"An audiophile needs to do several things before he or she dies to be considered a true audiophile," writes Steven Stone for The Absolute Sound.
"First they have to have owned, lived with, or at least cohabited with a pair of original Quad ESL-57s. Second, they have to own at least one copy of Dark Side of the Moon, Casino Royale, or Famous Blue Raincoat. And, lastly, they have to experience the AudioQuest Boombox Demo."
As Steven explains, the demo consists of listening to a modest compact three-piece stereo system — a boombox — that has been modified to accept banana plugs for simple switching of speaker cables. Using one piece of music and beginning with original Monster cable, the demonstration gradually proceeds through several increasingly sophisticated models of AudioQuest cable.
In this demonstration, the boombox itself does a couple very important things: First, it is a catalyst for an open mind, for turning the normal work of the evaluation process into something intriguing and fun.
Second, and just as important (if not more so), the boombox directly confronts and challenges two of the greatest, most prevalent and prevailing myths in hi-fi — that, in order to fully appreciate meaningful differences between components, a listener must first own two things:
- A sufficiently resolving or revealing system
- Golden ears
Point 1 is closely related to the weakest link fallacy. While true in many circumstances, the idea that any chain is only as strong as its weakest link has no place in hi-fi: An improvement to any part of an audio system will result in an overall improvement in performance.
The boombox, therefore, attacks this misconception head-on, proving that there isn’t just one weak link in a system, that even a modest system can reveal differences between components, and that "golden ears" are not necessary to appreciate those differences.
In his experience, TAS's Steven Stone noted increased resolution, clarity, and naturalness.
"After the final pass using AudioQuest’s CV-4 cable with DBS, I had to admit that I’d heard systems at shows costing four figures that didn’t sound as good. After the last swap, we went back to the original Monster cable to see if it was really as bad as we initially thought it was. Yep, back to mid-fi mediocrity. We were listening to a cheap Sharp stereo again."
He concludes that cables "can profoundly affect the transparency, immediacy, emotional impact, and cumulative quality of a stereo system. And I dare anyone who thinks that cables don’t matter or that speaker cable products are all snake oil to participate in this demo. It will change you in a profound way."
To this day, the Boombox Demo remains one of AudioQuest's most important and effective practices, reminding listeners of the elements of their enthusiasm for high-performance audio, encouraging them to let go of unnecessary biases, and to listen with open minds and ears.
