[theater_lover]

Actually, I believe that the "soft sciences" are the exact correct science to be applied here if there is no "hard science" test that shows a difference.

This isn't magic.  If there is a difference (I'm not saying there isn't), you can absolutely record a difference.  Might not be the exact perceived difference, but you could absolutely record a difference.

There is no more basic scientific test you can apply... yet for some reason Danny hasn't done that... even though he uses that same method to showcase his designs and crossover improvements.

[mlundy57]

@sarora9: Great that you and your wife are able to hear the difference. How long did it take? 10 minutes? An hour?
So why does Danny not exactly that? Listen to speakers with different cables and describe the differences.
And is it possible to hear that 100 USD cable with < 1000 USD speakers? And does that 500 USD cable let the 3000 USD speaker sound as good as a 10k USD speaker?

Most of us have limited resources. So if we buy a new system or new component then obviously it makes sense to think about if we should spend those extra dollars maybe on cables, connectors, or maybe amps and speakers?

I will soon buy brand new everything and until now Danny's NX-Oticas and the subs are on my wanted list. I haven't made up my mind about cables. Until now I think about something "simple". Maybe 12AWG copper cables with gold plated connectors. But I have an open mind. If I am convinced 500 USD extra for the cable makes a considerable difference then I will spend that money. But I have to be convinced. Antenna and coil tests don't do that.
And that lots of people think their new expensive gadget makes things so much better is also a well known effect. That is until they find another expensive gadget which makes their perfect system even better.

The issue of how to allocate a budget to get the most for the money is a practical application of the question "What makes a difference in sound quality and by how much? Or put another way "How and where does the concept of diminishing returns come into play"

Would you be surprised if I said there is no consensus on how to allocate  funds for a system? To begin with, there seem to be two main camps. One says to start with the best speakers you can afford because without good speakers, you can't hear what the upstream components have to offer or be able to tell difference between components. The other camp says put most of your money into the source because without a good source it doesn't matter how good your speakers are.

I'm in the first camp, get the best speakers you can afford first because it doesn't matter how good the upstream components are if you can't hear what they have to offer.

Of those that say start with the speakers first, some say to work backward through the chain from speakers to power amp to preamp to DAC to source. Some say after the speakers the next most important is the source then preamp then poweramp. Some give set percentages of the budget for each component and others modify the percentage of budget allocated depending on the size of the budget. One breakdown for a $1,000 system but a different mix for a $10,000 system. Bottom line, there is no one correct answer.

The one thing I've found that most of the different camps agree on is that cables, while important, get the smallest piece of the pie. An example of a speaker first budget allocation might look something like 45% for speakers, 25% for the source, 20% for amplification, and 10% for cables. Common sense can be a pretty good guide in this process. For example, which use of $1,500 will give you better sound performance: $1,000 speaker cables with $500 speakers or $1,300 speakers with $200 cables? You don't need experimental evidence to make this decision.

You also don't have to spend a fortune to get a resolving system with a high level of sound quality that gives you a lot of musical enjoyment.

I would start with good well designed cables that fit in the budget then upgrade later on when the cables become the limiting factor. By this I mean when the amount of money you are thinking of spending on the cables will not provide larger gains if spent on other equipment such as a DAC, preamp, phono cartridge, etc.

Here's the rub and it pertains to all audio equipment, not just cables. The only way to know if a given piece of equipment will make a difference for you is to listen to it in your system in your room. No amount of studies can answer this for you. Only putting the component in question into your system and listening to it will tell you if you can hear a difference and whether that difference is big enough to justify the cost, for you. That's where in-home trials come into play and why companies offer them. Try it for yourself. If it makes a big enough difference for you, keep it. If not, return it and get your money back.

I hope this makes sense

[Tyson]

@sarora9: Great that you and your wife are able to hear the difference. How long did it take? 10 minutes? An hour?
So why does Danny not exactly that? Listen to speakers with different cables and describe the differences.
And is it possible to hear that 100 USD cable with < 1000 USD speakers? And does that 500 USD cable let the 3000 USD speaker sound as good as a 10k USD speaker?

Most of us have limited resources. So if we buy a new system or new component then obviously it makes sense to think about if we should spend those extra dollars maybe on cables, connectors, or maybe amps and speakers?

