Got some Bluejeans cables..............................................

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avahifi

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Note, to be fair, I did tell the MIT guys that they could tell people that I actually picked the MIT cables over MIT cables and my zip cord in the test, because I did!

Regards,

Frank

hotroady

Re: A True Cable Comparison Listening Test!!
« Reply #41 on: 13 Nov 2008, 11:50 pm »
  We set up a true double blind test comparing the MIT cables with the ones I was using, especially modified 16 gauge zip cord from Home Depot (especially modified by me - cut to the correct length to reach from the amp to the speakers - very important!!  :) 

I do admit than when I voted, and I voted last, I said that the differences, if any, were very very small, and that I thought that session two (MIT cables) were slightly better than session one (MIT cables), and that I thought that session two was slightly better than session three (zip wires).  I was as random as anyone else there.


Frank Van Alstine
                                                                                                                                                           hm mm. There is a way to improve the impedance, capacitance and resistance of a wire. That would be to shorten the wire! Lot of info left out, like what were the length of the cables involved? Wire is part of the equation, but shielding, how they are wound...and the insulation are also factors. I  made my own set of anti-cable type bi-wires that have a different sound than Monster bi-wire I had been using. The Monster's are darker sounding in comparison. I use single strand for tweets and multi strand for woofers. I also have switched wires in my amp. I went from 24ga single strand to 14 ga single strand and lost way too much midrange. Settled on 14ga multi strand and everything got better! Though they may be supple, there are differences in cables.

Wayner

An interconnect is not just a piece of wire. Otherwise we'd all be in fools paradise. It is shielding, resistance, capacitance and induction. I see you fell for the Anti-cables......well, enough said there.

Wayner

hotroady

I see you fell for the Anti-cables......well, enough said there.

Wayner
[/quote]   Not clear what you are really saying here, what is your point? No, I made my own version of the anti-cable. I separate the tweet single strand from the woofer multi-strand so as not to induce magnetic field from multi-strand into the single strand. The woofer wires are twisted up for RF rejection. Separating works like shielding.

Don_S

Re: A True Cable Comparison Listening Test!!
« Reply #44 on: 14 Nov 2008, 02:20 am »
The nice folks from MIT cables asked us to do an A-B test of their $1500 a pair super cables with great big boxes built into the speaker lines.  We set up a true double blind test comparing the MIT cables with the ones I was using, especially modified 16 gauge zip cord from Home Depot (especially modified by me - cut to the correct length to reach from the amp to the speakers - very important!!  :)  ).

The results, ran three tests with all listeners sent out of the room and the setup changed by one of my guys who did not take part in the listening tests.  There were four guys from MIT, me, Jim Salk, his wife Mary, and a couple of interested bystanders.  We held the test just after the show ended on Sunday afternoon.

The instructions to the hookup guy were to either change or not change the cables.  The amp volume control was not touched, we listened to the same cut, the first on on the Shelby Lynne album, "Just a Little Lovin'".  We were using my Insight Control amplifier and Insight DAC and Jim's new ribbon tweeter version of the Songtowers. It was as very high definition, transparent, dynamic, and wide range system.

After the first two sessions, in which the cables may or may not have been changed and who knows which were started with, I instructed my guy to definitely swap to the other cables for the third session.  Again no listener knew which they were listening to.

We listened a third time, and then voted.  In a nutshell, the first session received zero votes.  The voting was essentially split between session two and three with the vote divided between the two about equally and among both the MIT guys and the AVA - Salk guys.

Then the moment of truth.  The first session was MIT cables.  The second session was also MIT cables (nothing changed). The third session was my $2.00 zip wire speaker cables.

The results (just as I would have expected)  RANDOM!

I do admit than when I voted, and I voted last, I said that the differences, if any, were very very small, and that I thought that session two (MIT cables) were slightly better than session one (MIT cables), and that I thought that session two was slightly better than session three (zip wires).  I was as random as anyone else there.

So, given the price of the MIT cables ($1500) and the AVA Insight Control Amp ($1500), a buyer could have made the same budget choice of buying Jims's speakers ($2400) and our Insight control amp to drive them, along with some zip cord speaker wire, or buy the speakers and the MIT cables, and no amplifier at all!

Given the results of the test, which would you choose.

Best regards,

Frank Van Alstine

Frank,  How broken in were the MIT cables and when was the last time they were used? Were they installed before round one and left in place? Since the MIT cables have more "stuff" in the boxes I found they take a little time to settle in if they have not been used for a while.  That may explain why round two sounded better than round one.  Or maybe round two sounded better because of certain "refreshments"  :wine: everyone had waiting for the cables to be swapped or not swapped.

Zheeeem

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Re: A True Cable Comparison Listening Test!!
« Reply #45 on: 14 Nov 2008, 01:04 pm »
How broken in were the MIT cables and when was the last time they were used?

