you insist science doesn’t matter and I shouldn’t be posting here.
I have never, ever, said or written any such thing, here or in any other forum. You seem to be a purveyor of "alternative facts."
Why Do Cables Matter?
To me, all you need is low L, C, and R. I run Mogami W3104 bi-wire from my McIntosh MAC7200 to my Martin Logan Theos. We all know that a chain is only as strong as its' weakest link - so I am honestly confused by all this cable discussion.
What kind of wiring goes from the transistor or tube to the amplifier speaker binding post inside the amplifier? It is usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper. Then we are supposed to install 5 - 10' or so of wallet-emptying, pipe-sized pure CU or AG with "special configurations" to the speaker terminals?
What kind of wiring is inside the speaker from the terminals to the crossover, and from the crossover to the drivers? Usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper.
So you have "weak links" inside the amplifier, and inside the speaker, so why bother with mega expensive cabling between the two? It doesn't make logical sense to me. It makes more sense to match the quality of your speaker wires with the existing wires in the signal path [inside the amplifier and inside the speaker].
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Logical fallacy, ad hominem.
That’s interesting. I’d have expected you to be one of those who wouldn’t buy without a double-blind ABX test. So it seems you use logic and science when it’s convenient for you, but choose to ignore them otherwise. That’s not how real science works. | ||||
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Only you can answer your question. If what you prefer is to reject all empirical evidence, rely solely on purely "scientific" data devoid of opinion or interpretation, and to challenge or question those who are reporting their experiences, perhaps you are in the wrong place. This is a hobbyist’s group, not a scientific forum. | ||||
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@johnk
Have you demoed these recommendations and confirmed that they were false? If ohms law is what matters, then using a thick lamp cord should give very good sound.
How to know your opinion is not based on pesuedu science, faith, or confirmation bias? | ||||
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femoore12630 posts @recklesskelly Thanks. There’s always someone that shows up here and decides to educate us about our “bad” choices. I thought this was a hobby and we were allowed to spend our own money however we want. I certainly didn’t put in a request to be lectured like a child. Femoore, Nice point, but I believe the last sentence should read; I certainly didn’t put in a request to be lectured by a child.
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Kinda sums it up. It’s all challenge based, not about helpful replies and guidance. Home audio and pro audio involve different camps and cables, with different designs and functions for different reasons. No debate there.
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Pot meet kettle. 1971gto455ho361 posts You poked the bear, perhaps it’s not your posts that are stupid, but in fact, some people are…. Cheers | ||||
Great and dandy. Can you show us YOUR room treatments? You can post pictures of your audio gear and your listening room here, under "systems". Thanks for sharing
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True to a degree. I did treatments, then cables (not crazy$$$) then a few tweaks. For many there is a compromise as the room is multi purpose, cables are less obtrusive and do have benefits over the stock junk. Your statement @boxertwin12 is a bit over the top. No one is saying expensive but better built than the crap that comes from the factory. Kinda like putting a slip-on vs the stock can on your BMW. Slight uptick in performance, fuel economy and sounds way better. | ||||
Thanks for your response to my post. The time code to digital sound synching is a digression, but an interesting one! It's not strictly correct to say that the analogue waveform of a recordings at different sample rates will be the same. If the recording has sufficiently high frequency information then that will show up in the analogue waveform converted from the higher sample rate recording. Given the range of human hearing and the frequency range of musical instruments, some debate whether higher sample rates are needed but others will argue that frequencies above 20 Khz can be perceived even if they cannot be "heard". But that's whole other debate.
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@knownothing Let it go, it is a lost case. He exists in his own little world. | ||||
@cleeds :
You nailed it! That's exactly what he is doing. For folks who have been participating in the audio forums for a while, it is actually pretty easy to figure out what individuals like this "bring to the table". Which is nothing but trolling and frustrating other folks who are sincerely trying to learn something, or sharing knowledge, to the point of these folks abandoning the forums for good altogether. It is so sad, but the reality. Majority of the folks I know in this hobby no longer participate in these forums. And I don't blame them. People like these make it toxic.
