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CONFESSION - about cables and interconnects

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El Rubio said:
Are there any double blind tests that conclusively show people picking boutique cables over basic cables?
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The very challenge is what you hear is a result of the gear found at either end of the cables as opposed to the cable itself. There are nearly an infinite number of combinations. Tests prove what they prove on the DUT(s). Extrapolating results globally and in to products not yet developed has no basis in science. Which is why reference to Russell's forty to fifty year old examples are an utter joke.

El Rubio said:
I have read about boutique wires not doing so well against even coat hangers...
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The question really depends upon whether or not you have any interest in improving the transparency of your system so that you hear deeper into your favorite music. Do you want to be exposed to better?

If you don't, then folks typically focus on the minority of high priced junk that is bandied about with derision and sophomoric jokes. Lots of pigs with lipstick to be found. Is that your focal point with audio?

There is also another world. The cables I use and that of a reviewer friend have a lower EDC (faster propagation) and have reduced effects over the gear to which they are connected. If you know the values for L and C, that can be easily calculated. Using balanced connections also reduces the cable effects - which is why I use them in both music and garage systems.
 
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AC50 said:
Things have changed so much in the audio industry. We used to have three excellent audio dealers in town, and these people were and are my friends, passionate enthusiasts and knowledgable experts. Now there's Best Buy. I couldn't agree more about the interaction between components and their connecting links. I run a single source, passive pre based system and believe me, I put a lot of study into what makes this admittedly simple system tick.
I find it amazing that 99% ignore the reality of high pressure marketing, regardless the field, and the stress and confusion it causes. I trust my heart, my intellect and my ears. I love the passion of this hobby and all the things I've learned from it.
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im very fortunate to have a neighborhood record store, a neighborhood hifi shop...no neighborhood grocery, but theres a sat farmers market that i can sometimes hit on a break between supply runs during work.
 
Sound great, all good to me, until you factor in the 40 cents worth of cable/wiring they use on the interior of the unit. I dunno, not trying to argue, if it sounds better to you just enjoy the tunes.
 
RickB said:
Geeze, more DBT nonsense...



Sometimes it may take hours of listening, or even days to get a real handle on the sound quality of different cables, even after over three decades of doing this stuff as a hobby and as an avocation...moving the cables in a high resolution system can also disrupt the sound...Cardas recommends to play your new cables and do not move them at all for at least 21 days...the original JPS Superconductor interconnects took at least this long to break in, I heard it many times and so did Martin DeWulf in his report in the late and lamented publication Bound for Sound...if you moved or bent them it would be hours before they came all the way back.

So, quickies while satisfying for a one night stand, don't always work well for cables...

It brings to mind the Acoustic Zen "Wow" cables...on first listen they really were WOW! But, after having them in a system and letting them run in for a while they didn't really have a wow factor anymore and became more of a Meh...I heard this from several people who took the cables home to audition them and then returned them after a while...so, if you had bought those on your first listen as time went by you could become dissatisfied

As always, YMMV

P.S. you should follow the cable talk on Head-Fi about inexpensive cables from AliExpress, 39 pages with improvements in cable sound being noticed hundreds of hours into the cables usage...

.
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Can you please tell me how much I’ll need to spend on gear before I can actually hear the difference in cables? No one has ever been able to tell me that and you sound like you might be the one who can
 
Danathepill said:
Can you please tell me how much I’ll need to spend on gear before I can actually hear the difference in cables? No one has ever been able to tell me that and you sound like you might be the one who can
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FWIW, and my perspective only - I don’t recommend to anyone that they spend significant amounts of money on cabling until they’re getting into a fairly high end system. There’s one exception to that rule, however - if someone listens to a single source such as a DAC/streamer, by putting one set of good cables into the rig, you’ve effectively brought all of the cabling up to that level, and are therefore more likely to hear a positive difference.

A case in point - I picked up a set of Synergistic Research ICs with active shielding for $100 as part of a package deal. There was really no place in the main rig for them, so I put them between the Cambridge Stream Magic 6 that’s the sole source in my porch system and the Onkyo receiver (U-jacks pulled, so it runs straight into the power amp section). The end result was that my hearing impaired spouse threatened me with bodily harm if I removed them. Certainly I heard a difference, but her? Who knows how her experience was impacted? “Okay, yes dear.” :) I estimate the total value of my porch rig to be under $1,000, BTW.
 
E-Stat said:
(...) "you're just hearing things" mantra from the non-experiential crowd.
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Unlikely mantra, 'cause of course you're hearing things - as anything immaterial can't be heard. Whereas imagining things would be another matter. ;)

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
I've used Kimber speaker wire since the early 80s. I was living in Houston and stopped by an audio store one Saturday to drool over their equipment. Little did I know that Ray Kimber was there. They were running a test comparing Kimber speaker wire against 12 gauge lamp cord. They we using a Mark Levinson amps and a Linn LP12 driving a pair Maggie's.
I listened to it with the lamp cord first, sounded damn good. Then they put on the Kimber. I noticed that the music had more detail mostly in the mids and high end. Then they put the lamp cord back on. To me it sounded like it sucked the life out of the music. Needless to say Ray sold some Kimber wire that day. I went home and put the Kimber in my setup. Marantz 3200/140 amps, Garrard Zero 100 driving Klipsch LaScalas. Listened to a couple of songs. With my system they tightened up the bass quite a bit and had more detail in the mids. Then I put the lamp cord back in, didn't even play the second song. I still use the Kimber wire I bought that day in my main system. A few years back I lent the Kimber wire to a friend for a week, he wound up buying some. But what got me was my son asking what was up my system , he said it sounded noisier and kind of lifeless. It didn't have Kimber wire.
I am also a big fan of Morrow interconnects. I bought a couple pair of MA1s about three years ago. They took a while to break in but once they did they sound damn nice. Good detail, big soundstage, really clean sounding. I wound up trading them in for MA3s. The MA3s are amazing. Great detail over the whole musical range, great dynamics.
 
