Considering starting a Speaker Cable company - thoughts? - Page 2

Keep the thoughts going. Many other companies try to do the same thing to rip-off consumers.

Have you thought about marketing a "Pet Rock". It worked before...

Ethan,

I find it ironic that a man who runs a company devoted to bettering audio reproduction has such views.

There are many who could argue that all you do is cover foam with cloth and charge hundreds of dollars each.

I've bit my tongue in the past when you 'recommend' what you sell to help with room bass problems, say below 100 hz, while you have nothing that would be even remotely effective with typical room bass modes.

Now you are promoting a book to help people with audio based on your way of thinking? Com'n man, you haven't even scratched the surface on what you do.

I'll be as blunt as you are with your comments of other companies in the audio field. Being the expert that you are, do you not realize how primitive your products are in relation to ultimately resolving room acoustics in a living environment?



>>>

I bet someone's glad they're a vampire.

This will be fun. And easy.


Those people would be arguing from ignorance. My company's bass traps products are made from high-density Owens Corning rigid fiberglass, to which we bond a limp mass membrane to increase absorption further at bass frequencies. We use lower density rigid fiberglass where appropriate, on panels meant to go at reflection points. But we do not use foam at all.


You would have done well to bite your tongue this time too because again you're wrong. This graph shows the Before and After LF response in the room featured in our Hearing is Believing video:



As you can see, there's a real improvement all the way down to the lowest mode just below 40 Hz.


I look forward to seeing your example of a "better" product that can improve not only the frequency response in a room, but also time-based problems like modal ringing, uneven RT60 versus frequency, and early reflections.

Forgive me for editorializing, but its easy to tell the difference between companies like mine, that sell effective products, and companies that sell placebo-based products: We publish actual Before / After data - real science - showing the improvement people can expect. I've seen many "wire" and "power" product vendor web sites, and they rarely show data. And when they do show data, it's irrelevant. For example, they'll show noise riding on the AC power line before and after their filter or whatever, but they never show the noise at the output of the connected equipment which of course is what really matters. So all they have left is flowery prose.

--Ethan

I have just one more point to add:

People who are in the audio business should identity their affiliation in their forum sig. It's one thing for an industry person to throw stones at another industry person, but it's unethical to do that without clearly revealing one's financial interest.

Okay, I'm done.

--Ethan

Being someone who believes that cables do influence the sound of a system, I can tell you that no marketing works, but I do listen to different cables in my system, to see how I feel they perform in my system. With that said, I refuse to give you my source for the sub 50¢/foot cable I'm currently using...

Don't be ashamed to admit that you reclaim lamp cords on trash night in your neighborhood.

Yeah, but he uses 24-karat gold terminations.

Packing peanuts come to mind.

You have all four walls covered with product, and then some. You can show all the marketing graphs you want, short of it is you can't live in that room. It's the looks man! I wouldn't even want that as a professional working studio much less my family room. Your video simply proves this point- it doesn't picture well.

The room is 11.5 x 16 x 8 ft so 4 walls come to 440 sq feet times an average of $50 per square for the treatment, so around $22,000 in product alone for the results show. Add labor to install so estimate we're looking at around $28K.

All that money and you drop around 4 db in bass modes below 100. Is the room smoother in the upper freqs, absolutely, as it should be.

I know this stuff aint cheap, we're in business too, but there is quite a stretch from telling someone on a forum to buy a few panels to solve a room problem, then showing measurements of a room completely covered in them as what to expect. You know that stuff you call prose vs real science, aka fluff.



This is old. Unlike yourself, I try not to to use my forum posts as advertising, that we are willing to pay for.

What's unethical is you calling out a portion of the industry because it does not fit your company's affiliation, then calling someone unethical when they make a point of it. The technical term for this is hypocrite.

