[Leica] Warning, $.03 worth of OT

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

I really do hate to fan this smoldering thread, but Bob, try the
cheapest Nordost speaker cables (less than $100 for an 8-foot pair) in
place of that zip cord, and if you don't hear a difference. That Nordost
stuff is DA BOMB.

Bad wires are probably analogous to a truly crappy filter. If you've got
bad components, then the wire doesn't matter much. But if you've got
good ones, then the wire can indeed allow more of what you've paid for
through to your ears. Similarly, a bad filter may not matter on a poor
lens. But who would put a really lousy filter, say, one with visibly
wavy glass or separations in the sandwiching, on a Leica lens?

You can buy a new lens for $100. But you don't balk at putting a $100
filter on a $2,000 lens, do you? In fact, you may be a lot more
comfortable with a $100 filter than you would be with a $15 one, right?
All you need is the assurance that it's the highest quality you can get,
and will degrade the lens's performance as little as possible. Until you
can get that assurance, you're going to be insecure about using that
filter on your precious lens.

The super-high prices paid for stereo wires are really an interesting
case study. Basically, it's a function of two things. First, the cost of
accessories relative to the cost of the main components. As the cost of
components has gone up, up, up in recent years, it's seemed less and
less reasonable to give no thought to what connects them. Let's say you
have a $5,000 amp and a $7,000 preamp. Would you connect them with the
patch cords that came with your $100 Circuit City tape deck? Secondly,
people are vulnerable to a powerful idea...the idea being the old "a
chain is only as strong as its weakest link." In that context it seems
REASONABLE to spend $1,000 on speaker wire. It's less than 10% of what
you paid for your amp and preamp, right in line for the cost of an
accessory. (If you think that's crazy logic, how much does a Kamerleder
case for an M6 cost? What's that you say? More than an EOS Rebel outfit?
And yet it's a reasonable cost, isn't it, given the quality of the
Kameraleder case, and its relation to the cost of the M6?)

And it's very easy for the salespeople to make you insecure about
"getting the most" from your expensive investments without it. All the
salesperson has to do is demonstrate that two pair of wires sound
different, which is easy to do. From that point it's very easy to appeal
to a customer's insecurity. (Please don't ask me how I know all this.)

Obviously, it's impossible to put $1,000 worth of value into _wire_.
Much less $10,000, and yes, $10,000 wires exist!!

The high end "industry" has been all over this for years, because the
markup on wire is huge. Markup on expensive cables can easily be 200%
just from wholesale to discount, and from manufacture to retail it can
be 500%, 1000%, or more. Naturally, ads for wire are featured
prominently in stereo publications and it is an odd high-end store
indeed that can't sell you expensive wires at a variety of price points.
And watch how they sell them--always as a function of what's a
"reasonable" accessory cost given the cost of the components you own, or
are buying.

However, I think all this has been very bad for the high end industry as
a whole, as was demonstrated to us perfectly by B.D.'s reaction. What
did he say? "I walked out." Typical. The idea of $1K wire seems
absolutely outlandish to anyone who hasn't bought into the idea of the
high-end already, anyone who is still skeptical about a $2,000 component
being "budget" or "good value." So it does a lot to keep converts and
newbies out of the hobby. Sure enough, growth in the high-end has
ossified in recent years. I don't think it's any coincidence. It's been
a very good example of an industry eating its own flesh to stay alive.

Sorry, that's about $.03 worth, and most of it OT...

- --Mike