Proof that cables Do make a difference

[Steve Williams]

Hmm so a cable can change from inductive to resistive

Not sure but some of the posts are straining my mind and am anxious to read about these claims esp since Nordost told me there cable sounds better with a longer length. Maybe they wanted to sell me a longer pair of cables to make more money

 

[MylesBAstor]

Hmm so a cable can change from inductive to resistive

Not sure but some of the posts are straining my mind and am anxious to read about these claims esp since Nordost told me there cable sounds better with a longer length. Maybe they wanted to sell me a longer pair of cables to make more money

Well as I said, the relationship between length and sonics may vary from maker to maker.

That kinda forms one of the bases for the Transparent and MIT cable designs. And as I remember, Jack Sumner told me one time when visiting Transparent Audio and their specially constructed and acoustically treated listening room (the acoustic treatment of their room and Bob Ludwig's Gateway Studios were done by the same person whose name escapes me at the moment), that the choice of wire material eg. copper, silver, etc, affects that crossover frequency-and may in part be responsible for the perceived "brightness" of Ag wires.

 

[FrantzM]

Myles and Nicholas

I am on a Telecom Project that is a lot of fun ... NOT !!! This may well be my parting shot on this debate ... maybe not ..

Guys

Let me be clear .. I don't go by Gurus' anecdotes. I would rather see real proofs when it comes to Audio.
Indeed a 1 meter cable has less of everything than a 4 meter ... less of EVERYTHING .. Less L, less C, less R.. the shorter cable has to be better... The question remains how much we do perceive these differences .. While most of us are debating on FR and LCR .. most of us on this board are utterly incapable of hearing a 16 KHz tone, even if our lives depended on it, same tone would deafen any 15 years old ... so allow me to be skeptical on that ....
The proofs you are presenting are what people selling cables are presenting as ..rationale, they are not ...proofs ... I would ask for more neutral provenance with some modicum of real Physics and Psycho Acoustics behind it...

Now concerning cables changing from Resistive to Inductive or capacitive ... At the frequency we are dealing with a good thick copper seems to be doing as good a job as any .. Now if you involved some cables that were too capacitive (Some Goertz come to mind) iinducing oscillation in some amps such cable it is electrically inadequate .. Period .. So let me see a graph of a common copper cable at which it changes from resistive to inductive to understand more ... pictures is worth a few words ... I would like to then compare it to the most expensive cable you can put your hands on with the cheap Blue Jeans , belden or Canare cable And believe me surprises are in the corner as some of these expensive cables have networks which DO change the frequency response some, more so than any cable with no network .. On this they are not Transparent (pun intended)

Of course the comparison between the Lugs were conducted with full knowledge ... Everyone could see which was in the system I would think ...

Here I am questioning cable contribution to Audio systems and the "proofs" both of you are coming with are anecdotes from ... the cable manufacturers , most of these don't manufacture any cable ...

I know the point about hearing abilities will come up .. I am 52 and seem to have an unusually good hearing for my age, being able to hear up to 18 KHz as of three months ago ... So please do not invoke it ... Been there as an audiophile for a long while and have down a lot of that ... I will avoid ad hominem attacks but tales of a person able to come on an unknown system in an unknown room and being able to identify the "problems" are from the cables or distinguishing cable based on geographic provenance of the copper in a cable are to me extremely difficult to conceive ...

I repeat it and both of you are fully able to conduct this experience: Take a Wilson Maxx or X-2 ... wire it with 8 AWG and your favorite WBT Lug ... then take any 30 K money sink ..err Speaker Cable and wire a Sasha with it ... You may well be the only people in the world that would find the Sasha superior to their bigger brothers under these conditions ...

 

[JackD201]

Terry,

Speaker positioning, room acoustics..........Basics. Get it?

Jack

 

[rblnr]

that the choice of wire material eg. copper, silver, etc, affects that crossover frequency-and may in part be responsible for the perceived "brightness" of Ag wires

Whenever I hear from people that silver cable sounds brighter than copper, I always think this comes from the fact that silver looks brighter than copper

 

[FrantzM]

I went on an re-read some of the post here and I am still shaking my head in disbelief then again I am battling with some software gremlins on a project I am working on and I am overwhelmed ..

I could understand that some maintain that cables make a difference ... I am not on this path anymore , I believe that past a level of electrical adequacy cables make no difference. I am now using Headphones for most of my music listening, Denon A-HD5000 and they reveal small differences that would be lost with most if not all speakers ... It would be dishonest to say that any cable is adequate .. Not true there are inadequate cables... The most common culprits Digital SPD/IF cables, several cables are very far from the 75 Ohms the standard requires ... There are bad IC no doubt and their effect can be heard rather quickly once one knows what to listen for ...
However once one uses correct cables ..well the differences have disappeared as it should be...

