There's an interesting read on the QED website. At the bottom of the homepage, choose QED ACADEMY at the bottom of the page. You will find the genesis report, part 1 and 2. |
chrissain. The funny thing is, you could do exactly what you just said, with today's equipment, and you might just wind up with a decent sounding system..... |
Why stop at cables? There are just as many engineers that will say the same about any other piece of audio equipment. Some people just know everything and have this hobby figured out. Just buy good but not too expensive speakers, buy the cheapest amp that will adequately drive them, (because all amps sound the same as long as they are not being stressed) buy the cheapest CD player (because digital is digital, and is perfect) hook it all up with zip cord and viola! The worlds best sounding stereo. Man I wish I would have figured that out for myself years ago. |
Hey, cool! A 16 year old thread brought back to life.
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I heard it for myself, at Bob Carvers home in Snohomish, Washington.
I heard Bob's Dahlquist DQ 10's, first driven by a big Conrad Johnson Tube Amp, then by a Carver Solid State Amp.
The sound was identical.
The problem was, it was not possible to do, in production.
Too many variables
|
Pbb, very interesting post. By the way, Bob Carver of Sunfire fame, maintained quite a few years ago, that he could voice his electronics in any way he pleased, to emulate the sound of say earlier tube gear and, so I am told, he proved it successfully more than once. |
Every human voice has a different sound signature. I seriously doubt that any of the tenors mentionned would "measure" the same. I am not quite sure what type of measurement is implied or suggested though. Whatever note they sing (assuming they hit it just right, which they should on any given day)would have the same fundamental, but the harmonics would be different The harmonics are what gives each voice its character, its timbre. The harmonics would not measure the same. How this would help any of these fine singers perform is highly dubious. How any such measurement would increase the appreciation of their art by the listener is equally suspect. I hesitate to say the "tenor" argument is specious in this context, and leave it up to others to decide. If the example was between two guitars, at least the makers could attempt to duplicate the sound of a highly prized instrument on the basis of their findings, but since we can't manufacture singers the example is a bit wonky. No two guitars of the same maker would, if properly scrutinized, measure exactly the same anyway. Audiophiles might learn something by hearing the new modeling amps though. Ne less a guitar player than Buddy Guy felt that the new Fender could reproduce the tone of a vintage Fender Bassman. I wonder how Fender found the way to have digital circuitry mimic one of its own icons? |
Heh, the oscilliscope sounds great but isn't in my budget :-) Frap, how good is the model 8010a of the Fluke dvm? Found a used one which fits my budget (El Cheapo!)
Greg |
Apparently the way to measure these things is with a nice high end digital oscilliscope with storage and analsysis capabilities. |
Gpalmer , the DVM to own, is made by FLUKE. The industry standard |
The meter was fixed on a tripod. My position varied, it was behind the meter, but I made no attempt to position myslef in one place.
The Monster was Zip cord, while the Argent cable was a shielded design (not sure of exactly what was inside). The speakers were a set of Legacy Classics, the amplifier was a Denon AVC-3030. No idea of the impedance and phase plots for the speakers.
I have made some major changes in my system since then. The Classics are now being driven in a vertical biamp configuration with a Sunfire Cinema Grand, which really flattened the bass.
I will be getting some JPS Ultraconductors as soon as the person I bought them from ships them (They've been very delayed). I can post some new results then.
Bear -> I don't have a DVM. Can you recommend one of reasonable quality and price for a hobbyist? I no longer have the Argent cable (returned it to the person who loaned it to me), but it would be interesting to have one around for occasional use. |
I presume the meter was FIXED on to a stand or tripod, and that the equipment was not changed in setting or other value. I think you said that you ran several iterations of the test to verify results - which would tend to verify them.
One also has to be certain of YOUR physical position at the time you take the measurements, it should be the same (of course, ideally, you wouldn't have to be close to the mic at all.
I'd like to know what the physical geometry of the cables are, both like zip cord? And what speakers and amp are you using? Do you know the impedance and phase plots for it?
The next relatively easy test to make is a gross inductance and gross capacitance check using a DVM that has these functions. Of course slicker methods would be nice, but at least you'll have a first step.
Anyhow the results you find are indicative of either major differences in C & L between these two cables, and perhaps a major interaction with the crossover components in the speakers.
_-_-bear
bearlabs.com |
Well I'm impressed by your diligence. Thank you very much for sharing your results and for taking the time and putting in the effort to do this. Here I am conjuring up all kinds of digital computer measurements, and you just go out and do the obvious test. Bravo!
