Ignore all specific recommendations. They aren't worth the bits to transmit them, little more than fan boy ravings. NEVER forget you are building a system. You could assemble the 'best' of everything and still have the sonic equivalent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Well designed integrateds offer the advantage of internal connections without all the sonic garbage introduced by cables and connectors. 99% do not understand the power relationship. All other things being equal, which they NEVER are, 400w only plays 6db louder than 100w. 400 sh.tty watts are far worse than 40 great ones. Damping factor is irrelevant. Impedance [Z] is largely misunderstood and misreported. Mathematically Z is the product of LCR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance As used by speaker manufacturers, it has little grounding in reality. Ideally it should be quoted as a range, Min Z @ Hz, Max Z @ Hz. What most manufacturers report is meaningless. They may approximate the average, something close to the minimum but almost never the frequency. To be useful, you would also need to know an amplifier's capability to supply current at the specified Hz and Z and every other combination within the frequency band. Most power specs are on a resistor. Some are on a simulated speaker load. NONE are on an actual speaker playing wide range program material. Ravings about Class are audio prejudice. As my dear old Great Gran was wont to say "There's good and bad where ever you go. And Bad and Worse in Ireland." Class D maybe exactly what you need to breathe life into the A3s without taking out a mortgage. Bonne chance... P.S. - the 8005 is a well designed, excellent sounding unit. Marantz paid a great deal of attention to power supply linearity and topology, something that can pay huge dividends. For anyone interested in power supply Z linearity and how it affects the music, there is a very interesting thread on diyAudio https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/power-supplies/143539-look-lm317-lm337-regulators.html |
Kosst_amojan, Class A is hardly 'ideal'. It suffers from very poor efficiency, shortened component life [heat is a killer], enormous size and higher $/w.
ALL amplifier classes suffer from intrinsic failings. The key is to forget about theory and concentrate on getting a good match to the loudspeakers that does not accentuate the myriad other system faults and satisfies the owner's prejudices.
Mike, since this a long term purchase, pay attention to thermal management and electrolytic capacitor quality. Ideally, the equipment should be actively cooled, preferably with thermostatically controlled fans to maintain constant internal temperature. Quality fans with well designed blades are inaudible from less than a foot away when run at low RPM.
|
It's a very good amp that I built and tuned to suit my speakers, which are the best $4000 would buy me in my estimation. Kosst, I'm guessing since you spent $4k and have Focal, probably Aria 936. Stereophile measurements and comments, https://www.stereophile.com/content/focal-aria-936-loudspeaker-measurements suggest a rather colored sound vis a vis another design. Such designs are not everyone's cup of tea. Since the amp needed tweaking to suit the speakers, I fail to see how one can recommend a particular technology as best. It is the combination, not the components, that tells in the end. |
Kosst, did you read what I wrote? I said they are colored relative to another design. This applies to all devices, especially loudspeakers.
I always read the entire article and comprehend all measurements and graphs. One often has to read between the lines for a reviewers preferences and biases.
Neutral is in the ear of the listener. Tonally, they may be but phase, no.
