A New Believer

To Paul graham - what question was I required to answer? Complete bullshit? Why such an angry reaction? If your tree is being shaken then maybe your tree is the problem.

Agree with Paul Graham.

I've never read so many words with such little substance.

Maybe you should run for office antipodes; very few politicians doublespeak better than you.

Rok2id,

As you seem to be one of those philosophers, I urge you to open the horse's mouth yourself.

Personally, I have heard the difference between cables on more than one occasion by experimenting, sometimes to my chagrin, once to my dismay. All kinds of materials carry current. Not all sound great doing it. If you were just worried about getting the signal from one end to the other, you'd use bare wire bought by the foot. I have seen speaker jumpers made of copper, silver, tinned brass, and aluminum alloy. I have replaced cheapo jumpers with cheapo wire with good effect in the past. I have had people in my apartment A/B-ing wire, and leave in a huff when their particular concoction got completely showed up by someone else's recipe, and I assure you the differences were not because of lack of ability of the lesser cable's ability to conduct electricity.

Otherwise, I think that the debate about how well wires carry signal is to some extent kind of silly before people know what two electrical loads/drivers are being connected with the wire. There isn't much we can do in a system full of wire... Tires is tires according to the "wire is wire" theory. But the best tires for my Ferrari are not the best tires for my 10yr old Pajero when I am rambo-ing around in the snow. Oops. Don't have a Ferrari. Well, if I did, they still wouldn't be the best for my 10yr old Pajero (which I do have).

Interesting thread. It seems that even some believers have a limit to what they are willing to accept when it comes to the amazing purported properties of wires.

Perhaps there is such a thing as too much marketing hyperbole?

To T_bone:

'I think that the debate about how well wires carry signal is to some extent kind of silly'

The so called debate is whether or not wire can change the signal. Saying it can is silly. Saying it can change sound stage and detail and Lord, let us not forget mid-bass, is down right absurd.
All this can be proven by anyone. It just requires two people, both committed to finding the truth. One to install and change cables and another to listen, for days,weeks,months, then compare notes. The peoblem would be how to prevent the listener from seeing which cable is playing.

I thnk we don't give enough importance to the role eyesight and the awareness that a component has been changed, plays in what we think we hear.

The cables I use are not expensive at all. I have another set of moderately priced speaker cables that make my set-up sound bright and steely. Am I crazy?

To Blkadr:

You are hereby charged with 'listening under the influence'(of your brain and eyes) :)

04-12-11: Antipodes_audio
If the time relationships in a sound are unnatural then the brain is quickly fatigued trying to make sense of what it hears, and the music sounds confused. If the time relationships are accurate then the brain can make complete sense of what it hears, with singers/players/instruments occupying distinct and real spaces. These time-domain issues are two-fold; signal-smearing, and phase distortions...Unlike equipment design, cable design to get accurate timbre is not tough, but time-domain accuracy is hard, and every design is a trade-off.

Antipodes audio - I agree with you about the importance of time domain performance. You may be aware of this already, but there is a significant amount of science confirming that human hearing has very sensitive temporal resolution. Many estimates place the limits of human temporal resolution on the order of microseconds, and some estimates place it as low as 5 μs. That is a remarkable level of sensitivity.

Of course, it does not necessarily follow that our extreme sensitivity to temporal differences is a significant psychoacoustic factor in audio. But like you, I believe that it is.

Having said all that, I am still unclear about what design choices in cables influence their time domain behavior. Is it the materials? The geometry? The dielectric?

I'm not asking you to give up your "secret recipe," but can you share any generalizations about the virtues and vices of various design approaches?

Thanks,
Bryon

If you can't answer the question, dazzle them with bs.

I am not used to the level of rudeness and anger I am encountering here, and since anger comes from fear, it makes me wonder what it is that you guys are afraid of. Or maybe you are just angry people and this is a safe place for you to vent some of it without getting a bloody nose. It seems an odd way to enjoy a hobby and the company of others.

To Audiofeil, sorry the point wasn't obvious enough for you. I can see why politics wouldn't be a career choice for you.

