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Cable design is still in its infancy, relative to all other component designs. And probably the least understood as well. I believe interconnect, speaker cable, and power cord design lags further behind all other component designs, because it wasn't until fairly recently anyone even thought different materials, and wire design could make a sonic difference. Therefore, even mega buck designs, probably have a long ways to go, before approaching state of the art.
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Follow Ups:
Cabling and Power cords are my fave aspect of our wonderful hobby. Yes,
for most people, it is the weakest link in everyone's system.
I dont agree. In fact, I think that beyond a certain point, cabling pays back the lowest of all components on each dollar spent. Problem is that their is no crediblity in the cable market these days. Each designer trying to outdo his competitors by making wilder and more ridiculous claims. When this area of the industry reaches a certain point of ridiculousness, Machina Dynamica will enter the fray.
JNS: If I resided in the Midwest, I'd buy from you....
Very good last two posts. If the dealers and designers would only keep the hyperbole in check, the industry might not have lost some of their credibility. I know advertising plays a big role in seducing prospective buyers, but one has to remember that the transmission of an electrical signal is governed by well-known principles. Advertisers want you to think that their laundry soap will wash your clothes whiter than the competition. It would be tough to market your product if it didn't, but the temptation to exaggerate a claim is hard to resist.
Before Mr. Lee's Monster cable, I remember Polk cable which died a quick death when the thin insulation of the braids wore away, and shorted out. In my experience, wire can sound different in different systems. The recommended Cardas cables for my Ayre stuff was simply awful...yet I have heard Cardas in other systems that sounded good. For this reason alone, I feel that there is no such thing as a perfect cable....but only a perfect cable for a particular system.
You have an interesting point of view. Here are a few considerations that truly surprised me.
1. Different cable materials sound different. Not only the dielectric and geometry sound different, but the materials of the wire make a difference. A dramatic example is the van den Hul carbon intercons. They allow you to hear the omnipresent metallic contribution, by removing it, even from one piece of interconnect. Listening to them as an alternate point of reference might surprise people as to the magnitude of the difference in the nature of the sound.
2. Light pipes. It's remarkable that converting the electrical signal to light (still analog), passing it through a light pipe and then converting it back to an electrical signal can outperform most implementations of simply connecting the source and load via direct wire. This is really food for thought for those who think that cable doesn't matter.
3. The RCA system is poorly designed. Not only the connectors, but the type of system. Krell's CAST system is a more elegant solution to connecting components.
4. In my experience, the higher performance the system, the more important cables become. Entry level systems or many HT systems don't benefit that much from cable swaps. You may be able to hear it, but it's not earth shattering. A delicately balanced high performace system can be profoundly impacted by cabling. I feel that many of the naysayers probably lack first hand experience with these effects.
I dunno.
Sometimes a cable seems so good you doubt you'll hear better.
But then in audio it seems better is always possible ... and not just in cables.
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
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nt
Hi Duster. We go back on this forum a ways. I'm concerned about you. Your last two responses elicited short statements w/(nt). Unlike you. Then you start a thread which seems like a sales-job for Chris VenHaus. Has all of your objectivity left? Are you burned out? You need not be the right hand of our fearless moderator. We want the real you back.
"Apparently, people now believe that mental telepathy is the foundation of communication and magic is the source of daily events. Consequently, we no longer have to participate in our own lives."
Hi mt10425,
The nature of the no-text responses and the other post was self-discerning and strategic. My 'status update' about the cable had nothing to do with wanting to help ChrisVH in some manner, as if I were tossing a shill or something. As for my objectivity, credibility, burn-out, here's the deal. I won't be drawn into contentious slugfests in Cable Asylum, since 'cable believers' participating in arguments with naysayers is just as much a no-no in this forum as relentless naysaying is (it takes two to tango). And, I'm not the right hand of the moderator -- I'm just a lone wolf.
Years ago, I found myself scolded by the moderators for acting like a rabid attack dog towards hostile naysayers trying to dump accusations and demands upon 'cable believers'. The Cable Asylum Mission Statement and better clarified explanations about what's acceptable to express in the spirit of this forum have done well to keep things more productive and with minimal bitch slapping. Perhaps JR or Rod will eventually set things straight again within this audiophile forum. As for the real me coming back, I think I'll take a break from Cable Asylum.
Cheers, Duster
You certainly weren't obligated to respond in any manner to my inquisitions. However, you did with the same courtesy you've always accorded me. As a "believer to a point", I understand various agenda-driven arguments. Unfortunately, self-importance fuels the relentness. I respect what you stand for and your general willingness to help clarify issues. If, in fact, you take a break from CA, I'll look forward to your return.
Regards,
David
"Apparently, people now believe that mental telepathy is the foundation of communication and magic is the source of daily events. Consequently, we no longer have to participate in our own lives."