Since I've heard big differences in midrange performace from cables, I can easily believe a 1db difference from cables. Frankly, from what I've experienced in the difference between the cheapest and some of the best silver cables, I'm surprised it isn't closer to 3db difference in the 3k-5khz band.
Gpalmer, you rule. |
Yes those were recorded with only one speaker driven as you suggest. I should have mentioned that. I tried both methods and found that there was more than enough bleedthrough from the second speaker to skew the results so I stopped it. |
Lets pretend (cause it probably will not happen in real life) that your speaker has a strong impedance dip and drops from a nominal 8 ohms to say .25 ohms. If both cables were of simular guage then the longer ones could have a little more resistance in them and not deliver the exact same current to the speaker that the shorter one did at the frequency of the impedance dip. This type of situation is where the difference could be frequency selective.
I am impressed with your testing method. Three identical measurements with test signals would imply valid results. I for one feel that the differences are very large and would like to have others see if they can find results of this magnitude. Was the test conducted while only one speaker was playing? That would help to remove some reflection problems and the effects of the other speaker. Chris |
I was using the Stereophile Test CD 3 bass decade 1/3 octave warble tones track. I agree the 2 dB hump really threw me also, since I had always believed that wire was wire and once you got a big enough one it didn't matter anymore. I was using the digital meter so under just the right circumstances it could have been a 1.1 dB difference.
There was a difference in the length of the cables, the Monster was 12 foot while the other brand was 8 foot, but I have never seen a calculated result showing that this should have made the difference in the SPL I measured. Even if it did make a difference, I would have expected this to have been consistent across the board, not varying by frequency. |
My suggestion is just to confirm your measurements. If there are differences with the RS acoustic meter you will also see differences with a voltage meter. A 2dB bass hump due to cabling is unexplainable and unreasonable. Are you using music as a source? You state the measuments we taken at the same time during each trial. I hope you can try with a test cd with tones.
thanks for the help
leme |
Well, I think we might be setting out to prove different propositions. I am not trying to measure exactly how much difference exists. I am trying to show that a somewhat reasonable and impartial model of the human ear can detect and measure differences in the exact same environment humans listen in. I am not trying to demonstrate the exact amount rather that differences do exist and are easily measurable. The closeness of a SPL meter to the human ear is topic for another thread to debate.
The question of reflection of sound waves strikes me as a red herring unless you are suggesting that human beings also listen in a reflection free environment. Since I listen in exactly the environment I measured, I am reasonably sure that there's a match there :-). I am not trying to prove what causes the difference either. I am pretty uncaring about the reasons unless they can lead me in a direction which leads to improvement. Conjectures such as little green men following each speaker cable around and pushing a little harder in some spots than others is fine with me as long as it is repeatable and reproducible and directly related to the usage of the cable in the system.
The SPL meter was mounted on a tripod one meter away from the woofer and was never moved during the testing. The gain on the preamp and power amps was never changed. The speakers never moved. The input source material was exactly the same and for exactly the same time. Three trials of each cable were performed. The only part of the system which changed during the measurements was the speaker cable and each time it changed, the same results were obtained, except for a half dB on one measurement of one trial of the non-Monster cable.
So bottom line, I don't really see how measurable and repeatable differences in the target environment can be ignored, since that is exactly what I am trying to show, and exactly what a human would hear, but whatever. I would really rather see what some other peoples results under the same conditions and with different cables are. Those results says a lot more to me than any testing I myself perform. Could be I had a defective or unusual cable in there and no one else in the entire world can reproduce the results with any brand of cables, ever. Only one way to tell... |
Waveform measurments are made all the time and no differences are foundusing the test as I suggested above. Your results are flawed because it is near impossible to gather accurate acoustic measuments in a standard reflective rool with a time averaged meter as the RS. You will have better measurments to use a dvm at the speaker terminals so all of the sound bouncing off the walls do not enter into your measurments. Good luck though!
leme |
Gpalmer, your test results have blown me away. I would have not expected them to be that different. I would like to see several people try to measure the differences and give a detailed report. Chris |
I have to say I would agree with those who hear differences in speaker cable. These differences are measurable with a SPL meter.
Here are some measurements of speaker cables I have taken with a Radio Shack meter. This was comparing Monster MC1 (I think that was the type) versus another cable. The differences in the cables were actually greater in the mid ranges and treble end (to my ear), but I took these measurements because I was trying to diagnose and tame some bass problems I was having with the speakers. I did alternating tests Monster - Other Cable - Monster - Other Cable - Monster - Other Cable, and the results were consistent. The source for these measurements was the Stereophile Test CD 3 bass decade 1/3 octave warble tones.
