FASHION TRUMPS ENGINEERING
Copper is valued in the electronics industry for its high electrical conductivity and reasonable cost. Only silver has a higher electrical conductivity (though only by about 6%) however its cost is significantly higher, making it limited to special applications.
One area where silver has made a name for itself is in the audiophile cable market where its cost isn’t of such a limiting factor.
And this leads us to ask the question, why would you pay the price for the higher conductivity of silver, only to alloy with an even more expensive metal (gold) which results in an electrical conductivity that’s even lower than that of copper?
One word comes immediately to mind—Fashion.
Like diamonds, gold has a certain allure to it for reasons other than its electrical conductivity.
One company that has been making a name for itself selling this fashion statement to its customers is Toxic Cables, which is based in the UK (though it appears to have got its start back in the ’90s with the Dutch company Siltech). Toxic Cables is of the belief that because silver is so highly conductive, and because gold, though not quite as conductive, is still pretty conductive just the same, that alloying just a small amount of gold with silver will have a negligible effect on the conductivity of the resulting alloy.
To wit, from a HeadFi post by Toxic Cables in 2014:
Silver is more conductive then [sic] copper to start with, gold is also quite conductive, so adding 1% gold in my Poison or a little more in the SW will not make it 50% less conductive then [sic] copper, both the SP and SW are still more conductive then [sic] copper with the gold in it. Adding just 1% gold in the silver barely effects [sic] it’s [sic] conductivity and anyone with a brain will know it won’t make it 50% less conductive.
These statements amply demonstrate that Toxic Cables has absolutely no knowledge or understanding of metallurgy. They are based on the completely naive notion that there is a linear relationship when alloying two or more metals of a given conductivity.
GOLD IS “TOXIC” TO SILVER
We would like to begin this discussion with the following excerpt:
Gold has a conductivity of 78. The alloy of gold and silver calls attention to a remarkable feat. When silver is alloyed with a small percentage of gold, the conductivity immediately diminishes. 2 per cent. of gold is sufficient to reduce the conducting power from 100 to 60. An increase in the proportion of gold, however, is attended with a decrease of conductivity at a less rapid rate, the minimum of 16.12 being the conductivity of an alloy of equal parts of gold and silver.
This excerpt wasn’t from any modern textbook or research paper. It is actually from an issue of Van Norstrand’s Engineering Magazine published in 1885. One hundred and thirty years ago!
What it states is that the addition of even very small amounts of gold to silver results in a very rapid decrease of the conductivity of the resultant alloy. And at a 50/50 mix, the conductivity is lower than gold itself by a very wide margin.
This completely dispels the naive notion that alloying just a small amount of gold with silver will have a negligible effect on conductivity. And reveals the Toxic Cable lie that with just 1% or a little more of gold, the conductivity will still remain higher than that of copper.
The truth is that the addition of just 1% gold will reduce the conductivity to well below that of even bog standard plumbing grade copper, which is less conductive still than electronics grade copper. Yet Toxic Cables claims to use even more than 1% gold in their top of the line Silver Widow cable, making the situation even worse!
This level of ignorance and deceit is unconscionable.
ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
Although the 1885 article really tells us all we need to know in order to put the lie to the claims made by Toxic Cables, some may argue that that was a long time ago, and perhaps their measurements were too crude to determine what the truth is.
Certainly some things have changed since 1885, most notably materials processing. Back in 1885, the conductivities of copper and silver were considered to be the same, and were assigned a reference value of 100. The conductivities of other metals and alloys were compared to this reference and assigned a value which represented the percentage of the reference.
In 1913, this method was adopted and became the International Annealed Copper Standard, or IACS and conductivities of other metals and alloys were expressed as “%IACS.”
But as materials processing advanced, the conductivities of commercial copper and silver began to exceed 100% IACS. Which is why today we have commercially available electronics grade copper in the form of ETP (Electrolytic Tough Pitch) and OFC (Oxygen Free Copper) that is rated at 102% IACS. Silver is now rated at approximately 106% IACS.
