If you DON”T believe in nice speaker wire or interconnects please don't come into this thread

Would sure love to hear that reel to reel rig.

 

Try Audio Salon in Palm Coast Florida. My previous employer sold that business that two channel was part of and opened a new one in Palm Coast. He always has everything. Reel to Reel included, he just text me a pic of a cool one today in fact. I never sold two channel. I was always a low voltage integrator doing high end smart homes. I do some now bu they are usually theater related.

 

You should, there is no point in fooling yourself and when the changes are very small you should check even more. That is only if you care about doing things right.

 

I hope this isn't a listening room. Looks more like an echo chamber than a room to audition audio components.

 

Wow. Thanks!

Copied the whole thing.

 

This is one of his old shops from the past.. there were three listening sections and then rooms just holding gear like this one. Yeah you could turn on gear in there, but that wasn’t the purpose of that room.

He was appointment only and open a few nights a week. So if someone serious wants ot audition something he rolls it into one of the better rooms.

 

Throughout your thread so far you’ve been tossing around comparative terms such as “relatively good” and “decent quality” and other, similar expressions. You’re not interested in interconnect cables beyond a certain price point, but you also insist that different cable construction and materials sound different to you. So it sounds like you’re on a budget that is restricted in terms of the variety of price points in the market right now that are pegged to increasingly slicker and slicker descriptions that build greater and greater expectations as the prospective price points increase.

Basically, your posts read as though you’re tying increasing audio quality to the higher priced cables within the price range that your budget allows. I think that’s often a mistake in audio. You also don’t define in any way what you mean by “decent quality”. That’s a problem, because without that specific reference point, nobody actually knows what you’ve got in mind. Until you define what “decent quality” means to you personally, your thread could be mistaken for little else besides a cable promotion chat with little or no point.

In an early post in your thread, you made reference to the idea that you think lower capacitance (presumably in interconnects - the specific cables you’re looking for) is important. But then you contradict that approach in the very first sentence in post #1 that derides technical arguments against expensive cables though you also seem to have carefully avoided using the word “expensive”. So again, how do you personally define “decent quality” - help us out with at least some basics so that we can offer intelligent suggestions.

Just to play fair, I recommend Blue Jeans LC1 interconnects for your 8’ application. Between competing, similarly specified cables from Blue Jeans, Audioquest, Kimber, Atlas, Chord, and half a dozen other companies, interconnect product lines priced in the $62-$350 per pair price range, as long as the models all measure within 30% of each other (i.e., +/-15%) there are no audible differences in the group listening sessions I’ve conducted over the past eight years. AFAIC, Blue Jeans’ LC1 line is the bargain of the bunch, though I’d be happy to pay more for what I consider to be a better connector. By that I mean a connector with a more consistent contact/fit on the jacks from sample to sample. Still, electrical contact is excellent and if anybody is worried about micro-arcing they can use a rubber-band wrap on any pair of interconnects to stop micro-movement on the jacks. A wipe of the exterior connected pair with some dielectric compound can’t hurt either.

The small, smooth plastic outer shroud of Audioquest Bridges & Falls, River, and Elements series interconnects are small, difficult to grip and difficult to manipulate in many situations. At the prices Audioquest charges for its products, the company can and should do a much better job of selecting connectors that are usable by actual humans. Audioquest, just like most other cable specialists in the audiophile accessories dodge these days, does not provide specs for any of its interconnects. But my own measurements show that its lower priced model lines measure okay, though not as impressively as Blue Jeans LC1. The double shielding and the excellent core conductor of the LC1 are hard to beat though the cable is not as flexible as most of the competitors. The fancier audio cable makers that offer cables spec’d as well as the LC1 charge between 3X and 20X more per foot of finished interconnect.

 

What is the C per ft of the LC cables?

 

I notice this is reference 4, under "Quality debate".

Speaker wire - Wikipedia

 

Perhaps if I were drastically changing materials or how things are packaged, but I'm generally not.

Going from a Mogami 2549 to a sold core copper Belden twisted pair is not the same as going from stranded, oxidized 18 awg to PCOCC solid core or whatever the best copper available is, much less the new silver materials, graphene, and exotic connectors custom houses are putting together.

I'm more going from... all season tires to all season tires. Not from winters to performance summers.

So in these cases, no I would not expect or even hope for substantial changes. It's more like arts and crafts with wire and solder.

I did forget one exception - phono cable. All bets are off, there, and big differences are expected.

 

LC-1 quote:
By shrinking the center conductor to 25 AWG and foaming the polyethylene dielectric, we were able to get capacitance down to an extremely low 12.2 pF/ft, much better than LV-77S at 21 pF/ft.

 

You my friend are a detail oriented thinker. I really appreciate your taking the time to provide your post. Much of what you say is right on. I want caviar on a tuna budget. I’m not a detailed oriented kinda guy. I make coffee nervous and jump around a lot. I’m harmless and generally happy to talk about things I enjoy like Audio. I’m not the sort to worry about grammar or spelling, conversations to me are sorta a hot potato... you throw your thought out there quick and try to catch the next one.