Just out of curiousity, what does this mean?  I can't quite get my head around the physics of "breaking in" a wire.

avahifi

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The MIT cables had just as much break in time as my Home Depot zip cord did.  Although I would suggest that if the MIT cables did not just blow away the zip cord by a mile considering its 100 times the cost, that "lack of break in time" would be a really lame excuse for the random selections of cables.  No, no booze at all that evening, it happened just as the show closed at about 4:00 pm an way before anyone had time to hit the lobby yet (although I suspect the MIT guys might have headed directly there after the test.  :) .  Time between each listening session was about 5 minutes as the MIT cables were a bitch to connect reliably as they are very stiff compared to the zip cord.

The answer, sorry about that, is that at least with AVA electronics driving them (which are designed to drive really silly loads effortlessly) there was no audible difference between $1500 worth of MIT cables (strange little boxes and all) and simple Home Depot 16 gauge two conductor zip cord.

Now don't start in with the lame idea that the AVA Insight Amp and Salk SongTowers were inadequate to resolve the differences.  The excuses stop right here no matter how much you "believe" in your magic and grossly overpriced cables.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

P.S. "Breaking in an electrical cable?"  Preposterous.


Big Red Machine

Frank, you know I'm a cable junky, but speaker cables have always been the least impactful cables to the system in my experience.  And I'm using $99 Blue Jeans Canare 4S11 speaker cables right now and am very happy with them.  I know, I know, that's blasphemy to all the cable gurus out there and contradictory to my own desire to want and hope to find some magic pill by throwing money at it, but these sound very nice and I saved a bundle of money in the process.  Hey, I went from $2500 SC's to $99 SC's and really can't say I stepped down in sound.

You guys have a great day.

Brett Buck

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P.S. "Breaking in an electrical cable?"  Preposterous.



   Well, Frank, as you undoubtedly know, the electron migration rate in wire is on the order of fractions of an inch per second. So, when you start pumping in the good-sounding electrons from quality audio equipment, it takes quite a long time to purge the bad-sounding electrons all the way from the ground, to the speaker, to the positive end of the speaker cable, and back out the power cord. Some people even have bad-sounding diodes, chokes, and capacitors in the power supply that intentionally prevents or limits the free movement of electrons back out into the rest of the electrical grid. So, if you don't run the cables for hours at a time, you still have bad-sounding electrons that were trapped in the cable at manufacture and you don't get the best possible sound. It's very simple, really.

    Glad I could help!

     Brett

     

TheChairGuy

Not to add any undue fuel to the fumes (or Franks fumes, at least :icon_lol:)....the 'break-in' effect that I have heard various times with many cables seems to be due to the dialectric, not the wire itself.

Magnet wire (very thin dialectric) sounds the same from 5 minutes on as it ever will....some cables with thick teflon dialectric take hundreds of hours to stop sounding 'phasey' or 'indistinct'.  Plastic, or poly, seems to take little to no time to break in...teflon, tends to take the longest based on grade/type and thickness.

Me? I use Rockford-Fosgate 16gauge I bought at Best Buy for $12 for a 50' roll.  It's got high purity OFC wiring (if that matters with high level sources at all :roll:), with a thin poly dialectric.  I find 16ga. to be the sweet spot for 8' cables that I have....18ga sounds a bit 'pinched' and 12ga looses some definition in treble - perhaps due to perceptible overweighting in bass (I haven't tried 14ga to my knowledge). It sounds splendid to me  :thumb:

Anyhow - that's my take - I am in agreement with Frank that wire break-in likely does not exist....but that dialectric break-in seems to and affect sound until it's fully fleshed out.

Very little of this has to do with Frank's observation of the MIT cables, of course, but is perversely related.

John

Wayner

Spelling: dielectric.

 aa

Wayner

So what are you saying John, is the insulation breaking down or gettin' in the way of electon flow and there is a war going on between the copper and the insulation?

Just want to know where you're coming from.

W

avahifi

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But how do you keep the bad sounding electrons from the power grid from leaking back into the audio equipment?

Is there a bad electron - good electron gate available?

I know in WWII at Oak Ridge it took many square miles of industrial buildings to separate good Uranium from bad Uranium atoms via the gassous diffusion project.  I know about the project because I grew up there.  My father was in charge of designing and starting up the whole school system for the huge influx of workers.

