[Phil A]

Proof is in the cable!

This is another reason why I don't buy into the whole high end cable marketing gimmicks.  I believe if a cable is of reasonable construction with all variables being equal (i.e. low inductance, low capacitance and low resistance), there is not much difference between it and a high end cable.  Manufactures will often play with each one of these variables to obtain a certain sonic character for the cable but that is about it, you're paying more for the name than anything.

I used to buy expensive cables (I still might have one or two).  I had a friend who worked at a high end shop.  For about a 5 yr. period, I did virtually every delivery/set-up with him.  After a bit, I decided to experiment and bought lots of raw wire (I have another friend who has a small co. that makes some audiophile cables).  I had access to the store after hours and was able to compare various prototypes to those boutique brands.  One day I did a delivery with him to someone about a half mile from where I live.  After a few mos., I became friendly with the person who lived close-by (he has a Bryston SP1.7 and a 9BSST).  Since I was so close, he'd often ask questions.

He bought an almost $4k CD player from the store (where my friend worked).  He wanted SACD, but the owner at that time would not carry it, and they danced around the issue.  I talked my friend who worked in the store into buying the Marantz 8260.  When the owner was not there one Sat., he brought his in and sold 3 of them.  The person down the road from where I live stopped in the store and was not happy about seeing a $1k player after having asked about SACD about a month or so earlier.  He brought home the player to try over a weekend.  While he ultimately preferred his more expensive player for CDs and kept it for another couple of years before selling it, he forgot to get cables for the 8260.  Since the store was closed, he asked if I had any extra.  I took my home made stuff off my player so he could listen in stereo and multi-channel over the weekend.

He had bought from the store a $1,095 list balanced cable for the left and right out of the SP1.7 to the 9BSST, a $650 list single ended RCA from the CD player to the SP1.7, $1.8k speaker wire for the left and right (Thiel 2.4s), etc.  Unknown to me, he decided to A/B the cables from the CD player (which had 2 identical outputs) to the SP1.7.  He then went further to remove the balanced cables and try another set of my RCAs between the amp and preamp.  He was blown away by how much better my cables were.  He sold his expensive stuff and I made him 5 balanced cables from the preamp to the amp, single ened RCA from the CD player, speaker wire, a power cord for his Rel sub, a Neutrik Speakon cable from his sub to the amp, etc.

[boead]

While I do believe cables can make a difference, I do not necessarily like the manner in which they are marketed.  Here is a post that is a couple of yrs. old from audiogon.com with regards to the JPS digital cord:

"In Reply to: JPS digital cable... posted by rp1@surfnetusa.com on April 16, 2004 at 13:49:34:

This french site sells a Eupen GNLM 2.5mm2 power cord for 60 Euro (1m). Add 30 Euro for an additional meter.
http://www.ndi-france.com/index.php3?hifi=Eupen&disp=art&articleID=12
"

Someone apparently took off the expandable sleeving or jacket and found the JPS is nothing more than something sold a whole lot cheaper in Europe.

Cool, next time I’m in Europe I’ll pick some up. What’s the brand, model and lot numbers?

That weblink comes up blank, got another one?

You know peoples efforts, trial and error (called R&D in the business world) has a monetary value. I mean most audio gear is nothing more then few dollars of parts and most designs aren’t original, especially tube designs, right?


Anyone DIY your own speaker cables? If not, go shopping for wire and start listening. Log the amount of time you spend and how much money you spend, don’t forget to add a $$ value to your time and tell me what it cost in the end?

[bgewaudio]

He was blown away by how much better my cables were.

Wow Phil, he actually thought yours were better 

My point exactly. 

All of the A&B testing I've ever done with speaker cable, line level interconnects and digital interconnects have shown no improvements over others (or none good enough to write home about).  Don't get me wrong, different cables will have their own sonic merits, but none will really offer better performance in terms of transparency and detail, unless the latter parameters I've described are not in sync.

[boead]

He was blown away by how much better my cables were.

Wow Phil, he actually thought yours were better 

My point exactly. 

All of the A&B testing I've ever done with speaker cable, line level interconnects and digital interconnects have shown no improvements over others (or none good enough to write home about).  Don't get me wrong, different cables will have their own sonic merits, but none will really offer better performance in terms of transparency and detail, unless the latter parameters I've described are not in sync.

Synergy is what I think you are referring to.

Better is an adjective and is subjective. If a particular wire adds something you want more of then its better other wise its worse.

Simply saying that “…different cables will have their own sonic merits,” is enough to justify any cost as long as it’s affordable to YOU. Who are you or anyone to say what’s expensive? That too is subjective. The cost of a cable may be a days salary to one person and a weeks to another.

The point being discussed here is whether or not a wire can display ANY differences in sound character. Better, worse, cheap, expensive are all a matter of opinion.

