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  1. #1
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    The Larger Picture

    Regardless of whether audiophile cables sound better than inexpensive wire, they are a highly profitable item for audio and video equipment dealers, and make it possible for these merchants to take a lower mark-up on speakers, TV monitors, and other items. Therefore, the yeasayers who spend big bucks on fancy cables are in a way subsidizing the naysayers who buy speakers and other equipment.

    A rational person is supposed to act in his best interest. A naysayer who tries to persuade yeasayers to stop subsidizing him would not appear to be acting like a rational person. He may argue that he is motivated more by altruism than selfish self-interest. However, if people are pleased with their audiophile cable purchases, and other consumers get an economic benefit from these purchases, who is being harmed? Perhaps naysayers' preoccupation with measurements and blinded testing is so intellectually narrowing it gets in the way of seeing the larger picture.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    Regardless of whether audiophile cables sound better than inexpensive wire, they are a highly profitable item for audio and video equipment dealers, and make it possible for these merchants to take a lower mark-up on speakers, TV monitors, and other items. Therefore, the yeasayers who spend big bucks on fancy cables are in a way subsidizing the naysayers who buy speakers and other equipment.

    A rational person is supposed to act in his best interest. A naysayer who tries to persuade yeasayers to stop subsidizing him would not appear to be acting like a rational person. He may argue that he is motivated more by altruism than selfish self-interest. However, if people are pleased with their audiophile cable purchases, and other consumers get an economic benefit from these purchases, who is being harmed? Perhaps naysayers' preoccupation with measurements and blinded testing is so intellectually narrowing it gets in the way of seeing the larger picture.
    ""and make it possible for these merchants to take a lower mark-up on speakers, TV monitors, and other items""

    It may make it "possible".

    But do you really believe that the vendors are that altruistic?

    You are basically asking the vendor to NOT look at inventory throughput, overhead costs, and markups, but to simply look at dollars in...and then, compensate all the speaker and monitor shoppers by tagging the wires higher?

    It is extremely easy to mark up a dollar item to ten dollars, which is a typical manu to counter markup percentage...then bring it up to 15 without really killing many sales...but a TV, made for 50 bucks, sold for 500, to suddenly be marked up to 750?

    And when I go to best buy, I can SEE the picture on the screen..I can walk around, and clearly spot the better pic, the worse one...very easy...form factor, it's all there...and with many manu's to choose from....very competitive..

    If I need a wire....what input can I use to consider the item? A salesperson? Packaging wording? What?...The competitive aspect there is not what is heard, or seen...it is the marketing...

    How many people understand skin theory, flux, gauss, RCL, inductance, capacitance, whatever...

    It's the sales pitch...it's the packaging...but, altruism?...nah...they have to pay the bills and the salaries. They may have loss leaders to get you into the store, but it's not the big ticket speakers and monitors..

    Cheers, John

  3. #3
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    Congratulations

    This is the most unique rationalization for cheating people out of their money I have seen in a long time.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by jneutron
    ""and make it possible for these merchants to take a lower mark-up on speakers, TV monitors, and other items""

    It may make it "possible".

    But do you really believe that the vendors are that altruistic?

    You are basically asking the vendor to NOT look at inventory throughput, overhead costs, and markups, but to simply look at dollars in...and then, compensate all the speaker and monitor shoppers by tagging the wires higher?

    It is extremely easy to mark up a dollar item to ten dollars, which is a typical manu to counter markup percentage...then bring it up to 15 without really killing many sales...but a TV, made for 50 bucks, sold for 500, to suddenly be marked up to 750?

    And when I go to best buy, I can SEE the picture on the screen..I can walk around, and clearly spot the better pic, the worse one...very easy...form factor, it's all there...and with many manu's to choose from....very competitive..

    If I need a wire....what input can I use to consider the item? A salesperson? Packaging wording? What?...The competitive aspect there is not what is heard, or seen...it is the marketing...

    How many people understand skin theory, flux, gauss, RCL, inductance, capacitance, whatever...

    It's the sales pitch...it's the packaging...but, altruism?...nah...they have to pay the bills and the salaries. They may have loss leaders to get you into the store, but it's not the big ticket speakers and monitors..