'Quality' vintage speaker cables for quality vintage stereo systems !!

There is something to it. :)

:music:
 
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E-Stat said:
Similar story for me.

A reviewer friend introduced me to the concept of aftermarket power cords and lent me his three Kimber Palladians for a weekend some twenty years ago. One for the CDP and the others for the power amps. I was using passive attenuators at the time so that was the signal chain. I simply heard more information from familiar material. Such is widely accepted by those who have actually used them in their system - as opposed to the chorus of non-experiential theorists who must rely upon *belief*.

The benefits also apply to low voltage DC cables used for driving small streaming endpoints. The designer of the Sonore ultraRendu I use in the main system suggested trying low inductance Canare star quad cable. Spent the princely sum of $8 for wire and connectors and gave it a whirl. What improved was dynamics - an unanticipated area of improvement. I later spend a bit more for commercially produced cabling with better connectors from Ghent Audio. And got another for the RPi used in the garage system. Think those ran about $30 each.
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So true. It really is amazing just what $30 these days can buy you in simple power cord upgrades from the likes of Audiocrast, Pangea and others, not too mention some of the truly higher-end offerings. As always, there’s a point of diminishing returns with it and you just have to be mindful of that and find the sweet spot where performance beats expectation and the price paid for it. They’re worth the money from my back and forth listening trials. The difference in power cables is immediately noticeable with an Eigentakt EVAL-1 class D amp which has been a very useful and transparent tool in evaluating system and component-level changes. There’s even 1m Cardas Golden Ratio power cables to be had for only around $60 shipped nowadays.
 
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RickB said:
Geeze, more DBT nonsense...
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Another weak and evasive dismissal.

RickB said:
Sometimes it may take hours of listening, or even days to get a real handle on the sound quality of different cables, even after over three decades of doing this stuff as a hobby and as an avocation...moving the cables in a high resolution system can also disrupt the sound...Cardas recommends to play your new cables and do not move them at all for at least 21 days...the original JPS Superconductor interconnects took at least this long to break in, I heard it many times and so did Martin DeWulf in his report in the late and lamented publication Bound for Sound...if you moved or bent them it would be hours before they came all the way back.

So, quickies while satisfying for a one night stand, don't always work well for cables...

It brings to mind the Acoustic Zen "Wow" cables...on first listen they really were WOW! But, after having them in a system and letting them run in for a while they didn't really have a wow factor anymore and became more of a Meh...I heard this from several people who took the cables home to audition them and then returned them after a while...so, if you had bought those on your first listen as time went by you could become dissatisfied

As always, YMMV

P.S. you should follow the cable talk on Head-Fi about inexpensive cables from AliExpress, 39 pages with improvements in cable sound being noticed hundreds of hours into the cables usage...

.
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Sorry, but you can’t measure it, you can’t compare it, and you must let the wire “break-in.” Every time there is some method suggested to confirm the claims, it isn’t possible because of some obscure or questionable property. Now it’s cable break-in.

Why can’t a “DBT” be done with cables already “broken-in”? Why don’t the manufacturers that claim a wire must be broken in, just break the raw wire in before they assemble it? How did Cardas come up with 21days? What did they measure?
What changed in Wow cables? Perception maybe? Can’t move or bend the wires, really? Can you show any change in the wire or signal on it from simply moving it? Nope, but there’s a dude at Cardas that can hear the difference. It’s enough of a change to move a speaker coil enough to move the air across a room enough for you to hear the subtle change, but it can’t be measured.

How do they know how to make the cables when they can’t measure any of the claimed properties?

My questions are rhetorical except for the last one.
 
E-Stat said:
The very challenge is what you hear is a result of the gear found at either end of the cables as opposed to the cable itself. There are nearly an infinite number of combinations. Tests prove what they prove on the DUT(s). Extrapolating results globally and in to products not yet developed has no basis in science. Which is why reference to Russell's forty to fifty year old examples are an utter joke.
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Your explanation just obscures and doesn’t explain anything. If the IC’s or wires are affecting the output in a significant ( audible) way, show it.
Referencing the coat hangers is a joke, but if accurate, the joke is on the cable manufacturers. Maybe the coat hangers were broken in and the cables just out of the box new.

E-Stat said:
The question really depends upon whether or not you have any interest in improving the transparency of your system so that you hear deeper into your favorite music. Do you want to be exposed to better?

If you know the values for L and C, that can be easily calculated.
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No, the question is whether the claims made are real or perceived-period. What someone “wants” their cables to be is the basis of perception bias.

The L&C values can easily be calculated and measured. So can their effect, but that part never seems to be addressed.
 
We all have our areas of expertise. It’s possible and exciting
to gain knowledge from the work of others. I will never be anything close to an electrical engineer.
 
billyz said:
Thank you for sharing your experience with cables. I too have found a difference usually for the better . A very discerning hifi enthusiast friend told of his experience with power strips and higher grade AC outlets. I poo pooed the concept until I tried it. I found that the power amp did sound better when plugged directly into the wall outlet. I have tried and still use some very nice power outlet strips. But I always plug the power amp directly into the wall outlet. I also replace the outlets for my hifi gear with hospital grade types.
I did try a high end ( expensive) set of Aluminum speaker cables and they sounded horrible in my system , lamp cord was much better.
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High end Aluminum? I never knew those two even existed , must have been some marketing going on that worded that one :dunno:


Audiofreak71
 
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