Audio Leads- a revelation

[Donny]

We've had some discussions about new CD Players recently. After some consideration and a real investigation on the net I bought the Cambridge 640C CD PLayer and was really pleased with the purchase, my CDs came alive. However there was a rave review in this months What Hi-Fi about a new RCA phono lead, connecting the CD player to the amp, well I bought one and for a modest outlay of of £40 I have improved the sound quality of the music yet again. The cable Van Den Hul "The Name". The review said " A modest investment returns a lovely sonic balance with great dynamics. Tunes stop and start with accuracy and the NAME sounds rich without losing information"

Maybe the first step (before buying a new CD player) is to buy the interconnect first. You just might not need to purchase the CD Player at all.

I've just bought the Regina Carter ("Pagannini album) which sounds just unbelievable with my new gear. It almost sounds like a different album to the one I played on my old gear.

[jonesy]

Maybe the first step (before buying a new CD player) is to buy the interconnect first. You just might not need to purchase the CD Player at all.


Right on, Donny.
There's much more to this than meets the eye; Cable isn't an accessory - it's a component.

Unfortunately, many tend to overlook what good cable can do, thinking that "wire is wire". Nothing could be further from the truth. A general rule of thumb is to invest 15%(min) of the total system cost in interconnects and cable. Higher resolution systems can support more - the gain being musical transparency and detail.

Van den Hul make a fine cable which I recommended for years when I was in the high end audio biz. Very open, musical and well priced.

By the way, if anyone is thinking of upgrading their system, there's much to be said for starting with the "front end" - the CD player - not the speakers.

:yeahthat:

[Phil Meloy]

Donny just out of interest what were you using before?

P.S. Glad you're so happy with your new player.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Good quality cables are all that's needed. These can be expensive or inexpensive. Find a good quality cable at your price point and go for it. Beware of companies that give all kinds of audio attributes to their cables. I hate the word "Transparency". It has little meaning to me with audio. Bass, treble, midrange, separation... these things I can hear. Transparency is something I've never heard.

A general rule of thumb is to invest 15%(min) of the total system cost in interconnects and cable. Higher resolution systems can support more - the gain being musical transparency and detail.

I don't agree with this at all. Applying this algorithm would mean the better the equipment, the more expensive the cable. If you buy a highly-regarded CD player for $2K, you do not need to buy a $300 RCA cable. Price has nothing to do with cable quality.

The guys that run Audioholics.com (http://www.audioholics.com) talk extensively about cables... their benefits as well as thier myths. They debunk most claims made by the cable industry. Their proving ground is double-blind listening tests. Unless a cable manufacturer has had double-blind listening tests done using an outside company, I wouldn't believe a word they say. Audioholics has a cabling guide here (http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/buyingguides/cablebudgetguidelines.php). They recommend 5-7%. I think even this might be a little high.

FWIW, I am now using Outlaw Audio's (http://www.outlawaudio.com) PCA interconnects (http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/cables.html). $43 for a pair of 1.2 meter cables when you buy 3. They do the trick nicely. I bought them because they are hefty and well made but they don't break the bank. Before these, I used Monster's entry-level models, which, by the way. worked very well. I really didn't need to buy these Outlaw cables... the Monster's probably would've worked fine, but I wanted to hook up my SACD/DVD-Audio deck to a multi-channel input. I went with these Outlaw cables and I have been happy.

Later,
Kevin

[jonesy]

The most important component in any audio system is the source, the reason being that all electronics downstream from the source, cables included, will degrade the signal to some extent before it reaches the speakers.

The more advanced the system, the more it is capable of extracting and reproducing music with the least amount of distortion and coloration. Cheap cable restricts and colors the sound.

If you buy a highly-regarded CD player for $2K, you do not need to buy a $300 RCA cable. Price has nothing to do with cable quality.


Price has everything to do with cable quality. If that wasn't the case, $2K CD players would come with cheap cables, which they don't. Poorer quality cable will not reject RF distortion, as an example, anywhere to the extent that better shielded cable will. Certainly, you could hook up a $2K CD player with $140, or for that matter, $50 cable, but depending on what you're feeding that signal into, the results will not be constant. If the pre-amp is indeed "transparent", which is to say, it allows you to distinguish more in terms of low-level resolution and detail, then given the coloration of the cheaper cable, that coloration is going contaminate the signal all the way to the speakers.

The guys that run Audioholics.com talk extensively about cables... their benefits as well as thier myths. They debunk most claims made by the cable industry. Their proving ground is double-blind listening tests. Unless a cable manufacturer has had double-blind listening tests done using an outside company, I wouldn't believe a word they say. Audioholics has a cabling guide here. They recommend 5-7%. I think even this might be a little high.

Audioholics can recommend what they will, but differences exist and can be readily heard. Trust your own ears. I'd be surprised, to say the least, if there exists a $350 cable that can equal (let alone outperform) what is currently connecting my $5k CD player in a $25K system.

Ultimately, you buy what you're comfortable with.

[Tenorman]

On top of the inter-connects - don't forget the speaker cables, especially if you have a long run. The cable needs to be heavily sheilded, especially with the amount of radio signals bouncing around a house these days - phones, Wi-Fi etc. You can also pick up interference from power cables running alongside the speaker cable, even from behind the skirting board

[Kevin Bresnahan]

On top of the inter-connects - don't forget the speaker cables, especially if you have a long run. The cable needs to be heavily sheilded, especially with the amount of radio signals bouncing around a house these days - phones, Wi-Fi etc. You can also pick up interference from power cables running alongside the speaker cable, even from behind the skirting board

This is simply not true. Speaker wires do not "pick up" RF signals!! They are wires, not transmission lines. Take it from someone in the microwave industry... my current job is testing GSM power amplifiers for cell phones. You cannot couple a wireless phone's transmission at 2.4 GHz into your audio. It simply does not happen.

I am going to back out of this discussion. You guys believe far too many of the outrageous claims of the high-end cable manufacturers... or should I say snake oil salesmen. I think you're wasting your money, particularly with expensive speaker wires.

BTW, I have done many double-blind listening tests. I, thank god, have never heard any difference in speaker wires.