Indeed, a side note in the 1885 article makes note of contemporary advances in the processing of copper and its subsequent improvements to conductivity.
But none of this undermines the underlying fact that alloying small amounts of gold with silver drastically reduces conductivity.
In 1966, researchers at the University of Maryland, under contract with the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, the civilian version of DARPA), revisited this issue, but within a broader range of temperatures. This research was published in the Journal of the Less-Common Metals.
Taking from original work by Augustus Mathiessen in 1860, they produced equations to plot the curve of resistivity (which is simply the reciprocal of conductivity) for silver-gold alloys ranging from 100% silver to 100% gold. They then produced a number of specific alloy samples and compared their resistivities to what was predicted by the curve. All of the samples fit perfectly to the curve (represented by the dots on the curve).
With this information, we can mathematically determine the conductivity for any silver-gold alloy.
Shown below is a graph of the electrical conductivity as %IACS versus the amount of gold alloyed with the silver up to 5%, where electrical conductivity is reduced to a mere 50% IACS. The red point on the graph shows electrical conductivity with just 1% gold. This illustrates quite well that the claim made by Toxic Cables that 1% silver-gold will still be more conductive than copper is not even remotely close to the truth. To remain at or above the conductivity of copper, the amount of gold would have to be kept below about 0.2%.
To put this into perspective, and referring to the historical conductivities of copper wire mentioned above, Toxic Cables’ 1% gold has managed to reduce the conductivity of the world’s most conductive metal to that of the crude copper wire used for the Malta-Alexandria submarine cable in 1861. A giant 154 year step backwards.
And you can pay even more and buy Toxic Cables’ top of the line cable which uses greater than 1% gold to step even further back into time. Such a bargain!
Sadly this is what happens when someone is passing themself off as being authoritative though in reality has no real understanding of what they’re doing, except perhaps from the standpoint of marketing. In other quarters, such showy pretense of knowledge while trying to get people to part with their hard earned money is called charlatanry, if not outright fraud.
REFERENCES
M. L. Weiler, Van Norstrand’s Engineering Magazine, No. CCII, October, 1885, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 288-295
V. K. Iyer and R. M. Asimow, J. Less-Common Metals, 13 (1967), pp. 18-23
audiotruth 
Of course you are correct about the resistance, and Toxic are wrong. But note than Mundorf make a 1% gold/99% silver wire, and people say that it sounds better than pure silver wire. Perhaps they are using this wire, I don’t know. Successful audiophile products need to sound good rather than have spurious specs like minimum resistance. (I don’t know if their cable sounds good or not).
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Yes, but unfortunately, how something “sounds” is in very large part dependent on what you’re told, what you belive and/or are led to believe. This industry wouldn’t exist if this were not the case.
You could take one of the cheapest interconnects that Monoprice sells, dress it up to look like an “audiophile” cable, conjure up a bunch of technobabble bullshit for it, slap a huge price tag on it, and you will have plenty of people raving about how great it “sounds” and willing to part with thousands of dollars to buy it.
It’s just an unfortunate weakness that comes with being human and allows all manner of quacks and charlatans to be “successful” in this industry.
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Perhaps that is true for some people, but you’re talking to someone who spends a lot of time blind testing audio things. I am not joking when I say I spend 15-20 hours every week in serious analytical listening. Like all skills, analytical listening is not something you are born with. Now I have not tested either the Toxic cables or Munforf vs silver so I’m not making any specific claims here. But for example, I can easily blind various pick power cords and interconnects with 100% accuracy, something that many claim is impossible.
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That’s just vanity and ego talking.
When you’ve published your results of adequately controlled blind listening tests, then we’ll talk.
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I don’t do blind listening tests for your benefit. . I do them to develop products. I suppose you are just calling me a liar. I don’t care. I’ve come across plenty of audio objectivists like yourself. I thought this might be an interesting blog but seems not.
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Fine. If you’re not going to publish your blind tests for peer review, then just shut up about them. Which leaves us back to vanity and ego along with a bunch of empty hand-waving.