Freq. Monster Inexpensive Delta
200 83 84 +1
160 83 84-85 +1.5
125 81-82 83-84 +2
100 86 87 +1
80 92 92 +0
63 85 85 +0
50 82 82 +0
40 81 81-82 +0.5
31.5 74 74-75 +0.5
25 73 73 +0
20 66 67 +1
As you can see there are some very definate differences on this most basic of all tests, which is able to be conducted by anyone with $50.00 and enough gumption to do them. Forget measurements we can't make yet or don't know to make yet, while I think there are some out there, but let's stick to what we can measure now.
How about some people actually measure some cable out there instead of just making unsubstantiated claims that all cable sounds the same or vice vesa? |
Thanks Chris. Clearly you're knowledgeable! Seems though that digital source equipment can't produce quality up to what we can hear, so we can probably measure at a similar quality level and get some meaningful results.
The dcs 904 will sample at 192 khz 24 bits.
But then of course, the cables could have such subtle effects that these measurements won't be meaningful. The differences I have heard with interconnects though lead me to think that they could be measured fairly easily. l liked lemme's idea of inverting channel polarity and comparing that way with different cables on each. Very clever.
Trappist. |
Trappist: The quick answer ... No I do not have any recomendations for equipment. The resolution om a 16 bit system mathamaticaly is around 86 db. It would be higher for a higher bit a/d converter but that is not the problem with making high accuracy measurements. Yhe problem is the noise floor of the analog front end of the converter. Therman noise and resistor noise (thermally related btw) would limit the actual resolution of the system. It would require cooling (like liquid nitrogen) to get the thermal noise low enough to get 110 db range accuratly. I do not believe a computer can be effeciently used in a near absolute zero enviroment. Chris |
Sqjudge,
Can you suggest any components for doing this measuring and testing.
Only 96db sensitivity?
What about taking an A/D converter from someone like dcs which is really high quality and take the digital out of that and do the measurements?
Is there a PC interface for TOSLINK or ST link???? |
You can invert the polarity of one channel and measure accross the positive leeds at the speaker, with a mono source you will then be measutring the difference between channels. Then with different cables on each channel, you will be measuring only the difference caused by the cable and since the differences will be very low you can add amplification to bring the signal above the noise floor of your sound card. An intersting variation of this descrived by Hafler allows you to listen to the difference signal directly. |
Testing is a good idea but no pratical computer test equipment has a noise floor exceeding 96 db. Our hearing has a dynamic range of about 110+ db. That makes our ears many times more sensitive that any test equipment. Chris |
I was a sceptic until I recently did my own tests. On interconnects I did repeated testing playing the same 1 minute section of music over and over. I was swapping the $4 per pair generic black interconnects you get with most cheap stereo gear, with Kimber Select KS-1030 silver interconnects $800 per pair. The effect was quite pronounced. In particular, with the cheap stuff, a section with a tambourine on top of a drum which was being hit, was muffling the drum and blending in with it. The drum was just a "thumping" sound. With the great interconnects, the entire effect was different: the drum was hit first, it was nicely pronounced and tonally rich. A fraction of a second later, the tambourine rattled and jangled... it was clearly subordinate to the drum. Here is an example where the entire sonic precedence of instruments changed by varying the interconnects.
Are the Kimbers 400 times better than the el-cheapos? No. But they are much much better.
Speaker cables: last night I decided to experiment with ultra-cheap 20 gauge zip wire speaker cable. (I lived with this stuff all through my twenties. :-) I removed my 12 gauge thick copper speaker cables with gold plugs and replaced with the cheapo zip cables. Did repeated swapping on a well memorized 2 minute section of classical music.
With the cheap stuff, the imaging was much blurred. There was no crip 3D soundstage either. Many instruments congealed together into a fuzzy, ill-defined image. Bass tonal richness was gone (color, as they say, went from bronze to grey). I repeated the test over and over and it was clear that the thicker cables we much improved.
I will repeat the test soon with some nice Nordost Blue Heavens, which have more silver content.
It's pretty obvious to me now that the material of the cable (silver versus copper) can make a big difference. I cannot really quantify the effects of wire topology or biwiring without more experimenting.
--------
Methodology. It seems to me that the best way to test all this stuff would be to put a computer on the end, next to a speaker, and to AtoD what comes out of the speaker cable. Swap the cables. Then compare in the digital domain the differences. It would be pretty possible then to have a quantifiable way to measure what is going on.