[benny]

in a cable, there are three main properties that will effect you sound... capacitance, inductance and resistance.

capacitance - baisically, the capacitance in a cable will bleed out high frequencies from your signal... from the lowest frequency being bled out, all frequencies above this will also be bled out... the higher the capacitance, the lower the frequencies are that will be bled out... sounds bad right? maybe a big expensive cable will solve this... well, yeah, maybe if you've got super-sonic hearing... the capacitance in even a cheap cable is so low that to the average human, it's impossible to even hear the effected frequencies.

inductance - this is baisically a meauser of how much an inductor (our cable) will resist the changing amplitude of an AC signal - which an audio signal is... inductors work in the oposite way to capacitors, and the inductance needs to be higher to effect higher frequencies... from the highest frequency an inductor is effecting, all frequencies below this will be effected as well... so this sounds bad too doesn't it?... once again, if you've got super human sub-sonic hearing, then mayber yes... but once again, even a cheap cable does not poses enough inductance to effect anything that we will hear.

resistance - resistance atenuates the signal evenly across all frequncies... you can have a cable with a higher resistance than another, but as far as frequencies being effected, there will be no difference. the higher the resistance though, the more the more your signal will be atenuated, which is bad as one of the aims when engineers design a product is to keep the signal as far above the noise floor as possible so that noise introduced in later stages will be minimal... so if you're atenuating your signal in the cable, you're bringing your signal closer to the noise floor, which when it goes through the next stage (pre-amp, power amp), you will hear more of the introduced noise... but once again, the resistance of even a cheap cable is so low that it really makes no difference.

honestly, how much do you think a cable plays in the quality of your system... i bet if any of you get someone to go stand behind your system and swap your cables for you without you knowing when which one is being used, you won't be able to hear the difference. cable companies have conned people into believing cable's make a huge difference becuase this is a very lucrative market... by simply spending a couple of extra dollars to make a bigger thicker fancier looking cable with gold plated conectors so they look classier than the cheap one's, they can add huge markups onto them... really, there is no difference, and once again, i bet you couldn't tell the difference between your expensive cables and your cheap one's... i have spoken to a guy who used to work in a respected high end audio store, and one day he got the rest of the staff to sit down and have a listen to a comparison he wanted to do between a cheap cable he'd just gone and bought for $20, and one of the cables they recomended to their customers which went for about $200... he did it, but he told them he had the cheap one in when he put the expensive one in, and he told them the expensive one was in when he put the cheap one in... you know what happened... they all agreed the 'more expensive' one sounded better... it was actually the cheap one in...

when a new drug is tested in clinical trials, there are so many patients given the real thing, while the others are given a placebo... this is for a reason, becuse the human mind can play some pretty powerful tricks on us if we believe something enough.

as for sheilding speaker cables, this is not to stop interferance from radio signals, but to stop the speaker cables interfering with others... sheilded speaker cables are a wise idea, as the signal in the speaker cable can easily interfer with line level signals in other cables... same for sheilding line level cables... these can pick up interfearance from speaker cables and power cables.

and as another thing for those who still believe they need expensive cables, take a look inside your amplifier or CD player and take note of the little tracks your signal is conducted along... these are etched on a $2 board... that's a far cry from what your cables are costing... and your signal runs straight through these cheap boards.

if you wanna make a big improvement to your system, instead of spending hundreds on cables, save your dough and buy a good quality stereo equaliser... get one with atleast 15 bands a channel and spend some time with some cd's you're familiar with really fine tuning the EQ to your system... this will make a much greater difference to your system than some magical cable.

cheers

[jlee]

Any recommendations on a dual (two channels) graphic EQ, benny? On another thread I was asking about these but the advice I got was, quite rightly, I believe, the noise introduced by, for example, a cheap DOD dual graphic 31-band, would be intolerable for hi-fi.

What about fewer bands, but using a parametric EQ instead?

[Tenorman]

Curious:

Every Hi-Fi magazine in the UK says that there there are differences between different interconnects, backed up by lab tests and by blind A/B listening.

All the UK Hi Fi mags talk about the effect of RF interference on speaker cables, if they are not shielded.

Graphic Equalisers are definite No-nos in the land of Hi Fi. They colour the signal, even when set to neutral. Just out of interest - how do you remember the setting for each individual disc or even each track within a disc. What they can do is produce a sound different from what the source puts out that may please your ears more than the original untainted source does. The idea of Hi Fi is to produce the sound of the source with the minimum of colouration.

[jlee]

Oh, Tenorman, I understand. But of course EQ colors the signal -- that's why I want one, and why I use one *every single time* I play any instrument live. All guitar amps, for example, have EQ, as do all mixers, as do all preamps designed for live sound. I'm thinking more about the desirability of looking more closely at *ONE* tune through my system rather than applying a standard setting (smiley-face?) generally to every recording through a system. In fact, hi-fi (I guess by audiophile standards, I'm a "mid-fi," or "lo-fi" kind of guy, but let's say for the sake of argument!) is the *only* area of music repro/creation which *doesn't* use EQ...I'm just wondering what are the appropriate tools for gaining control over these parameters in a home stereo context.

I was also under the impression that *no* DBTs had shown any important differences between speaker wires (or, for that matter, interconnects, but I'm really only interested in EQ systems here, and not in fueling the average debate one loves so well). What are these published, peer-refereed results? I'd love to improve my system, but I don't have enough money to perform these tests myself, so I have to rely upon the result of others, whom I trust. That is, after all, the same rational I applied when deciding whether or not to ingest rubbing alcohol on a wild night -- served me well so far.

[Tenorman]

JLEE,
I did a nice long reply - my line went down, I lost it. It is 23:00 here - I'm going to bed.

Essentially what I was saying is that if your ears say it is right - then it is right! Just be prepared to listen to different set-ups.

A lot of people under 30 or so demand overpowering bass to the detriment of the rest of the frequency range. My system will not do that, so I suppose from their point of view I don't have a quality system

[Donny]

JLEE,
I did a nice long reply - my line went down, I lost it. It is 23:00 here - I'm going to bed.

Essentially what I was saying is that if your ears say it is right - then it is right! Just be prepared to listen to different set-ups.

A lot of people under 30 or so demand overpowering bass to the detriment of the rest of the frequency range. My system will not do that, so I suppose from their point of view I don't have a quality system

I've been listening and buying hi-fi for ther past 40 odd years. I have never seen an equaliser recommended before. In fact most high end amps do not have any tone controls at all. I don't go that far. I've found that the modest tone controls on my Audiolab amplifier do help on certain recordings, but only because the original recording was poor. Some recordings for instance are bass light, especially the live ones I've done on mini disc and on some Ray Brown's recordings for instance, it's too bass heavy. The ability to turn it down a little certainly helps but on the software I've downloaded for my computer to "enhance" live recordings the equalisers are dire. I ended up by just listening to the original recording and adding a bit of bass from the amp.

