Looking for RCA Interconnect Upgrade

they most certainly will tell you how it sounds. without that information you would be piecing together a system blindly, going on faith and word of mouth, and can have one horrible sounding miss-match.

 

Well your're going to love these next few comments then because after more A-B comparisons with my CD player- I have yanked the new Audioquest KCs from the digital player and put the Kimber PBJ back in.

1) Digital player with new Audioquest King Cobras- slightly too warm, missing some detail, missing some dynamics.
2) CD player with Audioquest KCs- incredible dynamics, transparency and detail. Truly a reference sound. Sounds BETTER than the digital player (which is a bummer because I wanted the new digital player to be an upgrade).
3) Digital with Kimber PBJ- The sound I was missing- it came alive again, dynamics, clarity, crystalline treble and an overall sweet high end sound. Bass is more continuous and natural. Sound is now BETTER than the reference CD player.

Not only do these cables impact the sound quality, but different cables sound better on different components and can cause the components to sound better or worse than the other one depending on which cable it is using.

 

I love specs. I rely on specs and sometimes -- as with speaker impedance and phase angle curves, or input and output impedances of audio devices that are going to be connected, or cart mass and compliance and tonearm effective mass -- they can absolutely be important to knowing if you have mismatched components.

But not only can they often be comparing apples to oranges -- not all specs are measured the same way, nor are all reported specs reliable -- but the really don't tell you anything about how a piece of equipment sounds.

Here are the specs for two cartridges. One famously has a reputation for being on the bright side and very detailed. The other has the reputation for being warm and rich. Can you tell which one is warm sounding and which one is bright sounding from the specs?

Frequency Response: 15-50,000 Hz
Channel Separation: 30 dB (at 1 kHz)
Vertical Tracking Force: 1.88-2.2 grams (standard: 2.0 grams)
Output: 0.4 mV at 1 kHz, 5 cm/sec)
Channel Balance: 0.5 dB (at 1 kHz)

Frequency Response: 8-70 KHZ
Channel Separation: AVERAGE 45 DB - 10-30 KHZ
Vertical Tracking Force: 1.5 - 1.9 GRAMS
Output: 1mV at 5 CMV
Channel Balance: not published

 

I agree that specs are not that useful. I agree that it's useful to "tune" a system to get the best synergy. But what about recordings, which are sometimes bright, sometimes boomy, sometimes bass-shy? I propose that rather than get on the cable bandwagon, one might give a reasonably transparent equalizer a try. Some will object that the best EQs are digital, and they want to keep their systems analog. All right, there are, I'm told, some pretty good analog ones. If tonal balance is a high priority, it should be worth a try. One can even kill some of the room modes and even out the bass.

 

Specs is one thing, another thing completely is good adequate measurements. They latter can be of a really great help; these are used when designing components.

 

One thing that I have yet to read concerning cables, is regarding their length. Take speaker cable brand "X", it is going to have specific electrical characteristics, for each foot of cable. So what might be the perfect cable at a 6' length, won't be the same for a 10' length.

So I find it hard to make a blanket statement that such and such is a good speaker cable. In what length and in what gauge?

 

Yeah, but honestly, in home audio, we use such short lengths of cable -- 6 feet, 10 feet, 12 feet of speaker cable -- that it the minor differences in total loop inductance and total resistance shouldn't make much of a difference unless you're talking about some of these high capacitance/low inductance cables, or some unusual speaker loads. I think people know that a spec of X capacitance or resistance per foot means if you use 10 feet the total is 10X. And people always talk about using the shortest possible cables, especially in the incontrovertible place where cable capacitance is actually part of the signal generating circuit -- phono leads.

That's the theory at least. There does seem to be experience that people have that contradicts some of the theory.

For myself, I don't have much experience with various speaker cables. I've long just used low resistance (like 12 awg) copper twin leads -- 10 feet, 12, feet, 15 feet whatever I need -- though now I'm using some made with Cardas Litz wire, which, theoretically could be a guess a little lower in inductance than the straight copper twin leads, and I'm not sure I'd be able to A/B the differences between 'em.

I've got a tube amp with plenty of inductance in the form of output transformers hanging on one end of the cable and a speaker with a pretty benign impedance curve and inductor filled crossover on the other end. Maybe in other setups -- higher output impedance amps like SETs (my amp has negative feedback and a relatively low output impedance for a tube amp), OTL amps, tricky speaker loads like old Quads, or something, speaker cable electrical differences are more meaningful.

Or maybe if I had more experience with different sorts of speaker cable designs I'd have a different opinion. But I don't chase speaker cable differences myself. Other people with more experience with different cables, amps and speakers might have a different, and frankly more informed opinion than my own.

 

Exactly, the better the cable the less distortion.

 

please provide distortion measurements of cable

you cant.
all working cables measure the same

when people talk about the quality of conductor, id like you to be more sceptical.
just go talk to a electrician about conductivity. weve just been fooled by magazines.

 

WOW, I new there was close minded people on this site but you've got them all beat. WOW

 

im close minded to ask measurements to back your claim that some analog cable distort the signal?

wow

 

No, we can´t state that. There is nothing that points in that direction.

