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I also posted this over cable asylum, no answer yet.
assume both cables are same awg, one has multiple insulated conductors, the other one is just two conductors, both are stranded type, which one is better?
Follow Ups:
a very good contact is always fundamental.
I would go for a low inductance cable made from good quality copper strands. I like the spiral type ... like the one in the picture
I like it a lot indeed.
Kind regards,
bg
The one that sounds the best...
is better. ;-P
Get some Belden 12 gauge multi-strand twisted pair. Use high quality connectors, and do a superb job of soldering.
Don't forget to put the heatshrink tubing on BEFORE you solder. ;)
An often overlooked aspect is the contact area between the cable connector and the speaker terminal. Example: Sure the trusty old 1/4" phone connector (as is typically used on headphones) is convenient, but the contact area between the tip and the jack is miniscule, inhibiting performance when you're talking about a hundred watts or even more.
Depending upon your level of fussiness, low level interconnects may be a different matter with regard to cable selection. But even there, the big deal is still the quality of the connectors and soldering.
:)
"Don't forget to put the heatshrink tubing on BEFORE you solder. ;)"
I have done that before and learned the hard way to simply use 3:1 heat shrink that is large enough to fit over whatever you are working on...it makes everything a lot easier.
Excellent advice. Wish I could use it on my vintage gear. Damn little screws!!!
The biggest difference I ever heard was changing over to a stranded 12g over a smaller gauge wire. And yes, cleaning up all the connections points.
The top one looks to have a nicer rubber sleeve as opposed to the blue plasticy cable. All else being equal I would go with the first one.
Rubber jacketed cables are nice and flexible, have little memory and last forever.
The vinyl jackets can loose plasticizers and shrink over time, are usually stiffer and have lots of memory.
I can only go by the picture, so you would have to verify that it is indeed rubber.
Audio Illuminati
...and magic elves live in the top one!
I hope you did not get stung too badly by all those swarming yellow jackets in the cable asylum!
Please get off your Cable Asylum fixation. It's getting old. The Mods set the rules and the Inmates seem to agree. If you don't appreciate the rules just stay the hell off the Forum.
Al
Ouch - that's one yellow jacket sting and I did not even go there!
Heh heh.
But really, seriously, the audible differences among decently made cables are infinitesimal, 'though perhaps a few golden ears can hear them consistently. This last hypothesis gives the golden ears the benefit of the doubt, 'though it has yet to be proven with any sort of scientific rigor.
Looking at measurements, you obviously want really low series resistance (this means fairly thick wire gauge), and both series self-inductance and shunt capacitance should as low as possible to avoid rolling off the very highest frequencies. A comparative study of 10-meter runs of various cables by Peter Aczel some years back showed definite measured degradation at audible high frequencies, with several pricey "audiophile" wires behaving notably WORSE than bulk zip cord. I believe he concluded that such rolled-off cables qualified as expensive passive tone controls to offset overly bright amplifiers and speakers.
Highly capacitive cables (like the original Monsters) are a BAD idea when connecting potentially unstable amplifiers to highly capacitive electrostatic speakers. More than a few catastrophic amp failures resulted from this combo, back in the day.
I personally don't mind spending a bit extra for high purity oxygen-free stranded copper in a nice flexible jacket, terminated with good heavy gold-plated spades (silver-bearing soldered, of course) and heat shrink wrapped at the "wrists" to keep oxidation out. This is how I've been making my cables for years, using 12ga Stinger wire, sold by the foot at Meniscus. I could easily spend 10 or even 100 times as much, but doubt if I (or anyone) could hear more than a couple percent improvement in texture/resolution/whatever. YMMV.
Bob
I applaud them for taking the time to do the testing. I have only 2 beefs with the testing: the amp change mid-test and that they didn't test some "reasonably priced" cables. It would be most interesting to see how a $200 - $400 set of cables would have fared...
-RW-
...if they had also run "A" vs "A", "B" vs "B" and so on. Would have provided a baseline of sorts.
Oh yeah!
:)
I lean toward the idea that any well-made cable that specs well will be a noticeable improvement over what they used for 'Cable A', but I'm not prepared in any way to spend more than a couple hundred on cables.
