My total cable investment (retail) is almost as much as yours. My total system is a bit over half yours. Yes there must be a point of diminishing returns, but I cann't say I've found it. I think a $3000 investment in a power cord vs. a $3000 additional investment in an amp for example would provide about a 5 to one return at your system level. Five times the improvement factor in cord over amp, just my opinion! It's also possible that a $100 cord fits your system perfectly, thus your the lucky one. (or a $5000 amp) Every month it seems some "new" cord or theory comes out, so yes there are always hidden gems, the trick will be finding them. The nice thing about cables and cords is once you've invested in a full set of used cables the investment remains, you can try other cords and if it's better sell your old one, chances are good you'll get 90% of your money back.
You have bought a Hydra already wich means you paid full retail, that might have been a good idea due to the reviews I've seen on this product. For the most part I would never buy new for cables and cords, you pay full price, must burn it in and then risk after a couple months it sounding bad once it fully opens up. I've found if your pactient and can wait for the product for a couple years your investment is safer, but then you lose the chance of two more years of perfection. I like you find the Hydra very tempting, I haven't bought one yet.......J.D. |
Cornfed, that isn't quite what I ment to say. I was trying to say that if you have a $15,000 amp and three thousand additional dollars to spend, IMO a $3000 power cord will make a larger improvement than upgrading to an $18,000 amp. I would never say or believe that a power cord has greater value than the amp! Please give me a little credit. If I tried to equate it to your Vette I guess I'd say four new $800 high proformance tires would have a greater percentage increase than a $30,000 suspension upgrade. If this still makes no sense than I clearly am unable to express my thoughts on this. Which is why I'm an Architect and your an Attorny. Lets just leave it that I would spend $15,000 on an upgraded amp if I had the money, but the $300 I spent for a $3000 power cord got me quite a bit more than what I could have afforded in an amp. But I would be happy to take a charity gift if you really think I should have the amp. J.D. |
Chrfor, never say never. Some day you may be lucky enough to be enlightened, perhaps.
It's interesting to me, when this thread was started it was full of people who spoke without knowledge, and argued for the sake of argument. During these past years more development dollars have been placed on cable materials and methods of construction. This effort has taken us from one step above Monster cable to some jaw dropping products.
I hear the comments about blind a/ab comparisons and double blind testing, with these camps continuing to speak with such conviction that we would not hear a difference. How absurd these comments have become. No one with any experience with high end equipment could continue to have this view, yet somehow they continue to exist.
I simply shake my head and laugh. For the rest of the people here, we continue to learn and experiment, finding more and more from the electronics. When we started this thread, I was in the camp of the absurd in that 1/3 of my budget was spent on cables. As I look at the virtual systems posted here, I'm now seeing more and more people learning that the cables may well be the most important factor in our system.
Chrfor, perhaps you need to re-examine your confusion. You state our cables will only point out the poor electronics. You are correct, but if you had good electronics then all you would hear is your bad cables. Your system is only as good as the weakest link. I read from your comments this is your electronics. Sorry for you, but as I said, never say never!
jd
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Duane, you make some excellent points. I have no way, nor a need to verify your claims, but you are right on the money with the comments that much of this is stumbled upon. I recently re-cabled my system with Kubala-Sosna cables saving a lot of money from my fully cabled with Nordost Valhalla. K-S cables were developed by starting with a sound scientific concept. They then built a cable to fit that concept, and. each iteration of the development was fully documented, and every iteration was listened to for sonic quality. As they discovered a point where the sonic quality was to their expectation they flagged it. Then they continued to push the performance from there. After an extensive time of trial and error, they eventual got to a place where they knew they had it. This proved out to be the best they could achieve, given the science behind the development, and they discovered they could improve no further. This is what they call their Emotion line. There were two other significant points in the development stage, these are the other two lines of the series.
I assume, but have no first hand knowledge that they will continue to review the science and performance. At some point I assume some new scientific concept (derived often times from the small guy) will provoke a new line to be developed.
My point is I found their approach to be extremely logical and as scientific as cable development gets. It also proved very successful in the performance these cables deliver.
What I have seen with most cable companies is a blind march down the same road they were on ten, fifteen years ago. Cardas, Kimber, XLO, NBS, MIT, Transparent... have done nothing to revolutionize their products; they simply keep trying different dielectric combinations. A few have put new science to there products, Shunyata Research and Nordost are two examples. This has allowed them to make new "better" lines to sell, but often times the performance of these cables has inherent problems, covered up by one aspect of betterment. The rest are simply knock offs with some different construction techniques. (Of course all this is simply my opinion, but that is the purpose of a site like this, so shoot at me if you will. I'm simply sharing...)