 

I have never been able to tell a difference with lengths of speaker wire. I hooked up a pair of vintage Wharfedale W70 speakers in parallel with a Decware EL34 amp that I am using.

I just pulled a long pair of cables that I had ready made, so I could plug in the speakers immediately, when the speakers arrived, a couple of months back.

I later threw the cables behind the TV where my front mains sit. The excess cable is in a ball of wire that looks like something that cats got into. Still sounds the same to me.

I just use my different tube amps on the A7's, where the ALK crossovers provide a constant impedance to the output transformers.

Seems to work well, as I have no complaints.

I did recently purchase a digital multimeter and a capacitance meter, so I can better understand, if I do have some issues going on.

Here's an odd one for you. I have a pair of discontinued Boston Acoustic's M-350 speakers, that still have their information on the BA web site, if you Google them. they state they are compatible with 8-ohms. Reviews, like in Stereophile, all state 4-ohms. My measurements indicate 3.7-3.8 ohms.

 

Not so unusual. Speaker manufacturers, when they post something as "compatible with 8 ohms," it likely means the it's not really a nominal 8 ohm speaker, though it may be at 8 ohms or above across some substantial part of the frequency range. Of course a loudspeaker's impedance, especially a multidriver system with a crossover, often has a widely varying impedance across the frequency range, could range from a low of 4 ohms at some frequency to maybe 16 or 20 ohms at some other frequency. If you're just measuring with a multimeter across the bind posts, you're reading the DC resistance of the drivers and crossover, which obviously in your case is 4 ohms. If the speaker's minimum impedance is 4 ohms, it really probably should be rated a 4 ohm speaker, not really an 8 ohm speaker, if nominal impedance is 1.15 to 1.25 min impedance. But that's another example about how specs quoted by a manufacturer aren't always something to be relied on, and they don't really say it is a nominal 8 ohm speaker, they say it's compatible with an 8 ohm amplifier, which is a different claim.

 

You win the prize for posting one of the worst, most erroneous statements made in this entire thread.

 

Well, this is interesting. Brought home one of my interconnects I was using at work for headphones (from DAC to amp), built by Mark Tunis (Silver Ghost, 1M) and replaced a Mogami RCA cable from pre/pro to amp (all gear in my profile) and I'm sorry but if someone told me "it sounds the same," I would no longer take your opinion seriously when it comes to "hi fi." The midrange is more forward, the soundstage is different - I would say a little more coherent but putting it in words isn't exactly easy. The system is definitely less "warm" than prior to the cable change. And here's the thing - conveying these types of differences AND making sense is basically as rare as describing a sound your car is making to the mechanic and watching him/her go "Oh, it's your #3 cylinder, it's leaner than the rest." It just isn't going to happen.

Expectation bias? I forgot I changed the cable until 6 songs in, all the while thinking... why does it sound different? To be fair, I snuck the cable change in between cooking dinner and wrangling neighborhood kids playing on our swingset. Literally forgot I did it for the last 3 hours.

I'm listening to the exact same LP I just listened to on Saturday evening (Iron Maiden debut LP, for whatever that's worth).

Fact is, I prefer the Mogami cable. Will give it more time, but to say they make no difference, ever, almost makes me wonder how you feel about any change that isn't tied directly to the source. It's someone else's problem to figure out how to measure differences.

 

Mogami cable is back in. An important lesson was learned here tonight. If it sounds fine, DON'T $%#& with it.

 

I'd like to add in a very useful article on cables for the not-so-scientific people like me. It does lose me in a few places but I have yet to read any articles that spell things out as well as this one:

The Naked Truth about Interconnect Cables

Apologies if someone has already posted it.

 

There's lots of imfo out there if your open minded enough to look.

 

why do you think im closed minded?
because I did a blind test of cables and didnt hear a difference i must be close minded? BTW, all working analog interconnects measure the same way. so is it also mics that are close minded or maybe the effect of bias in cable believers, which is very known in audio, that cause the <<differences>> heard...

I quoted my own post again in case you havent seen my cable testing.
the difference are so minimal that no cable really sound different from one another.
if you think my methodology for my test is to be critisized, please do so. if not, what can explain the lack of differences between cables in my setup?

 

but we want more better!

 

No, they don't.

John K.

 

Well, I guess we've have different experiences my friend.
I've heard differences in almost all cables regardless of signal application. The real question is, was the change worse, or better, and if better in what ways. Do your Harbeths frequency response, balance or dynamic range change what we hear up stream from my Sonus Fabers ?

 

I've actually reconsidered that quote, to be honest. Because, just because I heard a negative difference from one cable to another, doesn't mean I may not hear a positive difference by trying something different.

The beauty of it is, unlike something rearranging a room or totally changing alignment/VTA/VTF... if you change a cable and dislike the change? You just put the old cable back. Done. Easy experimentation

 

Good point Todd, if we don't like the sound there's an easy solution.
I'd like to add, I didn't hear bigger changes till we listened to pricier cables, sorry thats the way we heard it.