It seems that many really believe that everything matters in Audio, maybe not in other realm.. In Audio and only audio and those few who are capable of perceiving such become very special. I am one of those who believe that audiophile can hear things most people don't not because of special abilities but because of training .. our follow forum compadre caesar in another thread, calls it "education" , but there are limits .. Simple biological and physical limits... One person sneeze cannot affect the earth rotation and quite frankly the parameters at play in the difference between copper of different geographical provenance are of that order of magnitude ... And there is the very fact that our sense regularly fool us and often for the best .. We are quick to admit that our eyes /brain do fail us .. Most people brains ( I would say all but ...) cannot be so objective , as to reject any and every other stimulus to concentrate itself on the task at hand: hearing beyond the physical limits of their own hearing organ !!!

We could even accept that indeed there are things that have not been measured yet .. but when the differences between cables which by most account are subtle are deemed so "huge" one becomes straining to understand and frankly some of the hyperbole that have littered this thread are over the top,even for several long-time audiophiles (my self have been in this Audiophile thing for more than 45 years, started when I was less than 7 years old) and difficult to take without smiling or wincing ... Believe me neophytes .. you're not alone ... heads and credulity have been strained and shaken throughout this thread

Worse all these throw a strange curve to anyone who would like to learn the ways to get the best Audio reproduction in their home. We hope that they understand that such over the top experiences are very unique, improbable and quasi impossible to repeat with any reliability. Most audiophiles including those with the best systems money can buy haven't had such experiences.. It is important for the neophytes to understand that in Audio cables should be the least of anyone worry , of course electrically adequate cable .. Blue Jeans is your friend or if you really have to buy an audiophile cable .. Try Supra .. Reasonable and electrically adequate and very much audiophile-looking and approved. Buy Good speakers , compatible amplifiers .. good sources, Treat your room if you can .. Buy a good chair or several ... then with the money left change cables to your heart extent ... Again once electrically adequate the differences are so small that they are often and for the vast majority of audiophiles not audible ... however to the contrary some (very few) profess .. Caveat emptor

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

@ BP (do you like bass?) How about looking at the amplitude and phase transfer functions with, say, a $30K spectrum analyzer. I think you'd seem some very interesting results, some of which start with the first inch of cabling, others of which vary according to the length.

The voltage/time domain test you describe isn't very sensitive, and assuming you're doing this with differential amplifiers, what's their CMRR?

I assume you're addressing me? Well in that case, I should caution you that electrical engineering was my professional background for the better part of half a century, so I have a full grasp of test equipment and am very skeptical of "snake oil" that is so pervasive in the 'high end' audio market.

I do all my testing with H/P and Tektronix gear, which is the 'gold standard' for electronic test measurements. 120dB or greater CMRR is certainly plenty to test what we're looking for. Anything smaller would not be audible anyway.

At low frequencies, phase doesn't vary in any measurable way over a length of wire that's of sufficient gauge to carry the current. If the wire is undersized, and the load is a typical speaker, of course you will see a difference signal. Since we're listening to audio and not RF signals, typical copper cable of sufficient gauge is more than adequate. The system is a low-impedance one, hence the influence of outside electromagnetic interference is greatly reduced when compared with a hi-Z connection (which is why hi-Z audio interconnects are always coaxial). The only real issue is current-carrying ability and maintenance of damping factor from amplifier to speaker. If the signal coming out of the cable is can null out the signal coming out of the amplifier in an A-B summation on a good laboratory 'scope, then there is no further improvement possible. The rest is psychological, a/k/a "gee, I spent $15,000 for these cables, gee don't the highs sound more detailed?" Waaaaay back about fifty years, I was once naive enough to think that changing the 6V6-GT in my table radio with a 6L6-G made it play louder and sound more "powerful". Today, I realize that was pure power of suggestion.
Ultimately, doing a double-blind test and getting a substantially better score than 50/50 would be the only real proof that one cable sounded better or different than another.

Maybe I should get to work on building that output transformerless triode amplifier that I was thinking about building in 1965, and get Michael Fremer to audition it.. after I have the chassis plated in 24K gold first, of course. It could make me as rich as the average member on this forum.

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@everyone... read Myles' comment about Transparent. These guys are very, very concerned about how their products sound, and have taken the steps to set up good listening facilities. If their room and Bob Ludwig's shared the same acoustical designer, they are in very good company.

@ FrantZ... I never thought I'd see the words "telecom project" and "fun" in the same sentence. My condolences. I've definitely enjoyed your inputs and hope you surface again soon. My own "real world" work is threatening to engulf me, too.

Say, according to the Wilson product literature here on my desk, the MAXX3 and Sashas have the same midrange and tweeters, so one would expect their overall sound to be quite similar... During the next two-three weeks, I'll be listening extensively to the MAXX3, X-2s and Sashas, and hope to learn a lot from the experience.