|
Meh... Some like to make big mountains out of the mole hill of phase. It doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Except to those who have heard properly phased systems and know how a sound stage should be presented because they created it. I recorded and mixed on minimum phase error systems and have had minimum phase error home systems for over 40 years. I can’t make it through one cut on systems with phase all over the map. Sadly, for me, Focal’s fall in that category. I auditioned several models @ Stereotypes in Portland. And no amplification electronics, no matter how good, can do anything to fix phase errors. The first time an enthusiast hears a correctly phased system, they never mention tonal balance. Adjectives like precise, accurate, musical sont les mots de jour. |
Clearly absolute time alignment isn’t a requirement if Focals do it as well as they do. They do not image at all well. I'm talking about a 3D image with instruments correctly positioned and no wander as they play their range. Instruments should remain in situ no matter how thick the score. An engineer spends hours setting up microphones on a drum kit so the image is accurately recorded. The sound of each drum should be coherent and localized. Sadly, that is not the case. The kick 'point' [thwack of the beater on the head] is miles out in front of the 'heft' [air volume moved] and the heft sounds like it is going in the wrong direction, which it is due to design. The image of a solo close mic'd vocal should be tightly focused between the speakers and not move. Sadly, this is not the case. The vocal is spread like mayonnaise between the speakers, moving back and forth as the pitch changes. Multitracked backing vocals, finger snaps, hand claps, etc. should be exactly where placed, not stroll about or be one wide smear. Sadly, that is not the case. Plate and spring reverbs have a distinct tonality and image distinct from the band. When the musicians stop, the decay should be immediately obvious as an effect and not hall ambience. Sadly, that is not the case. By their design, an accurate 3D image is impossible. |
I wonder what they are putting in these wires that cost so much? Hype Mike, I hope you don't end up with a pig in a poke. Components need to be synergistic. Assembling a system based on reviews and fan-boy recommendations alone is fraught with danger. It's precisely the reason there is so much used gear for sale. Forget about watts and ratings. They are no guarantee of performance. I've heard 15 watters eat 500 for lunch. As far as power conditioners, I first installed one 15 years ago. I auditioned 5. The best in my system was more than I wanted to spend, so I opted for #2. See http://192.168.1.160/Audio/#PowerConditioning c. 2003 |
|
choosing cables can be a true nightmare It's only nightmare because people have unreasonable expectations fueled by ridiculous manufacturer claims and utter nonsense from non-technical self-appointed experts. Plain and simple, cables are subtle equalizers modifying frequency and phase response. ALL source material has varying frequency and phase response depending on the devices used to record . On some program a particular cable may be 'magic' and all others, mud. The more outlandish the cable, the more likely the latter. All too often, people are hoping for a magic pill to fix defects that reside elsewhere. Pricing has very little correlation to performance except with small subset of components. Caveat Emptor! |
I use Transparent Audio interconnects and Belden 1311A speaker cable in a self-designed bi-wire. Every few months I replug connectors as IMO, cables don't burn in, connections deteriorate. But hey, I'm a dinosaur engineer from the last century. Transparents mate well with my taste in electronics and the speaker cables work well with the my loudspeakers, the failings of each complimenting. See http://ielogical.com/Audio/#CableQuest for past cable tribulations. A lifelong pal & his missus visited us this week. We began our audio odysseys as boys, grooving to his guitar and upright bass playing father's Pass, Kessel, Mingus and Brown and my dad's Harry James, Satchmo, etc. He's a live music fan, the aforementioned Pass and Kessel to Stevie Ray Vaugh and Joe Bonamassa. I asked him the favor of a listen. Listening to Joe Pass Virtuoso, his first three words were "Wow! - Wow! - Awesome!" I knew he was grooving because his toe was tapping and his head was bopping. Later on Stevie Ray Vaughn, "Man, I can hear everything. I feel like I could get up and walk around among the musicians. Nothing competes and nothing gets lost no matter how thick." His dad said something similar when he visited us 30 years ago about a system that was north of $30k in 80's dollars. No one has ever commented on tonal balance when listening to one of my systems because they are drawn into the music, not pushed away by the sound BTW, we used burn in new studio drivers for about 24-48 hours continuous. Ditto amps. But, hey, what did we know, we only had live musicians on the other side of the glass for reference. 500 hours? Poppycock! |
Mike, PLEASE read Galen Gareis' articles on PSAudio. These articles are as good a primer as you're likely to find. Although Gareis works for Belden, he's not grinding their axe. https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-1/
https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-2/
https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-3/
https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-xlr-interconnect-design/
https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-speaker-cable-design-part-1/
https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-speaker-cable-design-part-2/6 9's of the verbiage on some cable manufacturer's sites is only suitable for lining birdcages. From an engineering perspective, many cables are akin to holy jeans: Fashion Over Function Cables [and connectors] are part of the circuit that connects amplifier to loudspeaker. Different amplifier, different cable, different speaker ALL SOUND DIFFERENT! Add in source and room distortions and the probability of predicting performance is VANISHINGLY SMALL!
