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Don't skimp on interconnects, they are very important...

Well... if it is a sound quality issue, and in a no holds barred situation, why not eliminate the connectors all together and solder the connecting cables to their places inside each piece of equipment. It will be time consuming and very inconvenient but hey... if quality interconnects make a difference, and I'm not saying they don't, eliminating them altogether ought to improve things even more. I suppose the question might become what cable to use but that wouldn't be too difficult to answer, just use cable supplied with good interconnects. Cut the connectors off, strip and tin the wire then solder it straight to the wiring of the internal circuit of each component. Not only would the interconnects be eliminated but the existing jacks on the equipment will be bypassed as well.
 
Dr. Ears .... I too have found that the KLEE Copper Harmony RCA plugs are an improvement. I have been using a pure silver wire (also from Parts Connexion) that is made by DHLabs with the Copper Harmony RCA's and had excellent results. I'll have to try your formula for wire as that sounds very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
 
So I shortened all my ICs (and PCs) on the back of my stack, which is a literal old school stack (tuner, CDP, preamp, CDP) flanked by two turntables.
I've put this out for discussion several times and no bites:)
I shortened everything in the interest of simplicity (and aesthetics) and to lower the possibility of hum pickup or crosstalk. Every cable is just as long as it needs to be to function.
But, to the cable nazis, is a 9" IC four times as good as the former 36" cable it was? Or four times worse? (36/4=9")
If "quality" is a function of cable goodness, surely length is a factor also.
In any case, I love my simple compact readily comprehendible cabling that I made myself and am not disposed to changing it out.
The rig sounds great! Maybe the cables are cause in the matter!? Who knows?
 
I am using the KLEI Absolute Harmony RCAs with Mogami 2803 and 2497 cable. I heard a huge difference in my system when I switched to these.
 
c.coyle said:
Agreed about ultimately being rinky dink. If you hear it, you hear it. Who am I to argue? But I am simply pointing out that, when you boil it all down, these threads are based only on testimonials. Why should I spend money based only on what someone else tells me he hears?

Skeptic does not equal naysayer.
Click to expand...

Skeptic you can be .. but,

Every component in the reproduction chain has an effect on the output. If this were not the case, then they would all sound the same, NO ??

Cables are the last step in tuning a high resolution system ...

Here's a challenge for you ..
Sit down with some masking tape, a bag of RCA plugs, a soldering iron, and a few spools of various gauge copper, silver and stranded wires .. lay them out on the tape in parallel and solder them..
Borrow a truly high resolution system that's using fine separate components and start swapping the interconnects, and throw in a couple cheapo store-boughts in the mix.... you'll hear a difference.
Or if you don't want to solder, repeat this with a variety of Speaker cables .. you'll hear the difference.
The key is a high res system...If you have a low res system, the system will mask the subtleties ..
There's a reason why most good high end audio shops will let you try expensive cables before you buy ..

The problem with cable evaluations is generalization ... every system is different.

(BTW, 24ga. solid-core copper or silver wire laid out parallel on masking tape sounded good enough to me to use it as my main cables in a system that was using Counterpoint, Electrcompaniet, and Magnepan gear .. mostly because I couldn't afford to repeatedly spend $70-$100 per interconnect to best it .. It sounds good and is tuneable by changing the wires.)

And .. no, I never had any problem with inducing hum because it was unshielded, but I drew the line at using it between the tonearm and the preamp .. I'm still using un-shielded, parallel today, but the masking tape is long gone ..
 
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Past time to talk about interconnects ... They always sound different from one another.
I always buy 4-6 of them and try them all ..
Keep the one that you like best ...
 
runnin' said:
The RCA connectors by Eichmann in the first post are a very sound scientific approach to the very cheap ass idea that was RCA. I've got 3 pairs of interconnects with them and they do improve the sound. Glad to see a version of them is now under $100/set.
Click to expand...


There's an even cheaper option that are superb value for money - search for 'star tellurium' on the big auction site and you'll note the variety of AECO Star RCA connectors (both metal or polymer bodied) at a great price (somewhere around $USD25 delivered for four?)