My "anecdotes" are from the principal designers of several high-end cabling companies who most definitely build their own stuff, and personally are in the winding plants watching the reels get manufactured; and what's more, they're all audiophiles who listen to what they build on their own systems, and can tell you very accurately the strengths and weaknesses of a given product. These are not bluff and bluster marketing types; they're lifetime contributors to the art and science, and commercial successes.

These guys are really good, in my opinion, which is the reason for me bringing their inputs into the discussion.

@ Steve W... my comments about length were just for a particular cable technology; I should have made that clearer. And I appreciate that the technology that Nordost uses behaves in a different manner, as Myles mentioned. They are making the right recommendations with respect to their designs, which of course are extremely high quality. Another vendor with a different design will tell you to go as short as possible, and they're both given you honest advice.

What's especially nice about monoblocks is being able to place them close to the speakers, so that (for the technologies that benefit from this) the length can be minimized.

Short runs allows the budget to go to higher end cabling

@rblnr... but of course you can't see the cable material unless someone uses flashy transparent jackets ... But for some time, around 8-10 years ago, reports were that "silver" tended to be brighter... of course that's just a generalization.

 

[muralman1]

You can make a 40K speaker sound like a piece of crap with bad cable and it has nothing to do with the speaker. In fact, the speaker is showing more of how bad the cable actually is.

He is correct if you take into account for some systems, including mine. I find it hilarious folks are finding his post silly.

My speakers are one of the best ever made. It can sound like anything, and I have heard it sound very real, to a bloated pig of a speaker.

Keeping to cables, and taking into account I am talking about Class D amps, the wrong cable will make my speakers sound like crap. Cardas Golden Ref is the most famous failure on my system. MIT and Transparent are worse. Given all the of the moderately insulated to highly insulated cables make self noise, it has become predictable what they will sound like depending on the insulation.

I want emphasize this is true with the Apogee systems driven by class D or TacT I have heard. Only the cables that have a significant structural composition make a difference. That is with various digital or class D amps driving them.

Power cables make a big difference too. Not so for my previously owned Pass Labs X 600 amps. All cables pretty much sounded the same. For my present class D amps the speaker cable must be double shielded for the full length. The brand cable makes little difference.

Nicholas said, "Trust your ears."

 

[MylesBAstor]

...

Been there, done that. Compared 10 AWG Phoenix Gold (a steal for the money but sadly no longer available - as was one of their IC that cost all of $20 or $30) with 12 and 14 AWG Dayton speaker cable.

Can tell you your standard run of the mill 10 AWG copper cable will among other things sound very harsh. It probably will have decent bass; it seems that the Dayton 14 AWG actually sounded the best of all of them (10 AWG Phoenix or 12 AWG Dayton) and was in particular, far more extendedin the upper octaves. Not sure why and it certainly went against the reasoning I used 10 ga chokes in the crossover of my old Maggies for the bass. But also the 10AWG will kill the top end and sound decidedly rolled off.

Overall, the best (like 71/2 vs. 15 vs 30 ips tape) compromise for a cheap cable might be the 14 AWG "audiophile" Dayton speaker cable one might buy from Parts Express.

 

[mep]

"My "anecdotes" are from the principal designers of several high-end cabling companies who most definitely build their own stuff, and personally are in the winding plants watching the reels get manufactured; and what's more, they're all audiophiles who listen to what they build on their own systems, and can tell you very accurately the strengths and weaknesses of a given product. These are not bluff and bluster marketing types; they're lifetime contributors to the art and science, and commercial successes."

Nicholas-can you name one "manufacturer" of cables tha actually makes their own wire? To my knowledge, none of the high-end cable companies are in the business of actually manufacturing wire. They spec out their design to actual cable companies and have the wire manufactured for them and then they do the terminations in house. To say that the principles are personally in the winding plants watching every reel of their cable being manufactured all of the time is nonsense. They may have visited the plants before and watched some of their cables being manufactured, but to infer they are there to watch every reel being made is a very bold claim.

I wonder how many high-end cable companies actually have electrical engineers on their staff that design their cables? Does anyone know? That would be interesting to explore. I am sure that some do, and I am sure that some don't.

 

[FrantzM]

Nicholas said, "Trust your ears.

Thus we must !1 All the overtones of a religion ...

