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Originally Posted by Jim Lesurf[_2_]
I noticed that BBC Music Magazine this month has its "Hi Fi Expert" sic praise a 2000 UKP *plus* connecting cable. From his comments you'd think it makes almost as big a difference as the loudspeakers.
As an engineer I find it hard to work out what you'd be having to do as a manufacturer to make cables where the production costs justify over 2000 quid for a couple of meters of domestic audio interconnect. Having decent cables you like makes some sense, but this does seem more like making a 'statement'.
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There certainly seems to be a bit of a Catch 22 situation between hi-fi magazines being allowed to function profitably as any other business, and the nonsense they print being adopted as factual by those of a gullible nature, who quite probably possess a genuine, though misinformed, interest in audio and electronics. The authors are more than likely just trying to protect their jobs, but it petrifies me the way people simply accept, apparently without question, the mind boggling rubbish being printed. I appreciate it would be a bit drastic to ban the publication of what could readily be seen as entertaining, rather than scientific, subject matter. I also fully accept in our country it's the duty of the citizen to arm and protect himself against his own errors. Beats me what the solution could be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Lesurf[_2_]
I just buy plugs and cables from Maplin or CPC and DIY. I have tried other cables, but didn't hear any changes that come anywhere near a change in loudspeakers. Nor, indeed, near a small tweak of tone controls - those now feared denizens of the past. 8-]
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Like yourself, I enjoyed soldering my own cables, at least when my system was single ended. Now I have differential amplification and use professional balanced cables, which means it would actually cost me more to solder my own than buy readily available cables as used on mixing consoles. My cables cost me £20 a pair and use Neutrik XLRs. Not sure what more I could possibly need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Lesurf[_2_]
I decided years ago that reviewers moaned about 'tone controls' because a small tweak of a tone control means they lose any ability to hear the difference they say they detect between many amps, cables, etc. Alas, users of modern kit often don't get the chance to check this for themselves. Although if people use a appropriate audio playing software on a computer they may be able again to experiment with tonal adjustments, etc, on a DIY basis and re-discover than not all recordings have been made ideally in tonal balance for their listening setup.
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It was absolute genius on Naim's part to charge more for less components. The 1970s and Linn-Naim-Linn systems dominate magazine recommendations. Ivor Tiefenbrun was redirecting people's ambitions away from purchasing better loudspeakers to replacing their turntables instead. My mates refused to follow. I adopted someone else's idea the pre-amp was deserving of the greatest expenditure. High fidelity started to take itself far too seriously. Listening to music became secondary to the number of component boxes the true enthusiast could willy wave. Tone controls disappeared as the consumer couldn't be trusted to use them appropriately. The quality of LPs nose-dived. Cables now required running-in like an old 1960 Standard Vanguard. "Running in. Please pass." The hi-fi industry becomes an embarrassment by allowing itself to be taken over by a bunch of suits in casual disguise, who then proceed to abandon century old scientific facts in preference for the wildest of marketing claims. Astonishingly, the public not only fails to reject these claims, but chooses to lap them up with an eagerness beyond all comprehension. The uneducated not only claim their place in hi-fi society, but now mock logic and scientific endeavour with unearned authority, all the while championing themselves as mystical hi-fi gurus. Puke!