Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses?
I must not have good ears, because homemade interconnects seem to as good or better than most of the store bought ones I have tried.
Keeping speaker cables short helps, and also keep em fat in diameter and bi wire them if possible.
I have not ventured into powercords and fuses.
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there could be an open forum for say, car guys. You could have a group of these car guys talking about how they reduced their best lap times by seconds while outlining exactly what they did to their vehicles to lower their best lap times. Another group of car guys come along to tell the first group they are all nuts and that none of their tuning tips work, some even claim to have tried their tips and that none of them lowered their lap times. The reality is, both of these camps could be correct. The problem is perspective and details. The drivers reducing their lap times could be Porsche and Ferrari pilots while the second group could be Miata drivers. Knowing the details of an audio system is extremely important to put anyone’s perspective in perspective.
As to cable length, shorter is almost always better to a point, but if you must have long cables, make them your interconnects and not your speaker cables.
If we can start with consistent times, then that is usually better than occasional low times.
At least we can measure the track times.
Here it is like we describe how the car feels.
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@english210 The saying is that a Porsche differs from a porcupine because the prickly bits are on the outside of a porcupine.
The miata is left to the reader to noodle out.
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what is the Helmholtz method?
Maybe like the “rhythm method” but as a solo actor?
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As everyone has pretty stated everything matters and is important, but that is where i differ with most…
Let me go on the record as the outlier from the group with “everyone”.
Specifically with respect to the question of:
When making changes or adding things to your system, what makes the bigger difference in sound quality on preamp‘s and power amps? Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses?
I believe none of the crap matters much, and certainly not the power cords and fuses.
But I may be a robot, and I believe that I am passing the Turing test.
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Hearing aids work, you should try one 🙏.
And anti-psychotic drugs can remove voices. 🙏
We hear what we want to hear, and spending thousands on a piece of copper wire in teflon or some other cover has never been measured to show where the woo is coming from, or if it even exists.
@yuviarora You might consider trying something based upon some provable facts rather than attempts at insults if you want to be seen as a mature adult.
The four items you mentioned, interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, fuses, all are passive components. They can’t add anything to the audio signal, they can only act as a filter and take part of the signal away.
In theory noise could be added.
I’d say of the four items you mentioned speaker cables can influence sound the most.
Agreed.
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^That is true^.
But the OP asked the question specially about the 4 items he/she mentioned.
They did not ask about “the room”, however it is an area which is more likely to get value happening, than a fuse or power cord IMO. Just that it was not the OP’s question. IMO It was worth mentioning, but again it was not the primary question. Certainly I would abide spending money there before putting in a cable. One can usually sneak in a cable, with hope, than trying to convince a SO that some anti-WAF room treatment is a good idea.
Like @rudyb said a few posts up, I mentioned early on that speaker cables should be short and low impedance.
And.I offered my opinion after the “everyone” post. And the OP can ignore it.
Many of the other posts offer “Synergy” and “The ensemble” of gear, and also delve into the room, speakers, etc… which was not part of the OP’s question.
FWIW, I generally suggest one pours all their funds into speakers first.
If there was some evidence from manufactures showing that power cords, for instance, lowered noise into the system, then it would be a lot easier to abide them over just flowery words. I can see how they could work, but I have no idea if there is RF coupling into my system, nor do I hear cell phone sounds coming through the system like we used to hear in cars (etc.). It might happen I dunno. A ferrite core asking as a choke seems like a good idea, but I have to assume that the manufacturers designing the power supplies know their stuff… and that the massive capacitor banks obviate the need for special fuses.
Most interconnect wire is spaced for impedance and capacitance, but many of the assembled cables are sold without specifications. It would be easy to alter the sound with high capacitance or inductance, however I cannot easily ascertain from the looks alone how they might sound.
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That’s a very long cumbersome way to express your belief that cables have zero impact to the performance of any audio system. And since you are also of the belief that “we hear what we want to hear”, I take it you never tried (as in listen) for yourself?
Well Sir… When I put different ones in and moved them around, it did not make much difference.
I sorta-kinda thought that maybe the emerald AQ ones sounded better, but then later I moved them to another component and put in some homemade ones, and it sounded just as good.
It is really hard to A/B these quickly. The best I have been above to do is put different cables on last and right, to at least try and hear whether the image shifts etc.
