[Big Red Machine]

I'd like to state my positon differently than I have seen stated about cables.  I don't WANT cables to make my system sound different/better, but they do!  I am not a believer in "high end" cables because I want there to be a difference, but because I have experienced what different configurations/designs/materials can do to my sound.

I'd love to be content with the absolute cheapest cables in the world, but I ended up spending several hundred dollars per set to really get the sound to be unrestricted.  Did I finally find the correct impedance, reactance, etc. that allowed the sound to fully flow?  I'm sure science can explain that these cables measure differently than the previous cables.  That would be great.  Conicidentally, all the cables I am now using are silver and have replaced copper.  The copper were exceptional but there is an absolute difference with the silver and I like it.

I guess my position has always been that if I finally heard a delta and it was that easy, why did it take me so long to catch up with the rest of you.  Then I find there are those who don't hear a difference and I am, at first, incredulous, because (in my early reaction) it must be a very limiting system to not allow cables to reveal detail, etc.

So I'm very happy about my sound because now I find myself tapping my foot way more than analyzing the sound and listening to the entire song versus a piece of a song (because I would search for a piece that sounded good, now it all sounds good).

So now I am beginning to understand that others don't hear a difference, but it is slow going.  But I do not like when those of the other camp try and make me feel stupid because I hear what I hear and they think I am delusional.  I wish I could invite every single one of them to hear my sytem and bring their cables with them.  But I'll keep working toward fully respecting their position.

I like AC because we can remain civil.  An you guys re great.  I learn a lot here.

[Freo-1]

You didn't answer my question. All you appear to show is that you are convinced that no difference could possibly exist.

I asked what if you "heard" a difference, despite all your (accumulative) knowledge saying it shouldn't. What would you do if in a simple A/B test you were to clearly hear a difference?

If I could actually "hear a difference" between cables of the same AWG, I would acknowledge that. After all, all of us are looking for that measure of improvement. Recently, I've been comparing differences between 5687, 7044, and 7119 as driver tubes, and trust me, they are all different. What is REALLY interesting is the interaction between the driver tube and the power tubes, and combinations thereof each. They ALL sound slightly different (or, in some cases, a LOT different). Tubes, the ultimate tone control.

For example, when changing out a friends speaker cables from 24 AWG to 14 AWG in a 70's vintage system, there was some audible improvement. However, to then say that "Bombast 123" cable is audibly better than "Joe Schomes 456 cable" of similar XLR make is something that I can't justify.


For the record, I have "tried" a fair bit of expensive cables/interconnects over the years, and it's just not there.  Different amps of similar wattage, different tubes, parts replacement of caps, HEXFREDS, etc, YES, can hear.   Cables, wires, NO.

[Daygloworange]

Lastly, I am willing to bet right here, right now an even bet of $1,000 that I can readily identify the differences between any cable against my current reference cable. Double blind test, you control the variability of which cable comes first then second, with perfect results 5 times over! The only requirement to meet my wager is that we use my own personal audio system, in my listening room, with my ears. You bring the blindfold. All takers are welcome, I need to make some easy money this month!  aa

I don't see anyone takin' the bet. Curious....

At least he's willing to put his money where his mouth is.  

Cheers

[Daygloworange]

If I could actually "hear a difference" between cables of the same AWG, I would acknowledge that.

Fair enough. I appreciate (and respect)your answer. 

After all, all of us are looking for that measure of improvement.

Yup. You got it.

Cheers

[AdamM]

I don't see anyone takin' the bet. Curious....

I took the bet.  I will.  He never responded to where he lives

/A

[Daygloworange]

I don't see anyone takin' the bet. Curious....

I took the bet.  I will.  He never responded to where he lives

/A

Oh, sorry, I missed that. 

Anyways, interconnects were part of the show and know what IC tied for first place?   a DIY $28 one.  Honest to god.  What was it?!   2 extra long SCUSI cables from old printers, 68 pins of 28AWG OFC copper with foil then braided wire shielding.  Half wired hot, half cold, good RCA ends, shields wired to one end which was pointing forward in the current flow - source side, not amp side.

Very interesting Adam.

I thought I read somewhere that CAT5 cable was a no-no because of LCR issues or something like that. I thought I read that it could cause an amp to go into oscillation or something like that. Any truth to that?

Any possible such concerns with the SCSI cable? I've got some of those lying around somewhere.

Cheers

[AdamM]

Any possible such concerns with the SCSI cable?

Yeah, i heard that too.  I thought it was more to do with using cat5 as speaker cable? but i could be mistaken

The guys who did the SCUSI DIY interconnects were marveling at how well designed they were for IC use.  Lots of conductors, fantastic shielding, cheap.

Here's a shot of that 1M room  (turns out it was $1.6M...)

