$13,000 power cable

[blueroomelectronics]

Saw this on Dans Data, a $13,000 power cord.
Sadly it's a Canadian company.
I wonder how they fix the simple copper wiring from the power station to your home?
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[dknguyen]

If what they said is true in the article, why wouldn't they try and see how far they could go before people stop paying?

 

[justDIY]

That's awesome!

I was looking at some similarly priced TOSLINK cables the other day ... somehow spending an extra $9990 on an optical cable for digital data transmission can make all the difference in the world compared to a $10 cable from wal-mart. their cable had similar features, fusion treatment, cryogenic treatment, seamless ends...

no, they didn't have any comparisons done with a 500ghz microwave network analyzer or even a simple 1ghz oscilloscope so we could see what we were missing.

 

[Sceadwian]

My mouth is still gaping. Pure stupidity.

 

[philba]

welcome to world of high-end audio. It is truly amazing how people with far more money than brains are susceptible to the placebo effect. Tell them it will improve the sound and, lo and behold, it sounds better. There are plenty of companies that make super cool looking cables that retail for thousands of dollars. the funny thing is these suckers absolutely believe they are getting a bargain. yet, in double blind tests, no preferences have ever been shown.

And the most amazing thing is the super high end power cables and voltage stabilizers that "lower the noise floor". Mumbo Jumbo.

 

[yngndrw]

That's awesome!

I was looking at some similarly priced TOSLINK cables the other day ... somehow spending an extra $9990 on an optical cable for digital data transmission can make all the difference in the world compared to a $10 cable from wal-mart. their cable had similar features, fusion treatment, cryogenic treatment, seamless ends...

no, they didn't have any comparisons done with a 500ghz microwave network analyzer or even a simple 1ghz oscilloscope so we could see what we were missing.

I still wonder why they offer "Gold Plated Connections" on TOSLINK cables ..........

 

[justDIY]

I still wonder why they offer "Gold Plated Connections" on TOSLINK cables ..........

hahah I'm falling out of my chair laughing, yes, excellent point!

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Or 246 feet of armoured house wire $3,690
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Or a $92 wall outlet (seems like a bargain)
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[philba]

here's an example. http://www.b-p-t.com/products.shtml all the electronics description does is to buffalo the average affluent hifi enthusiast. This is all just to make sure that the power going into the components is clean.

I guess the power supplies in those incredibly expensive systems just aren't capable of producing clean DC.

Oh yeah, their power cord section - http://www.b-p-t.com/products.shtml#power

 

[Optikon]

This is a joke right? Anybody Audio-Foolish enough to think these cables are somehow worth the cost, deserves to lose all that money IMO.

 

[Optikon]

welcome to world of high-end audio. It is truly amazing how people with far more money than brains are susceptible to the placebo effect. Tell them it will improve the sound and, lo and behold, it sounds better. There are plenty of companies that make super cool looking cables that retail for thousands of dollars. the funny thing is these suckers absolutely believe they are getting a bargain. yet, in double blind tests, no preferences have ever been shown.

And the most amazing thing is the super high end power cables and voltage stabilizers that "lower the noise floor". Mumbo Jumbo.

That's because the audio-philes who fall for these gimmicks are tricksters who do not understand electronics nor physics but are excellent at social engineering.

 

[Garibaldi]

You should read some of the discussions in audio forums about these kind of cables. People will swear up and down about how much better these sound than regular cables. Worth every penny! They can get really angry because YOU just can't hear as well as they can with their audiophile/musician ears. There's a "musician" born every second...

 

[yngndrw]

You should read some of the discussions in audio forums about these kind of cables. People will swear up and down about how much better these sound than regular cables. Worth every penny! They can get really angry because YOU just can't hear as well as they can with their audiophile/musician ears. There's a "musician" born every second...

Half of them people are probably the companies posting about their products in order to sell 1 or 2 units - Quite a nice christmas bonus for a post or two.

 

[Hero999]

Some people will pay for anything.

 

[philba]

This is about the placebo effect. It has been well documented in the literature. Not only in medicine but specifically audio. I recall one particularly telling experiment.

The test was the following:
- 3 audio interconnects: standard wire, super cool looking super expensive (Granite Audio, IIRC) and rusty coat hangers.
- the test subjects were shown the wires.
- they then listened to music played using each of the three wires. They were told which wires were being used but in actuallity only the standard interconnect was used.

The result - they showed a strong preference for the audio that was supposedly done with the super expensive one and disliked the music through the coat hanger wire. When told of the deception, some significant percentage of the listerners refused to believe it.

I did a search for this info but couldn't find it.

What is surprising is that you hear very little of this sort of thing for Video.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

At the local Futureshop & Best Buy they have a split screen TV showing the monster cable hi def (expensive) SVHS cable vs a $1 composite cable. Not even a fair comparison.

 

[Hero999]

I agree with philba, there again special cable would make a difference over very long distances (about 3.7km) as it approaches 1/4 wavelength of 20kHz. There again I'm sure these expensive cables don't match the impedance of the speakers so they wouldn't be of any use.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I agree with philba, there again special cable would make a difference over very long distances (about 3.7km) as it approaches 1/4 wavelength of 20kHz.

No, a THICKER cable would help, unless by 'special' you mean with a high voltage transformer at each end? (like 100V line but higher).

There again I'm sure these expensive cables don't match the impedance of the speakers so they wouldn't be of any use.

I would hope not, as you don't use impedance matching to feed speakers with a transistor amp.

 

[Hero999]

I think you've missed my point.

A long cable would act as a transmission line at the upper end of the audio band. It doesn't matter how thick it is, it'll still sound poor due to the voltage and current relections bouncing around. The only way of solving this would be to either match it to the source or load impedance, in this case the amplifier's impedance is <1hm: and the speakers' impedance is 4hm:; therefore it'd be far easier to match the formaer rather than the latter.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

And where do you think you're going to get cable with an impedance of (considerably) less then 1 ohm? - and it's not matched anyway, as the speaker is a MUCH higher impedance. Matching requires both ends to be matched.

In any case I don't think there would be any such problems at audio frequencies!.

Like I said before, you'd do it with high voltage transmission - reflections would be of no concern otherwise as there would be nothing left at the far end of a cable feeding a 4 ohm speaker!