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Lots of places have the same wire as Mundorf, it’s all the same alloy. The only reason why people like it more is because they’ve been told be afraid of the legendary “brightness” of pure silver. When I’ve tested Mundorf wire, it was very warm, it wasn’t neutral. Perhaps that works for some people, but you could get the same muddy effect by adding iron to your silver.
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I use Toxic gold/silver headphone cables and could not be more pleased.
I have heard a lot of interconnect and headphone cables and have heard a significant improvement using Toxic cables. I upgraded my original silver poison (1% gold) cable to the silver widow (> 1% gold) and have noticed an improvement in sound quality, which surely given the higher gold content I should not be hearing. Many people on the Toxic head-fi thread have had the same experience.
Obviously other factors come into play as to the overall quality of a cable than just the conductive material but many people have switched from more expensive cables to Toxic silver/gold and are very happen.
I don’t dispute the science here but listening tells a different story.
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Unfortunately, “listening” doesn’t inform one as to whether or not the cable is actually doing anything of an audible nature. And that fact is what sustains the “audiophile” industry.
Because of this, you can nearly do literally anything and with the right marketing and the right bullshit technobabble have people who will say it sounds fantastic and be willing to part with thousands of dollars to pay for it.
The fact of the matter is that our subjective perception of hearing is embarrassingly unreliable. And no amount of vanity and ego can change it. It’s just how we are wired. It’s part of being human. Sadly, a lot of people exploit this weakness in order to make a buck. It’s no different than those who sell those who sell “Power Band” bracelets that have holograms on them as if holograms possess some sort of mystic power.
Do you own a Power Band bracelet? If not, why not? There are plenty of people out there who will attest to their effectiveness. But really it’s just quack medicine you wear on your wrist instead of swallowing. Though I guess you’re “swallowing” one way or another.
Our subjective perception of sound is greatly influenced by many factors that have nothing to do with what’s striking our eardrums. Just one of these many factors is illustrated by the McGurk Effect, wherein what we “hear” is overridden by what we see. And it’s not something you can “switch” off, or get around by knowing the trick. It’s just hard-wired into our brains.
We are not the unerring arbiters of reality we would like to believe ourselves to be.
It’s all well and good that you enjoy the subjective sound of your cables. But don’t assume that it necessarily has anything to do with the cable itself. Getting an analog signal from point A to point B without any audible degradation was a “solved problem” about a century ago. But there are those who would like to convince people that we still haven’t quite figured that one out and there are still advancements to be made.
For a price of course.
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This is the same bull shit I have heard many times before.
I have heard the differences cables make and have accurately blind tested a number of those cables. There are cable naysayers who believe that cables make absolutely no difference to the audio output. if you are one of those then why is this thread even relevent because regardless of whether the cable is made of silver, copper, SPC or silver & gold it won’t make any difference!!
If you do believe cables make a difference then why are you telling me that I am being fooled into believing the differences I am hearing.
I am no mug or idiot and I don’t like spending money on worthless things. I would never spend good money on cables if I had not heard the benefits on many occasions. As you have not even heard a Toxic Silver/gold cable your personal opinion is worth nothing. As I have heard better sound quality from silver/gold cables compared to sometimes far more expensive copper, SPC or silver cables then your science is left floundering.
Unfortunately some people are just blinded by science and have no thought process of their own. Please listen and compare Toxic silver/gold cables to other cables so then at least we will have a personal opinion and not a flawed scientific conclusion. Thanks
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You are free to address any flawed conclusions. However all I see in your post is the stomping of feet and empty hand-waving.
