US Court Weighs in on Snake Oil vs. Snake Oil Companies

Audioquest has prevailed in the courts in a suit brought against the company by Monster (http://stereophile.com/news/010807aqmonster/) regarding their DBS (Dielectric Biasing System), the details of which can be read about in US Patent 7,126,055 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/7,126,055). Note, that to view the images you'll need to install a browser plugin to view TIFF files. Details on how to do that are found by clicking on the "Help" button at the top of the aforementioned link.

Note that in the patent no measurements are provided regarding how the dielectric constant changes over time (hint...it doesn't) nor are there any measurements of capacitance of the cables over time that've been so 'biased'.

Also note that there may be good reasons why no measurements are provided given the following article in Audioholics (http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...lesrespons.php). Regardless, distortion measurments were performed on a variety of cables and can be read at http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...istortion.html

Unfortunately, or perhaps as expected, the results don't bear out the various claims that cable mongers or listeners have made. Indeed, one must have especially remarkable ears to hear the difference. Remarkably defective I'd say.

Well, they don't win all their suits like when they claimed their batteries lasted longer and were taken to court by DuraCell I think. They also received a slap on the wrist and had to retract advertising that said their modem cords resulted in increased data throughput. I haven't heard about them suing any of the porn sites that use 'monster' in the video titles though. Probably too sticky of a situation.

I know what you mean. In a way it's like seeing Chinese knockoffs for VanDeHull cables being sold on ebay. You've got one BS company upset that some enterprising (and crooked) person is copying. Either way, the customer loses!