[doug s.]

i'm w/you on this, adam.  i also believe that there are differences in cabling.  personally, i have found there to be more differences in speaker cabling than power cords, or ic's, but i do believe that these differences exist.  what you related below reinforces what i believe - that all high priced cables are a complete waste of money, unless, of course, you are buying them for reasons other than the sound of your system.   which is ok, if that's what makes you happy. 

this is also why i prewiously wrote that it's not the top of the heap cables that are over-priced, but only the over-priced cables that are over-priced.  cables make a difference, but you do not need to spend a lot of money to hear the difference.  and, i think it's the fact that there are such obscenely overpriced cables out there that offends many folks' sensibilities about cabling, & cause them to become so irate about it, &/or write stuff like that mcintosh article prewiously referenced.  me, personally, i do not take offense to it at all - i think it's funny as all get-out that otherwise normal people will shell out so much money on wire.  i am the first one to show the ridiculously priced cabling to my friends, & we always get a good laugh out of it!   

of course, what's over-priced is a relative term.  my i/c cable of choice, the alphacore tq2-ag, retails for $186/meter pair.  being the cheapskate that i am, tho, i have waited until i found them f/s used, & have gotten them at 50% off, or more.  my non-audiophile buds think i am insane to spend that much on a pair of ic's.   

i am happy w/them because i find them to be extremely neutral, & a coupla folks i know who are into ridiculously priced cabling (imo), have also found them to be neutral.  that's what i want in a cable - one that does nothing.

mebbe i am close-minded, but i really do not care about trying to improve on my i/c's.  i have only one run of cabling that i would consider replacing; it's a 6m run that goes from my preamp to my x-over, but until i stumble across a used pair of tq2-ag at >50% off, i will be content w/my old trusty tara labs quantum iv at that last spot...  re: power cords, i am happy with the ones i have that aare similar to the diycable stuff.  i admit to being interested in trying a couple other speaker cables than what i am presently using, but none of it is ridiculously priced - the most expensive i have thought about is the analysis plus silver oval 9.... (and, yes - i would not be offended by any spam from any vendors, who think their reasonably priced speaker cable will smoke the a/p silver oval 9...    )

ymmv,

doug s.

Why does it seem that most of the heat regarding topics like this come from the  'I can hear a difference with my $$major cash outlay$$'  camp?     That's interesting.

Ban cable topics?   People serious?   Let's be strict about tone and attacks, of course, but censoring a central topic would be a little extreme and ridiculous no?  It's a slippery slope, censorship.  What's next?  CD VS record?   SS VS Tube?     What kind of reputation would AC get if it's the only forum where 'Cables' are next to 'Religion' on the verboten list?   

A while back i was involved with an audio shootout of various things, in a $1M room.  Yep that's right, $1M.   The room was especially designed with no right angles, hung from above by dampened cables, triple double pane non parallel glass windows, hand crafted maple diffusers on the back wall, etc.  Utter ridiculousness!

Anyways, interconnects were part of the show and know what IC tied for first place?   a DIY $28 one.  Honest to god.  What was it?!   2 extra long SCUSI cables from old printers, 68 pins of 28AWG OFC copper with foil then braided wire shielding.  Half wired hot, half cold, good RCA ends, shields wired to one end which was pointing forward in the current flow - source side, not amp side.



I'll be honest, i didn't hear much of a difference, but it wasn't my room.  Nobody heard much of a difference, and judging was hard.

The golden ears types which were there, were mostly surprised by the price/performance aspect.  There were cables present which i've never even heard of, running neck and neck with old printer cables!  Everyone got a kick out of that.

Hit up your used computer store, get some old SCUSI cables, make some bloody fine interconnects... you know, if you're a DIY type.

Only drawback is they're not as pretty as Steve's cables, which are very handsome indeed 

/A

[doug s.]

i have used cat5 as speaker cable w/no issues whatsoever, except damned nice sound.     i used two runs per each speaker binding post...

doug s.

I don't see anyone takin' the bet. Curious....

I took the bet.  I will.  He never responded to where he lives

/A

Oh, sorry, I missed that. 

Anyways, interconnects were part of the show and know what IC tied for first place?   a DIY $28 one.  Honest to god.  What was it?!   2 extra long SCUSI cables from old printers, 68 pins of 28AWG OFC copper with foil then braided wire shielding.  Half wired hot, half cold, good RCA ends, shields wired to one end which was pointing forward in the current flow - source side, not amp side.

Very interesting Adam.

I thought I read somewhere that CAT5 cable was a no-no because of LCR issues or something like that. I thought I read that it could cause an amp to go into oscillation or something like that. Any truth to that?

Any possible such concerns with the SCSI cable? I've got some of those lying around somewhere.

Cheers

[Steve Eddy]

I don't see anyone takin' the bet. Curious....

At least he's willing to put his money where his mouth is. 

Well, keep in mind that in order to do a rigorous double blind test at his home would involve a not insignificant effort on the part of the person who took him up on his bet.

I suggested earlier that he contact Tom Nousaine and have him set him up with an ABX system (which would allow him to do the listening in his own home, with his own system, and take as long as he liked) provided he pay Tom's expenses. Tom's already spent a good amount of his own time and money over the years giving people like ehider a chance to prove their claims. So far the results have all been null and Tom's now expecting to be compensated for his time and expenses before he'll do it again which I think is reasonable.

