Never ever believe anything you read in What Lie-Fi? magazine

[Rave]

Seriously. They are ****wits. I was perusing this month's issue in my local supermarket when I came across a review of no fewer than six power cords. According to the tagline, 'power cords are one of the best value and most effective upgrades' to a hifi system.

Are they *******s.

They then went on to test no fewer than six power cords priced from £70 up to £120, and went on to praise the 'extra air and space....tighter grip on the music....' and other such crap.

Seriously, I would defy any person to tell the difference between flippin' bell wire and one of these cables in a double blind test, let alone the perfectly decent gauge copper power lead supplied with any decent hifi component. I don't know what's more worrying.....that there are at least six companies making a killing by selling ripoff cables to mugs, or that a supposedly reputable magazine is encouraging them!

I also don't know whether I should be trying to expose them for the idiots they are (e.g. by sending in a 50p cable dressed up with some fancy braided shielding for review...I pretty much guarantee I could write the review for them with my 'press release') or whether I should just join the party myself and make some easy money off other people's stupidity.

What do you reckon?

Rich :¬)

Edit: I've changed the name of the mag in the title. I'm warming to the idea of trying to con them into reviewing a spoof product, and I don't want the search engines to pick up this thread and potentially tip them off. If you're replying, please don't mention the mag by name.

Edit 2: Damn, can't change the title on the main forum page. Could a mod/admin do this for me? Cheers.

[Knoxville]

I think you should do it dude, by the sound of it they need exposing, i hate companies that sell stuff like that to take advantage of less knowledgable people

[Butuz]

I get that mag every now and again, and was very very dissapointed to see that exact article.

Don't get me wrong, quality of cable affects sound - thats a fact, cheap cables do not conduct electricity as good as more expensive ones - BUT would spending £100 on 1 metre of cable right at the end cancel out the other hundreds of metres of cheap oxygen laiden crap copper cable in your walls under ground etc? NO! Its physically impossible.

The only way to clean up the electricity signal going into your hifi stuff, is to filter and contition the line. In that situation, expensive cables at the end of the line may make a difference. But to make power cables like that worth while you have to spend £hundreds on line filtering and also have NOTHING else plugged into that mains spur, no lights, no microwaves, fridges, PC's. etc.

This is whats coined in the hifi industry as "snake oil". Anything that is unprovable using test equipment, but that people swear makes a difference. People in magazines swear it makes a difference, people at home buy it and then coz theyve spent £100 and are expecting a difference, theyre minds invent that there is a difference and are happy.

Butuz

[Rave]

But to make power cables like that worth while you have to spend £hundreds on line filtering and also have NOTHING else plugged into that mains spur, no lights, no microwaves, fridges, PC's. etc.

Hehe. Cheaper, better option: Big lead-acid battery, plugged straight into the power rails on the amp. Lovely clean power, minimum fuss. Trickle charge it when you're asleep.

Rich :¬)

[Butuz]

Yup lots of peeps do that

Butuz

[Moby-Dick]

use a spare UPS from the server room ?

[Rave]

use a spare UPS from the server room ?

A proper line conditioning UPS would be good, sure. TBH though, all this sort of stuff is pointless unless you've already got studio reference quality equiptment and money to burn, or if you're obsessed with getting an ultra-low noise floor. As I understand it, the human ear has huge difficulty hearing sounds that are 30dB or more quieter than ambient, and that kind of S/N ratio is not really hard to achieve. So, the only time stuff like this could really help is when you're listening to _very_ quiet passages of music.

Rich :¬)

[Moby-Dick]

indeed - I always looks at a lot of the hi-fi scene with a very sceptical view.

hlaf this stuff you wont be able to notice without a 'scope !

[Zak33]

RAve......escellent thread...excellent.

HOWEVER.....we could be onto an APRIL FOOLS for next year here....
Get this headline

-------------------------------------------------------
PSU power lead causes PC Instability!

Today, Hexus.net's MAIN BENCHMARKING PC was overlcocked by a FURTHER 20 mhz FSB by using a £150 platinum plated PSU lead.

The lead, from "Rip off Hardware" was plugged into a 6 way multiblock from B&Q and while the reviewers Girlfriend blow dried her hair on one of the other sockets, the test PC was wound up to a record breaking CPU speed of 4gig of BS!

------------------------------------------------------------

[unrealrocks]

Do not forget What PiFi () are often paid to review stuff. Also there are often certain rules they have to abide by ... the reviewers may have written total BS. There are certain PC component manufacturers which we've had various contracts to sign from bascially saying 'you can only give us a good review' ... we didn't and I wont mention the name/s of the company/s

[Lead_Head]

Me and my Dad are a bit of an "audiophiles", and we have a nice system downstairs that my Dad has spent thousands on over the years, getting it to how he likes it, but still not happy!!

Now, with this system, it has it's own power supply, and it's own fuse box.... can you tell the difference in sound???

Simple... YES... It's quite distinguishable.

Next on his shopping list is a new powerblock, to further enhance the sound.

[5lab]

actually, yes they are worth it.. but only if there is some kit (surge/spike blocking stuff) at the far end. and no, your bloody cat 5 cable isnt as good as real speaker cables. and yes, a better digital coax cable will give better sound. you might not understand why but it does, so just accept it. someone who spends £150 on a mains cable is not going to be uneducated about hifi.

[Howard]

5Lab, actually, Cat5 speaker cable is pretty good You need to spend quite a bit on speaker cable that betters it

[unrealrocks]

There was a similar discussion here ...

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109162

[Butuz]

Actually, Cat5 / Cat6 can be exceptional if you wire it up yourself properly. Its not just a case of plugging network cable into your speakers, you gotta wire it up well it takes hours.

http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

I'm gonna try it myself one day when I am less busy.

Butuz

[5lab]

no, its not.. cos if it was, some company would be rebadging it as quality speaker cable, upping the price 200% and making a fortune.