$1 Million To Prove $7250 Speaker Cables Are Better!

[Pirate]

Our rant about those $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables found its way to the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), and Randi offered $1 million to anyone who can prove those cables are any better than ordinary (and also overpriced) Monster Cables. Pointing out the absurd review by audiophile Dave Clark, who called the cables "danceable," Randi called it "hilarious and preposterous." He added that if the cables could do what their makers claimed, "they would be paranormal."

We see that the Pear Cable company is advertising a pair of 12-foot "Anjou" audio cables for $7,250; that's $302 a foot! And, as expected, "experts" were approached for their opinions on the performance of these wonders ... Well, we at the JREF are willing to be shown that these "no-compromise" cables perform better than, say, the equivalent Monster cables. While Pear rattles on about "capacitance," "inductance," "skin effect," "mechanical integrity" and "radio frequency interface," - all real qualities and concerns, and adored by the hi-fi nut-cases - we naively believe that a product should be judged by its actual performance, not by qualities that can only be perceived by attentive dogs or by hi-tech instrumentation. That said, we offer the JREF million-dollar prize to - for example - Dave Clark, Editor of the audio review publication Positive Feedback Online.

This is not Randi's first clash with audiophile reviewers who claim to hear differences in various exotic equipment. He promises a million dollars (which he has waiting in an account for them) if any could prove in double-blind scientific testing that their extraordinary claims are true. None have stepped up so far.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/calling-b...ter-305549.php

[Wilson]

That's awesome.

[rixrex]

If he demands that the proof be in the actual listening, it's a million dollars he won't have to give away. While the cable may prove to be better in extreme calibration tests done by hyper-sensitive equipment, human ears are not going to pick up those minute differences.

It's absurd for those of us on moderate incomes to spend thousands of dollars for a set of cables that doesn't improve our actual hearing experience over a set that merely costs dozens of dollars or less. Better to spend the money improving the acoustics of the room.

[Wilson]

Originally Posted by rixrex

It's absurd for those of us on moderate incomes to spend thousands of dollars for a set of cables that doesn't improve our actual hearing experience over a set that merely costs dozens of dollars or less. Better to spend the money improving the acoustics of the room.

Just to add to that...It's absurd for anyone to spend thousands of dollars for a set of cables that doesn't improve the actual hearing experience.

[sub780lime]

Originally Posted by Wilson

Just to add to that...It's absurd for anyone to spend thousands of dollars for a set of cables that doesn't improve the actual hearing experience.

Of course it isn't absurd. You would then be a person who could say, "yep, I can spend thousands of dollars on a set of cables, bitches!"