    Cheers, John
    The bottom line for the merchant is total return on investment. If not for the sale of audiophile cables, either (a) other items would have to be priced higher, or (b) the total return would be lower. Investment in retailing and manufacturing is not attracted by low returns.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    This is the most unique rationalization for cheating people out of their money I have seen in a long time.
    Thanks for the compliment, skep. Are many audiophile cable buyers complaining about being cheated?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    The bottom line for the merchant is total return on investment.
    Agreed

    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    If not for the sale of audiophile cables, either (a) other items would have to be priced higher, or (b) the total return would be lower.
    You make an assumption. Have you any basis in fact to support that? And, your statement means that there are no TV or monitor vendors who can survive without gouging people via cable sales...

    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    Investment in retailing and manufacturing is not attracted by low returns.
    Obviously. But, then why are there TV's and monitors at Best Buy??

    A question...If a cable vendor sells only cables...then why is it the prices are soooo high? Are they giving away TV's and speakers?

    If so, please save me some..

    Cheers, John

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    Thanks for the compliment, skep. Are many audiophile cable buyers complaining about being cheated?

    How can they? They have no idea what they are doing, just following their herd.
    mtrycrafts

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by jneutron
    Agreed



    You make an assumption. Have you any basis in fact to support that? And, your statement means that there are no TV or monitor vendors who can survive without gouging people via cable sales...



    Obviously. But, then why are there TV's and monitors at Best Buy??

    A question...If a cable vendor sells only cables...then why is it the prices are soooo high? Are they giving away TV's and speakers?

    If so, please save me some..

    Cheers, John
    I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by "assumption" and "basis in fact." What I said to be true should be self-evident. All other factors being equal, profit lost on one item has to be made up from other items in a retailer's line of merchandise or return on investment will suffer. If audio/video equipment retailers stopped selling audiophile cables, their losses would have to be made up some way or returns would be lower. To offset the losses and maintain profit levels, these merchants would have to raise prices on other items and/or sell more merchandise. Of course if selling more goods is a possibiity, the question would be why aren't they already doing it?

    I don't doubt most audio/ video equipment retailers could survive without selling audiophile cables. But my subject was not about dealer survival. It was about purchases of cables subsidizing purchases of other items. I have to confess I don't know how the retail profit margin on cables compares with speakers, TV monitors, and related goods. An outrageously high mark-up on cables is mentioned so frequently on this Forum, however, that I have accepted it as being true(is it myth?). So I would put audiophile cables in the same category as other purchases that are gravy for retailers such as alcoholic drinks in restaurants and sports wheels on new cars. The diner having the martinis is subsidizing the non-drinker's meal. The buyer of the Honda Civic with the $1,000 wheels( just saw one) is subsidizing the buyer of the plain Civic. Why would cables from a full-line audio and video equipment retailer, regardless of whether it's a boutique, a discounter, or a mail order firm, be exempt from subsidizing the purchase of related goods?

    The exclusive cable vendors are another matter. A purchase from a firm that sells only cables obviously doesn't subsidize the purchase of items that the firm doesn't sell. Indeed, to the extent it takes away sales from the full-line retailer, the purchase from the "cables only" firm could reduce subsidies that might otherwise occur. The exclusive vendors I know about are the little producers, such as Heartland, Bluejeans, and SignalCable, which make and sell cables for relatively low prices(e.g., $40 for an interconnect). You might get a free lollipop with a purchase.
    Last edited by okiemax; 07-23-2004 at 11:02 PM.

  9. #9
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    Ain't nobody's purchases subsidizing anyone else's purchases, okiemax. Each retail transaction is an independent event. All merchandise must individually offer a business justification (profit or traffic-buiilding) in its own right or a merchant will stop offering it. Individual ROI rules.

    I doubt that anyone here has ANY objection to YOUR spending YOUR $1000 on a pair of 3 metre interconnects. It's your money, so enjoy. I think the objection arises here when neophytes, who are asking for experience-based advice, are urged to spend substantial money on wires when no objective test (i.e. DBT, for example) has EVER demonstrated the proof-of-benefit for expensive wires.

    The only time I have EVER heard differences among SUBSTANTIALLY different amps that were played within their power limitations was with Magnepan speakers. These same quite-different amps sounded all the same when played through either cones-in-a-box speakers or electrostatic speakers. So how really different CAN mere wires sound?

  10. #10
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    You know it never occurred to me but okeimax might have an interesting point. We think of a retail or even e-mail electronics store as a place where we buy stereo or HT components and they just happen to sell audio cables on the side because people need them to hook up the equipment anyway and this is an item they can make a large profit on. Maybe we should look at it the other way around. Perhaps for some or many of these businesses, their primary sales offering is the cables, and selling the low markup stereo equipment is just a way to entice you to buy the cables. Kind of like a supermarket's loss leaders to get you into the store to buy the high markup items.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
    How can they? They have no idea what they are doing, just following their herd.
    *****STOP THE PRESSES*****

    For only the second time (if memory serves), I will agree with you in part. It is a sad state that there are some "audiofools" who buy all their components because they think they "should" as opposed to having a firm conviction based upon experience.