Dusty, instead of dismissing Finski's post with a perfunctory "nt", take time to consider it. Consider all the thousands of cables that perform different tasks and then ask the developers of these cables if break-in is required. Ask the makers of your in-house wiring if break-in is required in order for your TV to perform better, or for your clock to run more accurately. Go to MIT and ask a professor of electrical engineering if break-in is required. No, don't bother. I'd like to see his/her reaction!
Some people (heck, a lot of "audiophiles") seem to think that this hobby is special and somehow exempt from electrical/scientific principles - that somehow that 2' of cable that tethers the preamp to the power amp needs to be broken-in since its properties are above and beyond mere electron theory. And who sells you this reasoning? Is it the prof with an advanced degree in electrical engineering or the guy who's trying to sell you this otherworldly cable?
Dusty, you cited Soundstage as a reference for theory behind break-in. I don't recall seeing any peer reviewed published data on this but lots of conjecture from - you guessed it - cable vendors.
Audio equipment is designed by EEs. Name me one piece of Hi-end audio equipment where the sonics of the equipment does not improve from break-in time.
And yes that includes hook-up wire.
Jon Risch , the Bored Member who gave you two stern warnings below in another post, is an EE. You might want to spend a little time researching the archives here on AA reading his posts.
While you are at it check out John Curl, Charles Hansen, and the late Bob Crump just to name a few others. And yes they are EEs......
Your problem seems to be you need some white paper that shows where actual lab testing has been done.
Testing?.... Show me a test done by test equipment that will prove why an early 1960s white label Amperex PQ 6922 tube sonically sounds better than a current production EH 6922.
You can't.... At present no such testing equipment exists.
"Testing?.... Show me a test done by test equipment that will prove why an early 1960s white label Amperex PQ 6922 tube sonically sounds better than a current production EH 6922.
You can't.... At present no such testing equipment exists."
....
Is that because it's out of production?
Yea, I'm becoming vintage but in the day when I used tubes we had mutual transconductance tube testers and Tek curve tracers that pretty well told you the story. No magic thinking required. If you can find anyone that still has them I encourage you to try and verify your theory that what you are hearing is beyond measurement.
Rick
I dont think that Bob Crump was an E.E. More like an electrician. Actually I had heard he sold insurance or something before he started twisting wires. Loud guy ruined my time in the Soundlab room more than once.
jea48, it turns out that those guys aren't EE's after all. I guess you were a little over zealous in your desire to show me wrong. How are we to believe what you say now?
I'll take you up on your question: I'll contend that circuit board traces don't require a break-in period.
what evidence do you have to back up your claims? What testing have you done? Could you please provide us with detailed experiences and tests that clearly elucidate that a sensitive audio playback system cannot change after a break in period?
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
...but neither John Curl nor I are EE's. Instead we each have degrees in Physics. I'm not sure if Bob Crump had a degree, but if so I suspect it was in medieval English literature or some such. JC would know for sure.
None of this changes the fact that break-in impacts the sound of just about every electrical component (eg, wires, capacitors), and therefore profoundly affecting the sound of complete components (eg, amplifiers, speakers).
Seeing some guy with B-cups at the beach would be eye-wrentching, but EEs?
(a little humor, with the emphasis on "little" to throw in a double entendre)
You would think that I would be more sensitive to nuances in cables since I once heard the scream of the butterfly!
AS yet no one here has explained how soundstage or imageing can be done through a cable,,, Not even John Curl or other Physics Professors,,,Nor have they explained how break in of a cable occours...The Moderators are aware these are HONEST questions,,
Duster was responding to me, not Finski.
You've got the wrong thread dude.
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gme109, I dont thank that was absolutely implicit.
ALways late to the party :)
Anyhow it is implicit if you are using classic view. You probably werent but if you are it is clear who is responding to who:
Lots of oldtimers use classic as that is the only view there used to be, and ethreads totally misses who is posting to who...
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Classic view. Obfuscation view.....It's all so unscientific, aint it?
Sadly I dont understand your reply.
That picture is real and anyone can see it if they pick the classic view.
IMHO a screen shot that can be duplicated carries far more weight on the truth scales than most of the posts on the asylum.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Dust's "nt" post came right after Finsky's post so I figured he was responding to it. Sorry, about that dude.
That's the weakest link in your or my system.
I don't agree with your premise. If you have supporting data it would be interesting to see.
-Wendell
There's something like a quarter million kms of underwater cabling circling the globe carrying communication. Wire was carrying communication in the mid- 1800's. The amount of miles of actual cable carrying communication on land...billions? More? trillions? There are something like a thousand satellites orbiting the Earth carrying and transmiting complex information through the air...we can communicate over the air with telephones not much bigger than a credit card costing a hundred bucks or less. Bouncing that signal from me to a satellite to you and back along the same route with a device that sells for ten bucks in a convenience store that's sophisticated enough to be programmed to communicate only so much information in minutes, and then be thrown in the trash can.
