Looking for RCA Interconnect Upgrade

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by avanti1960, Apr 20, 2017.

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  1. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Would you please describe more about the improvement you observed? Better high, mid, low, soundstage, clarity, etc?

    Did you buy online? If so, which site? Thanks!
     
  2. Dream On

    Dream On Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Honestly, weeks if not months. That's what I have found works best. You can't switch from one component to another at the flick of a switch and expect to hear a difference. #1, it's not the way we normally listen to music. #2, we don't retain the sound in our memory that well if we hear part of a song for a few seconds or minutes.

    But, over long-term listening, the qualities of the sound, the way voices and certain instruments sound, you get accustomed to. It really begins to sink in. Then one day you change an amp, a source component, or a cable. The difference is much more clear. As opposed to sitting there and trying to spot differences on the spot, like one even knows what to listen for. We think we do but we don't.

    Anyways, that's the best way I can describe it. The longer you hear a system the more you know its sound. The easier it is to spot differences when they are introduced. It's like someone who has mastered an instrument. They can hear minute differences betweeen instruments that would escape many. Why? Because they know how that particular instrument sounds. Its unique tonal quality.
     
  3. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    Couldn't agree more. Now, "quick flipping" can work if you're trying to pick out something like MP3 from FLAC or redbook from Hi-Rez (though much less obvious in the latter, IMO), but it's been recommended to me on multiple occasions that, for example, with my new phono stage, I need to listen for a month, maybe more, then after a couple of hours into a listening session, switch back to the old one. It's the only way, IMO, this works with sound. I wish it weren't that way, but it just is. It took a good buddy of mine with an excellent system, excellent room, and great source material a full two months to audition a power cord. Ultimately, he decided he preferred his old cable over the "upgraded one" he was feeding into his fully tricked-out McCormack DNA amp (don't remember what model, but it's enormous, I know that much). And I trust this guy's ears implicitly. I don't always agree with his opinions, but he has the best ears of anyone I've ever met. He and I are also polar opposites in what we want out of a system, so that doesn't help, lol.
     
  4. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Kind of a random question, but how "grippy" are the RCA connectors on your King Cobras? I got a pair thrown in with a McIntosh amp I bought on ebay once, and marveled at how smoothly they went on and off of components, but yet the connection felt solid. I bought more, but the newer ones have a death grip a la Monster turbines. I've since read that in addition to many revisions from AQ, there are a lot of fakes. I sort of wonder if my original pair are fake or just an earlier revision.
     
  5. wwaldmanfan

    wwaldmanfan Born In The 50's

    Location:
    NJ
    I like the locking RCA connectors with the outer barrel that screws down to tighten. The grip on the jack is infinitely adjustable, and you never risk damaging anything. It is also important to clean all your plugs and jacks with electrical contact cleaner.
     
  6. In effect that is exactly what cables are! I have various cables but the ones i feel are the most natural sounding to my ears are made by Achtung audio. Well made too and not overpriced.
     
  7. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    True, never spend less than $800.
     
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  8. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    Thats called system tuning.
     
  9. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    The fisherman who caught my bottom sucking a** !!!!
     
  10. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Seriously though....

    A system is only going to sound as good as the weakest link. So if cables cost $500+ for a set of 3 footers....what would the quality (=cost) be for the components themselves ? Sure there are those who can afford 10s or even 100s of thousands of dollars, and indeed this forum represents a small minority of people in general and music lovers/gear heads more specifically but.....sheeesh man !

    Ya know...we talk about power pull and better sound when not as much power is being pulled off your 'circuit' and grid...but what about the components of the power coming thru the grid ? What about the components at the power company ? Is nuclear power or water generation (dams) or solar, wind or whatever better ? How far does one go ? I spose only as far as what we can personally control, in our home.

    And yeah...I agree with a poster who quoted me as seeming modest of means as well...but has the interest and curiosity of seeing what IS out there, learning about it and wishing to have better stuff.

    Sometimes I actually find it amusing...the ultra detail and ends one will go to find what they need.

    Personally...with more moolah...I'd still be happy with my meager system and would spend the $ on space and distance from the beehive of society and have a helicopter pad with paid pilot to shuttle me around. I am but a humbled spirit.
     
  11. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    But yet hoards of people who do that will also frown on those that use a tone control.
     