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The issue here is not how silver/gold alloy sounds. We can argue all day as to whether the only reason for people enjoying these cables more is the knowledge that there’s something “extra” added to them. The real question is, if you told people all this before they bought the cable, would they enjoy it as much? If they thought that gold was a contaminant as it is. Is the fact that gold is a noble metal the reason why it’s an acceptable thing to add? Because you can alloy silver with a lot of different things, things that nobody has tried. These things would all hurt the conductivity significantly as well. Nobody’s going to get excited about an alloy of silver with 1% nickel, they would be laughed out of the cable business – but make the alloying compound something fancy, and instantly it gains acceptance, even though nobody has tried other alloys of silver. People are rabid about the purity of silver, demanding that it’s 6 or 7 nines pure, yet when you take a typical contaminating element of silver – in this case gold, and it is something that has trace quantities in impure silver – and intentionally add 1% of it, suddenly that is OK – but now you have 2 nines or 1 nines silver. There are no good contaminants – but nobody bothers to test intentionally low purity 99% silver – a company offering that would be a pariah.
The bigger point here is simply false claims – that manufacturers hold this material up as being just as conductive as copper and silver, or perhaps even more conductive – in order to pass it off as something that is beyond pure silver in performance. It’s fine if you like how it sounds, just don’t buy into the claims that they’ve reinvented the wheel. They are selling impure silver that people like not because it’s actually performing higher, but because they trust that it is.
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Would you be kind enough to maybe reveal your identity, so that readers might know what your agenda is as another cable manufacturer/seller.
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The only agenda of this article is to get at the truth regarding claims made regarding silver-gold alloys. If you wish to continue, please address the content of the article.
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And all I see is a dogmatic flag waving member of the scientific thought police who only believe what science tells them to believe.
Sad really, very sad
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Let me know when you’re able to actually muster any sort of reasoned argument. Ad hominem is not a reasoned argument. And if that’s all your intellect can muster, I would suggest going elsewhere.
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Don’t worry I am going elsewhere, never been comfortably in the company of the thought police.
I won’t be responding to or reading any more posts here, I prefer better company. See ya.
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In order for there to be a thought police, there must first be some thought. Something I have not seen any evidence of from you.
I presented an argument. If you disagree with that argument, then you are perfectly free to present your own counter argument. But there has been no such argument from you. All you have done is screech and fling shit like a zoo monkey on crack.
It is evident by now that you are simply incapable of presenting a reasoned argument or even any sort of critical thinking. So the least of your worries is any sort of thought police. There’s simply no thought to police.
No wonder the cable industry is able to get away with what it does.
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I was not intending to reply anymore but forgot to block e-mail notifications from this site (now taken care of) so will respond one last time.
My ‘thought’ comes from personal and extensive experience where yours comes from a dogmatic scientific approach that require absolutely no original though on your behalf and a total lack of first hand experience of any of the cables or the cable companies you are slating.
Its the same old story I have heard many times before, usually by people with an alterior motive ( just how much trade have you lost to Toxic Cables!!).
I won’t be commenting again so please feel free to slag me off for having a honest opinion and experience (which you don’t) just because it does not telly with yours.
Maybe I was being unfair calling you a member of the thought police because you have not actually had a thought of your own, just preaching a load of science.
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You should refrain from using the word “scientific” as you obviously haven’t the fist clue about it.
Science, or more precisely the scientific method, is not dogmatic. In fact it is just the opposite. It evolved as a means of advancing humanity beyond dogma. The scientific method allows, no, demands that thoughts change as new information is presented.
And one thing that science has shown us, and has been well-established for many decades, is that our subjective perceptions can be embarrassingly unreliable. And that until those biases are adequately controlled for, we cannot use our subjective perceptions on their own to determine whether or not something like a cable is altering the signal to such a degree as to be audible to humans.
As I said, science demands that thoughts need to change when new information is presented. But so far, no one has demonstrated, under controlled conditions, that they do, unless they are either broken or designed so poorly as so have sufficient resistance, inductance and/or capacitance to pull this off.
But this is all just a distraction from the purpose of this article. And that is that Toxic Cables is on public record as claiming that even with the addition of 1% gold or a little more, that the resultant alloy is still more conductive than copper.
I have presented evidence that this is not the case. If you or anyone else has information that this evidence is incorrect and that the silver-gold alloy used in Toxic Cables’ cables is indeed more conductive than copper, I will be more than happy to consider it.
