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Little known fact... Christopher Columbus said the first guy to refuse him funding thought the world was flat and he'd go over the edge or such... However for hundreds of years no one believed the earth was flat. To simply put it, it was an insult to say someone thought the earth flat. I too have found cables make more of a difference than my wallet generates...
dbe,Does this thread have anything to do with this thread? http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=136240.msg1448367;topicseen#new
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers.
This thread brings to mind how much ridicule that Enid Lumley faced for her pioneering work in system setup and tweaking more than 25 years ago in TAS. Yet, she persevered in writing about her adventures and experiments. She was assumed by probably half of the audiophiles in the world to be crazy as a loon for claiming to hear improvements when putting her cables on cups to get them off the floor, hanging interconnects from ribbons to keep them separate. Using VPI bricks, AC plug orientation and phase, high-quality power cords, hearing sonic differences in different plating metallurgy and taking the dustcover off the turntable when playing records all got her more and more ridicule, but she persevered. She stuck her head out of the foxhole back when the audio world was still debating if amplifiers with similar specs all sounded the same. I nominate Enid Lumley as the Patron Saint of tweakers.
RPM, I don't remember the criticism being any more sexist than today when she touched a nerve. In those days, I used to read TAS and Stereophile for the articles - not the pictures - and I was always fascinated with her reports. And, she didn't back down. She heard what she heard and that was that. For the younger readers in the crowd, in the time-frame of 25 to 35 years ago, there were no products on the market to address cable dressing. There were no fancy brass cones. Feet on most components were some kind of cheap rubber compound. There were a few lost voices in the wilderness claiming that different wire dielectrics changed the sound of AC cords. Racks were primarily furniture. Worst of all, it was common knowledge that CDs could reproduce "perfect sound forever." There were arguments that all CD players must sound identical since they all read identical data and so must have identical-sounding output. Some of the biggest legacy fan magazines at the time were written by experts who proved month after month that only measurable differences between components could influence sound. The audiophile media at the time were responsible for maintaining an attitude that upgrading one's equipment frequently was the only path to an improved stereo system. Components were king and Enid challenged all that conventional wisdom as well and she backed it up with evidence based primarily on her own subjective hearing. Fortunately for her, and all of us in modern times, TAS provided her a platform and sufficient editorial support to change the audiophile world and launch an industry to fill the need to maximize the gear we already own.
How could anyone know power cords made a difference when it was not possible (OK, not easy) to change them because they were captive? My McIntosh 6100 integrated amp had a captive power cord. It was a skinny thing with no ground. RCA inputs were not plated so they tarnished. They were the color of aluminum but I can't swear to what metal they were. Speaker terminals were pushpin plastic things that only accepted zip cord. Hard to argue which brand of zip cord was best. We've come a long way baby.
Some of the finest audio gear ever built had zip-cord for AC power."Flat Earth Society." What a silly-ass label to apply to some of your fellow audiophiles.Pathetic.Dave.