To Bryoncunningham. We can only experiment using listening tests, as there is no easy way to know whether measured differences will be musically meaningful or not. It may surprise some here that we do use blind tests at certain stages during the development process, but that is a long topic in itself and lengthy posts are clearly not welcomed. The main design characteristics we focus on to reduce time-domain errors are the conductor purity, dielectric, resonance control and geometry.

We make our wire ourselves and believe that certain characteristics of the finished wire are important. After making the silver wire we have a method by which we apply gold and platinum to the wire to break up the resonance of silver. The wire is coated in a natural oil and dried. We use four different gauges in a semi-litz arrangement. We use natural unbleached cotton insulation, no plastics. And our geometries are very different - particularly, we avoid twisting, braiding and screening as each of those have phase impacts we have little problem hearing.

To Rok2id, you appear to have lost it some time ago on this thread. Are you sure this is doing you any good? Anything I or anyone else says that doesn't fit with your model of cable performance is just labelled bs, so what are you achieving? If all that disagree with you leave this thread, have you won?

The main design characteristics we focus on to reduce time-domain errors are the conductor purity, dielectric, resonance control and geometry.

Antipodes - Thank you for addressing my question. FWIW, I am not one of the angry ones. I am just curious to learn more about cable design. I have always found the process of selecting cables a bit frustrating, because unlike other components in the audio chain, I have very little understanding of the ways in which cable design affects the resulting sound. Hence the question in my previous post.

If you are willing to elaborate further, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how each of the design parameters you mentioned can affect the audible characteristics of a cable. For example...

It sounds like you are saying that time domain errors can be created by impure conductors, plastic dielectrics, and braided geometries. I gather that these observations are based on listening tests, which personally I have no problem with. My question is:

Do you have any hypotheses about why impure conductors, plastic dielectrics, or braided geometries would result in the time domain problems you mentioned, naming smearing and phase distortion?

It also sounds like you are saying that mixing two materials, e.g. gold and silver, helps reduce the resonance of each material, resulting in fewer time domain problems. Again, do you have any hypothesis about why that is the case?

Thanks,
Bryon

To Antipodes_audio

I think you need to reread my posts. I used the word BS once, and that was not directed at you. I am not here to do myself 'any good'. I am not trying to win anything. As far as I know there is nothing to win. I am certainly not angry. Angry at who and for what? ALL my comments are actually directed at the young guys just starting out. Economic times are tough and money is tight. Families are involved. This is No time to be WASTING money on NONSENSE, such as wire and power cords. And EVERYONE on this site knows it's nonsense. It's sad the more well known and respected guys won't speak out. BTW your little fear/anger psycho-babble is wrong!

I have an extensive background of study and experience in signal transmission, but recently spent some years studying human hearing and managed to make some connections between those. I have been working with some professors from two different universities on getting funding for some real research, but the funding hasn't materialised yet. The guys most interested are the physical chemistry professors. We have some hypotheses, for sure, and have written those up.

The purity one is not clear to me. My personal view is that it is the softness of the material, not its purity, that is most important (though they are related) and that the effect is more down to resonance than electron flows and eddy currents (as proposed by others). But the honest answer is that we are still divided on that one.

Dielectrics store and release the signal with some smearing of the signal over time. This is an area where conventional thinking accepts there is an issue but dismisses the relevance at audio frequencies. Our ears tell us otherwise, which leaves little room for much more than the typical "Tis, tisn't" debate.

Mechanical resonance seems to create an electrical resonance, though we only have theories on why this might be so. This is the particular area where my academic collaborators are most interested (though they find the idea of burn in fascinating too). The theory we have developed here would be a very long post.

Geometry affects resonance, but also there is mutual interference between conductors that needs to be kept low and constant along the wire. Most designs are poor at the former and average at the latter. Reducing this interference creates other problems and I find no easy solution other than striking a compromise.

I fear many will find that too waffly. Each of those a big areas and not simple. In most cases we have evidence of an effect, but are at the theory stage with inadequate funding to take it much further than that. I suspect all high end audio cable firms are in the same boat on that one. We can observe, develop theories, apply them in practise and observe again to hear if we like the change. Going much further is hard/expensive given the measurement difficulties. I am well aware that the alternative view is that the measurement difficulties aren't difficulties at all - just proof that we are deluded. The debate becomes entirely belief-based, which never goes anywhere. Hopefully I will get one of these research studies funded some day.