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Hmm, @donavabdear & his character .... The one & only man in my 35 years of purchasing gear either retail or used whom truly understands the word "trust." Trust in my word, and I’ll put trust in yours. Sorry, different topic .... | ||||
@cleeds A most excellent observation and post about this creature @donavabdear he is definitely not endearing to me for sure. Sealioning, I like it. | ||||
Let's cut the nonsense here folks, and get to a simple fact. What @donavabdear is doing is known as "sealioning." here's Mirriam-Webster: 'Sealioning' is a form of trolling meant to exhaust the other debate participant with no intention of real discourse. Sealioning refers to the disingenuous action by a commenter of making an ostensible effort to engage in sincere and serious civil debate, usually by asking persistent questions of the other commenter. These questions are phrased in a way that may come off as an effort to learn and engage with the subject at hand, but are really intended to erode the goodwill of the person to whom they are replying, to get them to appear impatient or to lash out, and therefore come off as unreasonable.
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@rodman99999 Sorry I misunderstood your statement.
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@tjag Thanks for that, I don't believe in very expensive power cords like $2k and up, I have many thousands $ in power and interconnect cables over the years but it was never for sound quality but to save the power supplies and safety, I just know that if you get DC in your cables from bad power through unbalanced positive and negative waveforms the capacitors that cross your transformers will carry that DC voltage across the transformer into your equipment. But I haven't done any tests after I bought my power reconditioners they made all the AC power just fine. What kind of power condition do you use? I understand that it makes a difference but I don't understand how AC cables after reconditions should make any difference if RF is not a concern. Thanks | ||||
GEE! In the STUDIO/during EDITING/on the RECORDING, changes can be made to the sounds/tracks being laid down? WHAT'S NEW? During PLAYBACK, in the listening room, from the source to the speakers/headphones, NO component manufactured is able to determine what information has been/may have been lost along the circuitry/signal path. To do so: the equipment would (of necessity) have to sample the original signal at the GENERATION POINT (stylus tip/tape head/LASER/digital track reader), compare the sound AT THE LISTENING POSITION, and process the signal to restore any information found absent, if possible. NO current component does that. Give it a rest! | ||||
@yoyoyaya Yes your correct on both points, I should have been clearer. Transfer facilities will not take time to resample your production sound if it is the wrong sample rate / bit rate or time code rate. Standard is 48k sample rate, 24 bit and 23.976 ND Time Code. When digital first came in I was the first to have an entirely digital system. It was hell, everyone was an expert and no one would listen, I nearly got fired from CSI: Miami on the first year by CBS. There were huge problems with time code flags and sample rates because some, not all recorders use the sample rate to generate time code and there was no standard with metadata. That was really a difficult time in movie sound. On the subject a great myth that practically no one understands is that a 48k sample rate and higher sample rates like 96hz or 192hz converted back to analog have exactly the same wave form. I honestly knew this but didn't really understand that the wave forms are exactly the same the bit depth only helps the noise floor. Thanks for making that clear. | ||||
@donavabdear you are welcome. I’m no expert, but experiments showed me that even the quality of the pc connected to the linear DC power supply matter. Why? I have no explanation other than cable material and structure shapes sound. Could be that cables are like bottles filled with water, they come in different shapes but the water in them is still water just delivered differently. I experimented with using combinations of different occ/silver/ofc wire types to supply my power conditioner. This works almost like an equalizer. I enhance the sound character by changing the wire combination. Why do you use expensive power cords if you don’t believe in them? The thing is, you are not curious and don’t want to try and experiment.
