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From: newton2@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Re: cables - (nf)
Message-ID: <515@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 27-Jul-84 01:09:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.515
Posted: Fri Jul 27 01:09:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 21:08:33 EDT
References: <50@whuxl.UUCP>, <55100046@trsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA
Lines: 41

I don't know where to start with people who entertain quasi-religious
beliefs (i.e. unverifiable) about mere engineered hardware when it's
applied to something as sacred as perception of music (or is it just
sound?), but I suppose the "filaments of the Gods" cult around
audio cables --excuse me, two-port transmission lines-- is as good a 
place as any.

A couple of years ago, I designed a fairly elaborate multichannel
noise-reduction-cum-signal-processor intended for the radio/TV broadcast
market, particularly for so-called cart machines, which had several
well acknowledged problems with noise, stero "phase" stability (actually
a mechanical problem inherent in the format) and maintainability.

While (according to me) the product was supercalifragilisticexpialidotious
in its wonderfulness, selling it proved a different order of undertaking
from building it. After casting about widely under the insistent prodding
of nervous investors, we were brought together with a (reputedly) wizard'
marketer/salesperson who could (and, properly motivated, would) sell
Frigidaires to persons of Aleution ancestry (to observe the modern
delicacies of the post-Agnew era).

Point of longwinded story: the bulk of the reputation of this sleaze merchant
had been earned via the promotion of Monster Cables, the appeal of which
this affable cynic credited to factors the least offensively scatalogical
of which merely animadverted to the alleged envy of many under-amped audiophilesfor the love-wand of a Watusi --whoops, there he goes again...--

..anyway, if you're wiring up your house for audio (or video, or data), why not
run low-level (low impedance) audio hither and yon, and park an appropriately
sized amplifer next to the transducers it drives. Switiching, signal distribution and versatility all benefit greatly- you can route the equivalent of a
 wide "program bus" everywhere, selecting different local programs in
different rooms, spotting program sources in more than one place (monitor
the TV audio in various different TV locations etc) and so obviously on.
Believe it or not, its cheaper to build (or buy, if you're not suffering
from the "carve me an amplifier froma single flawless blue-white block of
silicon --or is it thorium cathode?-- syndrome) an appropriate number of
properly sized and locally sited power amps than one giant one (which
will fry the tweeters of your many speaker systems one by one, weakest
first) together with the necessary 000 gauge welding cable to hook it up
everywhere.

Well- had enough? Me too.