Throwing stones, I don't think so, that's what you do Ethan. I'm trying to help you, if you can believe it. I had a good friend go out of business a few years back, same biz as you, same reasons too. Not bashing industry in open forum didn't help him, so maybe your current business model will save you.

That's not what you advertise:

Just your opinion - many could and would do fine with it, both for a dedicated theatre room or a pro studio.

Incorporating treatments into a room as it is being built or fitted out can leave them innocuous looking, or part of a striking aesthetic, such as QRD/PRD.


Strawman. You don't need to do all of the walls, nor even most of it. Ethan has also provided a lot of help and direction to DIYers here and Gearslutz, so DIY alternatives that are much more aesthetically suited to the user's particular tastes can be made much cheaper. So your 440ft^2 is at best disingenuous, and more like intellectually dishonest.

Some DIY panels for first reflection points for example will cost very little, a couple of hundred at most, and will still have a larger effect than any cable.


Which is 4dB more than anything you sell does, some combinations of your 'product' could easily cost that much for people that were foolish enough to buy it.


You would know this as your product line is based solely upon the first and last, ie prose and fluff.


Unless you put something in your signature so that casual readers know who you are and what you sell, you are in effect shilling for yourself and your industry. THAT is dishonest.

I think this is a good point. I'd speculate you'd have a better shot simply joining P.T. Barnum. There are enough people out there who WANT to have something expensive like that, so give it to them.

I've got to hand it to Joe. He takes a licking but keeps on ticking.

It's not hard to do. Money is a strong motivator.

I have to hand it to you Joe: In a forum frequented mostly by science-minded types who can separate real science from BS, you're willing to stick your neck out anyway.


Even something as simple and inexpensive as our Standard Room Kit will make a huge improvement in a room that size. You ignorantly said that porous type bass traps are not "even remotely effective with typical room bass modes" and I proved you wrong. You ignorantly said our products are made of foam and I proved you wrong. Dude, at least get the facts straight before throwing stones.


Considering only the response below 100 Hz, the Before span from peak to null is about 22 dB. The After span is about 9 dB, for an overall improvement of 13 dB. Considering the entire bass range below 300 Hz the Before span is about 30 dB for a total improvement of 17 dB. This is not complicated math. Or is there something about a standard frequency response graph that you don't understand? Let me know what's not clear and I'll gladly explain it to you.


No, I call out companies that sell placebo-based products that don't change the sound at all. I do this as a public service to help people who don't understand the science spend their money more wisely. I find it amusing that you criticize (and wrongly state) the amount of improvement my products offer, while showing no evidence at all for your own products.

There are only two possible explanations for why someone would start a company to sell overpriced wires, as opined by the OP of this thread:

1) They know their product does nothing to improve the sound compared to $3 wires, so they knowingly and dishonestly prey on people's ignorance and gullibility.

2) They're technically incompetent and actually believe they "designed" a new type of wire that is somehow superior.

Take your pick.

--Ethan

I did not look into what you were using for absorption- my mistake. Neither here nor there as my initial discussion was about absorption below 100 Hz where these materials have little impact, unless you use LOTS of it.

As for freq's, I was mainly paying attention to individual modes at 39 and 60 Hz, you expanded that out to 300 Hz. Obviously the range of effect the panels would have would be different. As for reading simple graphs, being that condescending toward anyone is a bit below an industry pro in any discussion.


There are of course possibilities other than the two you listed. They just happen to be the only ones that fit your landscape.

Even if you use tuned pressure absorbers, you still need a lot of them to cover enough surface area to make a meaningful improvement. It's not like you can stick a single small panel off in one corner and expect much change.

Related, I asked you this earlier and you never replied:

"I look forward to seeing your example of a 'better' product that can improve not only the frequency response in a room, but also time-based problems like modal ringing, uneven RT60 versus frequency, and early reflections."


I notice that you conveniently failed to list any other possibilities.