As far as cables go I am sure that my latest interconnect, Van den Hul, sounded better than my previous interconnect. OK so I didn't do an A/B test but I was listening pretty carefully to my new CD player before I connected the new lead and I am convinced the new one opened up the music a little more. Im my opinion value for money at £40.

[Frank Mullen]

And they do, but not much. Resistance matters, but not much. Any reasonably well made cable will have a resistance much like any other. And since these cables are, if they're any good at all they'll be coax, and as such are shielded. And since the hifi mags get their revenue from advertising---you finish the sentence----

[Claude]

The reason why the commercially interested advisors (shops, magazines) recommend to spend 10-15% of the budget on cables is that cables and other accessories now make out almost half of the profits of high end stores. The profit margin is low on the hifi gear itself but astronomic on accessories.

Just one example: a hifi fan reported on a message board that he peeled apart his JPS Audio "Digital AC", a $400 mains cable for digital components, and found an Eupen GNLM industrial cable (used for lab equipment), which retails at $20.

That is not to say that cables don't matter. Good cables are important. But they don't necessarily get better with higher price. That's why a % rule of thumb is nonsense.

[benny]

Any recommendations on a dual (two channels) graphic EQ, benny?
i don't really know about the dod eq, but any eq would be fine considering you've already said you're not going for hi-end... seriously, the noise introduced would be intolerable only if this was a really really shitty eq... maybe people have been careless and overlooked the fact they have probably created an earth loop in their system when they introduced the EQ... this will create a quite noticeable hum... honestly, anyone who says EQ introduces too much noise should go take a look in a recording studio - the place their CD's are being recorded... if EQ's introduced so much noise, why on earth would a sound engineer use one??? anyone who tells you EQ is going to introduce too much noise is full of shit or has not spent the time to connect the EQ properly into their system.


What about fewer bands, but using a parametric EQ instead?
this is still eq... not as much control as a fully fledged eq, but still very handy in customizing your sound.

Every Hi-Fi magazine in the UK says that there there are differences between different interconnects, backed up by lab tests and by blind A/B listening.
let me ask, do you believe everything you read???

i am actually a media student, and as part of the course, i had to make a film... i made a doco... about comercial media... not a completely paanoid "oh, the media's brainwashing us" "they're out to get us" kinda shit... a very abjective look at it... i interviewed quite a number of people working in the media as part of it... one interview i did was with the editor of a magazine out in this fine land called Spinach7, which is an independant current affairs magazine... part of the interview was about taking advertising... baisically, she said most companie's expect a magazine to publish certain editorial if they are going to advertise in their magazine... seriously, do you think a cable company wants to advertise in the same magazine that just did a shitty review for them??? yeah, i would... not... baisically, advertisers have so much control that they can dictate to magazines what will be written in certain articles... and nothing can be done about it, becuase listening tests can't be quantified, so no one can go, 'ah, you're lying'... they're completely subjective, so no one can make acusations of lying... not saying all reviews are shit, just be careful what you believe though.

lab tests also can quote figures that sound impressive, but really have no effect on sound... as i said, there is capacitance, and there is inductance, and there is resistance... all these can be measured in a lab, or else we would not know they exist... but as i said, even cheap cable does not have enought resistance, capacitance or inductance to effect the sound audibly, unless you've got super human hearing...

here's some math (this is not hard math):
f = 1/(2*pi*Z*C)
where Z is impedance and C is capacitance and f is frequency.
this will give us a -3bD point where we will then get a -6dB/octave roll off of high frequencies... this means, frequency response is flat up until the point that F equals where we get a -3dB atenuation, and from there every time the frequency doubles, another -6dB has been atenuated (not all at once, it forms nice gradual slope, it rolls off the freuqncies, not cuts them off).
i just looked up the cheapest cable i could find in a catalouge, and it quotes a capacitance of 124pF... F is Farads, and it is the standard measure of capacitance... p is pico, or 10^-12. this means that the capacitance of this cable is 124*10^-12F.
just for the sake of stupidity, i'm going to quote an impedance (Z) of 1... this is infact much higher in your system... probably closer to 2000 coming out of your preamp... but the lower this figure is, the lower the frequencies being atenuated are, which means more signal that is being lost... that's why i wanna use 1 out of stupidity.

f = 1/[2*pi*Z*C]
f = 1/[2*pi*1*(124*10^-12)]
f = 1.28*10^9

this is an incredibly high frequency... probably not to a lab frequency generator that can probably create much higher signals, but to the human ear, this is well out of range. 21kHz just for comparison reads as 2.1*10^4... compare that with 1.28*10^9... so, lab tests obviously show that our cheap cable obviously 'atenuates high frequencies'... nothing false in quoting this, only, these high frequencies are not necesarily ones you can hear...


now, why would cable manufacturers want to bullshit consumers into beleiving their trillion dollar cable is better than a $40 cable??? simply because it doesn't cost much more to make a nicer looking cable with slightly lower capacitance and inductance and resistance, and for that slight increase in production cost, they get a massive increase in how much they can ask a consumer to pay for them... as i've said, take a look inside your amplifier and you'll be shocked at what your signal is being conducted on... a PCB board is made by getting a copper clad board that costs about $2 and etching away copper in certain places until little tracks are left... this $2 board is certainly a lot cheaper than your cables... but your signal runs through it... please explain what the point of an expensive cable is when inside your preamp, your amp and your CD & record player your signal is being conducted along copper on a board that cost less than the cheapest cable on the market?

