[werd]

Since you've never done any blind testing, there's absolutely no way you can say that.  No doubt, you do believe you hear differences, but there's no evidence that what you hear has anything to do with the physical properties of the cable.  Your perceptions REQUIRE that you know the identity of the cable you're evaluating.

Also, I never said that to hear these things requires superhuman hearing.  Indeed, what is being heard has nothing at all to do with hearing ability...  It is related to experience and expectations.

If you are talking about all those pyschological events that happen within 24 or 48 hours of buying something. Hey i agree 100%. Whethers its cables or cars it doesn't matter they will play a big role. Hey you got me, i agree.

The thing that is never mentioned is that time will wear down all the pyschological barriers that allow people to make mistakes.  It just takes time like everything else. so if you are going to test people correctly on differences in cable sound it should be done after the person has had plenty of experience with both cables (or what ever) and it should be done in an evironment that they are comfortable in.

As for me doing those test. You are right i have never and will never do them. But i can safely say it takes time to get good at something or feel comfortable making comparisons (blindly even). Its like everything else, literally everything else. The more time you put into it the better you get. Its those basics which makes easy to draw my own conclusions on blind testing and cables.

[avahifi]

Actually a capacitive speaker wire connected to a load sensitive amplifier can easily provide a listening experience anyone can smell.   

For example a old Threshold Statis amplifier (built without an output inductor to isolate it from excessive capacitive loads) combined with the late great Polk Audio Cobra Cables (a very capacitive cable) results in the amp going into full bore very high frequecy oscillations, an event anyone can easily smell as the amp burns up.   

Consider that even before the capacitive cable load causes your amp to fail completely, it makes the amp very very unhappy.  I would suggest that if you can hear the difference between two cables, at least one of them is badly engineered (high capacitance, poor shielding, non-standard terminations, likely all three).

Measure the capacitance of your speaker and interconnect cables and then replace them with ones with lower values and then I suspect you might hear better sound.  Of course the cable believers will never do this.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[trackball02]

AB Testing.

I decided to try two different cables and do a direct AB comparison.
First here is my setup: Avastar Preamp with Sennheiser HD650 into the phone jack. Sherwood Newcastle CD-980 player which has two line outs.  Kimber Kable Silver Streak  1m with WBT terminations (retail $432) plugged into the CD input, and no name throw aways that came with my cable box (retail less than $2) plugged into SPARE input.  Volumes matched identically.

I tried multiple CDs from Jazz to Rock, switching back and forth in real time, and I had a really hard time telling between the two cables! Perhaps the Kimbers have a more spacious sound and top end sparkle. The throw aways a little more polite sounding?  Man, this is hard.  To be honest, making such distinctions has been exceptionally difficult for me. I’m almost trying really hard to convince the investment in the more expensive cable is worth the price. Luckily, I bought the Kimbers as used.  Very instructive for me to do this. I’ll retry this AB test another time.

It seems that the Avastar needs a good 15 to 20 mins to warm up before critical listening. Is this everyone’s experience? This is the first tube gear that I ever owned.

[Calypte]

Actually a capacitive speaker wire connected to a load sensitive amplifier can easily provide a listening experience anyone can smell.   

Frank, are such "load sensitive" amplifiers common, rare?  Would I be surprised by some of the brand names, or are most of the "better" brands not so sensitive?

[avahifi]

Actually all amplifiers are load sensitive to some degree.  Some are much worse than others.

Things to look out for:

Amplifiers without small output inductors.  These isolate the amplifier output stages from excess capacitive loads at ultrasonic frequencies.  They have no effect in the audio range.  If eliminated, they make a give circuit much more likely to interact with capacitive speaker cables (braided or woven cables).  Not good.

Typical output transformer coupled vacuum tube amplifiers.  Inasmuch as these are already inductor coupled to the load (the output transformer), unpredictable interactions can occur with various speaker designs and cables.  Your results may be just fine, or maybe not.

Class D switching amplifiers.  Because a large output inductor is needed to keep the internal digital switching frequency from getting out and damaging your speakers (or making all the TV screens in the neighborhood go blank), again there is likelihood of unanticipated interaction with the loudspeaker load and or cables.

An easy test is can be done on a test bench with a scope, square wave generator,  8 ohm load bank, and a selection of rather small value capacitors.  Drive the amp to maybe 5V out or so with a 10K Hz square wave and look at the wave form.  It should have a nearly flat top and slight exponential curves up and down on the sides.  Then start adding small value capacitors (maybe 100 pF or so for starters) in parallel with the load and see how the square wave shape changes.  At some point you will see the square wave start showing leading and or trailing edge peaks and ripples.  As the load gets greater, the peaks and ripples get bigger.  Since distortion is the difference between input and output, any change in the square wave appearance is obviously distortion, caused by the interaction of the amplifier with the capacitive load. The capacitive load will affect properly designed amplifiers less than the more load sensitive ones. Capacitive speaker cables cause distortion.  Simple as that.

Of course nobody tries this, it is much less fun (but more informative) than simple random listening to the sound of the wires, even if the effects are not caused by the sound of the wires, but by their real electrical characteristics.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

 

[Charles Calkins]

AB Testing.

