Does all this mean that trustworthy conclusions are impossible? No. It means a balanced perspective is paramount. It’s a little like shopping for advice (which really is more useful than shopping for equipment): If honesty is the sole criterion, you’ll probably end up taking advice from someone honest, but incompetent. If competency is the sole criterion you get the picture.
Burn This:
We sincerely hope that after you have absorbed some of this information, and after you have set up your music system, you will put on a recording and hear the music, not the equipment. Unfortunately, the very process of being an informed and careful consumer involves at least temporarily increasing your awareness of the equipment. When the evaluation process is over, we hope you can turn it off.
Toward that end, burn any print outs of this text, or better yet, give it to a friend.
The Final Sell:
There is one more thing AudioQuest does want to remind you about-the AudioQuest Music recording label offers some of the finest artists performing some of the world’s greatest music-and they just happen to be superb recordings using the finest studios, tube microphones, cables(!) and lots of loving care.