But so far no one has refuted anything which has been stated in the article. And if people don’t mind being lied to by the company they’re buying cables from, that’s fine too. But to make such a decision, you first have to know that you’re being lied to.
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Why don’t you present some facts from this decade then of something from over a Century ago and people might take you more seriously, or even give me your address and i will send you some of my wire with which you can carry out conductivity tests and see yourself that what you have written is a lot of made up garbage.
The fact of the matter is, your just another cable manufacturer that’s upset with how much popularity my company and my cables have gained, to the point where someone reviewed my cable against yours and found mine to be the better performing, you then went ahead and sent them a new so called better cable for free to review, only for them to come back and write that my cable still was the better one.
This is all i will say on the matter and this will be my last post, i have orders to make and customers to take care of, while it seems you have too much time on your hands.
It’s all you seem to to, try to discredit one company after another. You won’t be the only cable manufacturer on the planet, so deal with it.
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The physics hasn’t changed. This is simply the inherent interaction between silver and gold when the two metals are alloyed and has been well known in the materials science field for well over a century.
But if you feel that the research I have referenced is out of date and a bunch of made up garbage, you are free to post references to more recent research which refutes it, or post the results of your own conductivity tests. I have provided the references to support my claims that anyone can easily verify for themselves.
So far, as with everyone else so far, you have offered nothing but empty claims.
However I will gladly accept your offer of a sample of your wire so that a chemical assay can be done to determine the percentage of gold if any. I mean, if you’re lying about the electrical conductivity of your wire, who knows what else you may be lying about. Perhaps there’s no gold in it at all. Certainly no one can tell just by looking at it. This service will be provided free of charge. I will need about 10 grams.
Just confirm your offer in a post here and I will provide you with shipping details.
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Here is another Toxic Cables claim regarding this silver-gold alloy I think deserves substantiation. This one can be found on the Toxic Cables website and reads:
“The gold also add [sic] a touch of extra punch in the low end frequency response that is often found a little wanting in silver cables.”
Would you care to provide a frequency response plot of one of your cables showing this “extra punch” in the low end frequency response? Or lacking that, the low end frequency response plot of a silver cable showing the low end response “a little wanting”? Or any cable whose low end frequency response isn’t dead flat all the way down to DC.
I find this claim particularly curious as anyone who knows even just a bit about electronics as it relates to cable design would know that cables are what’s known as a low pass filter. Which will only affect the frequency response at the highest frequencies (which will be well above the audible range if designed correctly) due to the cable’s inherent parasitic inductance and capacitance.
Certainly it’s possible to fabricate a cable that has a little “extra punch” in the low end frequency response, but not without resorting to an added filter network, such as MIT (the cable company, not the learning institution). However there is no indication that Toxic Cables uses any such added filter network. If they are, they are very well concealed and there is no mention of them in their marketing literature. This peculiar low end frequency response behavior seems only to come about as the result of simply adding a small amount of gold to the silver.
From all observations, it appears that Toxic Cables is nothing more than an unimaginative hack with a soldering iron that has no real understanding of what they are doing. They are only capable of cobbling together bits of wire, sprinkling them with various “audiophile” buzzwords, and then fabricating a variety of lies to tell their customers to try and convince them that they are offering cables which are technologically superior to other cables on the market.
Of course this is nothing unique to Toxic Cables, but rather is endemic to the bulk of the audiophile cable industry. Convince an audience of laypersons that there is a “problem” with their cables, and tell them them that you offer the “cure.” Nor is this unique to the audiophile cable industry. This same technique has been practiced by quacks and charlatans for centuries. It is truly sad that this practice has remained successful even in the 21st century.
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cheapest interconnects that Monoprice sells, dress it up to look like an “audiophile” cable, conjure up a bunch of technobabble bullshit for it, slap a huge price tag on it,
That’s similar to what you do ain’t it, take ETP copper that costs no more then $3 to make a 6ft cable, put some fancy silk sleeve on it that costs $10, use one of the cheapest plugs on the market ($1) and put a nice looking barrel on it and slap a $300 price tag on it, Ha
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And these parts and materials are to just magically assemble themselves into a cable? Or if they are to be assembled into a cable, it is done by slaves or donated labor? Elves perhaps? And they are only to be sold at their cost to produce? That’s communism isn’t it?
