The key element here is..... volume. If you consider how many 60 watt light bulbs are produced....and then consider how many light bulbs for a specific projector are produced, the percentages and numbers tell the story.

Think short production runs, warehousing, cost of overhead and stocking as well as the number of different models and specifications. Think of the "optimum performance levels", average mean time before failure and product design and evolution.

So, with mark-up, allowance for defects, and inventory costs and overhead.

You get.....the feeling you have been "soaked", at "no extra charge"...

What's worse.... because of supply and demand, expect to pay even more.... if you have a "hard to get replacement" because of a limited supply run or obscure replacement number because of age.

In short...."we can... whenever we can, because we can."

I don't mean to rain on any one's parade but.... It's not often you find copper coat hangers anymore. The price of copper is too high.

A common coat hanger is soft steel or what would be called baling wire. Its closest industrial (proper name) is Mechanic's Wire (Soft Annealed Mechanic's Wire , 18 AWG.)

10-ga steel wire measures,0.00684,(Resistance in Ohms/ft), and measures 11.8,(Resistivity
10-6 ohm-cm).

10-ga copper wire measures,0.000999,(Resistance in Ohms/ft), and measures 1.724,(Resistivity
10-6 ohm-cm)respectively.

(see [www.stealth316.com])

I suppose that a coat hanger might be coated to prevent rust with a zinc coating but most likely that would be a lacquer or plastic finish. At any rate, I wonder as a conductor, steel or iron wouldn't conduct quite as well as copper, unless it were perhaps copper coated steel.

That wouldn't seem quite right simply because of the economics of production of coat hangers would be based on the lowest possible unit cost.

I agree that if you used common 18 gauge copper zip-cord I doubt you'd hear any difference,(provided there were limitations on length, and I'm assuming this would be about 1 meter in length based on an average length of a coat hanger).

But, let's just say, if your talking about a coat hanger right out of the closet, I think perhaps someone is telling a "creatively enhanced version of the truth..."

At the very least, they would have to strip-off the paint or lacquer...

And should the coat hangers work in the test as claimed, (if they were steel or iron only without a coating), I'd say that was a pretty good indication that the resitive qualities would have to be even more dramatic to be noticed, so why buy "99% oxygen-free copper" cable?

So much for the little details

I have to challenge the idea of "superior cable" on two basic elements.

The first, we don't hear all frequencies uniformly. As we age, our hearing becomes impaired at various frequencies. The dynamic range of various cables could be altered by bad solder joints anywhere in the signal path. This could be measured as resistance with a multi meter or with sophisticated computer based measurement devices. How it translates in to a frequency waveform doesn't mean that the listener involved will hear a uniform difference, because listeners aren't uniform in their hearing.

Secondly, if you check the AES, (Audio Engineering Society) website, you will find a white paper on "bad science" surrounding this very subject. In short, copper.... is copper. In most cases, a expert's claim of superior listening prowess, the "golden ear" is at best questionable. In many cases it's simply ego.

In this case though, I wonder because most wire coat hangers aren't made of copper simply because the price of copper has been higher than baling wire. The closest industrial (proper name) is Mechanic's Wire (Soft Annealed Mechanic's Wire , 18 AWG)

Memory, the ability to have perfect pitch (recall),and the ability to perfectly recall the test material all could be factors not quantified in some-one's claims of "better cable".

If you really want to get anal, consider Quincy Jones....with a head cold.

If you want to take the decimal point to the extreme, I suggest you use the same cable and monitor speakers that the original artist used in the studio he signed off on the final mix.

Even then, an artist like Sting would have different hearing at age 24 then he would at 60.

What's interesting, is that if you or I used these tactics, we'd be prosecuted in a heartbeat. In this case it's a corporation and an insurance company at that.... so... it's just considered "business as usual".

What's more, (in a case like this), if you sue, Blue Cross has deeper pockets and more attorneys. What are the chances of the "little guy" winning?

I'm glad in this case they picked on someone who has a "voice", but if a higher level executive's sees this, it will "all go away", and it will continue ad infinitum for the average guy...

Such is the way of the world...

Wow.... And to think this all started with a stack called "Beyond Cyberpunk"....what a long strange trip it's been!....

Good luck...!