IMO, many manufacturers are preying on the ignorance and insecurity of a well-heeled market. Nearly 30 years ago Ken Kantor opined "Contribution pricing is useful when production runs are smaller, and sales lower. In this scenario, materials cost is not the driving factor. Rather, the manufacturer uses their sales level and overhead to determine how much a product has to sell for to be worth making. This is an iterative process, as sales volume and price are interrelated." Since you mentioned Nordost, their speaker cables are distinctive and eye-catching. From an electrical perspective, not too brilliant as they maximize rather than minimize inductance, the last thing most engineers would want in a speaker cable. They do have a 'sound' and the listener is told that it is an improvement, which it may very well be with the system on demo. The probability of the same improvement on a likely very different system is vanishing small, hence " They need [5 - 50 - 500] hours to burn in." Balderdash! |
There are so many cable brands because it's easy to make money out of it Bingo! Reading some of the FAQ, one has to wonder. Claims are made for unaltered transmission, but anyone can calculate the EQ effect of the sundry designs into various loads. Speaking of Bingo, many manufacturers play Buzz Word Bingo. e.g. products are Cryomag'd, but no specifics as to how that improves audio performance. Cryogenic rolling decreases electrical conductivity. Beryllium Copper is touted. It's harder but only conducts about 15-30% as well as copper. Its hardness may be a detriment when mating connectors as any high points will reduce contact area, further reducing current carrying capacity. Gold plating is referenced, but no mention is made of the process. Is it nickel plated or acid washed? Each has different sonics. Semi-conductors are made from metal to metal junctions. Beryllium Copper is used as a spring material, e.g. fuse clips, but can suffer deplating when flexed. Not a great idea on a banana plug. |
For the googlth time, source to speakers in a room is a system.
Using the same cables as a store demo is no guarantee.
For example, if every component on demo is laid back, the cables may be ear-bleeders in another system with still great, but more aggressive components.
|
But in Mike's case he has VPI TT, 8005 CD, Luxman Int Amp & A3s so speaker cable is the wild card.
He may find that the ROI for 1-2-3 K$ in speaker cables is very poor relative to whatever he has lying around.
|
Before getting too carried away, a lot of metal science is carried out at very low temperatures and DC, neither of which apply in audio. As temperatures and frequency rise, performance tends to converge.
Back in the 80’s, we found that dielectric and geometry trumped metallurgy in an audio interconnect application. Cu, OFC and LCC all sounded pretty much the same with the same dielectric and geometry. Plain Cu with better dielectric and optimized geometry bested better metal with sub-optimal dielectric or geometry.
As Galeis points out, cables alter the phase relationship across the audio spectrum. Loudspeakers, and to a lesser extent electronics, do so as well. All interact to create a unique signature for that system alone.
The goal is to achieve a reasonable balance for the best musicality.
That can only be ascertained in situ.
|
OFC - Oxygen Free Copper LCC - Linear Crystal Copper I’ve got to listen to each cables performance "in situ" at home with my own system and listening environment to judge its musicality. Is that close? Spot on. Additionally, if auditioning over several sessions, use the same material, in the same order at noted level for each selection. Ensure that the system is in the same state. Replug ALL connectors. Choose a CD that is generally representative, power the system and play it whilst out of the room. Don't audition when overly tired, aggravated, etc. The task should be approached as a pleasure not a chore. If doing multiple evals and something sounds out in left field, immediately set it aside and revisit. It's often a good idea in long sessions to take breaks, and reset the reference with a listen to the current standard. Whilst this might seem a bit onerous, unless you've done it extensively and are well adept at mental cataloging, it's too easy to get fooled. Be wary of 'seductive sirens' that become tiresome. The music should hook you, NOT the sound! |
glupson, my audiophile story is here http://ielogical.com/Audio/. In truth, it goes back to my Dad's Bogen in the 50's My pals and I first discovered that cables don't sound the same by accident in the early 70's when listening to one another's amps at our various houses. Then we built interconnects from every kind of wire we could find. When I was a recording engineer, I consulted for Monster Pro, Yamaha, Ibanez. Monster get a bad rap, but Noel Lee had some of the best ears around and a fierce intellect. In the 80's, biggies like Hitachi were getting their toe wet and made the aforementioned cables with different metal, dielectric and geometry. Monster and others were also investigating same. Later I went on to design and build electronics for the recording and film industries. |
glupson, is Don Juan DeMarco a reference?
======================================
WARNING NOTE: Any disc that has been reissued / remastered is as likely as not to be inferior to the original. Friends and I have sent our various versions around without comments and then compared notes. Some of remasters are terrible.