...you're very unlikely to hear one. "Infinitesimal?" Too funny.
And also the well documented fact that if you want to hear a difference, you will. That is why blind testing is needed to weed out so much crap.
And your advice to the OP is ... ?
I suggested he build both ICs and listen.
"And your advice to the OP is ... ?"
At least as valuable as your previous comment.
If you don't mind, I'll simply consider that a cheap shot. Good luck with your next one.
?
Almost everyone agreed on solid. I don't know why, and how would solid cables work as long speaker cable? Honestly: I can't tell difference.
I have Discovery 1 2 3 and Kimber PBJ...
“Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn’t. - Charles Bukowski
Wow, that is one easy question: the more expensive one, always and forever.
I don't often agreed with you. But when one asks this question, it does seem to be the answer one is looking for. Validation to spend.
'
At some point it becomes more sales than science.First just try different gauge wires. Like a 14 vs a 16 gauge stranded wire. Listen if you hear any difference. Don't start with buying magic cables - work your listening tastes up to your desired level first.
Solid vs stranded - just go with the stranded. It makes life easier and there isn't a difference. Been there!!!!!!
charles
Edits: 02/10/15
I assume the first cable is a twisted pair and the second is spiral wound. If so, the second cable will have lower inductance, higher capacitance, and better EMI/RFI rejection.
Hi just asking
The cables are connected to a passive component
I thought that " EMI/RFI rejection " were important mainly for signal cables
Kind regards,
bg
You're right.
It's probably only a concern in very rare cases, e.g. long cable runs in a high EMI environment, long cables coiled up to form an induction loop, etc. I have only heard it once, with ~25m of cable to PA speakers emitting a faint buzz with the amp off.
I think that connections between a pre-amp and power-amp are the most susceptible to noise pickup because the signal levels are lowest and any noise is amplified typically 25-30 dB.
Hi and thanks a lot for the very helpful confirmation
I have read that EMI/RFI are the evil especially for digital and of course tuners.
Even for analog amps i do not know if they are really so impacting (apart maybe phono amp because of the high gain)
I guess analog is much more robust in general than digital.
Digital is a very delicate field ... even mains noise can make disasters on sound. It is very touchy.
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
bg
My experience with RFI problems in stereos and such is that the interfering signals usually enter the system through the speaker cables. After that typically the power cords then the interconnects.
It has little to do with gain, a lot to do with effective aperture: Speaker wires and power lines are great antennas! The junctions in your output bugs are rather directly connected to the speaker wires, especially if the design doesn't use a Zobel network, and your amplifier becomes an amplified crystal set.
The best cure is to just snap on a Ferrite Z-bead over the speaker cable (it has to go over both wires) near the amplifier. The audio, being low frequency and differential won't see it but the RF gets reflected and absorbed.
Radio Rick
Hi Rick,
I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around this:
It has little to do with gain, a lot to do with effective aperture: Speaker wires and power lines are great antennas! The junctions in your output bugs are rather directly connected to the speaker wires, especially if the design doesn't use a Zobel network, and your amplifier becomes an amplified crystal set.
For a typical solid state amplifier with low output impedance, and a similarly low impedance speaker cable, I presume the output stage should effectively become a sink for any induced noise currents at frequencies within the bandwidth of the output stage, just as it is a sink for back-EMF. In other words, it is close enough to an ideal voltage source within its bandwidth that the speaker only sees the noise induced voltage differential across the cable.
Assuming a typical push-pull output stage, I don't see how it could behave like a crystal set because one side or the other is always conducting so there would be no rectification.
I hadn't given much thought to noise frequencies outside of the bandwidth of the output stage, but wouldn't they just be shunted through stray capacitance?
"the output stage should effectively become a sink for any induced noise currents at frequencies within the bandwidth of the output stage"
Yes, spot on!
The rub is that the interfering signals, at least for "RFI" by definition, are outside of it's bandwidth and therin lies the rub. The loop can't control it because it's GBW is too low at the interfering frequency but yet the final device junctions are plenty fast to rectify and thus "detect" it. Things go rather downhill from there as it's modulations get cought up in various feedback loops.
