I can respect anyone's opinion. I liked the article. Roger Russell, more than likely, has more experience than anyone on this forum with trying different wires in different ways. That doesn't mean I think what he says is be all end all, but it's interesting. I have personally never owned super expensive speaker wire. The best I had was a pair of MIT bi-wire cables that were a throw in with a pair of speakers I bought years ago. I never tried different wires with those speakers, and when I got rid of the speakers, I got rid of the cables. I have a couple nice pairs of interconnects that were thrown in on deals. The only wires I thought I could hear a difference with were discovery "Plus 4." But now I'm curious. I might go back and put a pair of "comcast" cables in and see what I hear.
F1, yes, that was the first time I came across the article. After reading what you said about him justifying using Monster Cables, I went back and scanned the article. I noticed the part about Mcintosh demo rooms. Is this what you were talking about?
------Despite the effectiveness of Gordon's cable demonstration and the truth about speaker wire, people visiting the McIntosh room at the shows, who had not experienced the cable demonstration, were disturbed that we were using ordinary heavy zip cord instead of one of the popular brands of speaker wire. Instead of listening to the McIntosh speakers and electronics, they recalled "bad" things they had been told about "common" speaker wire and this promoted questions about the "inferior" wire being used. When we changed the wire to a popular brand of wire, customers were happy with the setup, and directed their attention to the McIntosh equipment.
The demand for high quality speaker wire was increasing and appeared to be a new marketing area for several companies. McIntosh did not make or sell speaker wire. The solution seemed very obvious--rather than spend time and effort to create negative sales for McIntosh dealers who were beginning to sell speaker wire, it seemed best to encourage the speaker owner/customer to consult with the dealer about what speaker wire to use. Consequently, I no longer recommended the kind of wire or wire sizes in the speaker manuals.
By 1988, McIntosh no longer supplied audio interconnects with the electronics. Again, many kinds of special audio cables were available to the customer/owner. The dealer could also be consulted about what cables to use.
I credit the success of the speaker wire industry to their expert sales and marketing ability. However, it is my experience that ordinary copper wire, as long as it's heavy enough, is just as good as name brands.
Looking at this from a different perspective, there will always be those who will want expensive wire, not because there is an audible difference, but because they may value pride of ownership and prestige in a similar way to that of owning a Tiffany lamp or a Rolex watch.