Graphic Equalisers are definite No-nos in the land of Hi Fi. They colour the signal, even when set to neutral.
even though the technical definition of hi-fi would include something about leaving the source signal uncloloured, this is not necesarily the best sounding...

in a recording studio, a sound engineer will master a recording so it sounds good on most systems... this is why even if you record at home it is still good to get profesional mastering becuase what may sound good on one system may sound shit on another... maybe your system lacks bass, naturally, you will boost the bass a little higher... it may not be much, and you may hardly notice it on your system, but on another system, this slight bass boost may sudenly create too much bass... same with a bassy system with not a lot of high end, master so it sounds good on this and play it on your bass light system and it will sound tinny... one of the jobs of a mastering engineer is to master the tracks so they find a happy ballance that will sound good on as many systems as possible... this requires EQ.

if you believe you should leave the signal uncoloured because you believe this is 'pure', maybe you might like to consider the signal is already considerably coloured... every part of the recording process colours the signal.. the microphone used (why mic selection is so important in recording), mic placement (another very important aspect), if it was recorded to analouge tape this colours it, if it was recorded in digital, it was most likely done at a higher sample and bit rate than a CD, and the sound is coloured (only slightly though) in downsampling, the recording engineers will often apply a light EQ here and there on individaul tracks, and the mastering engineer will almost always add EQ over the whole thing... plus it wasn't mastered to sound best on your system, instead, it was a compromise to make it sound good on all systems... it was NOT, and i repeat, it was NOT left pure... this is simply a happy compromise the engineer came to that they thought would sound good on many systems... far from hi-fi i would say.

also, read any of your hi-fi mags... i'm sure there are plenty of glowing reviews for valve equipment... ask any audiophile and i'm sure they will agree valve amplifiers sound much nicer... why??? it is actually quite simple... becase they colour the signal... especially Single Ended class A amps, which includes some valve power amps, and almost all valve preamps... why do people find these nicer to listen to??? becuase they add what is called harmonic distortion to the signal... in particular, 2nd order harmonic distortion... even order harmonics sound very pleasant to the human ear... so these amps that most audiophiles drool over are actually colouring your signal a lot! that's why they sound so nice... but of course, they sound nice, but becuase they're not obviously colouring the signal (eg: they're not an EQ unit or anything else like a sonic maximiser or whatever), audiophiles believe they are not colouring the signal, so they live in ignorance and so they consider these 'hi-fi'... valve amps are far from the technical definition of hi fi, yet they are considered by many audiophiles as the holy grail of hi-fi... also, vinyl is considred to sound nicer that CD's in many cases... once again, ask youself, just how pure is it??? trust, me, it's not...

Just out of interest - how do you remember the setting for each individual disc or even each track within a disc.
you don't... you spend a decent amount of time fine tuning, and fine tuning some more until you find a setting that sounds good... it is there... if your systems already good, it will not take a lot of eq to improve it, so don't go cranking those faders up to +15dB unless your systems got a serious problem.

sit down with some CD's you're familiar with the sound of, the same CD's you would take into a sotre when auditioning a new system, and really just spend some time listening.

I have never seen an equaliser recommended before.
if you wonder why cables are recomended, but EQ's are a no-no... go and have a look at an EQ, and think about what is inside it... it costs far more to make an EQ than a cable, and there's much more profit to be made in selling overpriced cable as oposed to fairly priced EQ's... just remember, these people are there to make money, they're not a charity... and they want as much money as they can get...
and once agian, if you believe EQ introduces too much noise into your system, then why the hell does a sound engineer use an EQ in the studio??????? that one puzzles me a lot... if they introduce as much noise as hi-fi freaks claim, then every CD you listen to is going to be very very noisy, especially seeing as EQ is used multiple times on any one recording... you're only aplying one lot of EQ... go figure.

What they can do is produce a sound different from what the source puts out that may please your ears more than the original untainted source does.
if it pleases the individual listeners ears more, then what's wrong with it????????????
The idea of Hi Fi is to produce the sound of the source with the minimum of colouration.
as i said, if it sounds nicer, then what's wrong with colouring the signal... is there something in your head that tells you that you must keep the siganal as pure as possible... honestly, use your ears, not your eyes... just coz the guy in the hi-fi store told you, 'this system won't colour your sound, it's pure', doesn't mean it is the best sounding one... if there is too much of something, not enough of something, and you think it would sound better if you EQ'd or did whatever, and it sounds better to you, then what's wrong with this???? oh, it's not pure is it? simply becuase something is colouring the sound, you avoid having it in your system becuse you have to keep it pure... it doesn't matter what really does sound better, as you say;
"What they can do is produce a sound different from what the source puts out that may please your ears more than the original untainted source does."
so of course, purity must win... we don't want to please our ears more at the expense of loosing purity do we??? even though the whole point of spending money on a decent sound system is to please our ears more... i can't figure out the logic here either...

my main question here is;

if EQ may lead to a more pleasing sound to the individuals ears, then what is wrong with it? must we sacrifice pleasing our ears for the sake of maintaining sonic purity???

now, claude mentioned about the $400 mains cable... this is absolute bullshit! simple... if you don't believe me, have a look at the mains cable behind the wall carrying power to your socket... now, what do you think a $400 cable at the end of this cheap ass cable is gunna do????

seriously, get half decent cables that are well constructed... spend what you need to get something well constructed as these are better simply becuase they will last longer and maintain better conections for a longer life span... but well constructed cables can be had for $40 australian... and i mean really well constructed... like big bulky 11mm thick items with nice solid rca conectors... but don't spend more than what is needed to get a well constructed cable simply becuase a manufacture makes some crazy claim...

as for sheilding... this is important... hum can be picked up from AC power from the mains and from your speaker cables, so a well sheilded cable is a must... but once again, expensive cables are not sheilded any better than cheap ones... cheap TV coaxial cable is very well sheilded, better than a lot of audio cables, yet this is not super expensive, it's actually really cheap.

enough said form me, i'm really crapping on now.

[jonesy]

here's some math (this is not hard math):
The problem with the Math is that the human ear is capable of detecting differences that do not present themselves on paper: there is no equipment in existance that can detect the inherent difference between a cheap, well-tuned fiddle and a Stradivarius. The scientific community has trouble reconciling with this.


in a recording studio, a sound engineer will master a recording so it sounds good on most systems...
Engineers have in the past mastered recordings for specific markets; hence, mixing down Pop on 6x9 car speakers for the boom box crowd, not to mention the glaring weakness in using what are the worst sounding mix-down speakers on virtually every console in the business: Yamaha NS10's. It's foolish to hope to apply EQ in whatever amount that would resemble what the engineer heard on his mains or mix-downs.

By the way, the purpose of an EQ is not to reproduce the studio EQ. It is to flatten the room response.