In general all systems must be protected so that none of their ports are exposed to signals that they can't handle. Lots of the time it's just common sense. If you are having an audiophile lawn party and a fast front comes through you probably will expect some problems with your preamp after a lightening bolt hits the tonearm.
Well, RFI is just a tamer version of the same thing. The general term for this sort of thing is EMI (Electromagnetic interference) and the tendency to be susceptable to this ilk of problem is called it's "Susceptibility".
The bottom line is it's common to virtually everything and the cure is to prevent ports from getting hit by energy that they can't handle. That usually involves passive filtering between them and the cold hard world.
Rick
you'll get 1000 opinions from 1000 replyers ... and arguments about whether it makes a difference (it does, but one may sound better in a particular system, the the other better in another).
good luck!
Ahh cables.
Assuming as most of us do that components sound different that assumption would then lead to all the parts inside said component sounding different - perhaps not each in themselves but the cumulative effect of 3 parts = an audible shift.
Each component - amp/source/speakers has cables and soldering materials and each component may be very different in this regard to the other components.
Changing one component for another may yield better or worse results in one system versus another. A Rotel amp may sound quite good on 4 speakers and lousy on the 5th so you think the 5th speaker sucks - but wait - you hear the 5th speaker in a different system and suddenly it's fantastic.
Changing the IC and the speaker cable is a crapshoot - like the above - a given cable may sound better in 4 systems over the other but sound worse in the 5th. And it is entirely possible that in any given system - you won't hear much of a difference especially is, as many of us note, the system is often as good as the weakest link. If the weakest link is the wiring in the speaker or the shoddy soldering material or crapfest capacitors then while the wiring might be noticeable - it probably won;t solve whatever the problem was that made you want to spend large dollars on the cable.
Fortunately, every store I have been to that sells cables gives you free in home trials. I believe even internet sellers of cables do as well though I have not looked into it. That's the way to go. How is that cable (whatever cable it is) going to get along with the internal wiring of your amps/speakers and sources. And then if you do hear a difference make sure it is a difference in the positive - and that you control the listening session enough to avoid some bias that can get you to spend more than you might need to spend.
Cable geometry is more important than cost. One can affordably have several types of wire on hand and switch between them. If you find one that stands out to you, then you have an idea of where to start if you want to go shopping for a premium cable.
...which one sounds better?
That's all that matters.
It's like asking which of two amplifier circuits are better - nonsensical.
My thought exactly. Which has better synergy in a given system. No hard,fast rules.....let your ears decide.
Letting your ears alone decide is the basis of both hearing acuity tests and "blind testing" where the object is to remove prior knowledge as to which of two choices one is listening to.
As our auditory process subconsciously and unavoidably includes what we see and know, it is clear why hearing and other important sense specific tests are done without any other clues other than what your ears alone tell you.
which sounds better?
I would think that a solid single strand conductor would sound best.
> I would think that a solid single strand conductor would sound best.
Why is that? I use stranded for flexibility. What would cause stranded to sound any different from a solid single strand if both have the same cross-sectional area and therefore the same resistance?
Thanks,
John Elison
.
Why don't you have the chance? Most internet sellers offer 30-day trials, even 60-day. And without hearing a cable in your system, you have zero chance of coming close to optimizing your links, whatever your budget. That doesn't mean your system won't sound good, but the chances that it could sound better for the same amount of money or less are awfully good IMHO.
The one with 8 conductors is Neotech, the two conductors one is furutech, both are UPOCC, both are multiple stranded.
I want to know which construction make more sense? if there is such thing in audio world :)
I suggest you need to get hold of Allan Wright's " The Super Cable Cook Book ".
After reading this, I make a point of never (unlike John Elison) using stranded cable. If you follow Allan's example - both of the cables you mention won't be much chop.
Regards,
Andy
Seems like a new slant on an old pitch.
Build both of them. Try them in your system. Sell the one that doesn't work as well.
Seriously, it doesn't sound like major money is involved, and you'll have your answer. And some fun in the process. If you know someone with a cable cooker, so much the better.
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