Top Ten Signs an Audio Cable Vendor is Selling You Snake Oil

Watch out if a Cable Vendor or Manufacturer:

1. Promotes that their product allegedly eliminates audio related Skin Effect and/or "Strand Jumping" problems.
2. Claims revolutionary breakthrough in cable technology by polarizing or biasing the dielectric using a battery.
3. Promotes that their products eliminate "Audiogenic", "Diode Rectification" or any type of non linear distortions. See Debunking the Myth of Cable Distortion and Dielectric Biasing
4. Physically places (+) and (-) wire leads in separate dielectrics not closely spaced in a common jacket. See: Calculating Cable Inductance of Twin Feeder Cables
5. Claims vast improvements in sound by inserting "Cable Elevators" to raise the cables off the floor and minimize electron misfiring or static energy fields.
6. Claims that cryogenically freezing cables improves fidelity or measurably changes electrical properties after the cable is restored to room temperature.
7. Claims that their cables require a "Break In" period.
8. Claims that measurements cannot quantify why their designs are superior and often misapply engineering principles in their reasoning but abandon the associated governing laws and metrics that establish them.
9. Claims audible differences exist between stranded and non-stranded wires of same gauge rating, geometry and conductor spacing.
10. Claims audible differences between silver and copper cables of equal design geometry and gauge.

Bonus Scams

• Sells speaker cables or interconnects costing more than a plasma TV or a lease on a new Infinity G35 sports coupe.
• Claims wire is directional.
• Slaps  RLC boxes on their cables.
• Claims of Speaker Cable Resonance at Audio Frequencies

Here is an example of the dielectric biasing scheme courtesy of Audioquest. The battery does not make a complete electrical connection. Thus it is considered an open circuit.

Updated with Audioquest Response: 10/19/2003