[benny]

The problem with the Math is that the human ear is capable of detecting differences that do not present themselves on paper: there is no equipment in existance that can detect the inherent difference between a cheap, well-tuned fiddle and a Stradivarius. The scientific community has trouble reconciling with this.

i know... but may i ask then, why do people think that a lab test of a cable proves it's quality? if lab tests can be used as a form of evidence as to the quality of a cable, isn't it then alright to use math to show where the lab tests are flawed?

if it is a sonically pure signal you want, i do not know why people don't invest their money in a good pair of studio monitors... the yamaha NS10's are well known with recording engineers because they sounded so crap, but it was believed that what sounded good on these monitors sounded good on most systems... once again, this is the idea of mixing for a range of systems, not just one...

but good studio monitors however have a very flat frequency response unlike the NS10's... mackie HR824's measure up like this.
http://www.mackie.com/products/hr824/images/HRfreqresp.gif
i know this is a lab test, but this is the only way it is possible to test for frequeny response... the ear is a far from perfect transducer, and to rely on this to tell you when you have a flat response is simply flawed.

personally, i believe the whole hi-fi philosophy is flawed... the idea of hi-fi is said to be sonic purity, but really, most hi-fi systems, despite manufacturers claims, do colour the sound... if this was not the case, there would be no point in auditioning a number of systems before actually comiting to buying one, but for some reason, they all sound different... and your ears do not know which one is the most acurate, you simply know which one sounds best. no one can claim that a system is truly acurate simply from listening, this is simply not possible... however someon can decide what sounds best, as listening is the only way to determine this... as i pointed out before, valve audio equipment is considered to be some of the best gear by many audiophiles, yet this gear colours the sound far more than you'd believe, but this is the charm of it... this is why it sounds nicer... why audiophiles are afraid to introduce something into their system that may colour an already coloured signal puzzles me... if you believe that your system is giving you sonic purity, well, go ahead... i'm not trying to argue that everyone needs an EQ, but all i was saying is if you feel something is missing from your sound, you'll get more benifit from a decent EQ than you will an expensive cable that isnt really doing much to help except providing you with a placebo effect.

by the way, as i pointed out, the ear can't tell you when you have a flat frequency response... if you think you can flatten the room response with an EQ unit and your ear, fair enough (may i add, this is actually imposible)... what EQ can be used for is just as another part of the whole subjective process of setting up a system that sounds best to you... the only way you are going to set up a truly acurate system is with lab test gear in your own lounge room.

[jonesy]

i know... but may i ask then, why do people think that a lab test of a cable proves it's quality? if lab tests can be used as a form of evidence as to the quality of a cable, isn't it then alright to use math to show where the lab tests are flawed?

Specs don't mean a thing, even in my humble $25K set-up. I don't (and never have) put any credence in a cable lab test. Neither have I ever advised anyone to. The ability or non-ability to hear the difference is what's important.

the only way you are going to set up a truly acurate system is with lab test gear in your own lounge room.

In fact, any testing is meaningless without a properly constructed room, which most people by and large will forego for practical reasons. The room itself is a speaker and must be treated as such before we can hope to control the sounds we create in it.

[benny]

By the way, the purpose of an EQ is not to reproduce the studio EQ. It is to flatten the room response.

The room itself is a speaker and must be treated as such before we can hope to control the sounds we create in it.

sorry, i don't see your point... a properly treated room does not need to have it's response evened out, or else it hasn't been properly treated has it?

i am completely aware how much the room plays a part in your systems sound... one of my dads best friends who's a recording engineer recently spent close to $500,000 builiding a modest recording studio - and this is just the rooms - the building and equipment wasn't part of this cost as he already had this... although the acoustic design of certain rooms in recording studios have slightly different intentions than those of the audiophile... often rooms are designed to be 'live' or 'semi-live', meaning that the rooms are designed to reflect waves, but they are designed firstly so they are all reflected the same to every part of the room to make it even, so no matter where you go, the room still sounds the same... they are also designed so that these relfected waves help enhance the sound and make it sound richer rather than do the oposite or nothing at all.

if you simply want to make the room even, all you need to do is hang big thick curtains all the way around the room and have a well carpeted floor, and maybe consider putting a few acoustic tiles on the roof... the problem with an untreated room is that sound is coming from more than one source (the speakers) because the room resonates with the sound, and waves are reflected from hard surfaces... these extra waves bouncing round the room cause constructive and destructive interfearance, which is when two waves meet, they sum together, and because even though they originated form the same source, they are now out of phase so certain frequencies will be emphasised while others will be atenuated... in the case of standing wave cancelation some frequencies will be eliminated altogether. a dead room eliminates these problems, and it's not that hard to deaden a room... it just costs money...

what i have so much trouble understanding is this whole audiophile belief that the system must be pure, and therefore acurate... many many people believe that by spending money on an expensive system, this instantly qualifies it as pure and acurate... wrong, wrong, and wrong.... i challenge you to set up two $25,000 systems using differnt components in each one that both sound the same... while $25000 isn't quite the rediculous amount some systems will cost to set up, it is still quite a considerable investment and i would expect that if purity of the signal is the aim, then at $25000 this aim would be met to a pretty high standard, so it would be possible to find two systems that sound the same... but for some reason, i don't think you're going to.

let's think about another audiophile must have accesorie... good speaker stands....

this is a quote word for word straight out of an advertisement for a set of speaker stands...

"...they are designed to lift the speakers off the floor which in turn reduces the resonances which are transfered from speaker boxes"

and later it says

"The overall effect of a quality stand is to produce a cleaner, more accurate sound from your existing speakers."

