Correction- Exemplar not Emilar. |
Stirred the pot eh? The claims of system wide distortion reduction are falsehoods. They simply cannot be- to reduce system distortion by 14% requires changes at the speaker level, not at cable level. All properly performing gear up to the speaker typically is well under 0.5% TOTAL, with some higher numbers possible in cases like SETs and whatnot. The typical speaker contributes well over 95% of distortion artifacts in a system, and that distortion is due to electromechanical realities over which the cables have no influence. Cables add exceedingly small measurable artifacts, primarily noise. No person who's ever used any meaningful test gear would argue otherwise, only true believers who accept wild claims without substantiation. Tell you what- anyone here want to theorize what mechanism could add 14% to both system THD and system IMD in a cable? Nobody understanding even the most elementary technical aspects of a system could accept such an absurd claim.
They might sound great, I have nothing against cables as a tweak, but when you make up impossible numbers, then you're a fraud. The claim is akin to claiming a fuel additive gave you 1,000,000 extra horsepower. That's not an exaggeration- the claims of 14% are many orders of magnitude from anything that could be claimed legitimately. |
"System Wide" is unambiguous and includes loudspeakers. They're all just handwaving claims, meaningless and absurd. "3rd party" is a copout, and doesn't stand in any industry. Whose data, whose test did you use? Are they legit or someone you paid to produce false data to substantiate your claims? Laboratories LOVE to have their name referenced when they performed testing, it's free advertising. The only reason it's not mentioned is because it's a sham. Proper test results are a great marketing tool, and if they could do what they claimed, they would be used by military, nasa, everyone and their brother.
It's impossible to reduce "System wide" THD and IMD by 14% in the cables, since the cables are not meaningful contributors of these types of distortion. Cables cannot positively influence the operating behavior of properly working gear in THD and IMD. SNR improvement of 1.5dB is within typical measurement variance- someone's cell phone being in their pocket can make that difference, or broadcast schedules, or freeway traffic, or or or...... but I don't take issue with that 1.5dB claim, which is entirely possible.
Take a look at Stereophile. They measure amplifiers, preamplifiers, speakers, DACs, but not cables- why? Because cables don't show up on measurements in a meaningful way, unless they're broken (and "not nice enough" doesn't qualify as broken). Note that this is within audio cables specifically- when you get into true high power and/or high frequency design, every little thing gets more complex including cables, but we're talking about the audio band here.
Every person disagreeing with me has one simple task to "win". Show meaningful distortion measurements from an audio cable (not claimed nonsense measurements by some unnamed 3rd party, proper measurements with methodology, etc). Any audio cable. If it were a big enough issue to reduce system distortion by 14%, you'd better believe it would have published measurements- just like every other type of gear around. Such testing doesn't exist, because cables don't add meaningful THD, IMD, or most other measureable distortions. Noise is definitely one area where they can contribute but 1.5dB is NOTHING.
While I'm not an audioholics fan, this testing does indicate that there are not significant THD components derived from the cables themselves, which would be a prerequisite for achieving the claimed improvements. These are at levels well below a typical system's noise and distortion floor, even with loudspeakers excluded.
http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/cable-distortion-and-dielectric-biasing-debunked
Use 'em, enjoy 'em, I don't really care- there are legitimate mechanisms by which cables can introduce their own sound into a system. THD and IMD claims of this magnitude are outright lies. |
@ Calvin:
Seriously? Jesus has nothing better to do than inspire cable "technology"? Never mind millions of starving kids, Jesus has audiophiles to take care of!
@ The "It's okay because it's just marketing" people- being marketing isn't a license to lie. There are laws against that sort of thing.
I'll point out that those who have "seen" the measurements have said nothing that would indicate they saw anything with meaning, only that they saw some claims Rick made- and why are there so many people so buddy-buddy with Rick posting hundreds of times in this thread? You'd think that "These are great" would suffice, but no, the shills are exceedingly active and aggressively defending obvious lies. |
Hahahah! Calvin says some might never learn-
Hm- you mean basics like that magnetism and electric transmission are inseparably intertwined? 30 seconds on google will start explaining the details for anyone interested- adding a magnet is a source of high frequency loss, is the halfway cliffs notes version, but there are variations possible that are much more complex.
Another basic: cables don't meaningfully contribute to system THD and thus cannot lower system THD by any meaningful amount.
This is the first-semester stuff people. A tiny bit of intellectual curiosity would serve the denizens here well.
A magnetic or paramagnetic conductor could be made inductive as per my previous post (as could a Cu/Ag/Au/Al Conductor), but a proper technical evaluation would reveal nonlinearity as the issue driving lowered high frequency distortion components (not to mention that most distortion in typical audio systems is relatively low order and wouldn't be as proportionally affected by severe inductance)
What exactly is the deal you have to promote these cables Norm? Is it the same as you being an Emilar dealer but not registering as such, while hyping their products? A known shill with the gall to accuse others of nefarious motivation- classy.
Perhaps instead of questioning the points made from a position of ignorance, the people here should question "Do my assumptions and the claims associated with this product hold water? How can we validate what we're being told?"
It's not magic, there's an art component to hifi but the claims I take issue with are exceedingly easy to understand. It's obvious that those defending the position assumed by Rick don't even know what THD and IMD are, and why a passive device can't inherently reduce them without an extremely severe and problematic lowpass filter component (that any legitimate testing facility would find on their first test).