    When I worked at a hi-fi shop in the seventies, we had one customer who owned about ten records and about $5k worth of gear. He bought and sold no fewer than three sets of Dahlquist speakers that we sold. He heard they were good and bought them. Then he heard of some other speaker was better, sold the DQ-10s and bought them. Didn't like the new speakers and came back and bought more Dahlquists. The guy was a fool.

    rw

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Kind of like a supermarket's loss leaders to get you into the store to buy the high markup items.
    Or the proverbial "give away the razor and sell them the blades" approach.

    Unfortunately, I know of zero big box retailers who sell any really good "blades".

    rw

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    Regardless of whether audiophile cables sound better than inexpensive wire, they are a highly profitable item for audio and video equipment dealers, and make it possible for these merchants to take a lower mark-up on speakers, TV monitors, and other items. Therefore, the yeasayers who spend big bucks on fancy cables are in a way subsidizing the naysayers who buy speakers and other equipment.

    A rational person is supposed to act in his best interest. A naysayer who tries to persuade yeasayers to stop subsidizing him would not appear to be acting like a rational person. He may argue that he is motivated more by altruism than selfish self-interest. However, if people are pleased with their audiophile cable purchases, and other consumers get an economic benefit from these purchases, who is being harmed? Perhaps naysayers' preoccupation with measurements and blinded testing is so intellectually narrowing it gets in the way of seeing the larger picture.
    Just my $0.02 worth of comment: Philosophically, I don't believe any distortion to the efficient operation of the marketplace is good, whether it be by fraud, deception, ignorance of consumer or government fiat or forced allocation.

    If certain products are being subsidiezed by cables that demand high price because of fraud or deceptive advertising, I don't think that's a good thing. I'm not necessarily saying that's the case, but I sensed that buried in your statement was an assumption that the cable mark-up in and of itself is not justified.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mash
    Ain't nobody's purchases subsidizing anyone else's purchases, okiemax. Each retail transaction is an independent event. All merchandise must individually offer a business justification (profit or traffic-buiilding) in its own right or a merchant will stop offering it. Individual ROI rules.

    I doubt that anyone here has ANY objection to YOUR spending YOUR $1000 on a pair of 3 metre interconnects. It's your money, so enjoy. I think the objection arises here when neophytes, who are asking for experience-based advice, are urged to spend substantial money on wires when no objective test (i.e. DBT, for example) has EVER demonstrated the proof-of-benefit for expensive wires.

    The only time I have EVER heard differences among SUBSTANTIALLY different amps that were played within their power limitations was with Magnepan speakers. These same quite-different amps sounded all the same when played through either cones-in-a-box speakers or electrostatic speakers. So how really different CAN mere wires sound?
    Very good points. However, it is quite likely that the Magnepan speakers offered a much more difficult load than the other speakers, and so the differences may well have been that one or more of the amplifiers couldn't handle the load.
    "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
    ------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pat D
    Very good points. However, it is quite likely that the Magnepan speakers offered a much more difficult load than the other speakers, and so the differences may well have been that one or more of the amplifiers couldn't handle the load.
    Nope. Magneplanars have always presented a fairly linear high impedance resistive load to amplifiers unlike some speakers like my Advents. High resolution speakers render discerning amplifier differences easier.

    rw

  16. #16
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    Something to try....

    Quote Originally Posted by Mash
    So how really different CAN mere wires sound?
    I've just replaced all my factory issued steel jumpers with silver wire on my maggies. Guess what? A detectable improvment. To prove to myself that I wasn't just imagining it I put everthing back stock and the improvment went away. It wasn't a huge improvment, but I can tell it's there, and that's all that matters to me. There's a whole homegrown industry modding maggie crossovers, and from what I've seen it can make a difference.