Have you ever had a business of your own? Or are you just someone’s wage slave? Because the only time I have ever seen such naive comments, they have come from those who have never had any experience running a business. And even the vast majority of people I’ve encountered who have never run a business aren’t so naive.
Or is it the people you are trying to speak to that you assume are so naive? That’s rather insulting I would think.
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Speaking of ETP copper, perhaps you or someone else can explain why OCC copper should cost any more than ETP copper. The Ohno continuous cast process is fundamentally no different than the continuous casting process that’s used to produce all wire. The only difference is that the Ohno process uses a heated mold, which reduces the number of grain boundaries which can be beneficial to drawing wire to extremely small diameters or to make foils with extremely small thicknesses.
Why should a heated mold exact such a premium on the price of the rod or slab that results?
We are able to reliably draw conventionally cast rod down to 50 gauge and smaller. So if you are not producing or using wire smaller than this, then what is the point?
Is there anyone who can speak intelligently on this issue? Because it appears to be nothing but a marketing buzzword in the audiophile community. I don’t see any other industry boasting of using wire produced using the Ohno process.
And one of the largest producers of OCC wire claims on their website that OCC wire has “…no electric resistance…” which is patently absurd. If it had no electrical resistance it would be a superconductor, which no form of copper or silver is.
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It is very au courant to use Japanese names. If it were the “Jones Process,” that wouldn’t be as attractive.
I have the capability to do 4-point conductivity measurements. If you get a sample of this wire, I will be happy to check this claim and have you post the measurements. And before Frank throws any implications in my direction, I have no business connection to any audio company, cable or otherwise, I’m just an old country materials scientist (who has bothered to read Hume-Rothery).
I also note with amusement that Steve Stone and Roger Skoff removed my comments on Skoff’s promotion of similar goofy cable ideas (including a by-the-numbers economic analysis and banned me from commenting on the Home Theater review site. Rational analysis can offend advertisers. Thought contrary to huckster claims must be suppressed.
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Yes. The cable industry needed to find a new marketing buzzword to replace the previous marketing buzzword (OFC) which was getting a bit long in the tooth.
And it’s interesting. Given that OCC is marketed pretty much exclusively to audiophiles, you won’t find a single word in any of Atsumi’s patents regarding improvement to the electrical properties of the wire which is produced using his process.
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Have a ever had a business of my own, who do you think this is, the difference is that unlike you i don’t value my time at $250 an hour and use the cheapest materials everywhere possible and then go around calling everyone else a fraud.
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No, you don’t value your time at $250 an hour. You also don’t value your customers and have no qualms with lying to them.
Lying to people in the course of convincing them to part with something of value (such as money) is known as fraud.
And I note that you have yet to present anything substantive regarding the subject of this article.
How did you come to believe that alloying silver with 1% or a little more gold would result in an alloy that is still more conductive than copper? Did you read it somewhere? If so, would you please cite your source? I have cited mine.
Did it come from your own conductivity measurements? If so, let’s see the results. Or if you would like, you can take Mel Famie up on his kind offer to do the measurements for you and have them published here.
Like beautox and Nigel, I hear a lot of chopping, but I don’t see any chips flying.
I would prefer that your next response address the issue put forth in this article.
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So many people here claiming they not only ‘hear’ cables, they routinely do it in blind tests! Wow. Why don’t you all man up and publish detailed methods and results somewhere? It would rock the audiophile world. I’m sure Stereophile or TAS would be eager to print such revelatory and long-sought data confirming audiophile claims, if a peer-reviewed journal wouldn’t.,
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It’s funny. You have one bunch claiming to easily pass their own blind testing, and another bunch claiming that the reason that can’t pass a blind test is because blind testing is inherently flawed.
