289 replies to this topic

[golf_bht]

Bobby_Digital:

Want some proof? Please come to the next CAASQ and I will proof it to you. Anyway those highend cable are in my car system for the comp!!!! I will setup my car for this ABX test. no arguement here, we just want to have some valid proof. Cable to be tested will consist of AQ sky & Viper, MIT T330 Plus, Monster Interlink 400M kII, Rockford fosgate twisted pair technology and you can bring your own cable if you like. How does sound?

[fuddbutter]

sounds good! ill be in for that

[audioquest]

Yeh!!!! at last! Solid Proof.

[Blackrazor]

golf_bht said:

I will setup my car for this ABX test.

How are you planning on doing that? Do you have an ABX switcher? If you just manually plug and unplug the cables, unless you can do it in a couple of seconds, it takes too long and the listeners ear adapts to the environment in that time

[Sonic Nirvana]

I will simply say this:
I have done a cable comparison too many times to count in the home system.
I have brought people in who have absolutely no interest as such in hifi but know I have a "fancy system".

The proposition is simply put "There is a raging controversy in the hifi world as to whether cables can make an audible difference to the sound you hear. What do you think?"

And then we swap 2 pairs of cables connecting the CD player to the pre-amp, simple operation requiring a few seconds.

The last time was between Monster 400s and Stinger Dreams as it happens, both decent quality cables. This just weeks ago with my next door neighbour after a thread on this subject *cough* elsewhere....

The next door neighbour has no axe to grind, no price to justify, no placebo to massage, etc

10 seconds with the second cable "Well, I'm amazed, wouldn't have thought, there IS a difference". It has NEVER failed to happen that way.

I DON'T see it as so much a performance "tool" but as a tuning tool. If you are chasing outright performance, do it by any other means.

In a car installation, the difficulties of getting a handle on this as a tuning method are for most just impossible.

In the end for car use, I just go with something "decent" on the basis it will do less in the area of loss in the signal than something cheap, as well as providing durable connection, be noiseless etc. and sensible "tuning" is out of the practical question.

As for $3000 as a tuning device, not my money......

No further posts from me on the subject.

[fuddbutter]

Critter said:

I will simply say this:
I have done a cable comparison too many times to count in the home system.
I have brought people in who have absolutely no interest as such in hifi but know I have a "fancy system".

The proposition is simply put "There is a raging controversy in the hifi world as to whether cables can make an audible difference to the sound you hear. What do you think?"

And then we swap 2 pairs of cables connecting the CD player to the pre-amp, simple operation requiring a few seconds.

The last time was between Monster 400s and Stinger Dreams as it happens, both decent quality cables.  This just weeks ago with my next door neighbour after a thread on this subject *cough* elsewhere....

The next door neighbour has no axe to grind, no price to justify, no placebo to massage, etc

10 seconds with the second cable "Well, I'm amazed, wouldn't have thought, there IS a difference". It has NEVER failed to happen that way.

I DON'T see it as so much a performance "tool" but as a tuning tool. If you are chasing outright performance, do it by any other means.

In a car installation, the difficulties of getting a handle on this as a tuning method are for most just impossible.

In the end for car use, I just go with something "decent" on the basis it will do less in the area of loss in the signal than something cheap, as well as providing durable connection, be noiseless etc. and sensible "tuning" is out of the practical question.

As for $3000 as a tuning device, not my money......

No further posts from me on the subject.

that still dosent tell me what makes a good cable.

ok say i wanted to design a cable, or if i am just going out to buy some, what do i look for? what makes a cable sound how it should?

everyone keeps telling me they can " hear" a difference but no one is telling me why they are heareing a difference, i want facts!

[audioquest]

Look at the staging, then the imaging. The harmonics in each frequancy will be more refine and into details. Harshness and grainne will be gone too. It will shift when it being change from entry level cable to a better cable. Look for single strand than mutiple stand in interconnect, Teflon insulation is so far the best. Best possible PSC (perfact suface copper)copper. Solderless connection, cold press (terminate in high votage) for interconnects. You will find some of this in the market.

[audioquest]

And every pair of cables need to be run-in for at least 70hrs.

[audioquest]

Blackrazor said:

golf_bht said:

I will setup my car for this ABX test.

How are you planning on doing that? Do you have an ABX switcher? If you just manually plug and unplug the cables, unless you can do it in a couple of seconds, it takes too long and the listeners ear adapts to the environment in that time

Sorry to say that your ear is still not train yet.

[fuddbutter]

audioquest said:

And every pair of cables need to be run-in for at least 70hrs.

why??
what effect on the copper does electricity have to mutate it in 70 hours into some unbelivable better sounding metal??
what happened in 140hours?
or is this a way of getting around an ABX test with new cables?



please if you want to comment in here, please back it up with something

[Blackrazor]

Critter said:

The proposition is simply put "There is a raging controversy in the hifi world as to whether cables can make an audible difference to the sound you hear. What do you think?"