Rok2ID,
I have done that test over the short term, in my apartment, with multiple people present, and noone able to know whether I had changed something or not (I had a screen in front of the pre/CDP to allow me to switch cables (or pretend to) and not let anyone see what I had done. I have done multi-hour test a few times. It has been enlightening each time. I can let you know results if you want but people clearly heard differences between cables used.

HOWEVER, what it brought to me was that a certain chain of products sounded different, not that the cables themselves sounded different. I have no way of testing the wires by themselves without attaching such mundane test equipment as pres, CDPs, phono stages, amps and speakers into the mix. Some of the wires obviously had different electrical properties (resistance, capacitance, inductance). I am pretty sure that they all carried music. Some did not do the details as well. I have no idea whether that was "time domain issues", an electrical issue, a resonance issue, or what it was. Everyone heard it very clearly. But what everyone took away was that everyone could hear it clearly on that setup, not another.

If you think that all cables have equal electrical properties, then you obviously have not done enough testing yourself. I have not done the tests with scientific equipment to say that the signal can be changed (which is not the same thing), but I expect that given the way you have presented your ideas (or rather, your attack on others' comments), neither have you. Personally, I am unwilling to believe that the electrical properties of the carrier have zero effect on how the piece at one end of the wire perceives the electrical signal

The nice thing about the 'wire is wire' argument for people like you is that it is easy to be satisfied. You can simply buy the cheapest CDPs and amps which look good. You don't need to worry about tubes vs transistors (it's just wire vs wire) and you don't need to worry about Class A vs Class B vs Class D (it's also just wire vs wire). CDPs are simple - bits is bits. Jitter is a figment of people's imagination or an artifact of the CD manufacturing process. Speakers and phono cartridges you might be able to claim are key, because they are not electronic signal carriers but physical transducers. But everything between tonearm output to speaker input can be garage sale castoffs linked with lamp cord.

But somehow I don't think that's the way you found yourself on Audiogon...

To T_bone:
you make a lot of good points, and I will try to respond to them all.
I would love to have the results of your test. Now we are getting somewhere.
As far as having to involve cd players and the rest of the system, well thats what we are talking about. HIFI systems. Some people are trying to twist this thread into some discussion of physics lab results, but the question is, does wire change what comes out of the speaker. If you can hear a difference, that is actually what you are saying. What happens on the wire surface at a Lab at MIT or some place is not the question. The question is HOW does it affect my hifi playing Beethoven's 9th to such a degree that I can hear it?

To T_bone:
'The nice thing about the 'wire is wire' argument for people like you is that it is easy to be satisfied. You can simply buy the cheapest CDPs and amps which look good. You don't need to worry about tubes vs transistors (it's just wire vs wire) and you don't need to worry about Class A vs Class B vs Class D (it's also just wire vs wire). CDPs are simple - bits is bits. Jitter is a figment of people's imagination or an artifact of the CD manufacturing process. Speakers and phono cartridges you might be able to claim are key, because they are not electronic signal carriers but physical transducers. But everything between tonearm output to speaker input can be garage sale castoffs linked with lamp cord.'

Now this is where you lost me. Why does my position on wire mean I buy the cheapest components? I don't get the connection. Tubes went out Econs ago. I have had class A and class AB amps. My current amp is both. I don't know whether jitter is real or not, but I paid a grand for my CD Player, so I better not hear any. I threw my phono cart away with my Thorens, or at least I threw them into the garage. Your last sentence is nonsense. BTW, I never said amps is amps or cdps is cdps, BUT some very prominent people have, including my guru's Len Feldman, Julian Hirsch and Peter Aczel. So who am I to disagree? BTW, most 'high end" amps cost what they cost to a large degree because of what it took to make them LOOK like they do. And they look GOOD.

To T_Bone:

'but I expect that given the way you have presented your ideas (or rather, your attack on others' comments)'

This seems to be a recurring theme on this site, concerning my comments. Am I doing something wrong? Breaking some rule? If I am, please set me straight. I am relatively new here.

"This is No time to be WASTING money on NONSENSE, such as wire and power cords. And EVERYONE on this site knows it's nonsense." I think this is a good example of what T_Bone may be referring to.

To Antipodes_audio:

I see your point. Maybe I should tone it down a little.