Now, there are some things that could be tested double blind which wouldn't involve too great an effort and would only involve some time and materials and shipping charges.

Wire directionality and wire purity for example. Sets of cables could be made up where the only variable is the directionality or purity of the wire. Such cables could be made so that the person under test would have no means of determining wire directionality or purity except by sound alone.

Some years ago over on another forum, I initiated an attempt to do such a test with regard to wire directionality.

There were two participants. One who lived in Belgium, and one who lived in Australia.

The initial part of the test involved sending each participant two sets of cables. Each of which were known to the participants with respect to directionality. The purpose of this initial test was so that each participant could confirm that they perceived a difference in directionality of the cables that would be used for the test.

The participant from Belgium said that he wasn't able to perceive any difference in directionality with the the cables he was sent. The participant from Australia, who had been the most forceful and confident in his claims to easily perceive differences due to wire directionality and who prompted me to propose the test in the first place, went walkabout right after the first set of test cables were sent to him and was never heard from again.

se

[Scott F.]

I would be in favor of instituting a new rule that forbids arguments about cables and IC's.

Seconded.

Want me to post a poll? Or would you rather handle it through the Steering Committee? Better yet, let me have global moderation powers for about two hours and I'll make all of it go away 

These free-for-alls are getting really tiresome.

[Daygloworange]

I would be in favor of instituting a new rule that forbids arguments about cables and IC's.

Seconded.

Want me to post a poll? Or would you rather handle it through the Steering Committee? Better yet, let me have global moderation powers for about two hours and I'll make all of it go away 

These free-for-alls are getting really tiresome.

C'mon guys, you're kidding right?

What's so ugly about this thread anyways?   

Cheers

[Freo-1]

I would be in favor of instituting a new rule that forbids arguments about cables and IC's.

Seconded.


Want me to post a poll? Or would you rather handle it through the Steering Committee? Better yet, let me have global moderation powers for about two hours and I'll make all of it go away  Laughing

These free-for-alls are getting really tiresome. 

Hey Gang,

This thread is kind of humorous, and nothing to be taken too seriously. Just a bunch of us OC audiophiles arguing about stuff we ALWAYS argue about. This is not exactly global warming, or Jihad uprisings, or genocide in Darfour! Lighten up a bit, go with the flow.

[Carlman]

This thread's been somewhat informative, and it's been fun to watch some folks decide that they should be their own judge rather than take what others say as golden... No one is going to change anyone's minds on a forum but instead can give ideas to make up your own mind... which is what I enjoy about AC (and other audio forums). To me, that's the most you can hope for.  Then along comes some troll that just wants to argue and bam, you have a 20-page thread about cables.  Between arguing every point and listening to live music I'm not sure when he'd find time to really focus on hifi...   It's a lot easier to argue and type than actually do anything... Which I've been doing all weekend so I haven't been able to carefully craft responses... so sorry... haha.. of course, not really... The only thing I'm sorry about is getting sucked into this dicussion about nothing.  I feel like I'm in a Seinfeld episode... funny but pointless...   I don't think it's all that crazy... and free-for-alls are going to happen.... no one's really going home hurt... I don't think anyone could hurt AJ's feelings, he's tough from what I've read.  This type of thread does get old... but these guys are new so it's not as banal to them... Everyone has to go through at least one of these threads.

Have fun,
Carl

[AJinFLA]

The easiest way to stifle discourse, even when civil, is to label it as blasphemy and the participants heretics. That way the act of discussion itself becomes the offense, the sin. Nothing new with that approach. Been around for centuries actually.

cheers,

AJ

[AJinFLA]

I don't think anyone could hurt AJ's feelings, he's tough from what I've read. 

No Carl, my feelings won't be hurt discussing electrical connections in hi-fi systems. But thanks for your concern.

cheers,

AJ

[lonewolfny42]

How about a nice watch....

[Tweaker]

I'm curious as to what either side is actually getting out of this discussion. Maybe a representative from each side of the issue could explain what they've learned from the other sides viewpoints that have been expressed in this thread. You know, what kind of greater understanding has been achieved. It would be helpful I think then one could actually see that there is a point to all of this and the ones who would like to shut it down and perhaps even ban cable discussions altogether would maybe understand that it's not as pointless as it seems. It does seem as though the initial condescension and insulting tone of earlier posts has calmed down a bit and everyone seems to be trying hard to be reasonable. But reasonable discussions can still be pointless and personally, I'm not sure what is being gained by this except honing arguing skills. I could be wrong though as I may have missed some important points in the 20 plus pages of discussion.

[Steve Eddy]

The easiest way to stifle discourse, even when civil, is to label it as blasphemy and the participants heretics. That way the act of discussion itself becomes the offense, the sin. Nothing new with that approach. Been around for centuries actually.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

se

[Steve Eddy]

How about a nice watch....

"It tell you time looooong time. Twenny dollah! Cheap! Cheap!"

se