as far as it was explained to me by Michael the 'formal' research in the equipboard roundups isn't hands on, Raucus, its a lot of statistical data and trawling oppinions on other forums usually.
I've been doing the item-by-item reviews (Elixir Nanowebs, EQD Transmisser and Novation Peak synthesizer so far). These are hands on and in-depth, but its time consuming and I cannot imagine how long it would take me to write a good, hands-on roundup ranking soemthign as simple as 9 different boutque cables and a cheapo store brand oen as a control. In my experience every cable soudns different based on its specs and neither is better or worse. Whats best is different for everyone absed on their ears and their gear. There's also a lot of hooha and snake oil involved in the fancy cable industry. Few of these guys manufacture their own cable apart from like Mosnter and Mogami. Mogami you can buy in open spools. you can also go in any electronics catalog and find cheaper coax, shielded raw cable with the same specs as Mogami silver or gold for less than the same amount of actual Mogami with no jack ends. Buying something like George L? The cable is nothing special, trust me. There's coax AV cable thats equally thin, flexible and well endowed in teh capacitance department. You're just paying for his sodlerless jacks (which I distrust for electronic reasons).
With strings I feel similarly, although there's soemthing to be said for the nanowebs I reviewed. They have more of everything sonically and its always easeir to take away sonically than to add. Unless you are a pure nickle devotee or you like dying strings? Elixir has a string for your electric these days.They also last FOREVER. Even better than the coated EB slinkies. I can't wear them out. And I DESTROY strings. I can't see any point in doing a custom string roundup. Unless they have a special core or some unique materials I can't imagine enough difference an audince member will hear it. Or even a band member. This is bedroom player stuff and these guys are marketing a lot of very similar products that offer little sonic benefit out of teh cotnext of your bedroom in an attempt to get your money. Like the guys who sell magic speaker cable to Hifi guys. I have enver once done a blind taste test with a hifi snob between their fancy, magic cables and some fucking cut up wire cat hangers and ahd them figure out whichw as which without getting red faced and guessing. I have done this... you ehar what you THINK you hear based on what you're looking at with stuff like this.
That said, if you want to try a TRUE hifi cable, try evidence audio cables. They are solid core, not rbaided. That's copletely unique. They sound completely different then traditional rbaided cables ebcause they don't rely on the skine ffect. They aren't as flexible as a normal cable but the forumulation these guys came up with flexes enough to satisfy Dave Gilmour. They're toos tiff for me, but they sound different. Totally snappy transients like you've never ehard... if thats your thing. They truly behave differently and are a ground up design.