But some companies that have figured out that certain people may pay hundreds, or thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars for a wire carrying simple electricity from a wall to an audio amplifier. Never mind the wire feeding that costs a few cents a foot. Or the same amount of money for a cable carrying audio signal a few feet. And these guys are just scratching the surface of their technology?
Mind boggling, isn't it? Absolutely mind-boggling.
"Mind boggling, isn't it? Absolutely mind-boggling."
For you perhaps....
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
A few months ago I was walking through SF airport (but maybe it was Washington Dullas, I was in both on the same trip), and there was a fantastic display of old TV's, radios, amps and such. It seemed like there was half a km of displays. I remember thinking about the old tv's on the plane. We had one in our living room when I was a kid, a little black and white, and I think it was quite heavy. I remember my Dad and I going to a shop with a tube tester and stock of tubes when there were problems. Evetually we had quite a large 26" colour tv musta weighed over a hundred pounds. My whacko mothers three sleeping cats fit on top without scrapping for space.
A few years ago, I brought home a 46" Sharp LCD, marvelling at how thin it was and a great deal at around $2200. That was a fraction of a similar sized Plasma when they came out - my buddy went to atlanta to nab one of the first available in North america and I think he paid over $8000. But man the Sharpe is heavy, easy over 110 lbs.
Same TV now is about $750 maybe. Now the SOTA is LED and they only weigh half or less than an LCD. And you can get 60" for less than I paid a few years back for the LCD. And thyre becoming throw away....
The first plasma screens I saw had to be well over 10 years ago, closer to 20 years ago. Pioneer Elite was the only manufacturer for several years. Their plasma screens sold for $20,000 back then......maybe early 90's???
I saw Panasonic's plasma sets well over 20 years ago. They were completely dedicated to the plasma technology, while Sharp pioneered the LED technology. Sharp still controls a lot of the LED technology and Panasonic the Plasma (at least patent wise). Sony at the time controlled about 75% of the world market for the conventional CRT sets and they elected to ignore the flat screen technology and that's why they are so way behind the current video technology.
I believe Mitsubishi debuted a 42 inch plasma circa 1990 but it was a 480p set and the US had just announced the new HD conventions, which killed the set before it really entered th4e market. They imported about 250 (OEMed for them by someone else) sets into the US and, after they were sold, dropped the model.
At a CES, I spoke to a Panasonic VP and he told me not to expect an affordable plasma till a decade had passed ( this was in 1991).
Stu
Panasonic didn't produce a plasma display until 1996 (a 21" model), not 1992.
Sharp's investment was in LCD display technology, not LED display technology. LED LCD displays didn't appear until a few years ago.
The US didn't get into High Definition until 1996. Commercial broadcasts, and in limited markets at that, didn't start until 1998.
Not certain of the exact point in time, But it was a $5,000 42" Plasma. I paid $4,000 for it. Still ove it.
Just for half that, now, i could have a 60" screen.
....I would say about 7 years ago. I'm still very happy with it. I remember lusting after plasma tv's from the first time I saw that $20,000 Pioneer plasma years ago. It was far and away the best tv I had ever seen, but no way would I pay $20K for a tv!!!
I attended a demo in the mid-90s in Metairie LA at Audio Resource debuting Pioneer's first 50" plasma display. It was being fed by a High Definition video tape player (the model number started with a W and was made by JVC, if I'm not mistaken). Since Japan had High Definition before we did, you got to watch endless scenes of Japanese gardens, trees and flowers. A few race car scenes broke up the monotony.
And it was Fujitsu who made the first full color plasma screens in the early 90s. Before that, you could display any color you wanted, as long as you wanted reddish-orange. Pioneer started selling plasma displays in the mid-90s, but it was after Fujitsu and Philips introduced their 42" models.
Thanks for the correction. I was just replying to Finski who said that plasma's started out selling for $8,000. I knew I saw $20,000 Pioneer 50 inch plasma's in store. I guess they had been out for awhile by then.
Hey J, you could very well be right. Back at that time whether $8 or $20 K it was still out of my league. And now that I have the disposable income (in contrast apparently to the rest of society), I want the TV and I want my wife to free up a few more sheckles for that new Carrera S, but I can do without the cocoanut cables.
Sorry, not on my wish list. I guess I feel the same way about cars that you feel about cables. My Toyota gets me from A to B just fine. Live and let live.
nt
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Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
N/T
"BEWARE the Blunted Needle!"