The cable business is not voodoo and it is not snake oil, it is fact. Cables make a difference. The cable business is however more often than not a scam. Few of the products in the marketplace are worth the price, and in many cases can deteriorate the sonic quality. These products have done more damage to this industry than anything else I can think of.
Brizonbiovizier, you are correct, there are some great values that exist. You may also be right that they had good engineering behind them. You could even be right about them bettering most products; it is here I do not have your personal experiences. I have tried many home brewed cables, hoping to find the Holy Grail, but form my personal experiences; $200 interconnects sound like $200 interconnects. I do not know if you have ever spent time making your own cables, twisting heavy gauge wires, wrapping Teflon around a run of wire, and then wrapping copper or silver foil, then wrapping... But it takes a lot of time. If a Guy can make a cable for $100, he either is homeless because he forgot to charge for his time, or he slapped together a wire inside a cotton liner. Building cables by hand takes a ton of time (if we expect them to be reproducible.) The bigger companies often become complacent and use machines to mass produce. This is fine, if they are going to charge a couple hundred dollars to pay for there investment, but as you have pointed out, the products are far to often poorer quality for inflated prices.
This does not however mean all cables are hype and over priced. If a cable can make the level of difference some cables have made on my system, then I will buy them if I can afford to. This does not mean I was scammed or anything, it means the cable I buy does the best for what I can afford. For me to doubt your experience would be wrong. I have no knowledge or experience with what you are using. For you to blanket claim you cables will beat brand Y is also wrong. Your experience is the cables you have tried were not that big of deal. That could be a number of issues including your system has some excellent components but there are also a few holes, the cables you have tried may have been more hype than science a, you may have stumbled upon the Holy Grail, or what ever.
I do somehow doubt you have tried most of the product out there, and therefore will take your experience as just that. Your experience. I do however want to point out why I doubt your being fully honest in your experience, your $60,000 system as claimed adds up to $49,965 with $16,500 into the analog front end. Im just pointing out you may be exaggerating the truth regarding cables as you have tried with your system. I am not attacking you for I agree with much of what you have said; I am simply questioning your claim (mostly regarding your experience with Valhalla) because it simply does not fit your approach to your system. Other than the amps you have built a system very much independent of the hype in audio products. It would surprise me if you seriously spent any time with Valhalla, it simply does not seem to fit your approach to the hobby. That is actually a complement, you have clearly done a lot of research and made your decisions independent of the press, I like that.
Having said that, you have made claims I seriously doubt you can back up. It is blanket statements like yours that confuse so many people looking to get the very best from their equipment. I would feel very comfortable in stating I do not believe you have heard the capabilities of your $16,500 analog front end. My reason for this comments, and I think you are quite typical in this, that most people have invested very large dollars (large is a relative term) and more often than not have skimped on some area of the system. (this is the entire point of this thread, what percent of your budget
) This leaves many with the weakest link being the level they achieve. Often this is in cables, racks and/or isolation. Somehow we can spend $16,000 on a pair of speakers, but have no investment in isolation, or a couple hundred dollars in wire. To my mind, this thinking is so skewed and illogical.
Sadly these are the battle lines we have developed. Wire is wire, these isolation products are snake oil, and there is no science
Why so many have trouble grasping these issues as important is beyond me and why the defiance by many is even more puzzling. I made a promise to myself when I came back to this site that I would not enter discussions about wire, power and the like, because all that happens is anger. But here I am, right in the middle.
I guess I just feel the truth needs to represent too. So Please understand, nothing I have tried to say was written maliciously, for that would progress this discussion no where. If it comes off as attacking, I apologies, its a tough subject to not sound attacking. My only reason to share on this site is to help others learn from my experiences and find new friends who share a common interest. I have no interest in a war over something as meaningless as cable talk.
jd |
yep, I love to brag. That must be my motive... |
Hi Joe, it's a bit strange hearing some of the words coming out of your mouth on this topic. I know you appreciate the fact that wire does affect sonic quality and that different construction techniques in dielectric will change an identical wire from harsh to smooth. I have often agreed with you over the years, and believe you to be a wise audiophile. I have tried so many under $150 cables and attempted to build many more, but my quest for the Holly Grail has failed every time until I spent money. I agree it's overpriced, and believe me, if a $99 wire could match the performance I would be happy to sell my investment. Please let me in on the Holly Grail you found, I would love to try them.
