Your Monster Cable is nonsense.

Skipped

EdGrip - I  can see that a performer might get a confidence boost  from playing golden gear, even if his ability level prevents him from making the most of the golden gear. But that is not proof that the golden gear does not deserve it's golden title.

I would find your argument more persuasive if you could seperate gear which you believe has achieved an unjustified reputation through marketing (or from Gear Page peer pressure frenzy) from gear which has acheived a reputation (against all the odds?)  because it is, er.........Awesome.

Of course, I suppose it is possible that you think that all high end gear is over-rated? Maybe you could clear that one up.

Rocker

@ICBM, my experience of guitar cables is fairly limited so I accept your argument that guitar cables can affect the sound. But then I never A/Bd tested them. I choose one and it works, for home use that is good enough for me. And I always adjust the tone controls anyway so what I lose on the swings I gain on .......

ManWithoutSkin

I posed this a while back on the old MR forum.  

My cousin was working for a company down in Kent that was importing HDMI cables from China.  I can't really remember the actual figures, he told them to me a good two years back, but it was along the lines of them buying a cable for less than a pound, they then sold it on to a different company for around £15, who rebranded it and sold it to shops for somewhere around £50 where it'd end up on the shelves for £100. 

ICBM

Rocker said:

@ICBM, my experience of guitar cables is fairly limited so I accept your argument that guitar cables can affect the sound. But then I never A/Bd tested them. I choose one and it works, for home use that is good enough for me. And I always adjust the tone controls anyway so what I lose on the swings I gain on .......

There is a lot to be said for this approach .

JayGee

EdGrip said:

The matter of a performer playing better because their better/peer-approved kit gives them confidence, makes perfect sense. I would be interested in this question, though; does the confidence come from their kit actually sounding and responding better to them, OR does it come from the comforting knowledge that they are definitely holding an R8, stomping on a genuine Klon, and all connected up with Monster cable and anyone who says they aren't is lying? 

An opponent might say, no Ed, you're wrong - are they not already be the bravest and most confident of souls precisely because they are playing through the very "best" of gear, so there is nothing to hide behind and any flaws must be within themselves? I would argue that if you took all that golden gear away, and made them play with a well-set-up £400 guitar and an old solid-state Peavey, and they said "I can't possibly work in these conditions!", you would have your answer. I am sure you would find that the "certainty" of peer-approved gear is as psychologically effective to many as actual audible differences. 

The interesting thing is that this is, at least theoretically, testable - genuine vintage guitars can be exchanged with well executed relics, expensive hand-wound "boutique" pickups can be swapped for Irongear, GFS, and the like on identical guitars, and the same for "boutique" hardware. Luthiers could perhaps be persuaded to build visually identical guitars with controlled weight, weight distribution, etc using more or less exalted materials, construction techniques or whatever, and rehousing amps, FX, and speaker drivers would be a doddle. 

To be honest I'd be vaguely surprised if at least some of this stuff hadn't been done by some of the larger  manufacturers, although, given the degree to which the marketing of expensive high-end kit depends on intangibles (Mojo, heritage, call it what you will...) they actually have more to gain from uncertainty, controversy, and speculation than from objective empirically supported knowledge... :-)

ThePrettyDamned

I remember seeing a blind test video comparing a bad monkey to a boutique overdrive.

Except it was a trick - both sounds were the same bad monkey at the same settings. Guitarist insisted that sound 'a' was the boutique overdrive and sound 'b' was the off the shelf option.

Oddly enough, it's not on YouTube anymore. But this guy was absolutely adamant that 'a' sounded better, and had a huge grin on his face everytime they went back to it.

fretfinder

EdGrip said:

The matter of a performer playing better because their better/peer-approved kit gives them confidence, makes perfect sense. I would be interested in this question, though; does the confidence come from their kit actually sounding and responding better to them, OR does it come from the comforting knowledge that they are definitely holding an R8, stomping on a genuine Klon, and all connected up with Monster cable and anyone who says they aren't is lying? 

An opponent might say, no Ed, you're wrong - are they not already be the bravest and most confident of souls precisely because they are playing through the very "best" of gear, so there is nothing to hide behind and any flaws must be within themselves? I would argue that if you took all that golden gear away, and made them play with a well-set-up £400 guitar and an old solid-state Peavey, and they said "I can't possibly work in these conditions!", you would have your answer. I am sure you would find that the "certainty" of peer-approved gear is as psychologically effective to many as actual audible differences. 

Not sure about this 'peer-approved' point. I have some nice gear but no one else in my band suffers from GAS or gives a shit whether I play an R7 or a Tokai Strat, and no-one in the audience shows any interest in the gear or seems to care about what instruments/amps/fx we're using.