James Randi Posts $1M Award On Speaker Cables

As seen on slashdot :)

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux
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It's too bad that good engineering in the audio world gets overshadowed by the questionable practices of a retarded minority. I just use really thick lamp cord I get at the surplus shop for a dollar a foot. I don't even know the gage, that's how little I care about the cables. Now speaker design, placement and room resonance control, that's much more important.

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1

In the slashdot comments there is a "voice of reason" saying that all you need is some really thick, oxygen free cables.

Oxygen free?

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

Oxygen in copper make it stiff and increases resistance a little. All electrical-wiring type copper is "oxygen free."

There aren't a whole lot of primary copper smelter/wire pulling operations in the world, and the product is pretty much the same. The "seven nines" stuff is nonsense. Most boutique cable shops secretly buy Belden anyhow.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

John Devereux hath wroth:

More hype. "OFC Madness"

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Some examples:

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(power)
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(sprk)

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

What I found ironic was that this nonsense has become so mainstream, even the guy who thought he was a "skeptic" accepted OFC as being better.

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

Exactly one of the better sites is

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Martin

Reply to
Martin Griffith

This is a pretty common misconception which I also held until someone posted a correct explanation on the metalurgy newsgroup. Oxygen is in fact deliberately added in controlled amounts to all electrical copper.

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partial quote from the above referenced discussion of electrical copper:

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Influence of Oxygen Content

Oxygen is used as an alloying element to improve the soundness of
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Reply to
Glen Walpert

There is, however, a significant difference between using two point and four point barbed wire as speaker connections.

But both will tend to raise the pitch of the music because they are sharp. This can be compensated by placing a flat ribbon cable of suitable length in parallel.

Detailed analysis at

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Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
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Reply to
Don Lancaster

Of course, you do not want them to stay alive, so smother them!

Reply to
Robert Baer

no... OFHC ...

Reply to
Robert Baer

John Devereux hath wroth:

Also see:

It really wasn't mainstream until it mutated into an acronym.

The scary part is that I know people that actually buy this stuff. I tell them it's hype. I explain how it really works. I try to explain the technology and reduce everything to numbers that can be compared. They go shopping and bring home more overpriced junk.

The marketing plan seems to be:

  1. Anything good must be expensive. That brings in the nitwits with too much money and no technology background. Always buy the best, which in their interpretation, means the most expensive.
  2. If you raise the price high enough, you only need to sell a few of them to justify the effort.
  3. All that glitters is at least a few percent gold.

However, this is an opportunity that is difficult for me to ignore. The temptation is to become part of the problem and invent my own overpriced and hyped contrivance in order to separate the clueless from their cash. The phono amplifier inside a wooden box is already taken. So is the glass record turntable. I could follow the cellular example and sell "acoustic radiation" protectors (ferrite beads that clamp on various cables), but that's too tacky. If I wasn't so digustingly honest and terminally lazy, I probably would have done this long ago.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Hell, I'll bet a paycheck that they're indistinguishable from lamp cord. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

I once worked with another tech at, of all places, Radio Shack, in the repair department. We became friends, and we were over at his house drinking bourbon, and he showed me his system.

He had built a couple of HUGE bass reflex speaker enclosures[1], installed plain old ordinary off-the-shelf Radio Shack raw speakers, and built his power amp on a piece of perfboard about 4 x 6".

His output trannies were some complementary pair, in TO-5 cans, with little flag heatsinks.

He was able to turn it up to where it was uncomfortably loud, with about a watt or two.

And there was no discernible distortion.

Cheers! Rich [1] About the size of the bottom half of a typical refrigerator.

Reply to
Rich Grise

Well, I've seen #30 silver-plated wire-wrap wire touted as "OFHC" (oxygen- free high conductivity), for whatever that's worth.

Thanks, Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:17:12 -0700, Don Lancaster wrote: ...

LOL!

Thanks! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Belden seems to have beat you to it:

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Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

It's harder (read: more expensive) to make an accurate speaker that's also particularly efficient. I have a suspicion that these days, while making speakers reasonably accurate is a priority, making them power efficient isn't given that, if anything, it's considered "impressive" to have an, e.g., 1kW audio amp... even if a better speaker could have been just as loud and accurate with 100W... but cost more.

Reply to
Joel Kolstad

Don't know much about Copper, eh?

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

Silver plated Copper in TFE (Teflon), braided. Far better than any zip cord arrangement.

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

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