Let's think about how much more acurate the sound is going to be...

firstly, any object that can vibrate can therefore resonate... and any resonant object has a resonant frequency... you can observe this with wine glasses, tap it, and it will produce the same frequency each time unless you fill or empty it... pluck a guitar/bass string and it will resonate at a certain frequency which can be changed by fingering it in a differnt place...
Now, try this... get two guitars, tune them properly, and amplify one... the other can be an acoustic - turn the amplified one up relatively loud, pluck any note and listen what happens... probably nothing - i did say probably becuase now pluck the open low E string - stop it from sounding, and listen... you'll hear the low E string on the other guitar sounding now.

speaker cabinets also have a resonant frequency at which they will naturally resonate, and this will create a resonant peak at which any note in the program material that is at or near the resonant frequency of the cabinet, or one of it's harmonics will actually sound louder... what speaker designers do is 'tune' the cabinet so that the resonant peaks can be used to advantage to make a nicer sound... it is not acurate though...

one of the design goals of the people who designed those mackie monitors i pointed out in my last post was to make a dead cabinet that did not resonate... why? becuse this eliminates one of the many factors that make a speaker design no longer acurate...

so, the fact that a company selling audiophile speaker stands can say

"...they are designed to lift the speakers off the floor which in turn reduces the resonances which are transfered from speaker boxes"

which is baisically acknowledgin that hi-fi speaker cabinets are resonant objects, shows that they are not truly acurate.
to then claim

"The overall effect of a quality stand is to produce a cleaner, more accurate sound from your existing speakers."

shows yet another place where the hi-fi philosophy is filled with bullshit... they may make a 'cleaner' sound... more 'acurate'... i really don't think so.

there are many more examples of where the hi-fi philosophy contradicts what actually happens... although people choose to live in ignorance and believe that their system is pure, despite the fact that no two $25000 systems will sound the same... but of course, they are both pure and acurate aren't they!...? the hi-fi store salesman told me so...

so if we have a coloured signal, there is really no harm in adding a little EQ to the system, as long as it is used wisely, as it does have the capacity to be missused... i'm sure i can already predict how the 'boom-box' crowd you refered to before would use their EQ's... but if used subtely, it can enchance a system... but of course, you wouldn't want to use an EQ in your hi-fi becuase it's a definite no-no becuse it coulours the sound... we'd hate to do that to our oh-so pure systems wouldn't we.

in the world of hi-fi, there are many myths that even people running audiophile stores believe, simply becuase they have never actually engaged any thought process into setting up their system, and have simply believed that the hi-fi philosophy says we must not colour our signal, so we must not colour our signal, even though we are using systems that sound so good becuse of the fact that they are colouring the signal... this is fact, so caled 'hi-fi' systems colour the signal, but most audiophiles choose to live in ignorance, and therefore believe their system is pure.

by the way, i have no problem with expensive hi-fi equipment, i only have trouble with the philosophy many people have about hi-fi that when combined with ignorance makes for a not so good mix... be wise with what you spend your money on too. "...15%(min) of the total system cost in interconnects and cable" in a $25000 system... that's a lot of money.

[jonesy]

if you simply want to make the room even, all you need to do is hang big thick curtains all the way around the room and have a well carpeted floor, and maybe consider putting a few acoustic tiles on the roof... the problem with an untreated room is that sound is coming from more than one source (the speakers) because the room resonates with the sound, and waves are reflected from hard surfaces... these extra waves bouncing round the room cause constructive and destructive interfearance, which is when two waves meet, they sum together, and because even though they originated form the same source, they are now out of phase so certain frequencies will be emphasised while others will be atenuated... in the case of standing wave cancelation some frequencies will be eliminated altogether. a dead room eliminates these problems, and it's not that hard to deaden a room... it just costs money...

A properly built room is not a "dead room"; a properly built room is a Quiet Room, which is to say, sound neither filters in nor leaves.

Treating a quiet room is another issue altogether. I cannot imagine a poorer sounding room than a "dead" room. There must be natural decay. Live end - dead end treatments apply.

Because a speaker reacts with walls, the relative positioning is critical in order to allow the speaker to reproduce as it was designed to. For this reason, many have eschewed "proper" set-up because the speaker at that point more often than not (and depending on it's design) will perform best when it's out into the room and away from side walls.

What is hanging on the walls, and more properly, the wall construction itself, will either accentuate or decrease the speaker's performance. Overly deading a wall is equally as bad as no treatment at all. The "anechoic chamber" or "dead room effect" is maddening to endure, and more notably, consumes a lot of amp power.

Decoupling the speaker from the floor is necessary, whether it be through stands or dedicated spiked supports. Much progress has been done to control cabinet resonance which will occur to some degree in virtually all speakers, regardless of price, albeit it becomes inversely proportional to the amount spent, i.e., the more rigid/expensive the box, the better the sound. Spiked supports tighten the bass and improve imaging.

[benny]

the fact remains that there is still cabinet resonance... if there was no cabinet resonance there would be no need for stands at all. The reason spiked supports increase bass response is because the tuning frequency of the cabinet (the frequency the designers purposefully decided on as the resonant frequency of the cabinet) is generally fairly low, generally >100Hz. By elevating the cabinet, it is allowed to resonante a little more freely which increases bass response for that reason... These spikes improve the sound because they allow the cabinet to sound like it was intended to by the designers... but it is definately not more acurate as the advertisement i quoted claims.

what i still don't get is the whole idea that it is considered sacrilegious to introduce anything into a system that may colour the signal because hi-fi is about purity of the signal... yet it is clear that no matter how expensive the 'hi-fi' system, it is not pure... i still challenge you to find another $25000 system that sounds the same as yours. actually, try to find any system at any price range that sounds the same as yours. the truth is, you most likely wont, simply because there are no hi-fi products out there that can truly claim purity. no two products sound the same, which is why it is important to audition a product before comiting to buying it.... it is often the colour a product adds to the signal that makes it sound more pleasing to the ears. as i've pointed out already, valve equipment is regarded by many as the best sounding equipment you can buy for your hi-fi system, yet this is far from 'pure'. so something that by many is considered the ultimate in hi-fi, is actually not hi-fi at all. so may i ask the question;

if an EQ or any other product that 'colours' the signal makes the system sound better to the individual listener, why is it such a big no-no to colour an already coloured signal? is it because audiophiles believe that their system is pure and does not colour the signal?

also, getting back onto the cable discussion... when i used math to show one place where cable lab tests are flawed, i simply did this not because i was saying we can rely on maths to tell us how a cable sounds, but high end audio cable manufacturers all seem to quote these amazing scientific facts as to why their cable is better... most of it is complete bullshit too...

one example of a *very* expensive cable being advertised - here's two 'facts' they quoted in just one short paragraph.

