The truth about interconnects - can you handle it?

Hello.
Your misinformed post caught my interest. I have relisted it below.

" guess gravity did not exist till Newton discovered, and North America was not a part of the world till Columbus stumbled across it too!
People like Bomarc who claim to have the answers based on science delude themselves. Just because nobody has found a way to measure the differences yet doesn't mean they don't exist. It simply means this area of research is in it's infant stages. Infants should not be allowed measuring devices!!!
I suppose the study in Germany in which classical music conductors are seen to hear more than the untrained listener should be ignored since there obviously is not more music being played when they listen as opposed to the average listener!
The biggest problem science has is the pedestrian who actually knows very little that takes something a much wiser person has said and repeats it without understanding what it means.
Every interconnect is different! If you cannot hear the difference you are in the wrong hobby! If you can hear the obvious, just forget the 'junk scientists' who claim you delude yourself and enjoy the music!!!"

I was wondering if you had done experiments with different cables. Were the differences as obvious as you seem to imply in you post? If tests were conducted, how did you perform the tests?

My experiments have not shown any percievable differences. Does this mean that I am in the wrong hobby?

I am open to further testing, but at the moment am content with the idea that good cables are all that are required. A good cable is well insulated and properly designed with sufficient electrical measurements for its required application. It should also be properly priced for its application.

Please do not misrepresent the above remark as stating that I have given up. I am still very open and eager for knowledge on how I can derive these differences you seem to hear with ease. Perpaps your test methodology will help me in my search.

The study in Germany you brought up has no relevance to the discusson of cable differences. It should be obvious to anyone that a trained classical musician will have an advantage picking out instruments and/or details that you or I may not have noticed. If that musician pointed them out to us in a recording, I am sure that we would pick up on them as well. I assume this study was conduced in a live environment in which case no cables were even involved. Regardless, it does not imply or support any evidence that there are obvious or noticeable differences between cables. I realize that your position does not require evidence as this would be a contradiction on your previous statements. Afterall, that would involve science.

Your post only provides stronger evidence in support of the audioholics article on percieved cable differences. The use of the study in Germany which has no relevence is proof of this. It is not relevant to the discussion and only thrown in to create confusion rather then deal with the specifics of the issue.

"The biggest problem science has is the pedestrian who actually knows very little that takes something a much wiser person has said and repeats it without understanding what it means."

I completely agree with the above statement. I believe you are guilty of it in your initial post.

Science is the reason that you have high fidelity to begin with. Seems silly to throw it all away now.

Taz,
I've no doubdt as you do that cables might/or might not sound different...

The main fact I realy care about is pricing of cables that realy don't show any of the engineering or scientific mechanizm and might even rich the cost of a good speaker or the source component.

That is the main today's audio-bull that realy psychologically drives by its beautifull design(only out-view realy counts!) making naive and rich believe that they will change the sound a lot. In fact in audio freequencies wires can only change the responce(on randomly selected freequencies) by 0.1...0.3dB(now that's to the real measured and objective differences between $10 RadioShack speaker wire and $300 JPS speaker wire). These differences are only can be audiable with infected brain but not with ears.

As to manufacturers that produce ultra-wide-band amps able to start parasite oscillation at RF(that's where shielded costly wires might work) breaking-up the normal performance I want to emphisize with bold letters that audio amplifier should ONLY work at audio freequencies. The rest of junk must be filtered out not with wires $2k/m/pr but with simple penny-cost passive and active elements; the double-side PC-board must be properly measured for overall reactance and analyzed for self-resonances that might occur during RF interfearance.

I agree with your post and would like to add that I have been told to look for cables that exhibit low capacitance and inductance.

I believe that the capacitance issue is more critical with interconnects because of the low signal levels at this stage. I cannot say how significant it is because I believe this would depend on the equipment used.

I wonder how much of this perceived difference people claim to hear between cables is due to high capacitance issues between their equipment. For example, a possible mismatch between input and output impedances between a CD player, preamp and power amp.

Another issue that could add to this problem is long interconnect runs. I have discussed equipment issues with many people and have discovered that some setups place monoblock amplifiers close to speakers to minimize speaker cable runs. However, the interconnect must then be longer then the speaker cable in order to reach the amplifier. If the interconnect is high capacitance, and there are impedance mismatches, this may create an audible difference.

I would welcome input from those who claim the differences are obvious. What test methodology was used? What speaker cables/interconnects were involved in the test? Details would at least give me something to go by and help me with my tests.

I did get some input from someone in this forum that differences are not easy to distinguish with a simple blind A/B test. It requires a more lengthy time period for differences to become evident. Perhaps a longer A/B test methodology could be used.

I also ran across a post where someone claims that he has done many A/B tests and his friends have attempted to try and fool him with different cables. He claims a 90% accuracy rate in distinguishing between cables. Thats very good.
I would be interested in what differences he picks up on and his test methodology. I would also like to know if he finds that a correlation exists between price and performance.

I researched some different cable manufacturers products and would be interested in doing a comparison between the Nordost line, DH labs interconnects, and a standard pair of radioshack speaker wire.

I read on the Nordost website about there approach to cable design and they seem to be research oriented in their designs. The only conflicting issues that they stated in their literature had to to with wire shapes. Essentially they state that the nordost 2 flat speaker cable is rectangular in shape because this improves capacitance and inductance over round wires. However, their higher line cables are solid round mult-stranded litz designs due to the improved skin effect of this design.

Very unusual to promote one design philosophy as better, but then to use the worse one for higher product lines.

DH labs has an interesting dielectric material with their air matrix interconnects. They claim a closer dielectric constant with that of air due to the unique construction of this teflon based dielectric. At least worth investigating.

It would be interesting to put these products to the test.

The other evening I was visiting a friend and discussion drifted to this new audiophile hobby of mine. After a few more glasses of wine we went onto his office to see what was behind/between all of his gear. The first thing I noticed was a set of monster cable 'Y' connections(male RCA with two female RCA) so he could run music two sources to his receiver. I yanked the 'Y" and connected one of them direct and....he was impressed how much better it sounded. He laughed at how much he had been missing as the connection was done over seven years ago. Next, we disconnected everything swo as to untangle all of his AC cords, interconnects, and speaker cable. It was all twisted together. He had four or five sets of cables that were twisted through everything and yet were hooked to nothing. Now his system sounds quite bearable. Looks like he won't be participating on all of those Audiogon auctions, afterall. i got a nice bottle of wine for my efforts.

That there can be minor acoustic differences between well-made cables consisting of the same copper and the same low-effect fluorocarbon dielectric IS interesting. Puffing the Teflon with air or changing L-C values with geometry further complicates the matrix. But what about using magnets or ferrous fillers next to the conductors, as is done y a now-popular manufacturer? Flies in the face of all electrical theory for a linear response, no?