Looking for RCA Interconnect Upgrade

I'm going to see if I can't find some Grover interconnects eventually on the used sites. People seem to love his cables and they're not in the stratosphere. I'm in no hurry and, let's be honest - if I'm down to cables? I'm doing just fine

 

The resonance frequency between the cable inductance and capacitance can vary quite a bit. Sometimes it can be as low as 200KHz, sometimes it can be up to 400kHz. But it doesn´t matter of course.

 

Open minded?

This is not some religious belief system based on opening one's mind, it's cables. It really is just that simple.

Other than the obvious fact that the best cable is no cable the real life practical situation is the best cable should change nothing, if it's doing anything other than that it's not accurately conveying the signal and you are back to using them as a tone control. I've heard in this thread that a cable can alter the sound stage. I'd love to hear the explanation on how that happens from an electrical standpoint. Because the cable is carrying an electrical signal, changing the frequency content of the signal, ok, sure, no different than a crossover or EQ, tone control, loudness contour button and so on. But now we can get a wider more realistic sound stage from a cable swap? Interesting.

 

Yes, an IC can never be an upgrade.

 

In the end it's no wonder "audiophiles" are looked upon all too often as some sort of nuts and fruitcakes.

Honestly we bring it upon ourselves when we begin to inject things into the rather simple audio playback system that now requires one to "open one's mind up" to the use of a physical item that is part of that playback system.
We now need a belief system as part of the audio reproduction experience?

I would hope we all realize there is no pure "truth" emanating from anyone's playback system regardless of its price, it's all boils down to a matter of one's own personal capacity to, in varying degrees, accept/overlook the shortcomings of any and ALL audio reproduction systems/components.

There's only one "truth" and that is the original music one is attempting to reproduce. The act of attempting to reproduce with total accuracy is unobtainable. So we must all accept the varying degrees a playback system attempts to reproduce the original source material.

The varying degrees that one's audio system reproduces that "truth" frankly cannot be honestly measured by the owner of that audio system anyhow unless that person was there and heard the original "truth" music to have a reference point to then compare how well the playback system is approaching reproducing that original truth.
And even then the human audio memory accuracy is very sketchy at best.

All these comments we all too often erroneously make, (myself included) about hearing such things as bass fuller deeper, mids smoother, treble cleaner, liquid, more extended, sound stage wider, deeper, 3 dimensional, on and on ad nauseam. Well.....Even IF the listener is hearing those things, who is to say that is bring the listener closer to the original presentation's "truth"?

Correct if I'm wrong, but that should be the goal of any audio playback system playing music, the system ideally would reproduce the original source music as accurately as possible, neither adding nor subtracting.

Now if one prefers deeper bass, smoother treble, wider soundstage and so on even if it is at the expense of the playback system accurately reproducing the original source material, well hell that's all fine and dandy, but again it is not in line with the original target of a playback system reproducing the music being played back as accurately as possible, neither adding nor subtracting.

 

How hard is all of this? If you're interested in seeing if they can make a difference, try some out, if not don't. You find what you find, and continue on from there if you want. As some wise dude once said, knowledge is nothing without experience.

FWIW, I've found small but notable differences in ones (all low-mid priced) between phono stage and amp, but the same ones yielded very little if any difference between DAC and amp.

What I've never found is the greater level of variation/difference some have between ICs (hence earlier asking if these differences would be apparent in a digital recording - as used to compare/demonstrate cartridges. Seems an easy way to do it if so). Have never tried a pricier IC either. Might do one day but happy to put money and efforts elsewhere for now.

 

Phono interconnects are a VERY different animal due to the huge interaction with loading on the phono cartridge.
This may be where the whole IC thing really came into itself. But a line level input has nothing remotely close to the interaction/loading issues that a phono connection does.

 

How bad does the system have to be, or how bad do listening skills have to be to not hear differences in cables?

Amazing.

CJ

 

These things have of course nothing to with it; the differences are always in the subjective domain.

 

Dunno. But should they always hear a difference? As in might some they try (say similarly priced ones) just sound more or less the same?

 

I don't think I've ever been able to hear any distinction between good cables, but I certainly can hear when one is bad.

 

Could someone tell me what make IC cable "good" or "bad"? For speakers cable, typical advise is to use thicker cable (smaller awg like 12 awg instead of 16 awg). What about IC cable? Can it be too thin or too thick? Thanks!

 

There is no such correlation, it´s all subjective.

 

Well, there are some basics in terms of a kind of "best practices" -- a good interconnect for use with unbalanced home audio gear will have good shield coverage, low resistance shied/return conductor, low capacitance, low resistance and low capacitance connectors that make a solid contact with jacks; they'll be relatively flexible, and the plugs will be terminated with some kind of strain relief, etc.