    Now to bypass the fuses!
    Audio;
    Ming Da MC34-AB 75wpc
    PS Audio Classic 250. 500wpc into 4 ohms.
    PS Audio 4.5 preamp,
    Marantz 6170 TT Shure M97e cart.
    Arcam Alpha 9 CD.- 24 bit dCS Ring DAC.
    Magnepan 3.6r speakers Oak/black,

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    *****STOP THE PRESSES*****

    For only the second time (if memory serves), I will agree with you in part. .

    rw

    Hard to argue probabilities
    mtrycrafts

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    High resolution speakers render discerning amplifier differences easier.

    rw

    That is yet to be demonstrated.
    mtrycrafts

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
    That is yet to be demonstrated.
    For only those with non-experience like yourself.

    rw

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    For only those with non-experience like yourself.

    rw

    Then you can refer me to the evidence? Not hearsay evidence but the real deal. Maybe even published? Or, just testimonials as usual?
    mtrycrafts

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
    Then you can refer me to the evidence? Not hearsay evidence but the real deal. Maybe even published? Or, just testimonials as usual?
    You'll never understand until you decide to experience life. It really is better than just reading about it.

    rw

  22. #22
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    Mity-C
    Some friends and I compared 3 amps driving Tympani in 1977 : A quasi-complimentary SS, a full push-pull SS (Bongiorno design) an a dual-mode Futterman. These amps all sounded very different on the Tympani, with the quasi-complimentary SS having a disagreeable, prickly character and the Futterman being very smoothly detailed. The Bongiorno design was OK. When I tried the same test on Double-KLH-9's, there were NO apparent sound differences amoung the amps. Maybe the complicated L-C electrical characteristics of the KLH-9's matching transformers etc. filtered the amps' sonic differences out, while the almost-purely resistive nature of the Tympani allowed the amps' sonic differences to pass thru to the listeners.

    I have also heard few, if any, differences amoung amps when they are used to drive cone speakers. Again, the complicated L-C electrical characteristics of the cone speakers may filter out the differences.

    And yes, membrane speakers do offer far more detail than do cone speakers. I replaced my bedroom cone speakers with those cheapie MMG speakers, and the improvement in detailing would be obvious to anyone with decent hearing.

  23. #23
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    "And yes, membrane speakers do offer far more detail than do cone speakers. I replaced my bedroom cone speakers with those cheapie MMG speakers, and the improvement in detailing would be obvious to anyone with decent hearing."

    If you are trying to generalize about the superiority of one generic type of speaker over another, you will need a lot more evidence than the cone and box speakers in your bedroom versus a pair of MMGs. There are tens of thousands of different models out there and no two sound exactly alike. It might interest you to know that about 35 years ago several respected reviewers published in their magazines that Rectilinear III a box and cone speaker was a virtual dead ringer for the sound of Quad ESL 63 an electrostatic speaker except that the Rectilinear III had better bass. That model was also highlighted in Popular Science Magazine as the speaker in an article "The Sound System I Wish I Owned." The fact that it didn't become a universal runaway best seller in its price category demonstrated that there were many people who didn't particularly like it.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mash
    Ain't nobody's purchases subsidizing anyone else's purchases, okiemax. Each retail transaction is an independent event. All merchandise must individually offer a business justification (profit or traffic-buiilding) in its own right or a merchant will stop offering it. Individual ROI rules.

    I doubt that anyone here has ANY objection to YOUR spending YOUR $1000 on a pair of 3 metre interconnects. It's your money, so enjoy. I think the objection arises here when neophytes, who are asking for experience-based advice, are urged to spend substantial money on wires when no objective test (i.e. DBT, for example) has EVER demonstrated the proof-of-benefit for expensive wires.

    The only time I have EVER heard differences among SUBSTANTIALLY different amps that were played within their power limitations was with Magnepan speakers. These same quite-different amps sounded all the same when played through either cones-in-a-box speakers or electrostatic speakers. So how really different CAN mere wires sound?
    I do not agree that "each retail transaction is an independent event." A sale of speaker cables accompanying a sale of speakers obviously is a related transaction. Even if the sale is for speaker cables alone, it is related to a previous sale of speakers.

    I am not sure what you mean by "individual ROI rules." Isn't variable mark-up a common practice in retailing?

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    You'll never understand until you decide to experience life. It really is better than just reading about it.

    rw
    Of course, personal experience is what drives us to make our buying decisions. This works especially well when our choices are based on preference.

    However, when performance is deciding factor, you usually need to look a little deeper to figure out the hows and whys. Most audio products are sold on the basis of testimonials and personal experience, so that puts it into the preference category, not the performance category.

    This is really the beef I have. People tend to push their preferences by citing performance.

    In general, there is a large group of consumer products which may or may not be beneficial and are part of a class of product that has no scientific backing, only testimonials. This is why a lot of these products are called snake oil, because snake oil fit into this category. And whether people like to admit it or not, lots of audio products fall into this category, including audio cables.
    Friends help friends move,
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