I say to put the AtoD in parallel with the speaker only because speakers create demand on the current that will affect what comes across, whereas replacing with a computer will have completely different current characteristics.
Is there some nice hardware and software for a PC that can do this? Must be..... |
Pbb, I do not have the least difficulty with your argument. Besides I think it is very well written and thought out. My experience is, that people who have trained their ears to judge the performance of live or reproduced music,.i.e. in judging the performance of a given system, generally "hear" pretty much alike, although their emphasis on the parameters given for their judgements may differ. Of course, you could use tone controls instead of selected wires to fine tune a system. Only tone controls mostly degrade the sound over a broad spectrum, whereas a well chosen IC or speaker wire may in fact enhance it.
In reading your lines again, I am wondering what your basic hypothesis or assumption is, which you are building your arguments on. Would you assume, that a well designed music system, built and devised to the state of the art of accepted scientific knowledge, would, apart of the vagaries and uncertainties of room influences, be able to reproduce the original musical event in your home, provided the software is of the very best quality? And.... again, say in a truly SOTA system, how much is there "science" in its design and how much "intuition" and "art"? Or in other words, is there sufficient measurement savvy, to design a truly first class system through measurements alone?
Regards, |
Is Dunlavy really an electrical genius? I can easily improve every one of his speakers with a very simple circuit modification to each of his speakers' drivers.
Now don't get me wrong, I do feel that John is better than most speaker designers, and he offers tremendous value in terms of what his speakers sell for, but to use his opinions as the benchmark to base this cable argument is a quite a stretch. |
Detlof, I have no qualms about anyone listening to anything and enjoying it. If someone gets pleasure from a Radio Shack or Wal-Mart rack system, that's more than fine with me. If someone thinks that a 12K cable is just the thing, so be it. My point being that things don't look the same, and are not the same, whether you are looking ahead, so to speak, and designing/building any element of a sound system or simply getting the end product and, ex-post facto, auditioning, analysing it. I think that it is dishonest to put out a product, make outlandish claims that cannot be substantiated and ask a price that is absolutely out of step with the cost of bringing the thing to market. When the upshot is that part of the ploy is to say that what you are selling is beyond any scientifically verifiable procedure, that nothing can prove or disprove your claims as a manufacturer, what you have is a situation where people will be had. Now whether they enjoy being had or not is another issue. I fully agree that live music is the yardstick against which to measure the performance of a sound system. I also agree that human hearing is the final arbiter of what constitutes a good system. What I cannot agree with is that our individual hearing is so different from one person to the next that anything goes. That we are not subject to so many vagaries in our ear/brain processor that any number of variables can be thrown in, helter-skelter, and that, somehow, the result will be of some value to more than the one individual listener. If someone wants to provide something significant to listeners in general (and I am not suggesting the population at large, but audiophiles in general) and make some contribution to advancing the state of the art, it has to be based on more than random possibilities and blind faith. Once the product is on the market, people are free to do what they want with it and to claim that it provides them with any manner of contentment. In closing, I have two thoughts: firstly, I believe that a guitar (and any other instrument, obviously) is just that, a musical instrument and, aside from the fact it needs to be tuned properly (and, hopefully, to stay that way for a while) has to be judged on its own merit, and that a sound system is not; the latter is a sound reproducing system and, therefore, there always is a standard to judge it by: the original sound, and, secondly, if cables are now seen as an acceptable means of fine tuning a system by, I guess, adding or subtracting something to make it more euphonic, why have audiophiles eschewed tone controls long ago as being low fi? |
Remember, there are 3 fundamental structures to be successful in business; production, marketing, and sales. They are interrelated but have different goals. The cable industry is marketing driven. Marketing people will alot of times just pick a number, they never spend money upfront, they depend on sales to drive money. By marketing, I mean packaging, ads, websites, reviews, any print, etc...Just read the ads and website claims, makes your mouth water. Look at some of the slick packaging. Marketing will make commitments that sales can't possibly deliver in many cases, but 20 million percent markup will cover no matter if sales makes projection or not. BTW, I hear differences in interconnects but no so much in speaker wire, IMO diminishing returns come quicker in speaker wire. Just my 2 cents. |
I have read thru this thread probably 3 times so far, Im not trying to start this argument back up, but I would like to try and say something to justify experimenting with cables to newbies.
I think cable prices are the biggest rip-off in the entire industry and cable manufacturers are complete a'holes. I have been to several cable manufacturing facilities and making any cable in mass is relativly inexpensive(for most designs) and I am talking about Category 6 cable AND fiber optic cable. Cable prices are completely inflated by the manufacture to pad their wallets. I would love to see some little company ruin the entire cable industry thru good products/pricing. Good justification ehh?
