"Mr. Land" wrote in message
...

I'm talking about salespeople who could talk an entire morning
about how a pair of speakers sounded, never using terminology
that approached anything that could be measured by a technician.

Would _you_ select a loudspeaker solely on the basis of its measurements?


These folks could supposedly discern the difference in sound
quality of a *tonearm* (not the cartridge, not the turntable, not
the connecting cables, but just the tonearm, for heaven's sake).

You could, too. It's not difficult. The arm is mechanical system, and
number, strength, and damping of its resonances affect the way it colors the
sound. If you don't believe this, mount the same pickup in a modest arm
(such as a Dual) and in a really good arm. You should easily hear the
difference on pops and clicks.


With no special equalization in play and at moderate volume, the
difference between the ordinary speaker cord and the Monster
cables was marked, even to my untrained, non-audiophile ears.
I was shocked... I even returned to relisten periodically just to make
sure I wasn't hearing things myself. I even took the display switch
apart to make sure they weren't cheating.

Let me stand on the other side of the issue. Did you try listening blind?
For example, have another employee pick regular or Monster cable without
your knowing, then listen to a few recordings to decide which was in use. If
the Monster cable had a distinctively different "sound", you should be able
to recognize its sound, even without direct comparison.

I've yet to be convinced about speaker cables. I saw one case where a weird
speaker cable (Polk Cobra) interacted pathologically with an oddly designed
amp (Berning), producing gross overshoot and ringing, which was both plainly
audible and visible on a 'scope. But that's a different situation.