I DIY’ed my own speaker cables. I bought wire from here and there and tried this and that, eventually I found a wire that I liked and it fairs favorably to a commercial wire costing many times as much, unfortunately by the time I add up the cost of that box of unwanted wire, dielectric, spades and allsorts it cost was as much as many comparable commercially made speaker cables.
Now if I had been happy with the Home Depot outdoor extension cord or the Radio Shack lamp cord then I could have saved lots of $$ but I wasn’t and what fun would that have been?
You can go to www.usedcables.com and try as many cables as you like for NO fee except making a small commitment to buying something from them within a year or so and before you assume their prices are high, they aren’t – actually their prices are on the low side and you can buy used AND new cables from them of all brands. SO you have them send you two or four cables, listen for a couple of weeks and return them. You can keep going till your hearts content.
You can also buy used cables on ebay or Audiogon and listen, sell off what you don’t’ want and keep what you like. Ultimately the cost is low and the fun is high unless you are obsessive and start loosing sleep. All I can say to that is Prozac and a good counselor.

If you just don’t care then you really don’t belong here or any other audio hobbyist forum since that’s what a hobby is otherwise it’s just a tool or utility and deserves no additional discussion. If you went to Radio shack and bought whatever and say to yourself; this sounds fine then you are missing out on the fun and the learning experience. If you can’t justify spending more then RatShacks best and find it necessary to lurk and knock others who are having fun then you are likely just board or lonely. Find another hobby and/or be content and listen to whatever it is you listen too.

bgewaudio, this post isn’t specifically aimed at you. It’s a generalization to readers. What type of components and associated gear do you have? What type of cables do you listen with? What have you tried? I’m not setting you up, just interested.

[Phil A]

My friend who replaced his expensive cables tried the Home Depot extension cord.  He said it was OK was nothing great.  If you want to try something (I no longer use it but it is not bad), go to distributors like Allied or Newark (newark.com) and buy a couple of spools of Belden 83030.  It comes in around 10 colors and I usually recommend one spool of red and one of black.  It will probably be a drop over $100 for the spools with shipping (they are 100 ft. apiece).  It is 16 ga. internal applicance wiring.  You can double it up to get the equivalent of around 13 ga. (I gave the prototypes I built to my brother after testing it against $600 list speaker cables).  If you want fancier = buy some expandable sleeving, heatshrink, connectors, etc.  On many systems I've tried it (and told others about it and listened to their systems), it outperforms much.

[boead]

I tried all kinds of wire.
The Home Depot stuff or any 10 or 12 awg copper wire like that is ok but nothing great, a little smeared and tubby. I tried all kinds of CAT5 and CAT6 in varying braids, I bought solid silver, stranded silver, silver clad copper and in all kinds of servings and dielectric. They all got their sound. I also tried a few different types of Belden wire too.
A friend had some LAT International speaker wire that cost under $200 for a pair and it wasn’t much better then the Home Depot stuff.

I ended up with a Litz Type-2 magnetic wire from some military or NASA surplus store in a cotton serving that I put in a Teflon dielectric that actually sounds great!

I tried some consumer cables that were well over $500 for 8 to 10 feet that were horrible and I’ve tried some for under $300 that were great. The MIT wire is really great regardless of cost. Synergistic Research is the best bang for the dollar in my opinion.

BTW: The Litz wire was $5/foot single conductor to a 10 foot pair of cables cost $200 in wire alone, then the cost of dielectric and spades drove the cost up to about $250. I think it favors well against some MIT cables I heard at $650+ for the same lengths but then those cables are bi-wire and a 10 foot set of bi-wire Litz would have cost about $500 to DIY myself. Now add on the other couple to few hundred dollars I spent on other various wire to get to what I settled on and… you see where this can go.

I didn’t believe in high priced cables either till I realized that it’s not the actual wire that cost $$ but rather the fact that someone else did all the work listening to miles of wire to find what we end up buying.

[Phil A]

I didn’t believe in high priced cables either till I realized that it’s not the actual wire that cost $$ but rather the fact that someone else did all the work listening to miles of wire to find what we end up buying.

Yep - that's exactly it.  I've listened to miles of it.

[bgewaudio]

Boead, I have no idea why you are getting so defensive 

If we you could somehow position yourself to get up on the right side of the bed in the morning and stop the dog from peeing in your cornflakes and actually read what I've said you we see that all of us are in agreement with one another.

If someone has the money and wants to waste their money on expensive cables by all means, do whatever makes you happy. I mean, you've even said yourself

[/quoteI tried some consumer cables that were well over $500 for 8 to 10 feet that were horrible and I’ve tried some for under $300 that were great.]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.  All I'm saying is that you don't have to necessarily take out a second mortgage for a pair of cables.