--Ethan

If you want a better example, here's one... http://vimeo.com/36078054

Full disclosure:
JPS Labs uses products from the company whose product is shown at the URL above in our listening room and has a working relationship with them, as well as with, but not limited to, the personnel of numerous electronics, loudspeaker, cable, equipment, raw materials, packaging, wire, and accessory; manufacturers, suppliers, vendors, distributors, dealers, reviewers, advertising, magazines, trade shows, individual clients, professionals studios, shippers, forwarders, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. built over the last 22 years of operating as a business entity in the USA. Posting of a URL within the context of a forum discussion does not necessarily constitute nor imply any financial interests exists between these or any other parties. The above is the opinion of the author(s).

Joe, how is that possible, I have been following this discourse, and magic wire makers, never seem to have any facts, just word play. Please explain with FACTS how a USB or HDMI wire from JPS is better sounding than stuff from MCM or Prts Express for around $5. for a good length. I think they are the same stuff, and you add some heat shrink, and charge too much.
How does an AC wall outlet sound better if I get a JPS model? Is there an audio grade wall device listed in UL or NEMA? I can't find any?

Joe, that video shows and tells nothing. and the music is horrible. Was JPS wires used in the recording of that junk? The animation of the mystery room, is vague, uninformative, and basically fluffed BS. Like any info I find on the JPS webpage? Do any facts enter into your company's products? Is anything UL listed?

This is so much full of WIN!

I would actually price the cables at, say, 1/8 of the target cable.
If the target cable is $3,500, price yours at $495.
Then, on the web site, when the user is considering it, pop up a box saying "TODAY ONLY you get 33% off because it's our founder's cat's birthday!" or something.
(Slysoft.com, providers of fine DVD/BD ripping software, does this, for an example)

Because you make your profit from few sales, you really cannot go wrong in pricing high.
You could also offer bulk sales at 60% off retail for vendors, and still come out ahead.

The trick is finding a listening room with sufficiently high-end branded amplifiers and speakers to convince the customers. And using an A/B switch would really fall right out, because of losses in the switch, so you need to have multi-session testing where some people who don't interact with the listeners do the cable switching.

Also, some oscilloscope measurements of the two brands of cable, with, say, eye diagrams or something, would probably improve the sales pitch. Measure a 100 kHz square wave or something, to make sure it's compatible with 192 kHz DACs ;-)

Also, break-in. Genius!


Free pair of 8 square feet custom design sound improving artwork panels (normally retail for $995) with each order over $1000!

I think you're taking this wa-a-ay too seriously.

Ethan, I take it this is a friend of yours? I wouldn't have known as he did not state this in his signature.

^^ Pathetic.

+1

It's bound to happen when money and people are mixed.

That's great, but it's exactly the same approach we show in our Hearing is Believing video. Except we have more diffusion around the room to make the sound even larger than you get using mostly absorption. So I don't see how this is "better" than what my company offers because it's basically the same approach. Except my company doesn't use foam for many good reasons including longevity. And my company shows hard Before / After data of a real room, rather than present only "sell" words and a mock-up of an imaginary room.

--Ethan

I can't let that pass without commenting. Here's a breakdown of the products used in my company's Hearing is Believing video:

12 Diffusers @ $500 = $6,000
12 2'x4'x6" MondoTraps @ $290 = $3,480
24 2'x2'x6" MondoTraps @ $190 = $4,560
4 RFZ Panels @ $250 = $1,000
10 MiniTraps @ $190 = $1,900
Grand total for the optimum acoustic treatment in a smallish listening room = $16,490

Many audiophiles spend that much on a single power amp.

Not let's look at what a couple of your JPS Labs wires cost, using your "best" product line, the Aluminata series:

Three pairs of interconnects, one each for a turntable, CD player, and between the preamp and power amp @ $3,150 each = $9,450
One pair of speaker wires = $13,200
Four AC power cords (one each for a turntable, CD player, preamp, power amp) @ $3,600 = $14,400
Grand total spent on "wire" products = $37,050

Wow, just wow. No data. No Before / After proof of improvement for frequency response, noise, or distortion. Only "Trust me. You have to believe."

