[datune]

Today a service guy came to where I work to place the hands free car kit (Parrot stuff), and whilst he was installing we started talking about audio and acoustics (seeing how the company were the guy works also does audio installations etc...).

Pretty soon we started arguing about whether or not super high quality cable (read -> 0.75cm cable that costs 2500 dollar vs a cable that costs 40 dollars) actually makes an audible difference.

I actually am convinced that it doesn't make a difference, and he said he used to think the same, until he was invited over by one his clients, who had a high fidelity audio installation worth over 145.000 dollars (which apparently consisted of nothing else then one amplifier, one DA converter, one CD player and two speakers, that's it).

That client challenged him to do a test of whether or not he would hear a difference, but he always knew whether he listened to the cheap cable or the expensive cable (which I quickly pointed out pretty much made the test useless cause obviously you may be dealing with the placebo effect etc...).

Nonetheless, the technician pointed out that the difference was quite big, and VERY noticable that it sounded different.

But it get's A LOT better. And here's where I hope Bob Katz will jump in. He then told me that the client did another experiment with him.

The CD player: When you put the CD in the tray, you had to click it, and then you could add a WEIGHT on top of the CD (???!!!!???), which the client claimed would lessen possible reading errors (which he also claimed he could hear).

The technician said to his client:" Are you mocking me? That's impossible".
They then proceeded to execute the test, and sure enough the technician said to me he could hear a difference.

Now I would like to know, is this at all possible?

Summary:

1. hearing differences in cable brands, is it possible?

2. CD player which allows to add a weight on top of the CD, lessens reading errors during loud volumes? Does this really exist?