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High priced power cords, koolaid?

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#23
I have a friend who works in high-end audio, assembling home theatres and systems that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In his mind, while some audiophiles will try to claim until they are red in the face that high priced cords make a difference, he has never ever been able to detect one, nor have any of his customers. I know I've never been able to tell a difference between a $5 cord and a $500 cord, and that was listening through some pretty high end home equipment.

+1 to comments that the science and physics behind the principles of these cords is questionable. So, sure, lets call it koolaid.
 
#25
Kool-Aide_zpse8a0b2aa.gif
 
#28
Yep, the only people who claim that expensive cables make a difference are the idiots who have already bought the cable.

Have you ever seen someone make a claim that there is a difference who did not own the stuff already?
 
#29
I tried TWICE the ESP cable.
TWICE and could tell zero difference in a "blind" test.
"Blind" being that it was switched out with out me knowing what cable was my stock on and which was the ESP one.
To MY ears, there was no, zero, nada, nuttin, nope, none, zip, ziltch difference. Ever.
But, if you hear something, by all means buy one. Or two if it makes you happy.

Oh, I may not have worked on missles, but I currently work for a robotics company, worked for a company that actually produced cable (actually drew out the raw copper) and I have asked many many times, if there would be anything to these "high end" power cords (even asked our EE's at our pro audio division- I think they would know) and I always got the same look: :rollno:
 
#30
I still want to know though....how do you measure "bandwidth" on AC power coming out of your wall?????
There are so many mis-truths and sickenly wrong statements on ESP's site it's sad.
I've met and spoke with Michael Griffen ("inventor"/owner of ESP) and asked him to qualify the statements/claims on his web site.
What I was told by him: "Buy one and try it".
Yeah, just answer how you measure bandwidth on AC wall power first and we'll talk.......
And it's funny that these types, as much as they claim their snake oil is the smoothest, NONE of them has ever put their product out for ANY third party testing.
 
#31
If a company approached me to endorse a $250 power cable and would pay me $100,000 (or whatever) to say how great the cable was.... I guarantee I would make myself hear a difference! Might be only in my head (and bank account), but I am pretty confident I would hear a difference.

Honestly, I have a dozen or more power cables and I just grab a different one each time. To think an audience would hear a difference in my power cable at a $100 gig is just idiotic.
 
#32
MikeBass said:
I still want to know though....how do you measure "bandwidth" on AC power coming out of your wall?????
There are so many mis-truths and sickenly wrong statements on ESP's site it's sad.
I've met and spoke with Michael Griffen ("inventor"/owner of ESP) and asked him to qualify the statements/claims on his web site.
What I was told by him: "Buy one and try it".
Yeah, just answer how you measure bandwidth on AC wall power first and we'll talk.......
And it's funny that these types, as much as they claim their snake oil is the smoothest, NONE of them has ever put their product out for ANY third party testing.
Click to expand...

They either:

A.) Don't want their products exposed as frauds.

B.) Actually believe in their magical cables and feel that they won't get a fair shake by any 3rd party reviewer who isn't already bought into the high end cable thing. So they'll get Michael Fremer at Stereophile to audition them but they'll never submit them to anyone who might rigorously test them or God help us, do the dreaded double blind tests. :p

I've seen evidence of both scenarios.

I need to draft up a little document and post my test results of the ESP cable.
 
#33
the_stone said:
I don't doubt that there's people for whom the expensive cables make a discernable difference, but my ears aren't that good.
Click to expand...

That's the point. You SHOULD doubt what doesn't make sense, and it's up to those who believe to provide objective evidence that the wild claims are true. They haven't. Meanwhile, people buy 'em. A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.....
 
#38
Some of the younger players may not know what "drinking the kool aid" means. Decades ago there was a cult leader named Jim Jones. He started a church/cult in LA, and it was quite large. He moved his followers to Jonestown in South Africa, intending to build an ideal society. He taught that evil outsiders were going to try and destroy their utopia. One day, he put out warnings that they were going to be attacked and decided mass suicide was the answer. His leaders mixed poison in Kool Aid, and most of the followers drank it. (The ones who refused were shot.)

That's where "Drinking the Kool Aid" came from. FWIW, they used a cheap Kool Aid knockoff, not actual Kool Aid..."Flavorade" I think.
 
#39
i_got_a_mohawk said:
I wonder if those people have rewired their homes with $2k/m wire?

Whatever must they think of the common muck of electricity coming into their homes from the grid!
Click to expand...

+100000

I have a best friend who works for Magnolia Home Theater (Best Buy's uber expensive "high-end audio equipment" store within a store), and some of the utter BS they try to pass off makes me want to both scream in rage and keel over in laughter. It really makes me want to question how people with so much money can be so gullible and stupid.

Mohawk's point makes so much sense if those people would stop and think about it. The analogy I use with my friend is a Honda Civic driving on a 2 lane road and an 8 lane highway. The 2 lane is great because it's plenty of room for the car and has some space in case it needs to swerve a bit while going at high speeds. The 8 lane highway is overkill and completely pointless since the car will only go its top speed regardless of how large the roadway is.

Their sales pitches (inserting the analogy of my civic on the road) would sound something like this:

"So your Civic goes 120mph on a 2 lane road right? Well that's because it doesn't have enough ROOM to go any faster! See, your car needs all this open space to maximize its speed, that the 2 lane is holding it back and you didn't even know it! You know all those speed records people set in cars? They do those in the Arizona Salt Flats, which is waaay larger than any 2 lane road is...if it didn't matter then they wouldn't go out there to set those records, right?"

It sounds ridiculous, but yeah that's literally how the pitches go lol
 
#40
Steve Dallman said:
Some of the younger players may not know what "drinking the kool aid" means. Decades ago there was a cult leader named Jim Jones. He started a church/cult in LA, and it was quite large. He moved his followers to Jonestown in South Africa, intending to build an ideal society. He taught that evil outsiders were going to try and destroy their utopia. One day, he put out warnings that they were going to be attacked and decided mass suicide was the answer. His leaders mixed poison in Kool Aid, and most of the followers drank it. (The ones who refused were shot.)

That's where "Drinking the Kool Aid" came from. FWIW, they used a cheap Kool Aid knockoff, not actual Kool Aid..."Flavorade" I think.
Click to expand...


Sorry, you got the story wrong, mate. The People's Temple cult was headquartered right here near Ukiah, California. Then they moved to San Francisco, and then on to Jonestown, Guyana. That's where the mass suicide/murder via spiked Kool Aid of 909 people took place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
 
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