Yes, let's have fun.
Point 2: Ray hires graduates from the Univ. of Utah School of Engineering, one of the better schools in the nation, to work for Kimber. As Ray describes it, the university is a ready made source of talent for him.
Point 4 direct from the website:
Within the audio-video industry, there is no engineer with a more complete understanding of the scientific tenets critical to signal isolation and current delivery. These unique work related experiences at the highest levels of government and computer science led Caelin Gabriel to develop a series of fundamental precepts for the patented technologies and custom-designed parts that form the cornerstone of Shunyata Research products.
Couple observations....
RE: "Point 2"
Last I checked, University of Utah Engineering was ranked #53. The cables I use and love were designed by people who worked/graduated from an Engineering program consistently ranked in the top 5 worldwide. Does this make the ones I use inherently better?
Dave Wilson hires grads and current students from Brigham Young. Is this what gives Wilson speakers credibility?
One last consideration, with all due respect to the guys that Ray Kimber does hire and their intelligence, the "best and brightest" in your typical engineering program are not exactly yearning to work for a high end cable manufacturer. Yes, those of us on this forum accept that audio cables are worthy of extravagant design. This perspective does not hold true on most engineering campus.
RE: "Point 4"
While Caelin Gabriel is certainly a bright man, I have always considered him to be a far greater master of spin than scientist. Consider the very statement Myles quotes... "There is no Engineer with a more complete..." This does not actually say that Caelin is an engineer. It could just as easily have been said, "There is no Garbage Man with a more complete understanding...." This later statement would prove very likely true, with all due respect to your typical garbage man. But "engineer" makes the point better.
Also the nature of that quote is dripping with arrogance. "There is NO better..." Really? Because he's taken them all on, head to head? Or he just thinks that highly of himself and his specific background? Not that it actually matters, but I know physicists that are world renowned that look at some of Caelin's designs and laughs at them. One even went so far as to say (regarding the original Hydra), "Yeah, that's something he would have learned in the Army. They do that sort of thing in the desert."
The thing that amuses me the most about Shunyata is the evolution their "marketing" has taken over the years. BEFORE, Caelin was a rockstar in the high end, he was a self admitted college dropout who joined the army and eventually earned the EQUIVALENT of an electrical engineering degree and later sent to the NSA. Years later that story morphed into "Was recruited out of college by the NSA." This updated phrasing certainly sound much more impressive. But then who didn't do this as best they could when writing out their resume? haha.
This is not to pick on Caelin. I used Shunyata myself back in the day and regularly recommended it to others. But what comes out of Shunyata marketing has continued to gain an amusing increase in the precision of the way they parse their statements.
There surely ARE some very bright and credible engineers that work in this industry. But they tend to be quiet about their credentials. Personally, I think credibility is far too freely associated with much of the high end. It's just one more marketing angle, kind of like (000) speaker cables.