I would also like to state that Bose is also a doctor ;P and we know the general opinion of the products released under his name. Being a Dr. doen't mean crap, BUT being a good speaker designer does mean something, and what does it mean in this case, nothing. A signal is a singal right? NO, because was we would all be using class B solid state amps and chugging along happily. But differences are percived, and more, try running 1000Mbs on good ol' copmusa Cat 5...what do ya get? Packet Loss, signaling errors, and carrier drops; Is this all from cross talk...no, because I can get some Cat 5 to run at 1000Mbs. So what does this tell me? Use the right cable for the right job. Does this apply to audiophilia? Maybe.
Can I hear a difference between my kimber PJB and my homegrown pure silver lace interconnects which have very similar cable geometry(ahem like cat 5, try signaling over cable thats not twisted pair, props to bell labs), you bet your sweet a** I can, I can prove it six ways of sunday and Ill even do it with some headphones; can I measure it? Not yet. Yet being the important word.
Now don't gimme these stupid lines about being system dependant, that is irrelevant in a disccusion on cables in general. We are dicussing weather the phenomenon exists at all. My point being, that if in any system you can percieve diffenerces in cables, then there is something going on. Just because some people cannot hear the difference does not mean that they dont exist. What about measuring, well all I can say is that I dont trust anyone's lab techniques but my own, and what exactly were they measuring for, how accurate were there results, what was their base line measument, what was their list of uncontrollable variables(i.e enviornmental RFI, EMI), what kind of power were they getting, what kind of gear were they using etc etc etc...
SO, whats my point...there is none, this fight is for scientists who still believe the universe is heliocentric and its impossible to travel faster than the speed of sound.
If in your system you cannot hear the differences between cables then you are lucky and do not have to worry about cables and you probably dont like your power chords either, you can sell this stuff to me ;P
(if your feeling generous and want a definite answer then donate the equipment, have some good hunches I will find that answer for which all the measured and docmuneted evidance shows, my lab skills are excellent) |
Pbb, measurements, multiple testing, etc., probably are useful for manufacturers. For users -- i.e. most of us here -- Detlof's summarised it all IMO.
Between you & I, how many of us can explain audible differences b/ween pieces of, say, active amplification based on (visible) differences in the design? Not I!
Cheers! |
Pbb, in my opinion, you are missing a slight point, which I find surprising, since you seem to play the guitar:
Many audiophiles are avid concertgoers and if a piece of wire brings them closer to the experience of the real thing, who would bother then about measurements and double blind testing. For me, the only thing close to some objectivity here, is the live event and how I remember it and if science helps me along this goal, fine, je ne crache pas dans la soupe !
And p l e a s e , lets not start up this argument again. Its futile and leads to nowhere. |
It's amazing how many responses to the Dunlavy piece have been posted. It just goes on and on and on. Going against my own personal grain, I will make it brief: no you can't always believe your eyes and ears. You have to find objectivity somewhere or else you're just groping in the dark. Does anyone out there honestly think that Dunlavy could produce the speakers he does using the anti-scientific mindset exhibited by most cable promoters? Do you guys really believe that measurement and double blind testing is a waste of time and that some audio guru can conjure up the perfect whatever in a magical, mystical golden ear trance? There's a big difference between building something and sitting on one's duff listening to it and haphazardly commenting using buzz words. Science is what got us here, as we say in French; "don't spit in the soup". |
Geez...
It's hard to follow threads on a non-threaded heirachy site!
Anyhow JHunter suggested the pink noise method for testing cable "differences." I certainly do like to use pink noise for discerning very small effects. You can use pink noise when tweaking a crossover, change a *very small* resistor value and *hear* a change. You can forget about hearing the change using any sort of music.
So, does it matter if you can't hear the change when using music? You bet! The resulting sound when the improvments have been made are almost always subjectively better sounding and most often objectively test better with test equipment.
this is a follow up to Jhunters post back 5-31-01
sorry for the delay! :- )
_-_-bear |
I had great difficulty in blending bass and midrange in my admittedly complex system. I got most of it right by experimenting with speaker placement and room treatment but the final touches on bass rendering were only achieved by finding the right interconnect and speaker cables. I don't care if its against the law of physics or if I am hallucinating as long as my ears keep on telling me, that it sounds right now. As Greg so aptly put it: Cables are both personal and system dependent! |
Frap's post is interesting and points out a real issue.