My credibility or any lack thereof comes from what I say. Nobody can offer a sound technical reason that anything I've said is inaccurate, because it's really simple stuff for anyone who's spent more than 30 seconds trying to understand the basis for how cable performance impacts system behavior.
For what it's worth, I do occasionally sell hifi to friends- the last few things I sold were all speakers (recouping parts cost from my experimentation- they're typically sold at less than the MSRP of the drivers) One esoteric cable seller has no effect on my life- I have no meaningful skin in the game, as most things I sell are at a loss and I enjoy building. My personal income is defined by a "regular" job, not hifi. Anyone who thinks that this tiny cable seller has any meaningful impact on the bottom line of anyone else is speaking from a position completely ignorant of the hifi marketplace, which is highly fragmented and not really based around standard market share metrics. |
Ric Schultz is a fraud. From their site:
"A testing facility in Canada contracted by Magnetic Innovations LLC tried testing very low level signals, as low as -59 dB from a full signal strength of 2 volts. They discovered that long after conventional audio cables significantly obscured test signals, High Fidelity Cables were still at work clearly transferring this low level information. In controlled tests, a system wide reduction of 14% THD and 14% IMD was measured. Signal to noise ratio improved by 1.5 dB which is significant. This test was conducted by a third party in a controlled environment, using an RCA cable with Magnetic Conduction technology (these results will vary with different systems)."
That's a lie. How, you ask, could someone know that? Because a basic understanding of distortion in audio systems shows that the vast majority of harmonic and intermodulation distortion come from the loudspeaker itself, and is caused by mechanisms over which the cables, amp, preamp, etc, have no control. Such a claimed reduction is simply impossible.
It's disgusting that this fraud continues to receive clients. If this fraud or his lackeys want to contest this, here's a simple way- post your results. Not some hand-waving claim, but actual test results with methodology and other real-world documentation.
Yep. It hasn't happened. It won't happen. The stupid graphic on their "magnetic" technology has nothing to do with magnetism. Basic engineering kids. It's a prerequisite for making anything worth using. |
8-09-14: Agisthos
I know for as fact rick schultz had 3rd party testing done
08-11-14: Agisthos
Badman, perhaps the testing was done on amplifier output, not speakers, perhaps it was on just the DAC output stage, testing a single digital cable.
At these points in the signal chain, the relative differences of cables are magnified relative to total distortion levels.
You are just way out of line accusing people of being a fraud when you have no idea of the testing methodology (neither do I know it).
But I will tell you one thing, Rick told me the external testing company was most surprised about the SNR changes, rather than distortion reduction you are focusing on. To them that was even more impossible.
BADMAN SEZ:
So you know it for a fact but haven't seen the details of the measurement setup? So your fact is based upon "Rick said so". Not surprising, but still pathetic. Your misapplication of logic while condemning me for the same is even more pathetic. Anechoic chamber testing is all well and good (but not strictly necessary since you can use gating) but doesn't change the fact that to reduce system distortion by 14% you'd have to have at least 14% of system distortion originating from the cable interface. This is not the case in properly functioning gear, plain and simple, the measurements don't exist that back up the claims being made.
They were amazed by 1.5dB eh? That's just Rick making things up because it sounds like a good pitch, and you biting. 1.5dB is nothing.
The ignorance of the most basic aspects of performance is what allows Rick to make ridiculous claims without being challenged, backed up by tbg who fails to evidence anything other than his own foolish dogma.
Oh, and the whole claim of soldering magnets inline being inspired by Jesus is some freakish combination of delusional and manipulative. |
Pretender? Based upon what exactly? I call BS on a BS claim.
You can't reduce 14% of a loaf of bread by removing the diamonds from it- there weren't any there in the first place.
There's certainly a relationship between magnetism and electrical fields, this is obvious and has been applied to cables for a very long time, generally as low-pass filters, that's what the ferrite add-ons do, reducing RFI through added inductance. Most PC monitor cables have them, as do many power cords and other things.
However, unless these are serious low-pass filters on the cables and are creating severe high frequency rolloff, they wouldn't reduce THD, and even if they DID reduce THD at some frequency due to the rolloff, a proper test would account for the rolloff and adjust the generated harmonics accordingly- IOW, a proper methodology wouldn't show an advantage from high inductance due to magnetism.
IMD could potentially be reduced by the same mechanism, but that's only if these are REALLY insanely nonlinear cables, acting as exceedingly high-value inductors, we're talking fractions of a henry, not millihenries, if line level. At speaker level millihenries would be sufficient to cause that level of rolloff, but it would be exceedingly extreme to believe that he's introduced that much inductance, and the extreme rolloff at the high end would be noticed as a severe negative by the vast majority of listeners (and 100% of educated listeners). We're talking several dB at a minimum, a severe and highly noticeable change over a broad frequency range.
Even IF this were the case and they were so dramatically nonlinear (a problem vastly larger than THD and IMD whose audibility is variable and frequently a non-issue), a proper test methodology would have indicated this severe problem. The lack of any language about the testing other than the absurd claims should be a red flag.
Using magnets around audio is not a new idea, it's been tried every which way. The primary way it would apply to cables, is to make them worse, not better, if having an influence in the audio band. One exception is the utilization of a transformer- many reputable transformer manufacturers publish measurements too. Transformers can reduce system noise and achieve some other benefits but do introduce their own distortion and other issues.
So, take your pick- either his cables are badly broken and nonlinear, and the "testing" misleadingly ignores this to give him his claims, or the numbers are made up. There is simply no way for the claims to be true under legitimate testing. |