I tend to believe that cables, which should be addressed thoughtfully, are more like the frosting on the cake of one's rig. Giving components a foundation with minimal disturbances and a clean electrical supply can produce consistently demonstrable results more cheaply and easily than chasing results that are usually described as requiring substantial monetary expenditures. Spending $200 on footers from Herbie's and another $200 on some Quietline filters will be more easily understood than the addition of a $400 PC or pair of ICs.
There may be gains to be made in cable design and construction but if you want to see gains in the numbers of audio enthusiasts, selling another $4000 PC isn't going to do it. I'd rather see more people pursuing the hobby and attending live music events than the next esoteric thing in cables.
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain
Actually cable design has been around for quite a while. The first premium cable product was brought to market in 1979 by Noel Lee's Monster Cable corporation. In 1981 MIT came out with its hugh MIT 330 cable. So what we call audiophile cables have been around for as long as the digital age. A lot of research has occurred in those 33 years on audio cable design.
Alan
compared to speakers, amplifiers, and turntables. The first speaker was invented in 1891, a 121 years ago, the first amplifier 1906, 106 years ago. Yeah we've learned a lot in the last 33 years, but cable design is still relatively new, and has a lot of catching up to do, to realize its full potential.
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Belden has been making cable since 1902. That is 110 years.
Alan
Again, wire, and how the signal travels through and around it, is probably the least understood concept in audio.
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Make no mistake.
All advancements in every field is driven by economics.
How ever much time it took was the result of potential profits not science or that lack there of...
Back in the 50's-70's people would never have paid the price of a piece of equipment for a power cord or an IC. Stereophonics has just come of age and all of the attention was focused on components themselves.
In a Capitalistic society Economics drives progress.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
There was more disposable income in years of past, long before expensive cables, then there is now, with our struggling economy.
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"Again, wire, and how the signal travels through and around it, is probably the least understood concept in audio."
Thanks for the interesting thread!
The whole cable thing (thinking they are a big deal) really is interesting historically and from both an engineering and user standpoint.
Why now and not then?
Is it technology, environment, marketing, insight, bullshit, experience, improvements, lasting?
I surely don't know but I suspect all of the above and maybe more. It is the nature of uncontrolled factors to sneak up on you but once they are recognized and brought to rein then they stay largely put because we start controlling for them.
Right now I would say cables, perhaps conductors in general, are very much in the spotlight in audio and that the concept that they can play a significant role is now commonly held. BUT (and it's a big, big but) the cables don't stand alone, they are an inseparable part of a system that has evolved rather than having been designed. At this point that's a killer for predicting which cable is best for what because it is strongly dependent on unknown factors at either end, and even in the middle if you stir in stray coupling.
Since speculations are about all that's left, mine are that cable sensitivity got worse when we...
-Went away from tube rectifiers and choke input power supplies.
We lost a lot of power line isolation incoming and started generating noise on the line along with causing local HF current loops due to stored charge in the diodes.
-Began using PWM motor controls.
Not us audiophiles, us folks in general. Anything (which nowadays is most everything) that sucks it power in short, big gulps is a problem.
-Started using transistors.
Faster switching times and more sensitive to low voltages.
-Began using digital sources.
More generation and susceptibility to out-of-band interference.
-Improved our speakers.
HF problems now come through loud and clear.
That's a short list of electronic sort of things and I'm an electronic sort of guy. For all I know they may not make wire like they used to either. That seems likely since most industries do things differently now than they did 50 years ago.
The only hope for resolving these matter is better systemic controls but neither the governments nor companies seem inclined to address them. Over time they will probably continue to get better however because the semiconductor folks do want to make things generally better as it improves their bottom line and manufacturers will use the parts because they work better and cost less and the government won't get involved because they haven't figured out how to tax enjoyment if it's not a physical addiction.
Rick
"Again, wire, and how the signal travels through and around it, is probably the least understood concept in audio."
Not to mention all the wire in the walls that is sending power to our components, all the voice coil wire in the speaker crossovers, all the hook-up wire in the amps, wire, wire everywhere - it's a wonder we get any music out of the speakers at all!
""Again, wire, and how the signal travels through and around it, is probably the least understood concept in audio.""
I would think that high school physics is the least understood subject by those that believe this.
YES YOU USE THAT $8000 speaker wire and hit that speaker voicecoil wire..UNBELEVEABLE
nt
"Cable design is still in its infancy, relative to all other component designs."
So, they can't be all that good from your ill perspective, right?
"And probably the least understood as well."
What do you really understand for comparison?
"I believe..." LOL
"Therefore, even mega buck designs, probably have a long ways to go, before approaching state of the art."
Wrong thinking. The best that current technology has to offer is state of the art.
You're a hoot! :^)
Didn't say current cables can't be good, they just have further to go, to realize their full potential.
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It seems your cable argument is based on the general advancement of technology. The potential of mankind. Geez!
that makes sense.
-andre d
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