I will soon buy brand new everything and until now Danny's NX-Oticas and the subs are on my wanted list. I haven't made up my mind about cables. Until now I think about something "simple". Maybe 12AWG copper cables with gold plated connectors. But I have an open mind. If I am convinced 500 USD extra for the cable makes a considerable difference then I will spend that money. But I have to be convinced. Antenna and coil tests don't do that.
And that lots of people think their new expensive gadget makes things so much better is also a well known effect. That is until they find another expensive gadget which makes their perfect system even better.

Buy the speakers and other components first.  Then play around with cables after you have your core system set up.  In fact I'd go further and say don't even worry about trying out better cables until after you've had your new system in place for at least 6 months.  By then you should be VERY familiar with how your system sounds and thus a good base line to determine if a particular cable is better or not.

[Cheytak.408]

Reading this thread has been extremely interesting.  There are the yes there are differences comments, The Who says there are differences comments, the why can't we measure differences comments, the we don't know what to measure comments: valid points on every (not both) side of the discussion.

A couple of things stuck out to me. 

One was Mike Lundy relating the Ranger training experience.  The Green Beret's observation about becoming familiar with the "noise floor" of the surroundings was right on the money.  In a combat situation background sounds are very telling.  Having the normal ambience suddenly go silent is enough to make any combat veteran very uneasy.  The sudden absence of sound raises the hair on the back of one's neck.  Same goes with cables.  The absence of background noise is immediately noticeable.  Listing that noise reveals things that before went unnoticed.  The minutia in the reproduction of recorded material is where the magic that makes things more real-ish.

The other is the skepticism surrounding measurements in general.  One of the missing parameters in measuring a musical event is that of relative phase relationships of harmonic content surrounding a recorded event.  Standard measurement methods are incapable of delineating complex phase relationships that are aural phenomena that are not captured on a scope or by a microphone.  Those relationships are decipherable by the multidimensional ear/brain complex, but not in a plotable 2 dimension form.

[Edgar77]

Same goes with cables.  The absence of background noise is immediately noticeable.

Wonderful. If that is immediately noticeable then it must be measurable. Put the amp on max and record with a sensitive microphone the level of background noise. Then switch the cables and look what happens.
I think we all agree that many microphones are a lot more sensitive than human ears. So it should be easy for those microphones to pick up the difference in noise, correct?

And all this can obviously be done without playing any music. Because if the extra noise happens because of the bad cables, and maybe RF noise in those cables, then that will happen with or without the music playing. Please publish your results and show us the extra noise and the immediately noticeable absence of background noise. Thanks.

[Hobbsmeerkat]

You're allowed do those tests yourself too, ya know, why bother putting the burden of proof on someone else?

[Edgar77]

You're allowed do those tests yourself too, ya know, why bother putting the burden of proof on someone else?

On my current cheap amp, cheap cables and speakers I can put the volume to the max (without playing anything) and I don't hear any noise from the speakers. Obviously I could try better cables but I am pretty sure I would still hear nothing. But then, my ears are not able to hear any RF so I am not really surprised that I don't hear that RF noise.

[Early B.]

On my current cheap amp, cheap cables and speakers I can put the volume to the max (without playing anything) and I don't hear any noise from the speakers. Obviously I could try better cables but I am pretty sure I would still hear nothing. But then, my ears are not able to hear any RF so I am not really surprised that I don't hear that RF noise.

This doesn't represent a proper understanding of RF noise. 

[Jaytor]

I have an electrical engineering background, but spent the first part of my career designing digital electronics and the second part in management and software development so I certainly don't consider myself an audio electronics expert. But I have a basic understanding of the issues.

I believe measurements play an important role in design, and particularly in production where they are very useful to weed out production errors.

But I'm also convinced that we can hear differences in equipment, including cables, which we have not yet been able to correlate with specific measurements. Note that I didn't say we can't measure them, only that we haven't figured out what to look for.

Regarding trying to measure differences in cables by making recordings, I have similar measurement equipment as Danny (although probably not as sensitive). Everytime I make a measurement of my speakers, the measurements are significantly different, particularly in the upper octaves. It's only after doing averaging that the response curves are close from one measurement to the next. Who knows what important information is buried in all those averaged out differences.

Perhaps if measurements were made in a really good anechoic chamber, we might be able to measure something that is correlated to the differences, but then we'd also potentially be blocking much or all the interference that result from RFI and EMI if that is actually what makes one cable sound different than another.

My point is that instead of claiming that if our phenomenally accurate measurement tools can't pick up the differences, surely our ears can't either, the folks that are so into measurements should spend their time trying to figure out what measurements actually correlate to what we are hearing.