Maple, I have read through your posts not knowing who you are. Clearly you have a large and heavy chip you are carrying around. You tend to be more prone to trash talking any company YOU feel is a rip off, and have very little value you have added to this site. I'm sorry you are so deeply burdened with this horrid weight, I will pray for your torchered soul my friend. |
Hi Joe,
Damn you... the problem with respecting you despite not agreeing fully is I then give consideration to your opinions. Over the last four years some truly revolutionary thinking (and in some cases actual science) has raised the bar in cable performance (my opinion) and your point was not lost on me. What I heard you say is cables have gotten expensive, not because of time, material and overhead, but rather because of the clientele and the expectations they as a mass have. This led me to a new research phase. I spent the past few days reading about different scientific discoveries and quite a bit of DIYs findings. (Many of which had hard science behind them too)
Jack Bybee as one scientist has approached the cable issue from a different angle than most of the copy-cat manufacturers are pursuing. This took me down a road of philosophies I had not seriously considered before. There are quite a few white papers coming out of University studies that are requiring some new thinking. Your personal involvement in the scientific community has given you witness to the affects of silver conductive materials and the result on different conductors. You have personal experience in the new sciences that has been adopted by our industry. Unfortunately, too many of us a skeptics (my self included) to the validity of the scientific claims. This is why I began my own personal research (which I intend to continue for some time) and rather than reading product claims and/or individual peoples experiences, Im trying to understand the fact behind the stories. The Universities used to be impossible institutions to break into for personal discovery, but now with the internet, we (the lowly citizen) can access even the most cutting edge science. NASA and the Pentagon are also good links to the research by following the information trail.
As I said I have discovered a vast amount of hard science that is being applied to conductors. Often this is for purposes not related to our industry, but the science is transferable. Conductors are a significant issue as the computing capacities increase. Transfer of massive amounts of information via electrical signal has become one of the limiting factors in increased computing speeds. Now with nanotechnology, the issues are actually more complex as we demand more from less. This is opening doors and products that just plan were not possible before today. The fact that nano-fabrication is out of the Universities and into the hands of the public opens up potential science to our industry. I am not thinking we need nanotube interconnects, what I am saying is the science that got to nanotubes is viable to us.
That being said, I wanted to respond to you and let you know you have opened my mind to new theories. I intend to pursue the research and hopefully try some personal experimentation on the DIY front. I will be sure to keep the Agon community informed as I proceed.
I wanted to personally thank you Joe for your approach with me, and my disputes with you. I think you and I have proven kind respect gets your ideas across much better than slamming and anger. You are a true gentleman and one that this community should look to as an example of how we conduct our discussions when we see things from a different perspective. This hobby, above all other things has no absolutes, and it is done for our personal enjoyment, not to be right. I think we all need to keep this perspective. And I wish to nominate Joe as our leader on this front. You sir have my 100% respect and admiration.
jd |
Excellent description of some extremely complicated topics put into terms even I could understand. After reading for most of the day through papers coming from Rice University and spin off company profiles into nanotechnology I see the excitement is unlimited in these peoples eyes. The discoveries that lead to nanotube were only one year old when I last looked into wires. It appears to me that the next five years are going to change the world entirely, and as a result the audio community will also change.
Sadly our capitalist society leaves the door open to the type of businessmen you describe as snake oil salesman. I agree, but they are no less criminal than the banker who charges 20+% during periods of zero inflation or software companies who design operating systems so flawed that it leaves the door open for replacement in a year. Every area of our nation, insurance, health care manufacturing... are filled with profiteers who have no purpose other than legally stealing.
That being said, it is not fair for us to jump on all the businessmen in the economy. for in reality, the bad ones are still the few (at least I try to believe) and in my experience 95% of this planet is covered with good people. The bad ones receive the press and our attention, but let's not throw the entire world out just because there are a few greedy capitalists being jerks!
I look forward to the next generation in audio, I believe vast and wonderful things are just around the corner. (Yes the sky is bright pink in my world, but I like it that way!)I will continue to chase Joe around A'gon trying to learn from one of the good guys. Thanks again for the education! |
OK, your right. Cables are a hoax, snake oil, stealing, and I have a lot to gain by misleading these newbies. I love to watch these idiots fall for the ads and price. I get such a chuckle from knowing how many I have mislead. You have also got it 100% correct, if it's not in an ad, I will not even consider it. But really, I purchase solely on price. The more the better. BTW, I actually hate music, so it really doesn't matter, I just want people who have no idea about audio to come over and then I brag about my system. Hell I haven't even plugged it in yet this year. And just so no one misses the point, I hang price tags on every component because that is what I need for my ego.