How will any of that correlate to sound? No one has ever been able to really say for sure or consistently demonstrate the connections with a couple of exceptions -- first, if there's AC leakage voltage differences on the grounds of the gear you're connecting (the most common source of noise in home hifi), the cable with the lowest resistance shield/return connection will produce the least spurious noise current at the input of the load device; second, intermittent connections can be noisy; third; in the case of cables between a phono cart and a first active stage, total cable capacitance will shape cartridge frequency response.

In terms of thickness, we use thicker cable for speakers because those cable have to carry a lot more current than interconnects. You really don't "need" anything more than 24 awg cable for interconnect in terms of current and resistance, and in fact at the skin depth of copper at audio frequencies, 22 or 24 awg will use 100% of the copper's width at 20kHz. Really no advantage in an interconnect to go to higher guage conductor.

Personally, in terms of the cable's I've make -- my best sonic results have come from twinax cable with shield only connected at source end -- which don't necessarily conform to all the best practices above (the cable I used for that has a very stiff teflon dielectric that's not really all that practical in the application). So, who knows how all this stuff correlate to what we hear? No one, that's why we wind up in these conversations/arguments.

 

This is a hobby and a wonderful one. We all hear things differently and have our opinions. Trust your ears and have an open mind.The key thing for me is, respect other people views. I might not agree but the least I can do is to hear(read)you out. I just might learn something. If you tell me this or that cable sounds good,well ok! Share your thoughts with us. I'm not going to say,"Rubbish" You are trying to justify the fact you spent all that money on wire. I do believe that good interconnects matter but I'm not going to go overboard about it.If it sounds good I will tell you about. If it sounds bad or I can not hear a difference I will say it. I am not going to crap on your joy. I love kimber.Some people might say other, fine. Tell me about it. Do not attack me or others. Have a wonderful day and enjoy.

 

absolutely. but it helps to understand the return policy of the vendor you buy from, of which i am learning the hard way. because i notice the "change" too i wonder if i have the best "change" and if not, which cable do i need? the manufacturers give no clue about how they will sound. i truly don't care for audio BS like this:

SOLID LONG-GRAIN COPPER (LGC) CONDUCTORS: Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion. Evergreen’s solid Long-Grain Copper allows a smoother and clearer sound than cables using regular OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper. OFHC is a general metal industry specification regarding “loss” without any concern for distortion. LGC has fewer oxides within the conducting material, less impurities, less grain boundaries, and definitively better performance.... blah blah blah


Just give me some idea how it sounds vs. basic cables and the rest of their product line!

 

Well, in truth, long grain copper and grain-free copper (not practical I think for a speaker wire) does appear to be lower in resistance than standard drawn cooper according to tests and data from outside the world of audio. Whether lower resistance itself (doubtful) or something else relating to the different grain structure (who the heck knows?) actually has an audible impact, I dunno, but changing the grain structure of the conductor does change it's electrical characteristics. And to be fair, the manufacturer is trying to give you some idea how it sounds: "smoother and clearer sound than cable using regular OFHC copper" and trying to explain what is physically different about their cable and why and how they say that makes it sound.

 

I recently bought one of the awesome mono/stereo switches that Xmas111 makes and sells on here. He assured me that there should be no negative impact of keeping it connected all the time. I don't doubt him, but was wondering if anyone else had an opinion. It's connected between my phono preamp and my receiver. Does having one more thing plugged in, with another set of interconnects, have an impact on the signal? I'm planning to A/B it with and without, but just wonder if I should only use it when playing mono, and keep it out the other 95% of the time for a more pure connection.

 

Everything matters. Therefore, the more things in the signal path the more the impact.

 

I bought a Chord C-Line a couple of weeks ago and I must say I have grown quite fond of them!

At first they sounded a bit sharp, but slowly they started to open up. Especially voices are lovely and the bass is much tighter now. Also the soundstage is wider and there are more details.

Recommendation from me, especially at the price. =)

 

"At first they sounded a bit sharp, but slowly they started to open up. Especially voices are lovely and the bass is much tighter now. Also the soundstage is wider and there are more details."

Huh, ? "Sharp but opened up", just what does that mean?

"voices are lovely and the bass is much tighter now" what in the real world of audio hearing does that really mean?

". Also the soundstage is wider and there are more details."

Again, what exactly does that mean compared to the original recording you are attempting to reproduce and listen to? Why is the sound stage wider? Should it be?

Details? Exactly WHAT details?

You are using a lot of colorful words but they don't mean a thing when trying to compare an accurate reproduction of a recording one is listening to. Sounds like typical sale fluff to me, sorry, but it does.

 

Easy, easy

 

Just looking for clarification on the multitude of assertions being made, that's all.

 

For clarity sake, this is compared to my old cables Belden Blue Jeans Cabels.
Stereo Cables at Blue Jeans Cable

 

Were the old cables broken?