======================================
RE coat hangers - we used solid 10ga THHN vs Monster Pro at AES. Half the listeners could not tell. Some could tell better than 85% of the time. Coat hangers have a different dielectric than THHN, so probably sound different and they’re a bitch to strip ;-)
RE Spades - Unless binding posts are cinched down with a nut driver, they will loosen. That being said, if gear swapping banana’s are quicker. There are locking bananas, but they have a smaller contact area. ALL connectors sound different. The truly commitable solder everything.
RE Luxman speaker cable - shame on them. Parallel conductors increase inductance. Shame on them, they should be twisted. >:0
@geoffkait Some Monster knockers couldn’t tell the difference between cables, tube or solid state amps or absolute polarity. Were you at AES in LA? ~<:-P
|
What is your excuse? Bryan was a friend, my missus worked with Michael Kamen on some films, we liked the movie, " Have you ever Really Loved A Woman?" is a great song, the London Met Orchestra is always good, Bob Clearmountain is a great mixer, I admired the work of many of the musicians, etc. I still get chills when Bryan sings "And when you can see your unborn children in her eyes" |
Audioquest Rocket 88 As Arte Johnson said, "Very Interesting... But Stupid" IMO, AudioQuest plays way too much BuzzWordBingo. No doubt they will have a ’sound’ and could be very similar to Kimber 8PR which are 1/3 the money at NeedleDoctor. No affiliation. https://tinyurl.com/y7g4rkls |
There are many things that one should avoid touching.
If one has sipped the manufacturer's Kool-Aid, one may tend to see the world in an altered reality.
|
Just FYI, Audio Advisor makes Rocket 44 as a No Frills option, not Rocket 88. |
At least I pretend I am. ROTHFLMFAO! |
inna, please don't take offense but the Purist design leaves much to be desired from an electrical perspective. The cable arrangement is electrically equivalent to a network, just with different parameters. I find their bi-wire design specious as it does not address the raison d'etre for bi-wiring.
IMO, recommending any cable ex-system is a disservice to the community.
Mike, don't be in such a rush!
|
I'd be curious what you might like in the $1000 range, if anything I could not presume to assume even in the $10 range. As mentioned, I use Transparent interconnects and have heard excellent sounding systems with Transparent, MIT, Monster and other manufacturers' speaker cables. I've also heard some bloody awful ones with those, AudioQuest, Nordost, etc. I've also heard systems with homebrew cables targeted to amp and speakers that were just gorgeous. BUT, and it's a BUG BUT, I'd only voice an opinion after an in situ listen. I have no knowledge of the A3s, the amp, the room, the table / cartridge and, most of all, you. Cost is no arbiter of performance and many designs are just plain bad from an electrical perspective of getting an undistorted signal to the loudspeaker. They may improve some aspects at the expense of others. Rarely, if ever, will anything be exactly right everywhere on a particular system. Some designs may work exceedingly well with a small subset of amplifiers and speakers, failing miserably on others. Many years ago, I happened on chap receiving a 'lesson' on why the item on demo was 'superior.' He seemed a tad bewildered and off-handedly asked what I thought. I said "I don't think it sounds at all like it was recorded." Annoyed, the salesperson asked snottily "And just how would you know?" "Well, it just so happens I recorded and mixed it" and then showed him my driver's license to counter his expletive. The chap then asked what I would recommend and I told him I would have to learn his peccadilloes and hear his present system before I could possibly even comment. |
Individual cables have a higher inductance and lower capacitance.
Thinner wire has higher inductance.
Inductance has more effect in the lower audio range and capacitance at super sonic frequencies.
A non-uniform twist* has varying inductance and capacitance.
Given the horrific impedance curves of some loudspeakers, one should do everything possible to minimize inductance.
Cotton has a dielectric constant of 17, several multiples of PTFE. Impregnating with oil will lower it somewhat. Cotton is an organic product and thus susceptible to moisture and rot.
From an electrical perspective, Duelands are tone controls - designed to color the sound rather than engineered to transmit the signal unimpeded.
Ever notice cable makers almost never list LCR and most speakers list a single impedance. It's a shell game to keep the buyer guessing.
* When building electronics for the film and music industries, we had our silver plated interconnect custom wound at a precise and specific turns per inch for the best sonics.
|
