1 metre cable £1450 !!!!

and it is tested, well second hand

“This cable has been taken in part exchange from a valued customer, it works perfectly, and it is in good condition, complete with its original box."

I would use This Site for super expensive leads ( if I had money to waste )

Example
 
that extension lead is taking the p*** at that price. but someone will fall for it

love the way the whole thing is fed from a kettle type socket......
 
They say there are at least two sides to every story. It's difficult to imagine someone spending substantially more on a single cable than most people spend on an entire audio system. That's probably why the reviews on that interconnect seem a touch absurd when they talk about the silence between the notes.

I've heard some decent systems, ones that would cost the same as a top-of-the-range Audi/BMW/Merc. They sounded fabulous, but I can't say that I'm that tuned in that I could tell the difference that some of the more esoteric tweaks made. I do know people who can though.

Something a little more down to earth though; TVs. Some of my customers have brands such as Sharp, Toshiba and Hisense; large screen, smart Apps, big colourful picture, bargain price. What's not to like? When I look at the pictures though I see the scaling artefacts and the motion issues and the way the colours look a bit 'painting by numbers' in the way they lack some subtlety. They're perfectly happy with them though, so who am I to rain on their parade?
 
It may actually be a typo, or perhaps they are out of stock of it/cant actually find it and just changed the price to something ridiculous rather than remove the page and redo it when needed (this is actually quite common).
 
Imagine the improvement to the audio quality if the DNO used solid gold cable to bring the mains supply to the house.

mattylad said:
and just changed the price to something ridiculous
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They could put "out of stock" on the page, As it is they seem to be made to order with a 4 week delivery """Upon receipt of your order, we aim to despatch this item in approximately 4 weeks. £1,699.00"""

Is there any sense behind this apparent exploitation of those obsessed with trying to achieve audio perfection ?
 
bernardgreen said:
Is there any sense behind this apparent exploitation of those obsessed with trying to achieve audio perfection ?
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Have you ever heard a really good stereo system? Have you ever spoken to the enthusiasts who own such systems?

What it that you're passionate about?
 
Have I heard a really good stereo system, I don't know, I have heard a few that I considered reproduced the sound as it was originally recorded.

Yes I have spoken to some enthusiasts, I found there were two types, one type wanted to enjoy the music at its best and the other type wanted to hear the best audio system.
 
bernardgreen said:
Have I heard a really good stereo system, I don't know, I have heard a few that I considered reproduced the sound as it was originally recorded.
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That's a bit vague.

What have you heard?

bernardgreen said:
Yes I have spoken to some enthusiasts, I found there were two types, one type wanted to enjoy the music at its best and the other type wanted to hear the best audio system.
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Yep, there are those who are just in it for the gear it seems. Then there are those who get really excited by the music, and they have the means to pursue that passion to quite remarkable lengths.

I got a story about a friend in Stockport who makes the most extraordinary monoblock valve power amps. Steve has a very good ear for music, and for what audio systems do to it. He knew his amps were class beating from running them in various high-end systems up against some very stiff competition. What he didn't realise though is just how good his amps really are. That is until they were auditioned by a particular Hi-Fi reviewer who most designers fear. He is ruthless. If there's a weakness in a product then he'll expose it.

Long story short, the reviewer threw Steve a challenge to see if he could support his own product, and that resulted in him pitching up at the reviewer's doorstep with a new valve for one that had supposedly gone down. What then followed was two guys passionate about music listening for several hours to track after track in the sort of system that can pick apart what every link in the chain does to the electrons flowing through it.

I'll ask you the question again from my previous post because you didn't answer: What is it you're passionate about?
 
I am passionate, among other things about Country Music which meant I went to Nashville in 1988 and while there my engineering passion led me to also meet some "old timer" sound engineers. ( Studio B and Ryman Auditorium among others ).

They had some interesting stories about original masters being mangled by modern electronic " trickery " to enhance the sound and create a "new" track that could be sold as a new recording.

Some devotees were buying expensive equipment that claimed to be able to create stereo and quad replications of the studio environment from single track masters. Even when the master was recorded on a single microphone.

More recently i knew the brains behind one of the UK's most acclaimed amplifiers, he had recognised the ( unethical ) hype that opportunists were spreading to encourage sales of snake oil audio equipment. I think it was him who told me about an approach to a manufacture from a snake oil company to produce a superlative amplifier. It would be the same valve circuit as the standard amplifier they produced but "enhanced" by among other things a gold plated chassis.

Going back many years to my days with Multitone, before becoming known for inventing and developing radio paging Multitone made hearing aids. One way to improve a hearing aid is to "graphic equalise" the amplifier to invertly match the person's hearing loss. Would this apply to top end audio systems where graphic equalisation is used to trim the audio to create what the listener wants to hear ? How could the system cater for two people listening at the same time but with different perceptions of how the audio should sound,

I guess I am also passionate about exposing rip off merchants,
 
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bernardgreen said:
<snip>"old timer" sound engineers. ( Studio B and Ryman Auditorium among others ).