There are two intersecting factors in his turntable story. The first is that since phono has the lowest signal levels that you are likely to find in any system, they seem to be most sensitive of all. People who use my Silver Lightning product between the turntable and the phono pre often report rather significant improvements in almost every aspect. I take it to mean that the low level signals are most likely to be effected by *anything.* The second factor is that most people have really *never* heard, or had an opportunity to hear the effect of a single, simple change (assuming it had an effect at all)! So, it is obvious that they will be very skeptical to say the least.
I had a really wierd episode with sonic effects of materials at one time, which made me really scratch my head and wonder if I wasn't hallucinating. To make it brief, I thought my big Symphony No.1 amp, one just built and being listened to for the first time, was distorting badly in both channels. I was really worried that I had made some stage on the PC board non-linear by inserting the identical wrong parts on two boards! It really sounded odd, the highs were "lifted" above the speakers, and they sounded oddly strident as well. Wrong as far as I was concerned. I am sorry to report that the problem was cured by changing the binding posts. The binding posts that were "bad" were of another manufacturer and were the standard 30 amp 5-way style, and *identical* in every visual respect to the "good" ones!
No, I did not (this is now 12 years ago) save the bad ones, and run comprehensive tests to see what the technical differences were - I wish I had. But, since the problem went away immediately, there was nothing much to think about.
If you never had this sort of experience, you'd think I was completely wacky in the head. Indeed, the experience is/was wacky, and I can not explain it. It was certainly not a mass delusion or some sort of sighted bias at work. The last thing that I wanted was to have completed an amp at 2:00 in the morning, and have to trouble shoot it because it sounded like dog meat.
So, there are those who have had these sorts of things happen, and those who have not. Some of the have nots simply don't have gear that would permit them to discern what was going on (like if your amp has those brand binding posts on it all the time! :- ) ) or simply have just never been in a situation where it simply HAPPENS. They, with good reason, tend to be very skeptical about these reports. I understand.
_-_-bear |
Whoa Ezmerelda, Since scientists cannot explain all phenominon that occur, why deny the possibility of their existence. As far as these wires being overpriced and the money better spent on amplification, I am in your camp on that, if you have read my posts on wire.
Where I run into trouble with "scientific" types, is the steadfast hardheaded implication that "There exists no means by which a difference could occur sonically, so no difference can exist".
The example of plating above that I mentioned, was in my own experience as well. Here is the story. In 1990, I purchased the brilliantly engineered WELL TEMPERED Turntable and arm for use with my reference system. I had never before heard sound so correct, so right, so master tape like. It was a breakthrough in my mind. I could also discern which rooms were using this new marvel, at the shows, from the hallway!! I am not kidding. The price vs performance were so sky high, that the following year I bought another one for use with a different cartridge. I decided to remove the reference Cello MC from my current unit and put it on my newly aquired one. The two units were IDENTICAL, but the new one (1991),was about 25% better sounding in all areas. I immidiately called the factory and wanted to know what was different. "Oh nothing really, just the jacks on the termination box. They are now Cardas".
The fact is that the special copper/plating process that yields only marginal measurement changes, if barely any, was enough to change my system drastically for the better. I'm not picking a fight with you, just pointing out the truth of the subject, to MY ears, and a number of many other reliable ears that I confirm my findings with.
But I must say, regarding cable prices, I find them obsene and completely ridiculous, but their contribution to our musical present cannot be denied. I am quite certain that in actual materials, most of them could cost a fraction......Frank |
Nelson Pass measured, charted, documented and published measurable differences in speaker cables 20+ years ago. He even notes that some specific speaker cable / speaker combinations caused some "well respected" brand name amps to shut down / go into thermal overload. The same speakers and amps with different cables DID NOT act up. Obviously, the amplifier is seeing a COMPLETELY different Z ( impedance ) at it's output terminals and is simply responding accordingly. Obviously, the only variable would have been the speaker cables !!!
Besides Nelson Pass, Moncrieff of International Audio Review measured, charted and documented differences in speaker cables. He even went so far as to publish frequency response charts for many that he tested.
Due to the differences in physical layout, gauge of conductors and dielectrics used, the characteristic impedance of the cable, the total length of the cables in use, etc... the amplifier can see VERY different conditions at its' output terminals. Some cables will act as "impedance transformers" and make suitable speaker loads "unsuitable" and vice-versa. Simply altering the length of an "unsuitable" cable CAN change the feedpoint impedance that the amp sees when trying to "load up" AND alter the amount of reflected EMF that the amp has to deal with. Since Mr Dunlavy is WELL versed in RF transmission line theory, this should not be news to him.