They sound as good as the base line Eichmanns IMHO, and can be had with gold, silver or rhodium plated, tellurium copper conductors (I subjectively prefer the silver).

Here's what the black polymer bodied connectors look like:

silvercopper2_zpsvs71rqcy.jpg


milspec2_zpsi2rndxco.jpg
 
I got the set of 4 KLE RCAs for $50 and I have to say that the knockoff WBT ones from ebay are better built and sound better and are 1/5th of the price. this is the last time I'm overpaying for name or for "craftsmanship". these KLE harmony are literally just plastic all over. I wish I could return.
done.
 
Decibel_116 said:
I am using the KLEI Absolute Harmony RCAs with Mogami 2803 and 2497 cable. I heard a huge difference in my system when I switched to these.
Click to expand...
I switched to 2497 from Blue Jeans LC-!, a big improvement for me as well. I wonder if the double shielding in the bjc's is the culprit. They sound rolled off in comparison.
 
c.coyle said:
What works for you is what works for you. Your ears and brain are just as much parts of your system as your amp and speakers. But my ears and brain are not part of your system, so I may not experience what you are experiencing. It's possible that you are the only person experiencing exactly what you are experiencing.

Me personally? Belden 1505F Coax and Switchcraft 3502A RCAs sound as good as anything else I've ever heard. Buy, that's just me.

EDIT: And let me just say this, since I'm feeling edgy this morning: If you ". . . cannot explain the science of what makes them sound so good . . . " then there is no science involved.
Click to expand...
I have to ask are you trying to fight the Dunning-Kruger effect in others, or yourself, or both?

Incidentally, I believe that interconnects can make a difference, and that the effects can indeed be measured and/or modelled and when used in conjunction with valid models of the other audio components differences in response can be shown. However, I discount the belief that the use of, say, silver, in a plug makes a significant difference, and the inability for any scientifically/statistically valid listening evaluations to ever distinguish between interconnects with only such distinctions is telling. Confirmation bias is a powerful force...
 
Akustic said:
Skeptic you can be .. but,

Every component in the reproduction chain has an effect on the output. If this were not the case, then they would all sound the same, NO ??

Cables are the last step in tuning a high resolution system ...

Here's a challenge for you ..
Sit down with some masking tape, a bag of RCA plugs, a soldering iron, and a few spools of various gauge copper, silver and stranded wires .. lay them out on the tape in parallel and solder them..
Borrow a truly high resolution system that's using fine separate components and start swapping the interconnects, and throw in a couple cheapo store-boughts in the mix.... you'll hear a difference.
Or if you don't want to solder, repeat this with a variety of Speaker cables .. you'll hear the difference.
The key is a high res system...If you have a low res system, the system will mask the subtleties ..
There's a reason why most good high end audio shops will let you try expensive cables before you buy ..

The problem with cable evaluations is generalization ... every system is different.

(BTW, 24ga. solid-core copper or silver wire laid out parallel on masking tape sounded good enough to me to use it as my main cables in a system that was using Counterpoint, Electrcompaniet, and Magnepan gear .. mostly because I couldn't afford to repeatedly spend $70-$100 per interconnect to best it .. It sounds good and is tuneable by changing the wires.)

And .. no, I never had any problem with inducing hum because it was unshielded, but I drew the line at using it between the tonearm and the preamp .. I'm still using un-shielded, parallel today, but the masking tape is long gone ..
Click to expand...
I have to ask- what do you consider to be a high resolution system?
My system consists of a "fixed" VPI classic SE/3D arm/Miyajima Madake cartridge, modified retubed Hovland HP-100 preamp, RME ADI-2 PRO FS ADC/DAC, fully calibrated/tested/updated Otari MX50 tape deck, Rogue M180 amps with NOS small signal tubes, ML Montis with added DSP on the woofer, HSU ULS15 II with DSP, room corner bass trap, room response measured using XTZ PRO II and corrected. Listening room c. 6mx13mx8m with adjusted reverb time.
Would that be considered to be a hi-res system, and if not, why not?
 
wyn palmer said:
I have to ask are you trying to fight the Dunning-Kruger effect in others, or yourself, or both?