[boead]

Boead, I have no idea why you are getting so defensive 

If we you could somehow position yourself to get up on the right side of the bed in the morning and stop the dog from peeing in your cornflakes and actually read what I've said you we see that all of us are in agreement with one another.

If someone has the money and wants to waste their money on expensive cables by all means, do whatever makes you happy. I mean, you've even said yourself

Defensive? Really? Sorry, maybe I’m just fed up with the whole thing and it comes through that way.

Seriously, if people can’t hear the difference between wire and tubes then this is the wrong hobby for them. Just buy something ‘well made’ by whomever (it really doesn’t matter who, does it?) and listen to music.

bgewaudio, I clearly said above that my post wasn’t directed at you. I understand most of us are in agreement.

[jethro]

We can disagree, but we can't dis-respect ! Thank you.

[bgewaudio]

I clearly said above that my post wasn't’t directed at you. I understand most of us are in agreement.

No, It just seemed like you were directing you're response toward me, if you would have used words like people instead of you than I would have thought differently.

Everyone is allowed to have their own feelings and opinions its our right, everyone is also different, that's why we have so many different audio manufactures to offer different products for different tastes.

I agree that it is fun to test certain components, and it is also important to get the sound you are looking for.

So Like I said, anyone who claims to have found some holy grail in interconnects, good for them. I however feel you can get similar performance from a mid-priced cable just as well as a higher priced cable
without forking out the unnecessary dough.

[Phil A]

We can disagree, but we can't dis-respect ! Thank you.

I concur.  That's why there is numerous flavors when one goes to buy ice cream.  Everyone has different tastes.  I've done so many set-ups with my friend at the high end shop that even the same equipment can sound different in differnet rooms (people often overlook the room).  If one likes one flavor vs. the other, it does not make one right or wrong vs. the other.  This is a hobby.  Enjoy it and let others enjoy it in their own manner.

In an old set-up many moons ago, I had the Proceed AVP as a pre-pro.  It allowed multiple connections to the same device to A/B-ing cables easily.  I did many experiments even with digital cables.  I even did not participate in switching (and no one could see what was in what input I put in) the remote to switch between the cables and was totally amazed to even see those engineer types who thought wire was wire hear differences in digital cables.  After they could not explain it (since they could not sound different) they wanted to take apart the preamp since there had to be differences in the inputs.  When the results showed that that possibility was eliminated through multiple swapping and testing they left scatching their heads and insisting there was something I did at the back of the unit other than just hook-up the cables.  I learned that people have opinions and that is OK and I'm just going to enjoy it my way.

[john1970]

Using the stock cord with the 4B SST.  Anything else is a waste of money.

John

[boead]

Using the stock cord with the 4B SST.  Anything else is a waste of money.

John

Gee what a fresh, new and enlightening comment.
Did you come up with that all by yourself or was it a collaboration of efforts.

[LightFire]

I borrowed a Tara lab Prime AC power cord for my 9b and noticed an improvement in soundstaging.  Just wondering what power cord people are using with Bryston amps and how it improved your system.

This is an outrageously ridiculous claim.

[LightFire]

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=12703.0

I use the standard cords that came with my amps.

This is what everybody should do.

[LightFire]

It is subjective.  It is hard to disproved what one said about what they heard or claimed about their experiences with audio.  Everyone hears things differently.  As for me, I don't hear much difference with cable changes in my system.    

I borrowed a Tara lab Prime AC power cord for my 9b and noticed an improvement in soundstaging.  Just wondering what power cord people are using with Bryston amps and how it improved your system.

This is an outrageously ridiculous claim.

Honest people with a (formal) background in electric/electronic will tell you it is not subjective. it is just absurd. It is just and only someone's imagination at work. It NEVER passed a double blind test.

[boead]

Honest people with a (formal) background in electric/electronic will tell you it is not subjective. it is just absurd. It is just and only someone's imagination at work. It NEVER passed a double blind test.

Many scientists will tell us that God doesn’t exist and it’s absurd too think so. That it too is just someone's imagination at work. And there is certainly NO test to prove Gods existence. So I guess, by your logic, they are right – if of course their background is ‘formal’ - informal backgrounds need not apply.

Humm, I see. Thanks.

[lonewolfny42]

Levi....I think you can do the double blind test with PRAT....or maybe it was PHAT...I'll have to check.....

[Levi]

Well said.

Honest people with a (formal) background in electric/electronic will tell you it is not subjective. it is just absurd. It is just and only someone's imagination at work. It NEVER passed a double blind test.

Many scientists will tell us that God doesn’t exist and it’s absurd too think so. That it too is just someone's imagination at work. And there is certainly NO test to prove Gods existence. So I guess, by your logic, they are right – if of course their background is ‘formal’ - informal backgrounds need not apply.

Humm, I see. Thanks.