Versus these wires that will give identical results:

14 gauge AC power cords for $7.95 each:
http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/sto...0001_125541_-1

RCA cables with gold plated connectors for $1.95 per pair:
http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/sto...0001_228451_-1

12 gauge speaker wire for just under $1 per foot:
http://www.powerwerx.com/wire-cable/...-zip-cord.html

--Ethan

I just realized that my "free pair of panels" suggestion might be taken as a dig at Ethan. Far from it! The idea is that the customer, after buying the cable, also gets panels, and mounting those is likely to *actually* give a perceptible result. Through transference, the customer will then become a total convert to my cables, and recommend them to everyone else!

Quote the JPS site:

This is very entertaining!

Joe: If I buy some Aluminata RCA cables, and can measure a 1 milliohm resistance, doesn't that mean that your claims are actually fradulent?

Now, I don't think a frequency plot captures everything you can hear. Let's agree that subtle nuance in music can be conveyed using something like phase response(*), that may not show up on a frequency plot. I've certainly used that when using all-pass filters in a reverb design, or when I prefer an IIR EQ over a FIR based one -- lead the high frequencies in the transient for a sharper response! Thus, a freqency plot is only half the truth; the other half is the phase plot -- and really good testing equipment will let you plot both in a nice 3D surface. Such equipment is somewhat expensive and fiddly to calibrate, so sadly, the state of the industry is not (yet?) to actually use it when showing sonic performance.

Now, then -- if your high-quality cables work better than Monoprice cables, wouldn't it be fair to come out and show the measurements of the before and after? Hook up a real, 3D measurement rig, and plot both amplitude and phase response, and point out what it is that makes the cables sound better. I'm saying this in vain, because I know you won't actually, ever, do this, for the reason that it would ruin your argument and perhaps your business. Instead, you will find some tangent off of what I'm posting in this message to try to drive the conversation in another direction.

Why does granulated aluminum work better than a copper shield for shielding?
Why do you need 5 gauge wire for speakers, when you feed the amplifier mains using 10 gauge wire, and the capacitors inside the amplifier (that drive those 5 gauge wires) are hooked up with even thinner stuff?
How can an AC cable increase the resolution of my system?

If I plug it in, will my 16 bit CD player suddenly become 17 bits?

(*) Footnote: When I went to school, conventional science still claimed that human hearing wasn't sensitive to phase. Similarly, the thought was that, because a brick wall filter can perfectly reconstruct a *static* signal through the Nyquist sampling theorem, it was believed that all sound nuance of music (a *dynamic* signal) up to Nyquist were perfectly reproduced by a digital system. I *think* that the state has actually advanced, so we can do math on how mushy we want our transients vs how close we want to get to Nyquist, and I *think* that the state of science is now that differences and/or variations in phase can be highly perceptible -- but I haven't kept up for sure. I bet there are still basic text books that talk nonsense about this subject.
So, because I can hear these differences (MP3 -- worst thing to happen to hifi in a long time!) and because I can sort-of squint and see the math of why it would be the case in a dynamic, digital, system, I'm sure some people will think I'm advocating quack science just like Joe. Far be it from that! What I advocate is readily visible in the appropriate instrumentation, and the math shows that there is a Nyquist/filter point where human hearing really won't tell the difference. I believe that a 96 kHz / 24 bit system with good filter design can be fully transparent, assuming you control all the variables. But 44/16 can't, and there exists cases where it's pretty easy to illustrate, even, assuming good speakers and rooms.
The scary thing is that most people don't understand the difference between science showing some previous belief to be limited, and expanding on it (oh, no, Newton's only accurate at low velocity! when going fast, Einstein is better!), versus science being "wrong" and thus humans somehow can perceive things that cannot be measured.
End side-note :-)