Rok2id...maybe a trip to your local audiologist is in order....for you to imply that all cables sound the same is absurd.my guess is either your hearing is somehow lacking or your system is not good enough to hear the improvement that some cables make.

Antipodes - Thank you for taking the time to further respond to my questions. Some of the ideas you mentioned are things I am familiar with, some of them not. In both cases, your answers strike me as honest, and I appreciate that, especially from a manufacturer.

As far as the tone of this thread, it did jump off the rails a bit. IMO, the most fruitful and interesting conversations on A'gon are threads where people can disagree without being disagreeable.

Bryon

To Calloway:

'my guess is either your hearing is somehow lacking or your system is not good enough to hear the improvement that some cables make.'

after viewing your system I think it could be both. Awesome setup!

Rok2id,
Your position on 'wire' leads to the comment about amps and CDPs because all electronic components are effectively 'wire' - i.e. conductors or components which conduct signal. In a CDP, there is a laser reading a distance off a spinning disc. The signal propagated is either a 1 or a 0 for every portion of the signal. That signal is then turned into an analog electrical signal in the DAC and then is output. There should be no difference between DACs because the function of a DAC is to produce in analog form that which enters the DAC. They all do their job adequately. Your comment about tubes is a throwaway. Transistors are nothing but small tubes. Get over it. My comment about phono carts and speakers is that one starting from your position that wire is wire COULD say that speakers and carts involve a transformation from the physical to the electronic, and vice versa, and the physical/electronic interface may be faulty.

I would disagree about your point regarding the cost of high-end amps. Most high-end amps cost what they cost because of the need for various people in the chain of design/manufacturing/distribution/sales to get paid. The cosmetics are there to make sure the buyer gets a warm fuzzy feeling about laying out what would still be a large amount of money for a high-end amp. But... that's only when you care about the circuit and the quality of parts inside the amp and think those aspects could have some impact on what you are listening to. If you are only worried about whether the signal comes out the other end, you only need buy the cheapest thing which plays.

Some of us are quite sure that wire is not just wire. However, just because it is not does not mean the most expensive wire is the best, or that there is not more bang for buck in doing other things to improve your sound. For me, best bang for buck in a high-end audio system is not cables or equipment but room tuning.

As to the cable shootouts mentioned, only a few commerically available cables were used (TG Audio HSR, Jade Audio Hybrids, Wireworld Gold Eclipse, a Japanese brand I forget, and some form of Coincident interconnects). The others were various homebrew recipes of different materials, geometries, dialectrics, and connectors. Among the commercial cables, I liked the TG and the Jade. Among the homebrews, I liked a super thin solid core silver with cotton tubing which a friend had made - very nice. I want to try to make a pair. Wish I had when silver was $10/oz not $40...

To T_bone:

All of your points are well taken. I guess I still have a lot to learn about high-end audio. I think I will now withdraw from the 'wire' battle, bloodied but unbowed. I thank all those who contributed to the discussion.

Here's what I learned from this discussion....

There are people who have the ability to hear differences in "wire". Nobody really knows what physically happens within the wire to "improve" the sound. There is no instrument to measure the differences, if any.

Paul Graham I think I would say perhaps that the folks with the instruments and knowhow to measure system differences have better things to do? No money in it.

and lots of stuff just can't be measured

Wire doesn't "improve the sound". Some wires degrade the sound less than others. All of them color the sound to some degree, just like any other link in the chain.

For the last 40 years I have been listening to music as a hobby, with attention paid to the equipment I'm using. In the various groups of people in my acquaintance my stereo system has always been one of the best. Some of my family think I'm crazy that way.
In all those years I have never taken the time to "listen" to a wire. Although I do use better than zip cord for speaker cables and don't use the standard interconnects delivered with cheap electronics, I can't honestly say I'd hear any difference in a blind test.
A while back in this thread someone suggested Rok2id get out of this hobby if he didn't want to compare wires. Seriously? WTF?
I'll be listening to some tunes this weekend but probably won't be listening to the wires. Enjoy.

