What do you think about this cable company?


In this thread I am going to withhold the names to protect the guilty. However, everything I state is true, and I have documented in correspondance I have had with a certain cable company's distributor.

About a month ago I posted a brief comment on an Audiogon thread where I offered to do a review of a rather inexpensive cable,

Here is the link to that thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1034463095&openusid&zzTok20000&4&5#Tok20000

Anyway, I receive an email from a distributor of a different cable company that sells expensive hi end interconnects. This distributor offered me the cables for 30 days with no strings attached for review. I thought to myself that this would be be a great chance to demo some of the finest cables made in the world, and possibly get them at a good discount if I really liked them. I would in turn tell the truth in my review since I really did not have anything to loose or gain by doing this review.

So we (myself and the cable distributor) emailed back and forth about 14 or so times discussing the agreement, and about 3 weeks ago he ordered the cables. He did not have XLR cables in stock and he had to order them which takes approx 2 weeks.

During this time, I decide to buy a reference turntable/tonearm combo (Rega P9 w/RB1000 tonearm) to better help me in the review. I also buy several albums that are particularly good recordings that I know many audiophiles have. I also start really spending a lot of time getting a good handle on my system's sound with the Nordost QF IC and SPM speaker cable. My system really does sound good with this combination. I spend easily 20 hours getting prepared to do this review...

I then am informed by the distributor that the cables have arrived and that he is going to put them on a cable cooker for a few days. Sure thing I think.

About 5 days go by and I do not hear anything from the distributor. I send him a few emails to no reply. Finally he emails me with the following news:

The manufacturer has changed their policy to only let distributors send out cables to people who prepay for the cables. Thus, if you want the cables you are going to have to pay for them before I can send them to you.

I have put a lot of time and effort into getting ready to do this review, and the manufacturer wants me to send the distributor money after the distributor proposed to let me use the cables for 30 days with no strings attached to do a review of their cables.......

I then sent an email stating that I could not afford the cables unless I sold my Nordost QF and SPM which I would be judging the cables against. I asked the distributor that he talk to the manufacturer to make an exception.

Low and behold, I find out there are NO EXCEPTIONS.

What do you think folks? I think it is sad that a manufacturer will not back up their distributor.

Would anyone buy cables from a company that pulled stunts like this? Or maybe I am being too hard on the company and the distributor? I was pretty upset about the last developments, and I have sunk way too much time into this review endeavor.

Let me know what you think.

KF
128x128tok20000
BTW I was just joking about that Gosphel part in my above post. I had actually put 'Just Joking' at the end of that in lesser than and greater than signs, and for some reason it dod not come up as text. I am not much into HTML or imbedded links, but I imagine something along that lines happened to my Just Joking.

KF
One of the oldest scams, drawn out to look like it's a "change of policy". This one is usually done with books, videos, septic tank additives, etc. I would never look back.
Hey! How come no companies ever approached me with review requests? I feel left out! What am I, chopped liver? How does one go about getting selected for such activities? It seems that with all the posting I do hear, surely I would have attracted some company's attention. Or maybe it's just that I am always broke from the last purchase, that I can't afford to buy these exotic cables that they want to sell under the guise of letting me be a reviewer. Hey, that's the ticket! Convince an audiophile that you want him to be a reviewer, and sell him some cables. Yeah! That's it!
Uh huh. :^)
Twl, your system is too tricked out.

;-)

No one knows what it sounds like...
But I am sure it sounds pretty good. :-)

KF
Tok2000, the company that I had the positive experience with was HomeGrown Audio. The other companies I won't go into here, as I am sure there will be a lot of blood if that happens.

I am happy to say that in addition to being wonderful to deal with, the prices of their cables are actually cheap. Especially, when viewed against the competition. There were a lot of correspondence between us.

My intention was not even to review a cable, I simply wanted to purchase their Super Silver interconnect. I previously found Kimber KCAG to work well in a tube based system, but thought KCTG to offer a bigger sound, with fuller low frequencies.

We got into discussions about KCAG, and it seemed Super Silver was a copy of it for about 1/8 the price. The only basic difference between the two was that HGA used solid core wire instead of stranded because they found it to alleviate some of the harshness sometimes found in KCAG, depending on the equipment. The downside was that the stranded wire is easier and faster to braid. Seemed like a win - win for the consumer.

In our discussions, my goal was to put my own spin on their cable, making my own KCTG. We talked about it, and the reasons. At the same time, a lot of noise was being made here on Audiogon about thinner gauge wire. When it finally got to the point where I was ready to jump, they let me know that while they could provide me the parts or build me what I was after, but they had done some tinkering around and blended my ideas of more wire with the thin wire concept. That was when the offer to review was extended to me.

The cable is HomeGrown Audio Silver Lace.

I spent a lot of time with the cable, and was more than impressed. In fact, the cable is still the best that I have in my system. Recently, I did a cable shootout between the Silver Lace, Alpha Core Goertz copper, Audio Quest Emerald, Coincident CST, Musical Fidelity NuVista, and Stealth silver ribbon(SCR?). The Silver Lace was the winner, slightly nosing out the Coincident in my system. Basically, only because of slightly more impactful bass.

In no way do I think I am the reason for Silver Lace. But, I do think that my involvement and impressions left some imprint on the product. Like I said, it is a good cable. Some will love it, some will hate it, some will think it's OK. That's cable, they're like flavors of ice cream, we all have our own opinions and favorites. But, this cable does get my highest recommdation. A reference cable for about $170!!!