The morale was terrible there.  At all the other war plants in the USA people went to work, and out came tanks, airplanes, munitions, etc.  At Oak Ridge all kinds of stuff kept coming in, but NOTHING AT ALL CAME OUT!  It was pretty scary.  My dad thought they were developing a death ray maybe, nobody knew anything.  The main thing I learned there was a genuine Tennessee hillbilly speaking accent, right up there with Bill Elliot of NASCAR fame.  When we moved to Milwaukee after the end of the war, the school system got one listen to me talking, "hits a good day don't ya know" and put me in the retard class right away.  I barely escaped.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

P.S.  They only made about 22 pounds of weapons grade Uranium during WWII at Oak Ridge, enough for only one bomb and bit more.  That is why the first "test" was on Hiroshima, they "knew" the Uranium design would work and did not have enough material to test one first.  The Plutonium bomb was a bit more iffy, easier to get the necessary material, a lot harder to make it work, and they did test that one first.



TheChairGuy

So what are you saying John, is the insulation breaking down or gettin' in the way of electon flow and there is a war going on between the copper and the insulation?

Just want to know where you're coming from.

W

Beats the hell outta' me the why's of it...I'll let anal-retentive engineers fuss over that :wink:

I'm better at making money than fussing over nuances and 'how comes'

I just know what I have heard is consistent with dielectic types on speaker cables I've had.

John

Don_S

The MIT cables had just as much break in time as my Home Depot zip cord did.  Although I would suggest that if the MIT cables did not just blow away the zip cord by a mile considering its 100 times the cost, that "lack of break in time" would be a really lame excuse for the random selections of cables.  No, no booze at all that evening, it happened just as the show closed at about 4:00 pm an way before anyone had time to hit the lobby yet (although I suspect the MIT guys might have headed directly there after the test.  :) .  Time between each listening session was about 5 minutes as the MIT cables were a bitch to connect reliably as they are very stiff compared to the zip cord.

The answer, sorry about that, is that at least with AVA electronics driving them (which are designed to drive really silly loads effortlessly) there was no audible difference between $1500 worth of MIT cables (strange little boxes and all) and simple Home Depot 16 gauge two conductor zip cord.

Now don't start in with the lame idea that the AVA Insight Amp and Salk SongTowers were inadequate to resolve the differences.  The excuses stop right here no matter how much you "believe" in your magic and grossly overpriced cables.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

P.S. "Breaking in an electrical cable?"  Preposterous.



Frank,  That was uncalled for.  I did not comment on your product's performance in any way. And the MIT cables are not mine.  I do not own any. My questions were related to the circuitry in the MIT boxes.  I notice that frequently electronic equipment will sound unfocused and have other nasties when first turned on cold (not from standby). You may not agree.  That is fine.

I was merely curious.  I have no horse in this race.

Wayner

I find it interesting that while we give and take on the particulars of cables or their designs, the real system changers are the components themselves. As many of you know I have several systems in my studio and if I'm bored or want to try something new, all I have to do is swap a few cables and I have a whole new system matrix. While we strain our ears and our memories to pick one way or another on a pair of cables, it always amazes me how one component swap makes the whole system a different animal altogether. This isn't something you have to AB, you will know instantly that a change has occurred.

To those that say all amplifiers sound the same, I say nay. I will say that I do believe in a synergy (hate the buzz word),  but it's true. I've swapped so many times and always come up with a certain combination for the systems. That's harder to explain than a couple of cables.

I enjoy my systems with the Bluejeans cables supplying signal from preamps to amps. It just sounds right to me and I'm happy with the tonal balance, imaging and overall performance. Perhaps its all in the ears of the beholder, but don't count out the contribution your components are making. It's not all cables.

Wayner  :D


oneinthepipe

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« Last Edit: 15 Nov 2008, 02:07 am by oneinthepipe »

hotroady

....the 'break-in' effect that I have heard various times with many cables seems to be due to the dielectric, not the wire itself.                                                                                         
 That's true, because of Newton's law of physics...mass absorbs energy.
 

gjs_cds

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I find it interesting that while we give and take on the particulars of cables or their designs, the real system changers are the components themselves.

By "components"--I hope you're including that to mean loudspeakers, right? 

My experience has been (on the variables affecting sound quality):

1.  Loudspeakers (and loudspeaker placement)
2.  Components (Amp, pre-amp, source)  (in that order)
3.  Quality of sound engineering on recordings
4.  (and a distant 4th at that)  Magic and mystery products (insert cables here)

oneinthepipe

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I find it interesting that while we give and take on the particulars of cables or their designs, the real system changers are the components themselves.

By "components"--I hope you're including that to mean loudspeakers, right? 

My experience has been (on the variables affecting sound quality):

1.  Loudspeakers (and loudspeaker placement)
2.  Components (Amp, pre-amp, source)  (in that order)
3.  Quality of sound engineering on recordings
4.  (and a distant 4th at that)  Magic and mystery products (insert cables here)

Although not necessarily "components," don't forget room acoustics, i.e., bass traps, acoustic insulation, diffusers.  :D