And then we swap 2 pairs of cables connecting the CD player to the pre-amp, simple operation requiring a few seconds.

The last time was between Monster 400s and Stinger Dreams as it happens, both decent quality cables.  This just weeks ago with my next door neighbour after a thread on this subject *cough* elsewhere....

The next door neighbour has no axe to grind, no price to justify, no placebo to massage, etc

10 seconds with the second cable "Well, I'm amazed, wouldn't have thought, there IS a difference". It has NEVER failed to happen that way.

Does the testee know which cable is which before you plug it in? If so, its not an ABX test, you just brought psychoacoustics into the mix.

If RC and many other engineers that i know of can do ABX tests to hundred of people with ten grand at stake and still have noone able to pick the difference, then my money is on you having flaws in your testing methodology rather than the cables having any sonic difference.

I just did an impromptu test instore to show how susceptable people are to psychoacoustics... theres a guy who comes in quite often who's a bit of a hifi nut, he buys nice cables and tube amps and the like. Anyway, i showed him a nice Pioneer/Wharfedale system for his spare room, which he quite liked the sound of... Then i showed him a B&W/Onkyo System, which he listened to and said it sounded much clearer and more defined... the thing was that i had just pressed play on the Pioneer system again, but he was expecting the sound to come from the B&W/Onkyo system.

He found it sounded better purely because he thought it would, the system that was playing was identical both times.

[audioquest]

Bobby_Digital said:

audioquest said:

And every pair of cables need to be run-in for at least 70hrs.

why??
what effect on the copper does electricity have to mutate it in 70 hours into some unbelivable better sounding metal??
what happened in 140hours?
or is this a way of getting around an ABX test with new cables?



please if you want to comment in here, please back it up with something

Gave me a break it a holiday today need to yum cha.
Running-In: As with all audio components, audio cables require an adjustment period. This is often mistakenly referred to as "break-in". However, break-in is properly used to describe a mechanical change-engines break-in, loudspeaker and phono cartridge suspensions break-in. A cable's performance takes time to optimize because of the way a dielectric behaves (the way the insulating material absorbs and releases energy), changes in the presence of a charge. Cables will continue to improve in sound or picture quality over a period of several weeks. This is the same reason amplifiers, preamplifiers and CD players also require an adjustment period. The key difference between "adjusting" and "breaking-in" is that things don't "un-break-in", however, electrical components do "un-adjust". Several weeks of disuse will return a cable to nearly its original state.
The run-in time is essentially the same for all cables. However, the apparent need for run-in varies wildly. As with amplifiers and other components, the better the cable, the less distortion it has, and therefore the less there is to cover up the obnoxious distortion caused by being new. Since human perception is more aware of the existence of a distortion than the quantity, the better the cable, the worse in some ways it will sound when new, because the anemic forced two-dimensional effect resulting from being new will not be ameliorated by other gentler distortions. Please be patient when first listening to any superior product.
No getting around, I am no cheater. Please gave a litter respect for that my wealth comes from my creditbility.

[Blackrazor]

Quote

Running-In : The psychoacoustic effect perceived due to your ears adaptation to different sounds over a time period as they are heard, and therefore finding them more 'natural' with time. Has no basis in science and has nothing to do with the componentry itself, as verifiable by lab response analysis or audio engineering tools such as the Audio Precision 2 or Power Cube units

[Sonic Nirvana]

Blackrazor, the listener had no idea if one was supposed to be better OR different for that matter, I just said "Do you think there is a difference?".

The neighbour had never even heard of the concept, never mind the brands.

By the way, at the hi-fi ship I wiorked in many years ago, if I'd pulled a stunt like that I would have had my severence pay made up on the spot.....

[audioquest]

No story Just facts, I have many storys too. But no story. :hehe:
Wire-Just Getting From Here A To B There
On the face of it, nothing could be easier than just getting an audio, video or digital signal from one place to another-no amplification, no conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy or vice versa. The truth is, every cable must transfer a complex multi-octave signal without changing any of the information carried in that signal.

Damage Control
We all like to describe how a good component improves the performance of our system, a perfectly legitimate comment. Unfortunately, buried in this statement is often the misunderstanding that the better component actually improved the signal in some way. There are certain areas of digital processing where this is possible, but in the analog world signals don't get better, they only get worse. The substitution of a superior component improves a system only because it causes less damage.

Cables, like all components, should be chosen because they do the least damage. This "damage" comes in two basic forms: a relatively benign loss of information, or a change to the character. A visual analogy might illustrate this distinction: consider "perfect" as a totally clear pane of glass. Since no component is perfect, the best we can strive for would be analogous to a pane of glass with a light gray tint. Lower quality components would have a darker gray tint. These various densities of gray tint would represent various amounts of lost information.

If the glass were tinted green or yellow or red, these colors would represent changes in character. We are far more likely to notice, and be bothered by, a light colored tint than a denser gray tint. It is this mechanism of character versus quantity that causes much of the confusion in the pursuit of higher performance.