I am willing to leave anyone with their belief on cables .. That is fine .. What I and other have objected to is the fallacy that a cable of a certain price is a requirement in a system. There were some kind of a ratio of a 25% of cable for a given speaker .. and suggested that an X-2 can be made to sound worse than a Sasha .. Let me cable-friendly for a second..
Let's take a decent sub 10 K cable .. See I am being nice ... Nordost Frey, $3K for a 3 meter run ... Tack that to a Maxx -3 .. Then take the Odin and tack it to a Sasha ... hmm ... ?? To make things easy let's use an amplifier we know can drive both .. Your choice of amplifier...Same amp, room etc ... mhhh? No reply necessary .. Dave Wilson, and the rest of the planet already knows which one will sound better

Now let's talk about some claims that were made of how "huge" cable differences are .. One walks in a room and immediately knows the source of a system problem... Cables of course! ... to be polite: Extremely improbable ability, likely unique. For those with blunt language .. No Way !
In another the provenance of the copper made an audible difference .. Another stretch but since the test was made sighted .. The conclusions can be made to be whatever one wants .. Yet ... This is hard to digest for several others and I ...

@muralman

I am willing to bet my headphones, pretty good by the way those Denon D-5000 ( Still I miss a speaker , man! do I miss a speaker .. The Apogee Divas are way too large for my current place ...) that your tests were conducted sighted but I will go with you indeed it made a difference and you are satisfied with the cables you now have and you attributed the performance to the shield or anything you choose... OK but again aside from your trusted ears there no other test instruments ... Ok ... the ear/brain cannot be fooled ? If your answer is no then it is a belief .. not a fact .. Our senses/brain are regularly fooled that is a fact.

not about the lighthearted post about to make a good speaker sound like crap .. Very easy .. feed it mp3 at 64 Kbs .. Or use a 30 AWG, 6 meter silver, copper or Uranium cable... The less sensitive the speaker the worse the sound will be ... However using ANY copper wire larger than 14 AWG will result in ( I have momentarily lapsed in cable friendly speak) adequate reproduction...

Now if knowledge is removed about which cable you are listening to the 14 AWG may begin to sound darn good to you and most audiophiles but that could be due to stress induced by the removal of knowledge..

 

[amirm]

Pouring gas over the fire .

 

[muralman1]

Thus we must !1 All the overtones of a religion ...

@muralman

I am willing to bet my headphones, pretty good by the way those Denon D-5000 ( Still I miss a speaker , man! do I miss a speaker .. The Apogee Divas are way too large for my current place ...) that your tests were conducted sighted but I will go with you indeed it made a difference and you are satisfied with the cables you now have and you attributed the performance to the shield or anything you choose... OK but again aside from your trusted ears there no other test instruments ... Ok ... the ear/brain cannot be fooled ? If your answer is no then it is a belief .. not a fact .. Our senses/brain are regularly fooled that is a fact.

Ah, I win your headphones. I hope they are real cool. Remember, I am talking only about ICE amps powering my Scintillas. The fact is none need test instruments to hear what I hear. Speaker cables with anymore than a barest insulation will make a hissing noise. The thicker the insulation the louder the hash. On my system, the only commercial speaker cable that was totally noiseless was the Speltz Anti-Cable. Those are round wires insulated with only varnish.

I found also the shape of the wire makes a vivid difference. All braided speaker cables sound mushy. Round ones sound hollow and mid heavy. The ultra thin ribbon beats all by a long shot. There is no self noise, and the delivery is everything the CD throws out there.

You would have to be here to agree with me, and you will.

 

[mep]

Amir-I find it interesting that he only wanted to demonstrate with 1' lengths of cable. Anything after that you can't tell the difference? Was that the moral to his story?

 

[Steve Williams]

moral is "give him an inch and he wants a foot"

 

[FrantzM]

muralman1

No you don't .. They are by the way very nice .. I am very much aware that class D are very senitive to the load they see but I am skeptical on the insulation issue ... By the way the H2O are on my list if I go on using the DIva, the original plan. I have become even more eco sensible and the thought of Driving the Diva with Ppower devouring and space heating amplifiers no longer appeals to me...

I have traveled the Cable road and have come to be very skeptical.. I find most cable manufacturers claim an affront to the truth .. The video from Amir is a point in case ... People truly in the highest End video reports NO improvement when using any of these dressed-up HDMI cables and in my own (former) system ( Sony Ruby, then JVC) I could see no differences between a fancy cable and a regular Blue Jean cables none.

Interestingly the video High End seems less gullible than the Audio... None of the guys with the best video systems would fall for these ... If cables don't make much ( NO) differences in the extended bandwidth occupied by HD video ( > 100 MHz) ... I will stop there ...

 

[mep]

It would have made sense to me if he showed a comparison to his cables and the "other" brands at real world lengths. 1' is not a real world length for an HDMI cable feeding a display. His demeanour in the video was interesting.

 

[muralman1]

Frantz, but you promised...... That's Ok.

If you did get the H2O, then by all means, if you have the money, buy his Fire preamp too. He built this preamp because there were so few preamps that work with the low impedance. It brings out the full dynamic force, all the detail, naturally. If you buy the monos, then you will need to buy my cables.

 

[muralman1]

When did HDMI cables become audio cables?? I use HDMI cables for video.