I decided to try two different cables and do a direct AB comparison.
First here is my setup: Avastar Preamp with Sennheiser HD650 into the phone jack. Sherwood Newcastle CD-980 player which has two line outs.  Kimber Kable Silver Streak  1m with WBT terminations (retail $432) plugged into the CD input, and no name throw aways that came with my cable box (retail less than $2) plugged into SPARE input.  Volumes matched identically.

I tried multiple CDs from Jazz to Rock, switching back and forth in real time, and I had a really hard time telling between the two cables! Perhaps the Kimbers have a more spacious sound and top end sparkle. The throw aways a little more polite sounding?  Man, this is hard.  To be honest, making such distinctions has been exceptionally difficult for me. I’m almost trying really hard to convince the investment in the more expensive cable is worth the price. Luckily, I bought the Kimbers as used.  Very instructive for me to do this. I’ll retry this AB test another time.

It seems that the Avastar needs a good 15 to 20 mins to warm up before critical listening. Is this everyone’s experience? This is the first tube gear that I ever owned.

  Welcome to the club. I'm one the listeners who cannot tell much of a difference between cables. The throw away cables work fine. Upgrade to a pair of $30.00 cables and a little difference. Up grade to a pair of $300.00 cables and I can't tell any difference.

                                           Cheers
                                          Charlie

[koyaan]

While I agree that very expensive cabels are a waste, I would caution that you need interconnects with good connectors. There are few things worse than finding that you've got a dead speaker then having to work your way back through your setup to identify the problem only to find that a connector has worked loose way back at your source component.

[Calypte]

Typical output transformer coupled vacuum tube amplifiers.

Even though I'm easily old enough to have owned one of the classic tube amplifiers, the only one I ever actually owned was an Eico ST-70 integrated amp (I think that was the model).  I was using 4-ohm AR speakers in those days (1960s), and I tried both the 8-ohm and 4-ohm taps and didn't hear much, if any, difference.  I didn't have a situation where I could drive the things to high levels, so maybe it wasn't much of a test.  My own experience with hearing -- or imagining -- differences between components and wires has been inconsistent.  I once tried Romex house wire in place of Monster speaker wires (original version; still use them), and I thought I did, indeed, hear a distinct difference, and not in favor of the Romex.  A columnist in a British magazine had suggested Romex, and I had a lot of it available.  My amp was a Hafler 220, speakers were Maggie Ib.  On the other hand, I was once auditioning a cartridge in a high-end shop in San Diego, and the salesman swapped out the Audio Research D70 tube amp that was driving the little Magneplanars (I forget the model; MMG is the current equivalent) for a Perreaux that he said was "similar" to my Hafler.  I heard zero difference between the amps.   

[trackball02]

Anyone have experience with cables from www.monoprice.com
Great prices, but is the quality OK?

[Wayner]

I have. Great quality with fairly low capacitance per foot, measuring about 80pf for a 1 meter cable. They do have a multi-stranded center conductor making them flex better the say a Bluejeans cable, but do have the slightly high pf rating. Bluejeans 1 meter cable assembly measures about 50pf.

These are actual measurement from my capacitance meter. You may find specs for the cable, but they do not include the RCA connector (and connection) pf.

Even at 80pf, I still consider them a fantastic value for the money.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021803&p_id=2869&seq=1&format=2

 

At $2.06 per pair (less if you buy 2 or more), how can you go wrong?

Wayner

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I have heard an improvement in treble using BJC interconnects compaired to a pair of AQ Corals and a pair of Monster Cable M1000i's that I picked up for $20 used.  The AQ's and Monsters sounded the same while the BJC's had more prominent and more resolving treble.  My son even commented on the difference.  I think it may be that they have very low capacitance.  I now run BJC IC's in all my gear and have recently switched to their Belden speaker cables.

Otherwise I have not been able to tell the difference between cheap and high end speaker cables.

[guest1632]

Actually a capacitive speaker wire connected to a load sensitive amplifier can easily provide a listening experience anyone can smell.   

For example a old Threshold Statis amplifier (built without an output inductor to isolate it from excessive capacitive loads) combined with the late great Polk Audio Cobra Cables (a very capacitive cable) results in the amp going into full bore very high frequecy oscillations, an event anyone can easily smell as the amp burns up.   

Consider that even before the capacitive cable load causes your amp to fail completely, it makes the amp very very unhappy.  I would suggest that if you can hear the difference between two cables, at least one of them is badly engineered (high capacitance, poor shielding, non-standard terminations, likely all three).

Measure the capacitance of your speaker and interconnect cables and then replace them with ones with lower values and then I suspect you might hear better sound.  Of course the cable believers will never do this.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

Hi Frank and company,

First off, I am disappointed in a lot of the comments here, way off base. The guy was just asking for some recommendations of cables, not your opinions as to if they can be heard or not. If I ran this forum, I would throw most of this thread in the wastebend. i think that Frank's comments do deserve merit.

