency properly. That point however (and this is in general, not directed at anyone) doesn’t take $7000 cables 🙂
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### Author:  [@RobHimself](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/RobHimself)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 10:09am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/11 "2008-01-02T10:09:27Z")
> [@cdvma](#):
>
> Yes, that is true. At some point the wire needs to be able to handle the power and frequency properly. That point however (and this is in general, not directed at anyone) doesn’t take $7000 cables 🙂
Especially over 12 feet.
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### Author:  [@chino](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/chino)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 10:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/12 "2008-01-02T10:23:44Z")
> [@Fry](#):
>
> Nevermind.
>
> Publicity stunt. You’re supposed to “prove” something without the only simple quantitative analysis that could prove it. :ham:
you are missing the point - the point is that you are not an oscilloscope, or anything close to that, you are a human.
i doubt and oscilloscope cares what it is listening to 🙂
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### Author:  [@theblue](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/theblue)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:15am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/13 "2008-01-02T11:15:29Z")
> [@cdvma](#):
>
> Yes, that is true. At some point the wire needs to be able to handle the power and frequency properly. That point however (and this is in general, not directed at anyone) doesn’t take $7000 cables 🙂
in the same way that nobody needs an $8000 bottle of wine. But as long as their is a demand there will be a supplier.
the stupid thing here is that the guy is preaching to people who don’t know anything about audio and these people walk away with **“all cable is the same”**
all cable is not the same.
a simple person can tell the difference between a horrible bottle of wine and a decent one. they probably won’t know the difference between a decent one and an insane one. that doesn’t mean that all three levels don’t have a time and place where they are appropriate.
this really is a publicity stunt for lemmings to follow.
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### Author:  [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:23am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/14 "2008-01-02T11:23:32Z")
lol @ my dad who is a huge audiophile and ran his own business for a long time.
> Anyway the wire thing has been going around for years and, yes, it is 99.9% bullshit. People who are convinced to spend $$$$ on cables hear a difference, of course, but so would you if you just dropped $10k on a pair of wires. Either that or you would have to admit you were a fool. It is called the Placebo effect in medicine where a certain number of people feel an improvement after taking sugar pills. That is how Monster cable got its start but naturally successors have done them better on the bullshit scale. Monster speaker cables sounded better because they were heavier gauge than people usually used, not because they were made of silver or oxygen free copper or litz wire or some such crap. About the only thing that has a real benefit are gold plated connectors and that only because gold does not corrode and introduce a non linear resistance component over time.
>
> I think the most egregious example I ever saw was an advertisement for a $185 line cord with silver pronged plug to replace the AC power cord on your amplifier. The claims were ridiculous and they had a bunch of testimonials. Of course it doesn’t take a PhD to reason that a 3 foot piece of “Magic” wire is insignificant when you consider the 100 feet of plain old 14/2 Romex going from the outlet to the breaker panel, or the aluminium 000 AWG service cable to the transformer, or the plain old garden variety transformer on the pole or the 200 miles of junk wire back to the generating plant. Barnum was correct that there is a sucker born every minute. Naturally Audio stores and places like Best Buy love this stuff because while competition may force them to drop their pants on the profit margin on the electronics, they sell the cables for 5 to 10X what they pay for them and since everybody is in on the game NOBODY discounts the cables.
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### Author:  [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:29am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/15 "2008-01-02T11:29:11Z")
👏
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### Author:  [@Harvey](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Harvey)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:35am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/16 "2008-01-02T11:35:52Z")
Truth.
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### Author:  [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:35am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/17 "2008-01-02T11:35:57Z")
walter, i love your dad
he gets a standing
👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
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### Author:  [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:39am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/18 "2008-01-02T11:39:51Z")
Here’s a get rich quick scheme:
Sell 5.1 and/or 7.1 speaker wire sets. Use shielded 2 conductor cable. Put a fancy connector on every shield wire, and a magic box that all the shields connect to. Plug the magic box into the wall, tie the shield wires to ground and use the AC power to make some lights blink green, or red if a shield isn’t connected.
Sell for $10k.
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### Author:  [@theblue](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/theblue)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:43am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/19 "2008-01-02T11:43:58Z")
ignorance is bliss? watching uneducated people blindly believe is very frustrating. I better qualify that by uneducated I mean people who have never played with a variety of cable on a high end system.
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### Author:  [@walter](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/walter)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 11:44am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/audiophiles-called-out/41090/20 "2008-01-02T11:44:48Z")
> [@theblue](#):
>
> ignorance is bliss?
you seem to be living it and appear pretty happy, so I’d say yes :meh2:
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