"The _____ interconnects feature the same simple, compact design of the original _____, plus the addition of new switchable impedance networks. The end-user can now tune the cable to maximize performance for each components specific input mpedance. Change between low (5-50kW), medium (40-100kW), or high (over 90kW) impedance with a simple flick of a switch."

this is simply bullshit straight away, impedance has nothing to do with Watts (well, it does in a sort of way, but not in the way it's quoted here)... They say switch between low, medium or high impedances, and give their figures in kW (killo watts)... impedance is measured in 'ohms' not 'watts'... you'd think if a company is going to make scientific claims about their product they'd atleast try and understand the basics of whatever claim they're making... to make a mistake like that shows they really have no idea and are saying things to sound good... they didn't back up why their switchable impedance works either, they just said it tunes the cable to each components specific input impedance... sounds impressive, means nothing...

even if it did 'tune' the cable to the specific input impedance, how is it tuning it??? there is really no 'scientific' benifit to this... if there is, they fail to explain it... simply put, all the input impedance of a device is, is the value of the input resistor of the device... the input impedance of the device must also be higher than or equal to that of the output impedance of the device driving it... the only benifit of a cable that can be tuned to the specific input impedance of the device would be if the output impedance was higher than the input impedance of the device it is driving... but this is almost 100% never going to happen, and if it does, there is only one thing a cable could do to overcome this problem, and this solution can also be implemented with a soldering iron, a 30cent resistor and 5 minutes of your time (although you would loose the waranty of the product if it was still under waranty if you did this, if you wanted to keep the waranty it would cost a couple of extra dollars and take a little bit longer, so i guess the expensive cable's the better option).

i just sent the company an email asking them to further explain this claim, as i figure if they are going to ask the price they are asking for a cable like this (it is a lot, if you used these cables in your $25k system you would have blown more than 15% on cables), they should be able to justify their claims so if i am wrong, i will post their response.

(by the way, i have left out their name and the name's of their products becuase i'm not out to try and discredit anyone. i have also sent them an email asking them to justify this claim, so if i am wrong, i will post their response.)

"Like all ____ balanced cables the _____ cables feature a true, fully balanced design that removes the ground form the signal path providing a decrease in noise contamination, and an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio."

bullshit again... there *are* bennifits to ballanced cables, this is true... some problems with this claim though... firstly, ballanced cables do not remove the ground from the signal path... if there was ground in the signal path you would have no signal at all!!! even the cheapest crappiest cable you can find does not have ground in the signal path! A ballanced cable works on the prinicpal of wave cancelation... what happens is a signal goes through a Phase inverter which will seperate the positive and negative peaks of the wave into two signals and place them out of phase with each other. the two split signals are then sent along two conductors which is what a ballanced cable has (normal unballanced only has one conductor)... what happens, is interfearance effects both conductors equally, and the noise in each of the two conductors is in phase with each other. what happens is at the other end, the signal is sent through another phase inverter that inverts the two signals again and brings them back into phase... but now the interfearance in the two conductors has been placed out of phase with each other, so the in phase signal stays intact while the noise that is now out of phase cancels out.

so ballanced cables are good, even though they got something wrong in their claim... unfortunately, here's another problem... most consumer audio equipment doesn't have ballanced inputs and outputs... if you're using RCA conectors, then the signal is unballanced, so even though the cable itself might be ballanced, the signal is not, and an rca conector cannot connect to a ballanced output either, so there is no benifit gained...

was there anything wrong with using maths and science to argue mathmatical and scientific claims? they are used constantly by cable manufacturers to convince consumers their products are superior, even though they never seem to fully understand or fully explain these 'facts'.

if you're still convinced of the superior nature of audiophile cables, lets consider what benifits they have... consider where all your recordings come from... the recording studio.

in a recording studio, they buy good quality cables, but not what audiophiles consider quality. if recording engineers bought even moderately priced audiophile grade cable, they would probably end up spending more on cable than they did on their studio considering the large number of cables needed in a studio... problem is, if the cables being used in a recording studio are not capable of this transparentness that audiophile cable manufacturers claim, then this articulation and detail is no longer there... what is the point of having a cable that has stunning detail if the detail is not there on the recording being played? a cable can't add detail... so obviously the engineers cables preserved the detail if it is being heard by the listener, but as soon as you put a cable of the quality the engineer used into a hi-fi system, audiophile cable manufacturers would claim this cable degrades the signal... hmmm....

get someone around to your place to switch cables, and do blind a/b testing with you and any other of your family members who are familiar with your system - do this with cheaper cables and the cables already used in your own system, see if you can hear the difference for yourself when the scientific claims and pricetags no longer effect your ears.

[Tenorman]

if an EQ or any other product that 'colours' the signal makes the system sound better to the individual listener, why is it such a big no-no to colour an already coloured signal? is it because audiophiles believe that their system is pure and does not colour the signal?

I think the basis is that if you know a river is polluted, you don't go and add further pollution.

There are a few discs that I have that need re-balanced, but I still cannot get my head round the idea of increasing and decreasing the volume of individual frequencies, when many instruments exceed those frequency ranges, and also produce a sound that is not a pure frequency, so you are liable to only boost part of that instrument's sound.

I did the A/B test by running both sets of interconnects through a switch and switching them backwards and forwards. I was not testing high end interconnects, and can realy only say that there was a dramatic difference between the freebies and the £70 ones.

The same arguments can also apply to the Hi-Fi equipment as well. Could I tell the difference between a £10,000 set up and a £20,000 set up or between £400, 000 and £500, 000

[Tenorman]

There is another thing about personal hearing. People hear things differently. They also see things differently

Ever walked into a friends house and thought that the colour balance on the televison was wrong? Yet that is what they probably see as "natural"

[Dennis_M]

The problem with the Math is that the human ear is capable of detecting differences that do not present themselves on paper: there is no equipment in existence that can detect the inherent difference between a cheap, well-tuned fiddle and a Stradivarius. The scientific community has trouble reconciling with this.

This is quite incorrect. There is a lot of scientific literature on this subject. Probably the most knowledgeable person in this area is Joseph Nagyvary, a Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University. He can tell you a lot about what makes a Strad a Strad.
Dennis

[benny]

I think the basis is that if you know a river is polluted, you don't go and add further pollution.

Once again, I'll refer to valve equipment... Solid State doesn't colour the sound much, valves do, yet many audiophiles choose valves over solid state.

There are a few discs that I have that need re-balanced, but I still cannot get my head round the idea of increasing and decreasing the volume of individual frequencies, when many instruments exceed those frequency ranges, and also produce a sound that is not a pure frequency, so you are liable to only boost part of that instrument's sound.

