wjm@whuxk.UUCP (10/17/83)
The new (Nov 1983) "Stereo Review" has an interesting article by Julian Hirsch about concert-hall realism - he says that it is not possible to achieve it with even the best home systems. As usual, he makes an excellent case, and something to keep in mind when listening to ones system. Despite the cheap shots at him (and others in this newsgroup) from certain parties in the Midwest Hirsch generally has a reasonable perspective about audio. I agree with him about claims made by the "underground" audio press that can't seem to be verified in the lab. There should be an objective quantifiable reason for these differences. One possibility which has been mentioned here by Steve Bellovin is that there is a subtle (> .5 dB) difference in loudness between the two items being compared in the A/B test. Is Monster Cable, etc. better than plain ordinary wire of the same resistance? Granted that a speaker is not purely a resistive load, the inductance of the wire could theoretically have an effect, but since the inductive reactance of any inductor is directly proportional to the frequency of the signal, its effect shouldn't be too great at audio frequencies. It may be worth spending the $$$ on Monster Cable but first I'd spend it on getting top-of-the-line equipment and then getting high quality low level interconnecting cables for phono, tape deck etc to amp, since good cables are more important at the low level stages of an audio system. Bill Mitchell Bell Laboratories Whippany, NJ (whuxk!wjm) P.S. Due to netnews difficulties on whuxk (things seem to get OUT OK, but can't get IN) I am reading news on gummo, and may start submitting articles from there I'll still receive mail here, if you wish.