Since this IS the case and it has been documented time and time again, you would think that he might acknowledge that the stability of the amp MIGHT come into question BEFORE making "generic" and rather BOLD statements about speaker cables being "relatively un-discernable" from each other. After all, it is well known that amps change output levels when the impedance is altered. Why couldn't their frequency response or transient characteristics be affected also ???? Those specs ARE load dependent also.
PLEASE don't get me wrong. I am not defending "the wire bandits". I think that the mass majority of this stuff is WAY overpriced. While i can understand that there is a LOT of research involved in making any REAL product, the actual costs involved in most of these "wires & cables" is phenomenally low. As such, i have bought MANY different "manufactured" cables but have also made more than a few of my own ( with pretty excellent results overall ). Like i said, i just don't like the fact that Dunlavy talks out of both sides of his mouth with a different message being heard as the situation changes. Sean
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Firstly, Frap, I don't know what you mean by "cables like MIT,etc." creating LCR changes--all cables create LCR changes to my knowledge, or I should say frequency shifts due to them. Secondly, in the last sentence, plating does subtly affect the LCR values. Thirdly, what I'm saying is alot cheaper than the high-end cables, in fact it will save you alot of money. Most of Dunlavy's points seem right (I say seem because I'm not qualified to evaluate it entirely). I still have reservations as to why he has to charge $1,000 for a 10ft pr of his new "LCR cable", but maybe I'm naive to production costs.
Regardless of the usually subtle effects LCR values have on the linearity of the signal with good electronics, cable money is still better spent on better electronics IMHO, unless you've got money to burn (note, not necessarily more expensive electronics either). And I find it curious that cable manufacturers have to resort to what I perceive as such devious marketing schemes: square wave graphs without amplitude and/or frequency being specified, our cable versus a generic "leading large round conductor", their speaker cables' specifications (when they actually get published!!) compared to a 24-28g speaker cable (as if anybody uses that--unless you happen to buy into the images and ideologies of the 47 labs sakura systems S$%^), cite *Hypothesis* to market a cable (the microdiodes and various crystal structures like), etc. and do nothing to take it to that next step and translate the physical or electrical characteristics of their cable (if the latter even gets shown) into scientifically audible terms (because to do so would probably show the cable isn't that signficant). As Dunlavy pointed out in other articles sometimes these facets/claims of cable design result in changes of .005db, hardly audible. Inductance is unlikely to cause shifts of 1/10 db (although it can be as high as a couple db, audible) and resistance unlikely 1/20 db (to my knowledge). Which brings me to another point. If all these other, what I consider, less significant/"high-end" aspects of cable design are so audible, conductor material, skin effect (significant with RF), plating materials, etc. that people can hear significant differences in them outside lcr values, how come no one has managed to find a way to measure the distortion they impart on a signal after 30 years? And this is now why we have solid-gold interconnects sold on the basis of "the detail of silver and the bass and authority of copper"--B.S. This is why we have science: to settle the battlefield of opinions with facts--and I don't see any for the other side (nor do I hear things that lack explanation), yet.
As far as the plating in the selector switch making a difference, firstly, I won't deny your/his experience, there may have been an audible difference. However, secondly, I don't know the circumstances surrounding the situation which would take into account all variables. Since selector switches are physical devices with friction, there may be something else going on, I don't know. As far as the pure silver being needed to get the "desired effect." I take it the "desired effect" is not a coloration sought(distortion) as it is a more accurate signal transfer and that the gold was distorting the signal in some way.
Sugarbie, as far as your tenors and vocal chords analagy, the shape of the singer's mouth/vocal cavity, and other factors affect the *timbre* of their voices which allows you to distinguish among them, even though they may all still be singing the same note-frequency/pitch. Incomparable analogies do not discredit Dunlavy.
Why does everyone quote the age old "if they measure the same they must be the same" All the scientific community asks is "if they measure the same but sound different why can't you find a measurement to explain the difference."
I forget who made this point early on, but it is a good point that MR. dunlavy only showed the placebo affect and not that people can't hear differences, only they think they hear differences. Good Point. |
While i HATE to join back into this thread, i have been reading how some components are FAR more susceptible to cable changes than others due to design and overall circuit stability. I wish i knew how to test them to find this out. Maybe i should contact Frank Van Alstine and he can fill me in....