The idea of EQ is not to re-mix the cd... you are not trying to boost certain instruments and cut some back, this is the job of the mixing engineer, and if they screwed this up, there's not a lot that you can do. All you're doing is evening out discrepancies in your system if you think there are some... if you don't hear enough top end and you want more, you can boost it with an EQ. You should not boost 'individual' frequencies either. you should boost all the surounding frequencies too so they do not just jump up sudenly, instead you make nice smooth curves. By boosting just one frequency this does create an unnatural sound.

I did the A/B test by running both sets of interconnects through a switch and switching them backwards and forwards. I was not testing high end interconnects, and can realy only say that there was a dramatic difference between the freebies and the £70 ones.

If you hear a difference, then that's all that matters. I personally have never heard a difference between cheap and moderately expensive interconnects (i've never heard really expensive ones), although i have never compared cheap and nasty ones... by cheap i mean $40, by moderately expensive i mean $250, although this is enough of a price difference to expect some difference isn't it. The only other thing i could ask is were your tests done blindly?

The same arguments can also apply to the Hi-Fi equipment as well. Could I tell the difference between a £10,000 set up and a £20,000 set up or between £400, 000 and £500, 000

i know, as i already said, i have no problem with spending a decent amount of money on high quality components. this i can hear a difference between, especially speakers, to my ears these make the biggest difference, although i agree with Jonesy's advice
By the way, if anyone is thinking of upgrading their system, there's much to be said for starting with the "front end" - the CD player - not the speakers.
there's not much point driving quality speakers with crap.

There is another thing about personal hearing. People hear things differently. They also see things differently

Ever walked into a friends house and thought that the colour balance on the televison was wrong? Yet that is what they probably see as "natural"

My point exactly. People adjust the colour balance to suit them... colour ballance for visuals is exactly what EQ is for audio...

so what's so wrong with EQ?

[Dennis_M]

Consider this: speakers, even the very best of them, introduce far more distortion that all of your electronic components put together. Your amp might be rated at .05% THD, while speakers are more like 3%. Worrying about your interconnects is just a waste of time.
Dennis

[benny]

Consider this: speakers, even the very best of them, introduce far more distortion that all of your electronic components put together. Your amp might be rated at .05% THD, while speakers are more like 3%. Worrying about your interconnects is just a waste of time.
Dennis

Good point, but it is the nature of the distortion that is important to sound.

Speaker distortion is completely 2nd harmonic distotion, and this is pleasant to the human ear as it is an even order harmonic. if it was an odd order harmonic distortion (eg: 3rd harmonic distortion) this would be unpleasant.

I have been refering to valve equipment in my posts, and i refered to the even order harmonic distortion... speaker distortion is similar to a valve clipping. An analogy that explains the main difference between a valve and a solid state device when they clip is a solid state device is like falling and hitting a concrete floor whereas a valve is more like falling onto a paddded floor. They both stop you, but takes longer to stop you, so the impact is softer... this leads to a more pleasant end to the fall, which is why speaker distortion is not as bad as distortion in solid state devices. 3% speaker distortion is fine, 3%THD in a solid state device would be just plain unbearable.

the other way vacuum tubes distort the signal is the inherant uneven voltage swing of a vacuum tube which means they amplify +'ve and -'ve peaks in the signal unevenly. This is one of the main contributing factors to why they sound nicer than solid state devices to most listeners. I am not actually aware as to how evenly a speaker travels between positive and negative peaks, but i would guess there would be some uneveness there.

[benny]

By the way, if you drove a speaker with a solid state amp at 3%THD all the time, you would eventually burn out the voice coils in the speaker and make it unusable! :eek2:
it's actually easier to destroy a 100W speaker with a 30W amp than it is to destroy a 30W speaker with a 100W amp.

[peter rh]

originally posted by benny (post #16)
"honestly, how much do you think a cable plays in the quality of your system... i bet if any of you get someone to go stand behind your system and swap your cables for you without you knowing when which one is being used, you won't be able to hear the difference. cable companies have conned people into believing cable's make a huge difference becuase this is a very lucrative market... by simply spending a couple of extra dollars to make a bigger thicker fancier looking cable with gold plated conectors so they look classier than the cheap one's, they can add huge markups onto them... really, there is no difference, and once again, i bet you couldn't tell the difference between your expensive cables and your cheap one's... i have spoken to a guy who used to work in a respected high end audio store, and one day he got the rest of the staff to sit down and have a listen to a comparison he wanted to do between a cheap cable he'd just gone and bought for $20, and one of the cables they recomended to their customers which went for about $200... he did it, but he told them he had the cheap one in when he put the expensive one in, and he told them the expensive one was in when he put the cheap one in... you know what happened... they all agreed the 'more expensive' one sounded better... it was actually the cheap one in..."

originally posted by benny (post #26)
"If you hear a difference, then that's all that matters. I personally have never heard a difference between cheap and moderately expensive interconnects (i've never heard really expensive ones), although i have never compared cheap and nasty ones... by cheap i mean $40, by moderately expensive i mean $250, although this is enough of a price difference to expect some difference isn't it. The only other thing i could ask is were your tests done blindly? "
:confused2

[Tenorman]

Can someone explain this to me.

My record deck is a Michell, fitted with an RB300 arm. The output from a cartridge is small compared to, say, a CD player, yet the wiring of any arm I have ever looked at seems downright tatty when compared to what I am using to link my CD player to the amp.

Any explanations anyone??

[Frank Mullen]

As long as the wires associated with the record player are suitably shielded from ac pickup, they will have only a few ohms of attenuation, i.e. they only attenuate the signal a tiny amount, and color it not at all. The rest of this cable business is a lot of bullshit. The rest of this personal evaluation of how new expensive cables improve the sound is all self delusion. Same reason that medical people find improvement in some people who have been fed a placebo. :rolleyes:

[peter rh]

I think interconects, cables and loudspeaker cabels can all make a difference
as to what can be heard. How much difference can depend on many variables,
including personal hearing, room sonics, power supply and quality of hifi equipment. I don't know of any claims which suggest that, low cost hifi units
can be vastly improved by use of high cost interconects or cables. From the
other extreme - I've yet to hear a serious suggestion that expensive high end
hifi equipment works best with cheap interconects and cabels. I also understand, from personal expierence, that interconects of similar cost can
sound very different. So despite what lab tests can or cannot show, and
despite what the experts say, trust your own ears and purchase what you
think is appropriate for your set up.