Frank, lol, I had a pair of those cables. Fortunately, my Mitsubishi amplifier withstood those cables. I got rid of them as soon as I could. i haven't played with speaker cable much, but have played with IC's a lot. It seems to me some cables really do make a big difference, while others are a waste of time. I will tell you, in my own opinion, Grover cables do make a difference, but you can't use them with other brands. For some reason, other cables just don't match, centerjistically with them.

There is a guy on the circle who makes silver cables for about $50 a pair. Not directional at all. The feedback has been good. Kool Cables Inc. are good too. For those who question break-in of cables, go look for reviews of John's gold cables. Yes, they are expensive, but they do have a period of break-in.

It is worth noting that from what I read here about Frank's gear, that he has gone a long way to make sure that cables don't seem to make a hell of beans difference between them. So probably just get some good quality cables, like Blue Jean, Element, KCI and unfortunately, a few others I have forgotten. It has been my experience over the years, that how they are terminated seems to make a big difference. Yes, plating on the cable itself can make it sound brittle or harsh on the upper frequencies. It is the quality of the plating that does make a difference.

Let's face it, some people can hear cable differences as welll as component differences, and others can not So I give respect for all who can not hear the differences.

Oooh, on the topic of directional cables, The ones that are supposed to be directional, well the differences between the correct hookup and the other direction is subtle at best. To exaggerate a bit, the cable seems closed-in, sorta like listening to your stereo standing outside the screendoor versus sitting in the sweet spot.

By the way as for this blind testing, I do it all the time. Because I am blind, I have no choice but to listen to them with my eyes closed. Anhd let me debunk this myth about blind people having better hearing than my sighted counterparts. WRONG!!!!! You just learn how to use what you have. As a matter of fact, thanks to my brother when I was about ten, with a popgun to my left ear, I can't hear above 4K down about 60DB past that. So most of the imaging cues I get to miss out. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.


Ray Bronk

[geezer]

Actually a capacitive speaker wire connected to a load sensitive amplifier can easily provide a listening experience anyone can smell.   

Frank, I don't have a capacitance meter; do you know how #12 and #14 zipcord measure up? This is a serious question; I used 4 foot #14 cord for years, and I still have it in my secondary rig.

[Wayner]

I just measured a 12' piece if zip cord and it was .2 nf

Wayner

[trackball02]

Ray,
I actually have found all of the comments to my original post to be quite helpful. I do not mind all of the opinions and going off base is fine with me. As a result, I just ordered a set of BJC RCA interconnects and digital cables. I'm sure that this is a good compromise in cost to benefit. Now I can just relax and enjoy the music.

[Brett Buck]

I just measured a 12' piece if zip cord and it was .2 nf

Wayner

   Which, for purposes of audio frequencies, is effectively 0. Gonna be real tough to do any better than *no* capacitance to speak of.

    What would be more interesting would be Kimber cable "4pr". That was what my buddies and I tested with square waves and a scope when it first came out in ~1987. We didn't have a capacitance meter that was adequate but it was definitely not 0 at RF frequencies.

     Brett

[werd]

.

Of course nobody tries this, it is much less fun (but more informative) than simple random listening to the sound of the wires, even if the effects are not caused by the sound of the wires, but by their real electrical characteristics.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

How about finding a cable you like then measure the characteristics?  Now you found the electrical measurements of a wire that you like. Maybe it will tell you how much inductance or capicitance your ears enjoy. Or you can  continue to stumble through the hobby and have people tell you what you are going to like or not purely by electrical measurements... how little pf a cable measures from the Home depot is the end all be all and anything else is just rubbish... The whole measurement thing is ridiculous..... sorry it just is.

[smwick]

I have been using all BJC's in my system for a couple of years now with good results.  When I replaced my older and MUCH more expensive IC's with the BJC IC's it was quite noticeable, even to my wife.  I took my BJC IC's to a friends house who has $500 IC's and it was hard to hear any difference.  Recently I read a review of Virtue Audio cables and IC's at Stereomojo here is the linkhttp://www.stereomojo.com/Virtue%20Audio%20Nirvana%20Cables%20Review/VIRTUEAUDIOCABLESREVIEW.htm.  He makes a direct comparison to the BJC IC and mentions how much better they are.  I might need longer speaker cables soon, if I do I might have to give them a try one day.

[Wayner]

   Which, for purposes of audio frequencies, is effectively 0. Gonna be real tough to do any better than *no* capacitance to speak of.

    What would be more interesting would be Kimber cable "4pr". That was what my buddies and I tested with square waves and a scope when it first came out in ~1987. We didn't have a capacitance meter that was adequate but it was definitely not 0 at RF frequencies.

     Brett

Yeah, it pretty much doesn't matter, but he wanted it for a reference. Go back to what Frank uses, Radio shack speaker wire.

I do like the Bluejeans cables as well. They are very durable, well shielded and perhaps some of the lowest pf per foot rating of any cable out there. The RCAs are nice and the connection is not soldered, but rather, welded.

Wayner

[smwick]

Wayner,  I didn't realize they were welded.  I thought the "Ultrasonically-welded" was an option.