As to Ezmerelda's comments about the Kimber 4PR and Analysis Plus Oval 9's, i can draw some parallels between the sound of the two. I could see how one might not notice much of a difference between the two of them in some systems. Quite honestly, based on the experiences that i've had with those two specific cables, i too would choose the MUCH cheaper Kimber 4PR. Sean
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Sorry Ezmeralda, I cant buy into that one. Cables like MIT, Magnan& Siltech, of course, do create R, L, and C,changes with different amplifiers, but the character or "personality" per se, of the IC, shines thru most every time. Gold and silver plating yields large differences in sound. Dont take my word on it, contact Doug Sax who will tell you that gold plating in his switch contacts ruined the sound and he needed pure silver to get the desired effect. No R,L,C changes there, just plating! Please explain why? Anybody............Frank |
I read alot of 'em, but does anybody wonder "why things sound the way they do?" So you hear differences, but why doesn't anybody explain why it sounds different instead of just arguing whether or not it can be heard. I mean, ya, you put on some cable with a really high capacitance and you get some ringing or overshoot in the high frequencies because your amplifier may not be as great as you thought based on how much you paid for it. But X person thinks "this cable has more detail, must be the silver." Or with some little tube amp that doesn't have much top-end to start with, one finally gets a cable with a lower inductance and you get your high-frequencies back, "must be that solid copper with an optimized crystal structure so those electrons don't have to hop through the micro-diodes." My limited knowledge on the subject is, there can be audible differences between two cables on X amplifier, but they don't sound different for the reason cable manufacturers want you to believe, micro diodes, intercrystal rectification, skin-effect, etc., they sound different because the electronics at hand are sensitive to the basic cable load. Good/better electronics are less likely to be affected by different cables. Now of course this takes us into the whole vacuum tube arena, because alot of people are set on there valves. Honestly, if someone knows of a truly great, moderatly priced cable, tell me and I'd like to hear it. I'm using 4PR and up against analysis plus oval 9, no audible difference, and the designers of my electronics said I shouldn't hear one because the electronics are "not load sensitive" (for all practical, audible purposes). |
So, big speaker God has spoken and we should bow to his sacred word. No, I don't think so. This guy puts his pants on like any other man and has an opinion. Everyone else has an opinion and their own subjective experiences like his highness. Take what he says with a grain of salt and respect, trust what you hear, and screw the cult of personality BS. |
Frank, I am not sure what all effects the sound of cables, but I do feel safe to say (quoting a friend in the know) "everything makes a differance".
I do feel that no connector is better than a connector and there is a lot of connectors with wider bandwidth than a RCA plug. A BNC is one just for starters.
Lets get some oppinions on this ...... Chris |
So, Sqjudge, R,L& C variations are what detemine(in the largest percentage of) our final sound in ICs?
Do you feel that a direct connection (wire free)will always provide the most accurate results no matter what?
(i.e directly soldered I/O connections to the PC board, an integrated amp wired direct internally with a negligable amount of buss or braid)....Frank |
I do believe that cables can be 'engineered'. When you change the capacitance and inductance of a cable you are effecting a parameter called the "charateristic impedance"(I will use CI for short). In normal zip cord type wire, the CI is approximately 90 ohms. In RF theory it is said to be very important to match the load impedance to the CI of the cable.
If this theory was applied to speaker cable then we need to design cables with a CI of 8 ohms. The problem with designing a cable to 8 ohms is that a speaker is only a NOMINAL 8 ohms (or 4 ohms) and varies with frequency. It would be practically impossible to build a cable that could match the impedance curve of a speaker.
A few years back I investigated the effects of lowering the input impedance of my power amp. I tried some 75 ohm video cable as an interconnect and a 75 ohm RCA with a 75 ohm termination on the circuit board of the amplifier. This combo sounded very close to the best interconnects I had used in a more conventional manner. My preamp has a very high current output and can in fact drive a 8 ohm speaker at low volumes. It was important to drive the amp with this pre amp but it was less important what interconnect I was using. The differences that I heard in interconnects when the input impedance of the amp was 20,000 ohms was far larger than the differences when the input impedance was down around 100 ohms.
I do not know if it was the reduction of reflections due to the matching of the cable to the load. It may have also been the contribution of a lower noise floor due to the reduced thermal noise of the lower input resistor. I believe that musical enjoyment can come from the contribution of a number of factors, combining in a manner that makes the sound pleasant to YOUR ears. I kept the low input impedance in my amp for about a year until I got a different pre and had to take it out cause the new pre could not drive the load! |
Grungle, you know it. I'm on the placebo hunt right now for some AudioQuest Anaconda interconnects!!! |
Bravo Trappist. Just don't take it to far is all I ask. |