So which is it?
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When you realize it’s futile, you can answer either way – either lie that you can do it, or complain that it’s impossible.
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I have never lied to my customers and you will not find a single customer of mine to say that i have from the 534 page feedback thread i have compared to your 34 pages.
I guess it must be upsetting that someone that comes on to the scene years after you and their products become much more popular then yours within weeks.
People know a well priced bargian when they see it, compared to a rip off cable made with wire that costs less then the OFC copper wire used in the stock cables to buy.
You even went as far as to send a free cable to someone after they reviewed my cable against yours and found mine to be the better performing, only for them to come back and say it was still the better performing Ha
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“I have never lied to my customers…”
Yes, you have.
“…both the SP and SW are still more conductive then [sic] copper with the gold in it. Adding just 1% in the silver barely effects [sic] it’s [sic] conductivity…”
This is a lie. And since it was committed in the course of convincing people to give up something of value (in this case money), it is more than just a lie, it is the quintessential definition of FRAUD.
A customer can’t claim to have been lied to unless they know they have been lied to. And a customer can’t be expected to know what the conductivities of various silver-copper alloys are. That just isn’t something that’s liable to come up on Jeopardy! or in casual conversation at the dinner table.
As a manufacturer, you put yourself in a position of authority, and with that authority comes a certain level of trust. A customer can’t be expected to be as knowledgeable and so there must be a certain amount of trust that is to be assumed or it would be next to impossible to conduct business.
And when you lie to a customer, you betray that trust and you betray that customer. You also betray the industry you are in which reflects badly on others in that industry who are not engaging in fraud as it causes people to become cynical.
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You really do need to start concentrating on your own business then watching what others are doing all the time, i am not this first manufacturer you have tried to throw crap at, no wonder you ain’t doing to well that you feel this is the only way to gain some more business.
This will defo be my last reply to you and am sure you will resort to pathetic emails as you have done previously when you have been ignored.
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And I note that you have yet to address the substance of this article in any meaningful way.
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Frank, “I have never lied to my customers …”. This is patently untrue. I’m a customer that has been lied to, and there are thousands of others – no word of a lie. The first mistruth was delivery times – in my case it stretched from something in the order of 8 weeks at purchase to about 24 months in actuality. There’s one lie – furthered over countless emails promising ‘delivery within weeks’. I bought some headphones from someone in the same situation who gave up in the end. No opinion here, just fact.
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I felt compelled to post as I will not let Frank’s comment pass unchecked. I have personal experience to say that he has no high ground to take in this argument. I’m also a little perturbed that a discussion on science raised by the website dude – not the subjective listening experience – seems to be fertile ground for a scrap in Frank’s eyes. Answer the bloody question!! You’re wrong, so at least concede and present an argument as to say why your error doesn’t matter and that audio enjoyment departs from pure conductivity studies, etc. Just going on the offensive makes Frank sound like a simple man. Go on Frank – we’re waiting. OK, maybe it’s just me waiting…..
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In the interests of science let me qualify: ‘I’m a customer that has been lied to, and there are thousands of others….’. That my indeed be an exaggeration on my part – I am extrapolating here. I had a head-fi thread complaining – I think in the Toxic Cables appreciation thread (yeah, I know…..maybe the wrong place) – and I got many people PM’ing me saying the same thing. I also saw many replies saying they were now months (and sometimes years) beyond delivery promise. That’s not thousands, but it seemed to be a large % of those waiting for Frank’s fabled work…
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I am however interested in understanding who Audiotruth is – a rival cable manufacturer as Frank says? That does not change the argument here, but Audiotruth please PM me because I’d like to understand if there is a beef here with Toxic that it not simply about the science of claims then I’d like to understand that. Competitive interest should also be disclosed in the website headers – both you and Frank are VERY anonymous on your websites, which is worrying. NB Although scientific arguments are hugely valid…I was more motivated to respond on this thread due to Frank’s comments, suggesting he is above criticism: this is something that should be challenged
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I’m audiotruth and so is my wife
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