Incidentally, I believe that interconnects can make a difference, and that the effects can indeed be measured and/or modelled and when used in conjunction with valid models of the other audio components differences in response can be shown. However, I discount the belief that the use of, say, silver, in a plug makes a significant difference, and the inability for any scientifically/statistically valid listening evaluations to ever distinguish between interconnects with only such distinctions is telling. Confirmation bias is a powerful force...
Click to expand...
Wyn...what do think about silver plated copper conductors in the cable itself?

Any truth to surface effects on electron flow ?
 
wyn palmer said:
I have to ask- what do you consider to be a high resolution system?
My system consists of a "fixed" VPI classic SE/3D arm/Miyajima Madake cartridge, modified retubed Hovland HP-100 preamp, RME ADI-2 PRO FS ADC/DAC, fully calibrated/tested/updated Otari MX50 tape deck, Rogue M180 amps with NOS small signal tubes, ML Montis with added DSP on the woofer, HSU ULS15 II with DSP, room corner bass trap, room response measured using XTZ PRO II and corrected. Listening room c. 6mx13mx8m with adjusted reverb time.
Would that be considered to be a hi-res system, and if not, why not?
Click to expand...

Yours definitively ...
Making the point that at some level the other components in the chain mask the subtle changes that cables make ..
Obviously a 4 watt transistor amp into 4" speakers isn't gonna benefit much, and I hesitate to start a flame war by mentioning receivers, but obviously under-powered receivers with veiled loudspeakers aren't going to point up much difference either ..(although I'd bet that a lot of them would be surprised at the difference that a good set of speaker cables could make)

I've just noticed that denials of cabling effects on the sound of the system rarely come from folks who are listening to high end, high resolution systems .. the whole mid-fi, hi-fi argument gets nowhere fast because often folks get defensive about whatever they're listening to .. when the system resolves those small details of the music that add realism, I call it high resolution ..

Yours is because a VPI is all about vibration control and therefore fine movements of the cartridge are resolved and your downstream chain isn't masking any detail either.. a tonearm with a penny on top can't..
 
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Well, you have to remember that essentially electrons don't flow- the energy is exchanged primarily through the propagation of fields at a significant fraction of the velocity of light. The "drift" velocity of electrons is quite low.
The question is actually pretty difficult to answer in any kind of definitive way.
The fields propagate within the body of the conductor and it's because of this that skin effect exists. So, near surface conductivity has little effect at LF and more effect as the frequency goes up. However, the skin depth is proportional to the square root of the resistivity (the fields penetrate further for a lower resistivity) so the skin depth for copper which has 6% higher resistivity than silver is about 3% greater. As a result the tiny difference in net conductivity for a copper wire coated in silver is at least somewhat offset by a better skin depth. The skin depth of copper at 10kHz is 652u, and for Ag it's 634u, and at 20kHz it's about 70% of this. So, if you keep the wire diameter or annulus depth substantially less than 1mm (0.04") skin effect is essentially irrelevant for audio.
18gauge solid wire has a diameter of c. 1mm, so if you really care you should make your conductors out of 18 gauge or smaller wire and bundle a bunch of them in parallel, and Cu would be better than Ag.
Of course, all you're really doing is changing the frequency dependence of the wire resistance, so the best answer is to make the wire as short as possible, and if you really care about the HF then depending on your speakers the speaker wire inductance might become important, so having the return conductor tightly coupled to the signal conductor becomes essential (it minimizes the "loop area" and hence the inductance , as does having multiple parallel paths.
And this doesn't even address the issue of capacitance.
If this sounds confusing- it is. There really is no perfect answer- but there also seems to be no reason to assume that Ag is superior to low defect Cu.
By the way, Ag also oxidizes more readily than Cu, however due to electrode potentials Ag coated Cu is more resistant to corrosion than Cu or Ag on their own, so military wires are often Teflon coated silver plated Cu. However as the environment that these wires are designed to resist is not found in the home, there really seems to be no need for it.
 
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