Cables, cables, cables...any tips? In the market (maybe)

And so it goes...

 

You obviously didn't read ANY of my other posts in this thread.

 

I did but my memory is poor in that regard.

Apologies

 

I have one box over here with a piece of paper that says you're crazy, and another that has a dead cat in it. Surprisingly, there is a moment where I'm not sure which is which!

 

Lol, summary: Cables and AC power can make or break a system.

 

You can't smell the difference in a blind test?

 

I'm not sure it was my original intention to direct the last bit towards you but it came out that way - I was just trying to say that there's a sound scientific basis for jupiterboy's post about magnetic fields.

If you hear differences with cables, why dismiss possible causes as 'too complicated' and 'completely unneccessary'?

It seems to me that any non-linear phase shift introduced by the cables due to these field interactions would, in theory, produce very subtle comb filtering on the signal presented at the loudspeaker. Whether that would be audible I don't know but if, as some claim, a jitter spectrum resulting from a timing error on the order of a picosecond is audible then maybe it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

 

Except in universes where it doesn't!

I definitely can tell when I smell a placebo.

 

I'm on the fence - it's so easy to think you hear an exaggerated difference between separate playbacks when, in an AB, you can barely tell them apart, if at all.

Cables aren't so easy to AB on consumer gear. I can switch between Toslink and co-ax and am not convinced I hear a difference but everything is re-clocked downstream, so... Too many variables and I don't have the motivation to investigate it beyond the occasional comparison.

However, I'm open to the possibility that cables of all varieties could sound different, given the difference I do believe I hear between digital filters, inverted phase, re-clocking, none of which I was sure about a few years ago.

Audio voodoo is a grey area as far as I am concerned - it appears to me that there's some truth in there, along with the baloney.

 

Guitar cables are a different animal, much like phono cables, you're dealing with loading, most interconnects for line level don't have that as a huge issue. Speakers even less.

So much hype, so little truth, too much money spent, too little proven results. A sad state of affairs.

 

So, more often than not.....a very expensive tone control, eh?

 

A digital EQ would be a far better option.

A really flexible one in something as simple as Onkyo's HF player app let's you tweak the sound on yer FLAC tracks during playback. FAR better control of the sound. And it's free!

 

There are a couple of things which are worth thinking about.

First, all cables, even plain wires, measure differently in terms of capacitance, resitence, inductance, etc. Even wires of the same gauge will measure differently depending on material and manufacturing. You can look this up in engineering handbooks. Whether these electrical differences translate into audio differences is something else; many doubters will say that any measurable electrical differences don't affect audio frequencies.

Second, nearly all cable manufaturers make only cables, many very expensive, and there are a lot of cable manufacturers. Given the state of the world's economy over the last 6-7 years, how can all these companies stay in business (and in many cases thrive) if all they are selling is snake oil? Even more, there is a thriving market in used cables, which is great for the consumer but represents (for the most part) lost sales for the manufacturers.

 

A healthy used market is good for cable mfrs as it allows people with budget constraints to try new brands. Eventually they try a new product.

 

Regarding the second point, I was in Edinburgh's Loud and Clear hifi shop a few years back just after the crash and was chatting about the then new dcs Scarlatti set.

The guy had just sold one and mentioned in passing that in all his years in the trade, in good and bad times, the people who had money always had it to spare. The Scarlatti he'd sold was his third one of the year. The market will be there.

 

Snake oil has had a thriving market literally for eons. There is always going to be someone with money willing to spend it on something that seems to them to be a real answer to what in reality is an unanswerable problem. For cables, it's the "promise" of sonic improvement beyond what is in reality, available.

Break out the Mpingo Discs next.

"LP Record Clamp, A legendary Shun Mook product now being made in a very, very limited number. This record clamp is made from extremely rare pieces of dried ebony briar. This extra heavy century old ebony root which were immersed in the swamps of Africa has a unique power that no other wood possesses. The vibration generated by the diamond stylus in the vinyl groove besides inducing an electroflux through the phono-cartridge also excites the ebony molecules, causing it to resonate. This in turn is feed back through the stylus and is reproduced as expanded sound staging, enhanced separation, sharpened focus and enriched tonal balance of the music. Due to the rareness of this timber, there is no doubt that it will become a collector item in the future. " $2,800.

 

Will be dependent on the interconnect.

 

That would Mpinge on one's budget.

 

Record cleaning?
Tips?

 

Is there something in there you don't understand?

I'm a mechanical engineer and I can tell you the process by which microvibrations are transmitted through material is described accurately.

Also, it is well known that different woods resonate differently and some are termed "tone woods" by musical instrument builders because the resonation they produce are pleasing, exactly like the record clamp.

IMO... give people a little science with no real understanding and it's just as bad as religion.

 

Well there you have it, folks. The $2800 record clamp is science, and if you disagree then you can bring it up with science.

 

I see no science in it, if making money is science well then it is.

 

Right... the transmission of microvibration has nothing to do with science or engineering.

Some of you folks are mistaking real science for snake oil, as I said if you give people a little bit of science they think they understand everything and they close their minds because they already know it all, when in fact they are completely delusional. It's just like religion.

Rolltide, what you said is pure snark and has no place in any sort of reasonable discussion. The fact it was "liked" by anyone is beyond me, unless laughing at imbecilic statements is the whole point here.