7500 for USED cables? Are they joking?

Lmb. Thanks for the St. Andrews site. Lots of nice stuff there. As I said in my post I did not want to put words or an argument in your mouth and reading all of your posts I tend to agree with a lot of your approach. I'm a relative simple sh** when it comes to this stuff. I am never going to be at the cutting edge of understanding this stuff, most of us aren't. My basic position comes from dinking around with tube amps/speakers and trying to think of the audio system in terms of a circuit(s). If you just take the top off of the "boxes" it is virtually impossible to place such emphasis on the wire connecting the components. If your going to upgrade your going to take a balanced approach. Surely, your not going to try to fix obvious design problems in your amp with ridiculously costly wire coming out the end. I've met very few people who understand basic circuit design who would tweak/upgrade as cable companies promote. I think ultimately this destroys audio. It's ironic that one end of the industry is telling people to buy a half dozen speakers for 2k strung out all over the place while the other is telling them to spend that much on 18" of wire. Oh well. Common point???-- it sells stuff.

Thanks again for the St Andrews site. I only took the half hour tour but it looks very interesting.

I remain,

Thanks for the reply. I did spend a lot of time on physics web sites to try and remember what I had learned. I really would like to see an explanation of how electrons behave in small signal (source to preamp) and large signal (amp to speakers) scenarios to understand the electron movement better. I couldn’t anything on the Internet.

The most interesting thing for me was John Dunlavy essentially straddling both sides of the fence. I interpreted his comments to mean it is no simple feat to build a competently designed cable, and then to see his pricing. Unfortunately since the sale of DAL, Dunlavy only offers speakers. Some interesting changes have been made to the speaker line up. The SC-IVA and up see to remain unchanged, but the SC-III has some big changes which look promising.

The St. Andrews’ site is great since the author defines the problem, explains the assumptions, states the simplifications that can be made and why, and shows the math for both methods for the solution. He doesn't criticize, offer opinions, just a neutral presentation of the analysis used today. I gather he is somewhat interested in audio, by analyzing claims, and making non-judgmental statements, very cool.

If anyone out there can help me with links to sites on the Internet dealing with electron behavior in the field of audio applications, I would be most grateful.

Take care “Clueless.”

Lmb: I'm not sure who your "pro audio members" are, but I know of no one who believes that all cables sound the same.

On the other hand, I think John Dunlavy would admit that his i/c's and cables are, for most applications, audibly indistinguishable from "top-of-the-line" Radio Shack stuff.

Sir, I have read through all of your posts in this thread. You consistently state most cables sound indistinguishable in a blind test. Are you not implying cables do sound the same? Please clarify.

I have read many of the Dunlavy letters where he states zip cord sounds the same IF there is some engineering applied to it. I don’t think he says to just pull it off of the spool and put it to work. Twists, shielding, single core, stranded core, and proper dielectric are certainly considerations for good engineering, but not mandatory. My interpretation of his words are, there is enough of an understanding of the potential problems to make cables that don’t introduce distortion of any significant magnitude. It seems through testing, some manufactures do more damage than good and make good money on top of it. That is a problem, but again not unique to audio.

Clearly, some care must be taken. Clearly, most of the claims the high-end manufacturers make about the engineering of their cables to combat problems with parallel wires, noise, EM fields, and so on are valid, and measurable; but perhaps not audible. Unless I have missed something in the last 20 years this, is how marketing tries to differentiate a product. Take a look at Microsoft or any other company in a highly competitive industry. Certain individuals are extremely wealthy selling goods that do not work as advertised., sorry for the digression.

Is this behavior right? In my opinion no it is not. Do I think just because a high-end manufacturer offers an expensive cable, it is worth the money, absolutely not. Check out a “Recommended Components” list, Stereophile lists Radio Shack 18-guage solid core wire as a “recommended component.” This is an industry magazine that should be used for ideas and maybe as a guide, but it certainly is not a "bible," nor is any other magazine like it.

My problem with this whole debate is each side chooses not to disclose the whole story. I have provided links from scientifically based sources that question both sides of the table. Ultimately in my mind, the measurements would have to be done with the cables in place between the source and destination. Component interaction should be a part of the analysis. Speakers (and rooms) introduce distortions many orders of magnitude larger than the wire (and most components) to be included in the measurement. This would imply objective and subjective testing is needed to be complete. This is my opinion.