I think perhaps that Rok2id is the opposite end of the spectrum from the 'believers in all tweaks'. There are those who might be so convinced that they will spend big $$$ on snake oil, deceiving themselves that they hear what isn't there. On the other end, those so convinced that there can be no difference and therefore it is sure that they will hear no difference.
He charged me with "listening under the influence" (of my eyes and mind). But in this case I was not "hearing" what I wanted, not what I anticipated, not my expectations. I was hoping and anticipating certain improvements that did not occur. On the contrary, I heard differences that I did not like. This conclusion was made after an extended amount of time, not just from a/b comparisons. I finally took the cables out of my system in spite of the fact that I wanted and expected them to sound better. I frankly could not live with the negative effects that, (in my set-up) were not present before the switch. The opposite of my expectations.
I suggest that hearing the results you expect can go both ways.
ps...I took no negativity from your comments, and intend none.

Let's face it. You are loading the output of the amplifier with TWO complex loads. The speaker and the speaker cables. I cannot fathom how you can compare cables without knowing how the amplifier reacts to these two in series. That is why agreements are very hard to come by and you are doing well if you can find a happy combination.

I am a firm believer that simple cables such as the "Anti Cables" with no dielectric insulation have a better chance of getting this match.

Let's face it. You are loading the output of the amplifier with TWO complex loads. The speaker and the speaker cables.
Stops

If your speaker cables present a "complex" load to the amplifier, I suggest there is something wrong with your cables.

All cables have inductance resistance and capacitance and they are a complex load by any stretch of the imagination.

All cables have inductance resistance and capacitance and they are a complex load by any stretch of the imagination.

The hyperbole among audiophiles regarding audio cables never ends. The amazing and endless eulogies to mere bits of copper wire....

No hyperbole-just scientific facts. The wires I suggested are plain copper wire without any fancy wrappings. Look before you speak is something you should add to your hyperbole!

No hyperbole-just scientific facts.

Sorry but to call a few meters of copper wire working at analog audio frequencies a complex load is pure hyperbole. And one does not even need a degree in electrical engineering to know this - because it is common knowledge.

However, snake oil and pseudo-science seem to have a stranglehold on the audio cables business. No doubt even mass retailers like Best Buy subscribes to this viewpoint because it is a nice kicker to sell $300 of cables (at 300% markup) with that CD and amplifier purchase (at 40% markup).

Shadorne:Interesting but the rise and fall time of the signal is relevant and therefore the impact of the impedance is also relevant even at "audio" frequencies. I suppose, by analogy you believe that there is no problem with CD sound because the 44.1 Khz meets the Nyquist criterean, and we cannot hear beyond 20 khz anyway, and that jitter and the steep Digital filter do not have effects on CD sound....

FYI the cables I suggested are, I believe, $80 an 8 foot pair more expensive than zip cord but I assure you better sounding and vastly cheaper than the hype out there.

Stops, I never said any of that. I simply took issue with the grossly inaccurate use of "complex load" to describe a few meters of copper wire at audio frequencies. It perpetuates the myth that cables are critical.

In our hobby in general, there is far too much exaggeration of the effects of cables when it is the active components (source, amplification) and passive components (speakers, crossover) and room (speaker placement, listening position, acoustics) that have, by several orders of magnitude, a much greater impact on the sound.

04-20-11: Stops
Shadorne: Interesting but the rise and fall time of the signal is relevant and therefore the impact of the impedance is also relevant even at "audio" frequencies.

Keep in mind that the risetimes and falltimes of the source material, the source component, the amplification, the speakers, and our ears are all limited, and with the exception of some amplification components do not extend into the rf region.

And even if "transmission line" or other cable effects that occur at rf or upper ultrasonic frequencies were somehow audible despite the limited bandwidth/risetime/falltime of everything else that is involved, there would seem to be no reason to expect those effects to be predictable, or to be consistent from system to system, or to be significantly correlated with price.

I certainly agree, though, that impedance can be important in analog audio cables. But the reason for that is because of the interaction of its constituents (resistance, inductance, capacitance) with the impedance and other characteristics of the components the cable is connecting. Those interactions are technically predictable. More importantly, pretty much any given set of impedance parameters is obtainable across most of the price spectrum.

Regards,
-- Al

Al: Thanks for the balanced comment. That is what I said in my original post. And that is why I recommended the Anti-cables. They are simple in construction and more likely to be a better match to the driving amplifier.

