Pear Cable CEO Calls James Randi's $1 Million Offer a Hoax

JoeEllison said:
Again, the claim is really "better", not only "different". I doubt that there is a way to deal with this sort of woo. I have no doubt that you can create a cable that emphasizes certain frequencies over others... that doesn't make them worth $7500.
Click to expand...

No doubt eh? Please describe the nature of this cable. I'd be highly interested to know.
Importantly, I'm not talking about general signal loss, you refer to specific relative accentuation of frequencies. I'd like to know how this could come about.
 
JoeEllison said:
Possibly. I'm wondering if a cable can't be designed to have huge treble or bass response, compared to other cables, and that these people could claim that it makes their cables better, when it really only makes them different but not in the way they claim?
Click to expand...

Interesting thought, but beyond basically good construction, there's just no way to do that.
If the quality of the cable is poor, the sound will be generally weak and there's a lot of complications in regard to specifics (I don't profess to know the fine details), but basically the high frequencies are likely to suffer.
So there's two possibilities, either Pear released a dodgy cable that sounds muffled and has poor frequency response, and somehow that was taken as sounding 'dancable' and no-one has complained. Or, they sold a workable cable that was at least competently designed and constructed and people subjectively think there's a difference between it and other rival cables.

I know where I would bet my money.

As long as it's not an absolutely shonky cable, as long as its a decent cable, of sufficient thickness and properly shielded, it's not going to affect the signal one bit.

Wire is wire basically.
 
Last edited:
circuit_bent said:
No doubt eh? Please describe the nature of this cable. I'd be highly interested to know.
Importantly, I'm not talking about general signal loss, you refer to specific relative accentuation of frequencies. I'd like to know how this could come about.
Click to expand...
I'm not making a claim, as such. It just seems to me, and I could be wrong, that different specific materials and manufacturing techniques could produce cables with different "frequency signatures". If they didn't, why wouldn't all cables cost the same, and be made out of whatever materials were cheapest?
 
JoeEllison said:
Possibly. I'm wondering if a cable can't be designed to have huge treble or bass response, compared to other cables, and that these people could claim that it makes their cables better, when it really only makes them different but not in the way they claim?
Click to expand...

Thats my fear, its certainly possible

Similar things are done all the time to claim "warm" or "phat" in audio.
 
robinson said:
What rational person would make cables so damn expensive very very few people would ever buy them?
Click to expand...
I would do it in a heartbeat... because while the cost of the cable remains approximately the same between all products on the market, the mark-up on the very high end cable is such that you could recoup the costs of your entire inventory on one or two sales, and then every sale after that is pure profit.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Thats my fear, its certainly possible

Similar things are done all the time to claim "warm" or "phat" in audio.
Click to expand...

If you think it's 'certainly possible', please put a case against my posts where I say it's definitely impossible.

Please describe how a well-made cable could sound "warm" or "phat".

I predict you might say by boosting or cutting certain frequencies, but then I'll say you didn't read my posts.
 
Last edited:
circuit_bent said:
Ok, before I respond, just one question robinson.

How do you intend to seamlessly switch the different signals? Please describe the basic signal flow of your proposed setup.
Click to expand...

It took me a while to catch this myself. Remember, this is from a science perspective. We can measure exactly what kind of differences each system component introduces to the signal. It's a rather trivial task to simulate a source that reproduces those changes. The simulation can seamlessly switch between configurations without introducing discontinuities.

I can also see this same test CD being used as a home system diagnostic tool. But if the user can't hear a particular difference on their own system does that mean that their hearing is defective or do they just need to spend some more money? :)
 
JoeEllison said:
I didn't think it was significant. Either you manually change the cables, or you build a simple A/B switch.
Click to expand...

Err Joe, the idea is the signal is switched while the music or tone or whatever is playing. You want to hotswap the cables? That isn't exactly going to work too well, is it?

And can any A/B switch avoid betraying the switch. Especially at high speeds? That's what worries me about the signal switch idea. I don't know for sure. For all I know there's a perfect switch out there somewhere that can accomplish the task.
 
circuit_bent said:
Err Joe, the idea is the signal is switched while the music or tone or whatever is playing. You want to hotswap the cables? That isn't exactly going to work too well, is it?

And can any A/B switch avoid betraying the switch. Especially at high speeds? That's what worries me about the signal switch idea. I don't know for sure. For all I know there's a perfect switch out there somewhere that can accomplish the task.
Click to expand...

I don't see what the issue is. You could use a PA board with faders if you prefer?
 
circuit_bent said:
:boxedin:
Click to expand...

Out of the box, dude. Pretend you're sitting on the stool 6 feet from me, and you're trying to show me that Cables A are going to produce a better recording than Cables B. Trust me, there are enough cables in this room to test... :D
 
JoeEllison said:
I don't see what the issue is. You could use a PA board with faders if you prefer?
Click to expand...

Sure, that could work if the crossfade was perfect. If you were trying to do it with fader(s) (plural) you would have a tough time of actually doing it smoothly. Even one slip up by not mixing them evenly and having a spike or drop in volume would give the game away.
Is there any perfect crossfader though?
 
Another thought. The mixer could be claimed to colour the sound by the person taking the test if they fail. The signal has to pass through it after all.
 
circuit_bent said:
Another thought. The mixer could be claimed to colour the sound by the person taking the test if they fail. The signal has to pass through it after all.
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure why you think it matters that much. Why do you think the test can't be done in a "this is A, this is B" manner?
 
JoeEllison said:
Out of the box, dude. Pretend you're sitting on the stool 6 feet from me, and you're trying to show me that Cables A are going to produce a better recording than Cables B. Trust me, there are enough cables in this room to test... :D
Click to expand...

Well, you would give me a dose of audio using both cables in turn. Then you would spin me round 180 degrees on my chair and you would play one at random.

I would write down whether I thought you played either A or B. I might decide that I can't tell.

We would repeat his 40-50 times.

Then we look at the results and see if I actually identified the correct cables beyond chance expectation. If I didn't, obviously I can't tell the difference between the two cables.

Also, there would be frequent breaks so I can't complain of fatigue and whenever I asked, you would repeat the A/B comparison.
 
circuit_bent said:
Well, you would give me a dose of audio using both cables in turn. Then you would spin me round 180 degrees on my chair and you would play one at random.

I would write down whether I thought you played either A or B. I might decide that I can't tell.

We would repeat his 40-50 times.

Then we look at the results and see if I actually identified the correct cables beyond chance expectation. If I didn't, obviously I can't tell the difference between the two cables.

Also, there would be frequent breaks so I can't complain of fatigue and whenever I asked, you would repeat the A/B comparison.
Click to expand...

None of that would require a sophisticated A/B switch or faders, would it?
 
JoeEllison said:
None of that would require a sophisticated A/B switch or faders, would it?
Click to expand...

No it wouldn't, which I consider a major advantage by virtue of simplicity. The switching idea didn't come from me. I think it's pretty silly personally.

Robinson is the switching advocate, among others.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom