Looking for RCA Interconnect Upgrade

That would be the smartest thing to do. Unfortunately, I personally don't have that luxury as I'm 6000 miles from home.
In this instance I am going on faith, and my main concern is the authenticity of the cables (I have an email into the manufacturer to check serial numbers).

 

You do have the option: As has been noted elsewhere, the Cable Company has a loan program that is not too expensive.

Audio Cables, Stereo Cable, Speaker Cable, Roomtune, Acoustic Zen, Tara Labs Sales

John K.

 

I don't believe in any cable beyond something well built with good materials, but I'd gladly spend good money on boutique interconnects if I were monied and had a more expensive rig because....

they look so damn good !!!!

 

That's why I purchase from a dealer with a good return policy, mine has 60 days full refund. I found the ones I liked and am finished.

 

this is what I did, compare 6 IC's ranging from 600$ to 100$, thrown some 1$ IC's as well

in a blind test, I couldnt distinguish any of them. they all sound the same

 

Just got an email reply from Siltech - the serial numbers for my balanced interconnects check out fine. Looking forward to getting home and trying them out.

 

which brings up a good point- is there any substance in the idea that balanced cables are less likely to show sonic differences between good quality vs. expensive cables? as opposed to the unbalanced RCA types?

 

Good question. Ron at McIntosh told me with balanced cables I wouldn't need to play "the cable game."

 

this is what I have been led to believe as well....

 

I've been running balanced for years, using high quality Mogami mic cables from pro audio shops. I've had very good results at reasonable cost.

 

Ralph Karsten at Atmasphere is a very strong proponent of this theory as well and I think he is certainly a knowledgeable guy and an excellent manufacturer.

I run fully balanced from cartridge to speakers (balanced tonearm cable to Aqvox Phono 2CI with balanced IC to Shengya integrated amp) and the components are all truly balanced as opposed to pseudo balanced, or simply single ended with XLR connections.

I have never really experimented with the balanced IC's between phono pre and integrated (I use Vampire AI-II terminated with Vampire XLR's there) but have used 4 different balanced phono cables and heard (unfortunately) very clear differences between them in my setup.

The most expensive (a custom built cable that I had done using Cardas wire and a Cardas din) was not the best, in fact, and was bettered by a Jelco balanced cable which was quite a bit less. The Jelco was considerably improved upon by an Audio Sensibility Impact SE, so much so that I ended up buying another one for a two arm setup (mono and stereo) on my table.

The worst of the bunch was an older Van den Hul MCD 502 which I had reterminated with Vampire XLR's but that cable was crappy in single ended form as well.

The Audio Sensibility is not an expensive tonearm cable by any stretch of the imagination and can be purchased for well under $200 U.S.

So I am certainly not an advocate for judging cables by their price-the AS cable probably came in at around 60-65% of the cost of the Cardas that I had used (and was only marginally more expensive than the Jelco, which is a Mogami based cable) and there was no contest.

Thegage makes a very valid point about phono cable burn in earlier in this thread though. I do not believe that any phono cable will be its best without burn in but I'm also an advocate for that, based on my own personal experience, with other cables as well. All cables in my system (including tonearm cables), as a result, have been both cryogenically treated and burned in, either on a Nordost or Audiodharma cable cooker. Power cables I've just treated myself, running them on a chest freezer or refrigerator for 3-4 weeks.

 

Personally, I think the idea that cables "burn-in" to be bunk. For something to burn-in it has to physically change when a signal is applied for X period of time and then stay in that changed state as a fixed matter when the signal is taken away. But that's not what happens with cables. Cables may change in some ways over time. Triboelectric charge may settle after the cable isn't moved for some period of time, for example. But move the cable and that state changes. It hasn't broken it -- changed and then stayed changed. Same thing with applying a signal to the cable. You apply the signal and maybe the cable changes for the period that the signal that is applied (though with AC signals you have such constant and rapidly forming and collapsing and changing direction magnetic and electric fields that even during play there's nothing persistent). But there's no persistent physical change from playing them -- unless maybe you send too much current through a cable and you melt it or something.

Cryo freezing can change the structure of the metal in a way that is persistent after the metal is brought back to room temperature. That's a real permanent change for a more random to a more organized grain structure or for a tighter grain structure, but you need to get down to temps like -300 degrees F for those kinds of atomic changes to take place. And that may have an impact on how they sound -- cryogenically treated copper is, IIRC, very slightly more conductive than non cryo-treated metal, for example. Putting an insulated cable -- where the metal's protected already by a heat resistant outer jacket -- into a 20 degree F freezer is not going to change the conductor's crystal structure.

 

If you took a tonearm cable, for example, (even one with years of use) and had it treated on the Audiodharma you might change your mind with respect to cable burn in.

You may have misinterpreted the last line of my post above. I was referring to the burn-in of power cables using a chest freezer or refrigerator by using them to run that appliance for 3 or 4 weeks. The initial surge when the compressor kicks on often exceeds 15 amps for brief periods of time and that, in my experience, will tend to "treat" and burn in a power cable much more than any regular use in a system.

So I was not referring to placing cables into a domestic freezer to cryo them. I'm pretty well versed in what cryo does and what is involved and have been treating all my cabling/receptacles for the past 15 years at -190 C or -310 F. I've also had complete power conditioners and inexpensive CD/DVD players and CD's treated as well in my early days of experimenting with it.

 

Ah...I see. My bad.

I still don't really understand what's changing and how it is staying changed in an AC cable by running a signal through it, then wrapping it up and shipping it to someone else. You can have states of charge and discharge, but those aren't going to stay steady after you remove the signal or move the cable around or anything like that. Honestly, I'd like to know what's changing and how it is staying changed.

 

With respect to cryo, there are scientific arguments (and measurements in terms of lowered resistance) one can make for an improvement post cryo (even though many will not want to acknowledge that). But the whole burn-in thing is much more nebulous and it's quite possible we actually don't know what's going on.

In the end, I just let my ears decide and the experimentation I've done with cable burn-in done on devices like the Nordost or Audiodharma in the past has encouraged me to treat any cabling that way.

It is not particularly expensive to do, and I am certainly not an advocate for excessively expensive cabling (my speaker cables are about $3 U.S. a foot, I use DIY power cables that cost about $70 and my balanced tonearm cable is well under $200); I do believe, however, that the performance of many well made/designed inexpensive cables can be significantly enhanced by both cryo and burn-in, ultimately making them much more competitive with some of the designer cabling out there, much of which probably is cryoed and burned-in but not disclosed.

 

No, I know that, like I said above, we know that cryo treatment can permanently change the crystal structure of the metal. But I don't know how low or moderate AC voltage at room temperature can create persistent change. Momentary change surely. But for it to be "burn-in" -- getting to a point where the cables are done -- the change would have to reach a certain state and then stop changing. Otherwise it's just a constant state of change and difference, which I think is actually more a case of what's going on. Every time you move or energize the cable with a new signal, it's changing from whatever that previous burned in state was.

 

how is it "bunk" when the sound of your system changes over a couple hundred hours, when all you've done is change the interconnects?

 

That's a question of what YOU hear. Which has huge psychological and environmental components. And in fact I'd suggest you don't really know you your system sounded a couple of hundred hours ago. Memory is a poor marker to judge anything buy. It's rarely accurate.

I'm not saying stuff doesn't change, and I'm certainly not saying cables don't matter. I'm saying stuff constantly changes. When you turn the system off and leave it off for a couple of weeks, then turn it on again, maybe if there is any kind of stray capacitance charge in a cable dielectric is gone and back again. Or when you move the cable maybe there's some kind of trobelectric charge and then it has to settle, but then if you move it again, there's a charge. Noting's burned in and fixed, it's constantly subject to change. Or it the ambient temperature changes enormously maybe there's some --- admittedly probably miniscule -- difference in resistance (but maybe you're listening to vinyl and certainly the phono cart is going to sound different at the different temps in the summer vs. the winter) If something changes again after it's burned it -- and I'm saying it always does -- it can't have been burned it. Because burned it means it reaches some kind of end point: at X point it's burned in at X-5 hours, it's not burned it yet -- and burn in is finished. But an AC cable can't reach that end point from just passing an AC signal through it because forever and ever every next time you pass an AC signal through it you're subjecting it to the change of collapsing and redirecting electrical and magnetic fields again. Stuff breaks down -- contacts corrode or get dirty (could be after a couple of hundred hours you might want to clean your contacts and/or use a contact enhancer and certainly clean your switches...hell maybe after a couple of hundred hours you haven't even cleaned the switches and pots by so much as aggressively rotating them -- dirty or microscopically intermittent contact always in my experience makes a bigger different in a single-ended audio rig than the differences between two similar coaxial interconnects of short length connecting line level components) But break in? How, what changes occur to the conductor so that it's different after X hours than it was before, and how do those remain persistent another X hours later? Plus, when it comes to listening, there are other variable in your listening besides just having changed interconnect -- is the wall voltage the same (mine fluctuates enormously from day to day), have you used an SPL meter to ensure that you're listening at the identical levels in each listening session. Is the room noise the same or is the AC running now when it wasn't running then.

Maybe you're right, maybe cables burn in. I've assembled lots of different kinds of cables for use in audio over the years and honestly, I've never heard any change over time I can attribute to the cables other than those relating to a degradation of contact over time. So, cable burn in doesn't really fit my experience. But more to the point, I'd like to understand -- because to me listening without trying to tie what we hear to something that we know is happening is just really depending on each individuals psychological response under extremely multivariable circumstances and is of minimal value -- if a cable can be said to burn-in: that is to reach a point through the agency of passing a signal through it such that it's performance characteristics change and stay changed, what is that that's happening?

 

isn't what you claim not to hear also subject to the same "huge psychological and environmental components"?
in other words, how is claiming that your not hearing something make you more objective and free from influence than if you claimed you could here a difference?

 

Yes. Yes, it has huge psychological and environmental components, but they're mine so I am familiar with them and my biases, etc., so at least I can put them in a sort of perspective that I can't put your -- or anyone else's -- impressions into.

What I'm saying is that forget what we think we hear. Can anyone explain what happens to a length of 22 awg wire that changes it from one state to another state, a second state that becomes fixed never to change again when an audio signal is passed through it, as a result of passing an ac signal through it for an period of time? Can anyone even posit a theory as to what might make such a thing happen? I mean, you might be able to melt it with sufficient current, but other than that.

 

They said solder is a bad conductor, yet the whole amplifier is full of it
They said a $300 RCA cable will sound better yet a $10 one will sound the same
They said a $150 power cable will improve performance, yet the cable to your house travels miles
They say cables need time to "bed in" yet they have no moving parts

I dont know if i can take these forums seriously anymore.

 

Is a person who claims to not have seen Bigfoot in the woods subject the same burden of evidence as a person who claims they did see Bigfoot in the woods?

 

I hate to break it to you, but coming from a guy that's been a member of this forum for all of 4 months and who doesn't list any of his equipment, it's hard for me to take much of what you say seriously. No disrespect intended.

I've been involved in the hobby for about 40 years and participated in the forums for about 17 years now and can honestly say that I've found a wealth of information (much of which I'm sure you'd brand as heretical) that has enabled me to enjoy the hobby more and improve my system, often without significant financial outlay. Information on record cleaning, cabling, set up and isolation of equipment, power conditioning/treatment, etc. All from fellow hobbyists with lots of experience.

The forums are ultimately about the exchange of information-some of it's going to be good for you and some may potentially be bad. Up to you to sift through it and do what you will with it and possibly experiment a bit.

If you find there there's nothing of value, the best thing you can do, for both yourself and others is leave and not participate.

 

Experience aside, i repair them for a living, have you tested these claims on a scope, its science. there are no power cables available that will do a better job than the ones running behind your walls, copper is copper and everything ends up being squeezed through a small fuse anyway.

yes shielding is important with rca cables, but even cheap cables have shielding.

 

Well these things do make a difference. It can actually be quite surprising when you say make a better connection by cleaning contacts and switches what a difference it can make. Different interconnects and terminations do produce different aounds in different circumstances. Enhancing contacts does seem to lower noise especially enhancing ground contacts in unbalanced audio, and I swear I hear differences I can't explain when RCA cable terminations are damped, the kinds of differences I associate with lower noise -- greater detail, better image focus, a more realistic sense of instrument scale, a greater aense of the recorded space as a continuous whole on recordings that capture a single whole space. Cryo treating copper undoubtedly changes the crystalline structure of metal, I don’t know what sonic effects that has, I haven't played around with it myself, but something does change. I'm just skeptical of the idea that applying an ac signal to an audio cable after some amount of time permanently changes that cable