Shadorne: The point I was making is this. There is NOTHING that is absolutely understood in our hobby. The example I gave you was the one that supported "CD reproduction was perfect" It turns out that as envisioned it is not. Just because one cannot measure it or do not have an explanation of why a certain thing goes against the "Mainline Thinking" does not mean it does not occur. While I agree that all the other items you list are very important and should be optimized the bottom line is this.I also agree with you that there is a LOT of snake oil out there and if you are not technically savvy can get burned.

You have a CHAIN and every link in the chain right up to your ears modifies the sound. In my opinion the simpler these interfaces are the less likely that you will have a large interaction between them. So I would refrain in general with "grossly inaccurate" unless you have a very good grasp of the interactions of even a few feet of wire that has capacitance, inductance and resistance and a feedback amplifier with a speaker load.

Al: There is a fly in the ointment though. Speaker loads are very far from being predictable speaker to speaker. The low output impedance of an amplifier will help but as I said in the first post you have the cable and the speaker in series. Feedback amplifiers can measure well under continuous drive but can fare badly in transient conditions.

Regards,

J

04-20-11: Stops
Al: There is a fly in the ointment though. Speaker loads are very far from being predictable speaker to speaker. The low output impedance of an amplifier will help but as I said in the first post you have the cable and the speaker in series.

I agree.

Implicit in my comment about the predictability of the interactions between cable impedance and the impedance and other characteristics of what is being connected was the thought that the effects of any given cable will vary widely depending on what the cable is connecting. Sometimes in opposite directions, in fact. Nevertheless they are generally predictable for a given combination of cables and components, assuming the technical parameters of both are known.

For example, a low capacitance interconnect cable used as a line-level interconnect will tend to have GREATER bandwidth/faster risetime than a higher capacitance cable, as a result of its interaction with the output impedance of the component that is driving it. That same low capacitance cable, if used as a phono cable in conjunction with a moving magnet cartridge, will tend to have LOWER bandwidth/slower risetime than a higher capacitance cable, as a result of its interaction with the inductance of the cartridge. Same cable, exactly opposite effects depending on what it is connecting. Those effects will sometimes occur at frequencies well below 20kHz.

Feedback amplifiers can measure well under continuous drive but can fare badly in transient conditions.

Agreed also. Although in typical situations I would expect cabling to play a role in that which is minor or negligible, relative to the performance of the amplifier itself and to the sonic effects of amplifier/speaker interaction.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks Al I agree with all the comments

Regards,
J

Al: I am not sure I wholly agree with the concept that the speaker cables have an insignificant effect.

The simple fact that people hear a difference by changing the cables WITHOUT changing the speaker suggest that the cables must have a pretty dramatic effect in the coupling/performance of the amp and the speaker. Maybe the point you made was that the speaker is more complex than the wires but the bottom line is that the cables change the sound. Which really is the bottom line.

04-21-11: Stops
Al: I am not sure I wholly agree with the concept that the speaker cables have an insignificant effect....

Stops, with all due respect that is a complete misreading of what I have said, which surprises me after your previous response. My reference to speaker cables having a minor or negligible effect strictly applied to your comment about the effect of amplifier feedback on transient response, and applied to the role played by the speaker cable in that specific effect (relative to the more important role of the amplifier design itself, and the interaction of the amplifier with the speaker).

Early on in this thread, in my post dated 4-10-11, I explicitly seconded a comment by Audiofeil which said essentially that cable differences exist and are easily perceivable in many systems, but that the correlation between performance and price is small. I also expressed the view that the real question that should be focused on when it comes to cables is the degree of correlation between performance and price. I provided a link to a post I had made in another thread on that subject, in which I provided rationale for that position, at some length.

Everything else I have written in subsequent posts in this thread has been consistent with those viewpoints, that cables can and do make significant differences in many systems, but that in my opinion, and in the opinions of several others who have posted in this thread in addition to Audiofeil, the correlation between performance and price is a weak one.

Regards,
-- Al

Al: Sorry about that I guess I should have read that more carefully.I also am guilty of not reading your earlier post.

I DO agree with all you have said before.

Your point also about poor correlation abetween performance and price is exactly what I suggested when I volunteered the Anti Cables as an example.

I should stop shooting myself in the foot!

Regards,
Jake