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@donavabdear Thanks for your response about the second law of thermodynamics. With all due respect, what's in the post does not relate to the law. Regarding your comments on digital audio, you refer only to sample rate, which relates to frequency response. Bit depth which relates to amplitude is equally important. Most DAWs operate internally using 32 bit floating point internal processing. Your bottleneck argument is not accurate. It frequently happens that a multitrack recording where the overall project file is 24/96 might include some material which was originally recorded in 16/44. The DAW will upsample that to 24/96 to make it compatible with the overall session. There won't be any more information in that track but the rest of the tracks recorded at 24/96 will benefit from the wider frequency response and greater headroom that the increased sample rate and bit depth allows. | ||||
@knownothing Thank you for your great response, I really appreciate it.
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says: “Why do audiophiles think that inserting a very high quality AC cable between the romex and the Amp fuse makes the audio signal change (there is no audio until after the transformer where the power is changed to DC). (Also I've spent 100 of thousands on Power conditioning personally).” This may be difficult to grasp, but a good power cable can affect the sound produced by your system without interacting directly with the processed signal path🤯 I know, right? One way a good PC can do that is not limiting the current to your gear. That requires both adequate gauge wire AND good connections. Wire and connector metallurgy can affect this greatly. I tend to like power cables built with 12 gauge or greater POCC or OCC copper, and copper connectors plated with gold (warmer sounding) or rhodium (less conductive, sounds neutral to me with leaner more defined bass - but a long break in period). I built a wire that uses silver plated copper connectors and it is a unicorn cable, tipping the frequency spectrum up in everything I have plugged it into. Too little resistance? Dunno, it’s not for me. Another factor is reducing stray electrical fields behind your gear in the vicinity of low level analog or digital signal cables, especially on or near the back plate of your integrated amp or preamp where many cables and their connectors come into close proximity. This is accomplished in power cable design with shielding, cable geometry and connectors that reduce emissions. Problems with interference can arise from the current in the cable, and electrical noise from your gear - especially digital sources - returning to your outlet, power strip or power conditioner via your PC. The area behind your gear is the worst place for your delicate low level signals to transit, but transit they must. Why pro audio uses balanced interconnects, am I right? And why you like wireless connections. There is also a school of thought that vibration is bad for power circuits, and serious manufacturers of power cord connectors like Furutech put a lot of effort into reducing vibration. And their high end AC connectors do sound very good to me. I have built PCs for a few hundred bucks that I think sound terrific, and I’ve bought or built PCs for a lot more that were just OK or even unlistenable. I have bought some finished PCs from China for a little over $100 that sound fantastic, while others I bought sounded meh. And I have listened to higher end power cables from some big name brands and I thought they were worth every penny. So maximizing current delivery and minimizing noise and vibration in power cables can have noticeable benefits on sound of your hifi. And even though they are technically upstream of the processed signal, because they occupy a common space on your shelf with cables delivering low level signals between your boxes, PC’s are an integrated part of your hifi ecosystem where every step you take to isolate the signals from noise and from one another matters. Audiophile don’t “think” well designed power cables improve how they experience the music produced by their systems. They know it from empirical experience because they try different cables and they hear differences in the sound coming out of their speakers or headphones. As mentioned by others here, exceptional cables really enhance spatial cues and recreate the timing and flow of the recorded notes in ways that just make more sense to my ears and my brain. Spend less time typing about why it doesn’t work, and spend more time exploring different cables in your systems at home. You might actually enjoy yourself. | ||||
Is this what we're dealing with? Better cables (and some that do cost more) get out of the way of the music. What a waste of time and effort. All the best, | ||||
Amen brother, amen. Have good night @femoore12 | ||||
@recklesskelly Thanks. There’s always someone that shows up here and decides to educate us about our “bad” choices. I thought this was a hobby and we were allowed to spend our own money however we want. I certainly didn’t put in a request to be lectured like a child. | ||||
@femoore12 I am with you. +1 | ||||
@rodman99999 #2:
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@thyname //And again why is it that audiophiles think they can add any information to the sound with expensive equipment and cables (yes, some people have delt with this question but I think they were all recording engineer who understand this concept.) // (yes, some people have delt with this question but I think they were all recording engineer who understand this concept.)
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