[sarora9]

Tyson and mlundy have (as usual) given great advice. Buy good speakers and a good source first based upon intended budget. (45% for speakers and 20% for source sounds about right, especially at lower end budget). Modern dacs also function as preamps and I am doing that

Amps and cables make less of a difference and should be bought to synergise with the source and speakers. Cables can be essentially tried "on rental." Low-end DIY cable recipes are also solid.  Used amps are plentiful.

[RonP]

The issue of how to allocate a budget to get the most for the money is a practical application of the question "What makes a difference in sound quality and by how much? Or put another way "How and where does the concept of diminishing returns come into play"

Well said, Mike.

[Danny Richie]

Okay, I'll take a shot at answering some of these questions.

But first, so far so good. You guys have discussed a touchy subject and have handled it nicely. It can easily go South or has often gone South many times. And rest assured the moderators are watching this thread. So stay the path and be civil. Shared experiences are good. But a heated debate or name calling will get it shut down pretty quickly.

Okay questions....

What confuses me is that Danny in all his videos about the cables measures something, but not an amp with speaker cables and speakers. He shows that cables can be antennas. Yes, sure, nobody will argue with that. He also shows that coils do what coils do and you can transfer audio signals with two coils without contact. Yes, sure, that is also no surprise for anybody with at least a little electronic knowledge. What does he prove with these tests regarding speaker cables? Nothing!

Five of these video's were recorded before one was released. So I have meant to lay some ground work and show some illustrations to help people understand some basics. I'm not trying to prove anything by the illustrations.

What would it take to convince people that expensive speaker cables make a difference? I think it's obvious: A sound test. Danny has everything in his shop. Amps, various cables, and lots of speakers. And I guess he has enough friends and customers who are proud of their listening skills.

So invite those friends and do the blind tests.

Some video's along those lines are coming.

Personally I don't know what the result of those listening tests would be. Maybe some experts would hear consistently a difference and maybe they could clearly point out when the super duper cable was used and when the normal cable was used.

We've been conducting some listening test at the end of the work day. No experts are needed to hear the differences that a simple speaker cable swap makes on our system here. It's very obvious.

Let's do that test! Then all of us should be happy and see results from human listeners. That would be a way to convince the EE engineers that there is a difference. And maybe that will motivate those EE engineers to develop new tests so that they can measure what the experts hear. Wouldn't that be great?

Actually the differences were so obvious and so clear that we are thinking that the differences are going to show up (can be heard) in the playback of the video that we'll shoot. I think the mic on the camera will be able to pick up some of the differences. We are going to do some tests to see (or hear) if it captures what we hear.

[Danny Richie]

I will soon buy brand new everything and until now Danny's NX-Oticas and the subs are on my wanted list. I haven't made up my mind about cables. Until now I think about something "simple". Maybe 12AWG copper cables with gold plated connectors. But I have an open mind.

That is the type of cable we were comparing to our 24 stranded braided cable. We listen for a while after work a few days ago and made back to back comparisons. Afterward Killian decided he had had enough of the straight 12 gauge Copper wire. He said he didn't want to hear it any more. It sounded awful.   

[Danny Richie]

My issue isn't whether different cables can influence the sound... my issue is these bizarre arguments over science and tests.

This isn't string theory... if we just find the right "test" we will demonstrate the existence of a tachyon particle.

Why is it that the difference can not be measured by the exact same tools that determine design for all other aspects of audio design?

Why does this issue only occur in audiophile land?

Someone earlier made the analogy to tasting a difference between bourbons... chemically, those bourbons are not the same... a chemical analysis would show that.

I work in computer graphics.  Between my eyes and my training, I can "see" colors better than 99.99% of the population.  You know what "sees" better than me or any human?  High quality color sensors.

NASA just landed a rover on Mars that cost nearly 3 Billion dollars.  It has a microphone on it.  Do you think some of the best engineers and scientists in the world looked to audiophile speaker cable "tech" to make sure the signals were captured and transmitted accurately?

Sound is simply pressure changes.  Do you really think we don't have recording technology that is far more sensitive and accurate than the human ear?

The tweeter, the woofer, the cabinet, resonance, decay, sensitivity, resistance, on and on and on... all tested with common and trusted tools... but somehow speaker cables are a different animal.

The logic makes no sense to me.

A microphone is measuring one point in space. It is like looking at everything with one eye closed. So it is like hearing or seeing in 2D.

We have two ears and our brain takes the sound arrival of those two ears and creates a three dimensional picture.