You nailed it, I'm a con man and there is no way I can hear any difference between my clock radio and my stereo, at least from what I remember because as I said I have not even plugged my system in.
It is so cool how you saw right through my facade. You are the man I hope some day to emulate with your wisdom and knowledge. If I could only obtain 5% of your knowledge I would be grateful. You are my idol sir. I love you! |
Here is another angle on how to consider power cords and why they affect our systems. Robert commented on thinking of the cable as a circuit, perhaps a different word for the same concept is a filter. I have a friend who first introduced this word to me a few years ago to describing audio cables. (Power, interconnects and speaker cables) Here is the logic and why this word made sense to me.
A cable can not "add" to the signal, it is only able to degrade the signal. In the perfect world the signal would be carried from point "A" to point "B" with no alteration. I hope we can all agree this is not functionally possible, although we might read various hype that claims to have solved it.
The fact is, no matter how a cable is constructed, it will have some impact on the signal being carried. The wire matters, the gauge and make up both affect the signal. The dialectic (material around the wire) impacts the signal as it possesses different electrical "storage" potential, thus altering the signal electrically. The shielding will affect the signal "electrically" and shield the signal from outside interference.
Please understand my lay person logic and language towards these issues. I am not an engineer or even a simply electrical hobbyist. My views are quite naive, I understand this. Please look beyond this for the concept and not attack me for misusage of the words I chose to relay the concept.
It all matters, in the example of power cable, the newest designs are quite elaborate in their designs. The weave or braid being incorporated to bundle wires are often very complex and have sound logic in noise rejection. Not only are these configured as a straight filter in the wire interface, but they often have very elaborate dielectric and shielding designs that both reject outside interference and absorb line bound noise within the conductor.
I realize the science to explain the concepts being developed are behind the actual practice. In audio I believe the hobbyist often discovers things through trial and error. This is then elaborated on through the hobbyist, and eventually an engineer might try to explain what is happening. The problem many of the scientist are having (In my opinion) is the language does not yet exist to describe what we hobbyists are hearing.
Now I understand this conversation has now gone into the place where arguments start, but this is not my intent. I am just trying to explain a concept that is very logical to me, and helps me move beyond the argument and science to the enjoy the result level.
I have a very dear old Audiogon friend in New Zealand who keeps in touch with me. He has been a DIY hobbyist for years, and through experimenting has developed some excellent results. He was at lunch one day and the topic of cable performance came up. Well, one thing lead to another, but the result was he ended up meeting with a professor at the University in Auckland. This man has been researching the science behind the very issues we have been arguing over for the past ten years. Turns out there is A LOT of science behind what we are hearing. In a quantum physics world, micro and nano vibration have measurable affects on electrical signals. These affects have not been explained because first we did not know they existed, and secondly we had no equipment to measure it.
The point is, this man plans on publishing a paper regarding exactly what we have been asking for, but his findings will not be released for about a year. It turns out there are many scientists in our Universities who are studying these issues to help resolve signal transfer brought on by nano technology. The smaller the circuit for example, the larger the quantum noise and movements affect the circuit. Perhaps the most logical example is with nano tubes. When an electrical signal is passed through a nano tube , the electrons that were in a complex interaction all line up and quite down. This of course will reduce heat (which is primarily what these scientist are concerned with) but it will also reduce noise. I do not know how much the noise issue will be of interest to these scientists, but it is of interest to us.
Of course one man amongst us has understood these concepts for many years. Jack Bybee has developed products that work on quantum noise. The sad thing is instead of embracing this man, we ridiculed him because he had no science. Fact is he has a great deal of science behind his thinking, and fact is much of it remains classified.
The point is, the science and measurements are being worked on. Now my question is; should we ignore the results we hear because the science is lagging behind? Or should we continue to experiment through the hobbyist mentality of trial and error and enjoy the results of our fellow hobbyists?
Robert is one of these men who chose to embrace the results of his experiments and chose to share these findings with the community by starting a company. This is how 90% of this hobby is developed and how it advances.
My concept is to enjoy the results. The science will come, but to simply ignore the elephant in the room because no one knows what it is or how to explain its existence is a bit silly. Some day we will have the evolutionary classification behind the elephant, and we will have volumes of documentation to describe how this beast came to be, and how to measure it scientifically, but for now I am just going to accept that it indeed exists, and that is really all the proof I need.
jd |