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  12. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Again, seems like very expensive tone controls.
     
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  13. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    There's a huge difference between tuning a system and using tone controls.
     
    Tim 2 and Dave like this.
  14. octaneTom

    octaneTom Man of Leisure

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    It's a shame if you think that.
     
  16. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Here's the thing, you're going to connect your equipment with some cables. Just like when you're building you're circuit you're going to decide, say, what coupling caps to use. And it's going to turn out that it's not just the value of those caps that's going to make a difference. A 1 uF ceramic is going to sound different from a 1 uF paper in oil, so you'd going to make choices about what gear to choose based not just on specs but on results. Same thing with cable -- you're running a CD player into a preamp into an amp....you're going to have to choose cables to use. Different cables may very well sound different from one another in those applications for reasons that perhaps aren't so clear but are discernable. So you're going to have to choose one. Pretty much the way it is with every piece of audio gear in your system. DACs? The specs are gonna be so good on all of 'em -- with vanishingly low levels of distortion and noise, and wide frequency response and dynamics, that they shouldn't sound different from one and other. But in the end you're going to choose one or the other based on how it sounds to you. Every item in the signal chain -- every chip, resistor, capacitor, inductor, tube, wire, cable, magnet, whatever -- is part of a giant, expensive "tone control," whether we like it or not.
     
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  17. rhubarb9999

    rhubarb9999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Cables are passive. As such, they can only attenuate. They cannot make anything louder or brighter. If you have a harsh or bright sounding component, and a super expensive cable makes it sound 'smoother', then the cable is attenuating frequencies that you find makes the component harsh in the first place. Therefore the cable is altering the signal .. it's called distortion
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  18. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Well, there are circumstances in which passive components can generate signal, like if they're energized by something like movement -- a phono cartridge is an entirely passive generator that converts movement into electrical signal. Triboelectric noise can be created in cables by movement, that's a new added sound generated by the cable that could modulate with the signal.

    And of course induce noise from proximity to something radiating energy, could cause noise in a cable that's not there in the output signal. It's not the cable producing the noise, true, but it can sound like its making the signal it's modulating hashier, edgier, brighter. Also, given that AC leakage present on the chassis of one or another device in the signal chain in an unbalanced home audio set up is the most common source of noise, the resistance of the shield or return in the cable will play a significant role in the level of noise current present at the input of the next device in the chain, so in effect connecting the cable across the devices is creating a noise signal, and the cable with the higher resistance shield or return is going to wind up sounding like it's making more noise than the one with the lower resisitance shield or return.

    So there are ways in which one cable may in fact sound smoother and less harsh and is fact is not distorting the signal, but, maybe lowering the environment, ground and other kinds of induced noise level relative to the prior cable.
     
  19. royzak2000

    royzak2000 Senior Member

    Location:
    London,England
    Quite right to, its a misunderstanding, cables if used for this reason, and I know no one who does is very subtle, tone controls are a dramatic interference between pure sound in and pure sound out.
     
  20. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    "Pure sound in and pure sound out." All these years that's what I thought cables were supposed to do. Now I find out I was mistaken. :wtf:
     
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  21. wwaldmanfan

    wwaldmanfan Born In The 50's

    Location:
    NJ
    This may be true, but can you really say that cable sounds "better", when it is just inadvertently making a specific problem in your particular system sound less bad? You can't recommend it on that basis, because you don't know if another person has the same deficiencies in their rig, i.e., there is really nothing that makes it sound better on its own.
     
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  22. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    One things for sure, if there was a truly better design, no one would know it.
     
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  23. Jimi Floyd

    Jimi Floyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pisa, Italy
    Since the OP solved his problem on page 4 of this thread, I wonder about how low is the IQ of all following posters. (me included, of course)
     
    avanti1960 likes this.
  24. wwaldmanfan

    wwaldmanfan Born In The 50's

    Location:
    NJ
    Right. Let's review. The OP had $500 burning a hole in his pocket, and wanted to upgrade his cable to one that would provide "a solid improvement". He ended up buying the same "entry level decent" cable he already had for $111. Yep, he solved his problem, and he saved $389, to boot.
     
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  25. royzak2000

    royzak2000 Senior Member

    Location:
    London,England
    His problem yes the easy way out, not ours.
     
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