They had some interesting stories about original masters being mangled by modern electronic " trickery " to enhance the sound and create a "new" track that could be sold as a new recording.</snip>
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Interesting story, but isn't that really an example of something getting further away from the original rather than closer to it?

bernardgreen said:
<snip>Some devotees were buying expensive equipment that claimed to be able to create stereo and quad replications of the studio environment from single track masters. Even when the master was recorded on a single microphone.</snip>
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I'm aware of Quadrophonic but it's a little before my time. As for mono to stereo, that's more on the periphery of my knowledge.

I know that in jazz circles there was a sort of watershed point in the very early 60s where stereo recording sessions became the norm. My guess would be that this was driven by the consumer market with manufacturers pushing stereo as the 'new thing'.

Trying to create stereo out of an original mono studio recording is (or was) just pandering to a trend. It's bit like people insisting that they only watch the HD channels without realising that much of the content is SD just upscaled. Whatever it is or was in music though, I think that it's another example of getting further away from the original, so it's not the same as what Chord are trying to do.

bernardgreen said:
More recently i knew the brains behind one of the UK's most acclaimed amplifiers, he had recognised the ( unethical ) hype that opportunists were spreading to encourage sales of snake oil audio equipment. I think it was him who told me about an approach to a manufacture from a snake oil company to produce a superlative amplifier. It would be the same valve circuit as the standard amplifier they produced but "enhanced" by among other things a gold plated chassis.
Click to expand...

I can think if several British Hi-Fi amp manufacturers who could lay claim to being "one of the UK's most acclaimed", but fewer that produced valve designs. Leak and Quad easily spring to mind. Of course, that presumes you're talking about Hi-Fi amps and not guitar or PA amps. Whatever it was though, that's obviously just dressing things up, and whilst I'm sure that does go on, I'm not so convinced that you could level the same accusation at Chord if that was what you were getting at.

bernardgreen said:
Going back many years to my days with Multitone, before becoming known for inventing and developing radio paging Multitone made hearing aids. One way to improve a hearing aid is to "graphic equalise" the amplifier to invertly match the person's hearing loss. Would this apply to top end audio systems where graphic equalisation is used to trim the audio to create what the listener wants to hear ? How could the system cater for two people listening at the same time but with different perceptions of how the audio should sound,
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I can't think of any top end audio systems that incorporate graphic EQs in the way you suggest. In fact, if you look at most high-end audio products you'll be hard pushed to find anything more than a volume control. You don't even need to go high-end for this. Rega, Cyrus, Creek, ARCAM and Denon all make Hi-Fi amps under £500 without tone controls.

My first true Hi-Fi amp was a Mission Cyrus One bought back in the mid-80s. This was the same time that Dixons were selling tower systems with lots of flashing lights and slidey controls. My Cyrus One eschewed all of that. No graphic EQ. No tone controls. No balance control, even. The purity of design went so far that it didn't even allow for muting of the speaker outputs when a headphone jack was inserted. The designers had listened and decided that having that contact point degraded the sound. If I wanted to use 'phones then I had to unplug the speakers.

Quad had its famous Tilt tone control feature, and Bel Canto continues that tradition with amps that have a purely digital pre-amp section.

What we do have with some amps is Room EQ. This is not tone controls. Instead, it's a way of measuring the in-room response of the speakers and then adjusting the sound to get as close to a flat frequency response as the tech will allow. The result is neutral sound for more people. The aim is to replicate a room with good acoustic characteristics. After all, we don't ask to EQ the musician's instruments when listening live. Shouldn't a decent stereo system replicate that?

This - Room EQ rather than Graphic EQ (glorified tone controls) - is about getting closer to the truth of what's on the disc or source file. That's heading in the same direction that Chord are trying to.

bernardgreen said:
I guess I am also passionate about exposing rip off merchants,
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Me too. However, just because something is expensive, or someone doesn't have experience of it, or hasn't the sort of system that can show up any difference, it doesn't mean that the product is without merit.

If any of you still reading remember watching Top Gear, the episode when Hamster tried to drive an F1 car, then this is a reasonable simile. As decent as he is as a road car driver, he just couldn't drive to the level required to get the F1 car to start working properly. Would we then conclude on the basis of that test that multi-million-Pound F1 cars are snake oil and rubbish and clearly a rip-off?

 
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After spending that much on a cable how about a £25 13A fuse https://www.russandrews.com/mains-fuses/

Fuse review
"The Cheapest Significant Upgrade Ever"
I fitted one of these to my mains cable for my HiFi, the first time I played music it was like I had bought a new set-up, everything improved significantly. I have since fitted others on my TV ( DVD Top Box) mains and om my PC. The difference again in clarity is amazing. Probably the cheapest significant upgrade you will ever make.
PS. A friend of mine has done the same with huge results, so much so that he has put them in all plugs in his HiFi, and TV set up.
 
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