So we hear layering in the sound stage, placement of instruments, and space around things that microphone doesn't pic up at all. Even the decay of the instruments is very different from one cable to the next. That is one of the easy things that tips everyone off when making the cable swaps. With the good cable we clearly hear instrument decay. Which the cheap cable that decay is smeared and blurred together. That's hard to measure.

[Danny Richie]

Actually, I believe that the "soft sciences" are the exact correct science to be applied here if there is no "hard science" test that shows a difference.

This isn't magic.  If there is a difference (I'm not saying there isn't), you can absolutely record a difference.  Might not be the exact perceived difference, but you could absolutely record a difference.

There is no more basic scientific test you can apply... yet for some reason Danny hasn't done that... even though he uses that same method to showcase his designs and crossover improvements.

Just hold on. We're not done yet.

[Danny Richie]

I have an electrical engineering background, but spent the first part of my career designing digital electronics and the second part in management and software development so I certainly don't consider myself an audio electronics expert. But I have a basic understanding of the issues.

I believe measurements play an important role in design, and particularly in production where they are very useful to weed out production errors.

But I'm also convinced that we can hear differences in equipment, including cables, which we have not yet been able to correlate with specific measurements. Note that I didn't say we can't measure them, only that we haven't figured out what to look for.

Regarding trying to measure differences in cables by making recordings, I have similar measurement equipment as Danny (although probably not as sensitive). Everytime I make a measurement of my speakers, the measurements are significantly different, particularly in the upper octaves. It's only after doing averaging that the response curves are close from one measurement to the next. Who knows what important information is buried in all those averaged out differences.

Perhaps if measurements were made in a really good anechoic chamber, we might be able to measure something that is correlated to the differences, but then we'd also potentially be blocking much or all the interference that result from RFI and EMI if that is actually what makes one cable sound different than another.

My point is that instead of claiming that if our phenomenally accurate measurement tools can't pick up the differences, surely our ears can't either, the folks that are so into measurements should spend their time trying to figure out what measurements actually correlate to what we are hearing.

Good post.

There are a lot of differences that we can measure. And there are a lot of variables that are really hard to measure. Differences in dielectric material and skin effect for instance are tough to measure.

The real trick then is how to correlate the measurement to what we hear. For instance what measurement that we can make tells us or correlates to sound stage depth differences that we can clearly hear?

And it is really hard to move some of those guys, that claim cables make no difference, into trying to figure out what measurements correlate to what we hear, because they have yet to sit down in front of a system that allows them to hear the differences.

[Hobbsmeerkat]

That is the type of cable we were comparing to our 24 stranded braided cable. We listen for a while after work a few days ago and made back to back comparisons. Afterward Killian decided he had had enough of the straight 12 gauge Copper wire. He said he didn't want to hear it any more. It sounded awful.   

That how I feel when I occasionally use my 10-12 gague zipcord..
Tho it's moreso noticable when I listen in the living room, than at my desk. (The speakers are about 1-2" from the wall and surrounded by PC monitors and a window curtain behind one of them.)
With the cheap zipcord, the soundstage flattens considerably, especially in depth, as well as separation.

I can live with it, but the overall experience I get from the 16-braid is just better, and is something I'm more likely to look for.

I'm sure if I had a more revealing system, the difference would be even more noticeable, but for the time being, my little Sprout 100 has a lot to offer, as do my XLS. I have one of Danny's new power cords on the way and im interested to see what sort of difference it makes, cuz i honestly don't know what to expect, but I haven't been mislead yet.

[Tyson]

Since audio playback is a system, errors introduced by the components and wiring are cumulative.  So upgrading a component removes some of the errors and gives you better sound.  Same with cables.  Putting in better cables is not magic, you're simply removing another source of errors. 

Also, if someone hears a difference, the reasonable thing to do is ask what explains it.  The unreasonable thing to do is deny a difference exists.  Sometimes we don't know why.  And that's OK.  Life is full of ambiguity, best to get comfortable with not always having all the answers.

[Barryg443]

I’m looking forward to the segment on power cables.  I am wondering if Danny is going to offer DIY power  cords.  I have a Furman power sequencer in my rack.  Some short power cords would help keep my rack neat.  A few cords in the 18” range would be helpful! Power amps would go directly to the main outlet on the wall!

Barry

[Hobbsmeerkat]

You're in luck, cuz he does! I should have one coming next week.
https://www.gr-research.com/power-cords.html