James Randi used to be a stage magician, who at some point in his life evolved to becoming a scientific skeptic best known for his challenges to paranormal claims and pseudoscience. For those who do not know him, he truly is a force of nature with sharp wit and a strong desire to make the world more efficient, less gullible and definitely more rational.
And what better field to challenge pseudoscience than the audiophile world? As a designer and maker of low cost, audiophile loudspeakers and sound systems my quest was always to offer great sound at really good prices and to be even mildly successful on that quest, it is of vital importance to skim off the snake oil and put in what works and leave out what doesn't.
Known to many, James Randi and his foundation the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) offered a $1´000´000 dollar challenge to eligible applicants who are able to demonstrate a supernatural ability under scientific testing criteria agreed to by both sides. The prize has to date gone unclaimed despite attracting all sorts of psychics, media, hoaxers or psychic healers to take a stab at it.
What less known is that James Randi has explicitly determined that paranormal claims made for speaker cables fall under the umbrella of his challenge. In particular it was a 7´250 dollar speaker cable made by Pear Anjou Speaker Cables that raised his eyebrow in 2007. Now those who know me, know that I have a rather pragmatic approach to speaker cables, asking that they conduct exactly that amount of electricity they are required to conduct without heating up significantly. I may be missing some point though because the claims made by a reviewer called David Clark with Positive Feedback Online of these cables really did leave me more than just curious.
"... way better than anything I have heard...Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desires to get up and move. Great swing and pace—these cables smack that right on the nose big time."
This idea of a cable being danceable seemed sufficiently paranormal to James Randi and his crew to specifically put it under the umbrella of his paranormal challenge. If anyone could demonstrate that the Anjou cables were in any way more danceable or otherwise superior they would walk away with a million dollars.
Unfortunately after a lot of going back and forth, Pear´s CEO Adam Blake refused to provide a set of his highly danceable cables on grounds that Randi and crew were untrustworthy and the challenge itself a hoax. You spot it, you got it, as an old saying goes. Blake, an MIT grad might be trusted to provide technology that makes cables danceable so I really look at this as unharvested low hanging fruit.
So at this point the pot of gold is untouched and this is your shot at turning $7,250 into $1,000,000 with little more effort than dancing at the right time while blind folded. Who said “Me”?,
Arved Deecke is founder of the Danish / Mexican Loudspeaker company KVART & BØLGE that makes audiophile quarter wave loudspeakers and sound systems at a price anyone can afford. In his free time he blogs about all things related to sound, music and audio.