But my interconnects are now mostly Mogamo with Neutrik ProFi ends. So they are pretty good for home made.
On the speaker cables I have tried AQ, Mogami, and lamp cord… No real head snapping differences… But the lamp cord seemed better bi-wired. The speaker wires/cables are not really able to be A/B compared in any easy way. So if our auditory memory is short, then it is prone to being difficult to accurately assess it.
I can believe that power cords could make a difference, but it is not like I can hear any noise coming through.
How is one suppose to listen and be sure that they are not being fooled?
The headline itself doesn’t mention pre or power amps.
True, it was just cabling.
No room treatments, or anything else either.
(I admit, it is easy to miss read the question to what we wanted it to ask.)
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This is a thread with a 140 posts, from people that have years and years of hands on experience at the topic on hand, and in comes a bumbling blow-hard know it all, and proceeds to emphatically claim that everyone here is delusional, and his 5 dollars interconnects, and 20 dollars lamp cord sounds no different than any and everything else.
Starts talking about delusions, and fooling yourself etc etc etc....
I don’t get it......it’s like a fly in an ointment, a cockroach in a soup, such a productive conversation derailed by a deaf audiophile. These people should take up photography.... if you cannot hear tones, timbre, pitch, resolution, staging, separation, etc etc etc maybe music isn’t really your thing ?And if I was half deaf, I definitely wouldn’t go around proudly advertising it.
The OP asked a question, why are you made because I am being honest with the OP? But no problem chief, tell me what to listen for, and how to do the testing?
I don’t know how much more honest that I can be but to say that I hear speaker differences way more easily than power cords.
And amplifier difference often, but not as clear cut as speakers.
How could I be convinced that the cords make a difference, when I cannot hear them, but the speakers are easily heard?
(Is that a symptom of half deaf?)
And if the OP is half deaf then at least he/she/they will have funds left over for hearing aids. 😋
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Oh man, I feel for you. But then, I glanced at your profile picture, and realized you speak the truth.
There are less thing to remember that way. 😎
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It will be great to hear what the OP reports back, and how it helps his/her system or not.
I am not even sure what components are in the OP’s system… maybe I lost track of it?
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Usually both the guys in the Miata.
The Porsche’s have the nickname of porcupine car, so there is also that.
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To use the car analogy, replacing street tires on the Miata with racing slicks would help the Miata’s lap times. But if someone else has a GT3 and goes from similar street tires to racing slicks, his lap times will drop a lot farther because his performance envelope was previously far more restricted by his tires than the Miata drivers.
Having said, could anyone quantify which driver is having more fun?? :)
Seeing a couple of GT3s getting passed by a Suzuki Swift on the Nurburgring convinced me the Swift driver was not embarrassed.
Much in the same way that the preamp drives a high input impedance through an interconnect just fine. There is voltage slippage happening on the tracks of the music.
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@borat-sagdiyev
None of those things. Better amps and preamps are where you go next, or room treatment, Dirac live, etc.
It is a bit of leading question, as the OP has a company that sells the fuses and the power cords.
But I agree with the EQ part as clearly having an objective impact.
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I have heard this from almost all hi-fi equipment dealers that speakers make the most of the difference, spend 75% on speakers etc.. Only one from Overture, DE said it is 50% speakers and 50% equipment that I agree.
75% Sound like a good number for a high end system.
However the leading question was aimed at preamps and amps (fuses, power cords, cables, etc.)
Most of the answers confirm with the premise of, “We hear what we want to hear.”
… what makes the bigger difference in sound quality on preamp‘s and power amps? Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, or fuses?
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It would be easier if the question was a poll for say fuses. (Like, don’t like, don’t care)
Then a different thread for ICs… etc.
Or a poll with the 4 things in some matrix which is either 4^3, or K-choose-N or maybe is 24 ranked options? (I would need to take off the shoes to do the maths)
But I like multiple choice questions as they are easier to sort and analyse, than open ended essay questions.
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System matching is the most important aspect of great sound. Having a system of equals works in harmony with everything else. Pairing a expensive pr of speakers with less than electronics results in frustrations and miss guided assumptions that some how the speakers are flawed. With this example your assuming the speakers are the fault because they sound less than perfect; when in fact their level of resolution exceeds what your other components have to offer. Balanced system is the key.
Good god, not yet another synergy and balance echo.
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