As mentioned I’m thinking anything from $50 to $200 in interconnects. While us friends are talking... hey if someone turns me on to some cool speaker wires to be on the look out for, I will. I usually buy used.

 

I stick with what I've said at the end of my prior post.

 

Based on your Rogue Perseus preamp and your Alon IV speakers (known for expansive soundstage), I would suggest trying Grover Huffman interconnects and speaker wires. They have nice synergy with the Rogue. I had a Perseus Magnum for years, and loved its warm, juicy, full presentation. With my initial Kimbers, though, I think the front to back dimension was flat. When I added the Grovers, I had a fuller, 3D soundstage. I had the Grover Interconnects and Speaker wires, ZX and EX+ I believe. I did not try the Empress.

 

So Vibrolux_Reverb has joined this thread... and here I thought you were sitting quietly in the spare bedroom.

And now he’s gone. Probably went to a thread about science.

 

Now you've lost me.

 

Thanks
Look familiar?

 

WOW see guys, this is why we have threads to discuss this kinda stuff. I’d probably still grab some kimber if I found a rock-in deal just to try, bu t from your post they just got taken from my list of must finds.. Repalced with Grover lol

 

I said you've lost me, not that I forgot how to read and/or scroll up on a web page.

 

You are the one saying that because you change from one cable to another that is constructed in a similar manner with similar materials you would not expect change.
I find differences in most interconnects, I do therefore and unlike you I prefer to pay attention before disregarding the possibility of any difference for small it could be and generally diferences are not that small to me anyway.

 

You do realize I'm not talking about cables - speaker, interconnect, digital - that I've bought, right? But rather, ones I've made? And yes, when I change something I tend to just change one subtle thing about the one I'm replacing (hence the "arts and crafts with wire and solder" mention). Other times it's more exotic like going from a neutrik XLR connector to a Furutech Rhodium - that was pretty obvious - but not generally.

About the only thing I have to compare to that I bought was some Mogami 2549 and I described in my very first post the difference. It's not subtle but frankly that seems to ruffle feathers so I played it a little conservative.

For instance, I remade some XLRs and swapped from a twisted pair signal coated in PVC dielectric to a twisted, bonded pair coated in PET. Otherwise everything else is the same - the copper inside, the material construction, and the connectors at each end.

Why would changing only the dielectric and the fact they are bonded pairs produce a "big" change?

That really should not create a significant, conspicuous change in the end result.

 

You are a pretty smart guy there Todd. That's as good a rule as any and works on a couple levels.

I've done shoot-outs of all kinds of things too. With cables, I remember sitting in a smallish room with my old Quads/Decca Ribbon/Sub system and trying out five different speaker cables. I didn't know the price or in some cases the brand other than what may have been marked on a connector; the dealer had loaned them to me to play with-- I did find one that sounded better than another but it wasn't a dramatic difference. This was back in the late '80s....
In other cases, with tweaks, particularly couplers/decouplers for equipment and stands, you can hear an immediate, obvious difference. Something will sound better in one respect- e.g., tighter bass, but creates a stridency in the high frequencies. On that, I came out with the Stillpoints SS whatever as the winner-- not quite as big a difference as some, but no negatives.
Tube rolling- fo' sure. Vlad supplies a Sovtek 12ax7 with a full tube complement for the ML2. I immediately replace it with a ribbed old Tele. Once, I tried the Sovtek and everything sounded dull within the context of my system. Ditto on those 6h30s-- had NOS DR Reflecktors in my line stage from the get go- the manufacturer supplied them, and when I thought one was getting squirrely, I bought some new tubes as a stop gap. The mojo was gone. I did source a NIB/NOS quad of the DR tube at a price (and lucky to get 'em at that) and the thing came back on song.
I guess you could say there are clear scientific explanations for the physical coupler/decoupler thing (silicon nitride balls sound better in my equipment stands than the steel ones), or the vacuum tubes, but wire? The engineer/scientist will say immeasurable and hence psychological.
But, I heard a difference when other expensive cable was swapped out and the K-S put in, incrementally, starting with the amps. Why?
I dunno. I could afford the cable, I bought it and didn't look back. I don't think of changing it or upgrading ( I did upgrade one interconnect-- the first one in the chain I could change to the highest level of K-S at the time and that's now been superseded by yet a "better" one, but I'm not bothering with that). I remember talking to a friend who might have posted here at SH at one time and he said, "you know, for me to change the entire cable loom to the upgraded version of the brand I use-- it would basically cost the same as a 911 RS." Guess what he bought? It wasn't new cable.

I burn out after a certain point in comparisons. That kind of listening is fatiguing to me. It's work. It's different than listening for pleasure. And the folks who tell you that ABX doesn't duplicate listening qua listening want the cables to settle, etc.
I do think you hear more long term than a drive by. That's why I like to have something in my system before I commit to writing the check. Sometimes it isn't possible. With cable, it should be. If it doesn't make a difference after a period of time, with burn in, settling and all the other caveats that the high end applies, don't buy it.
I'm not a naysayer. But there are some things I can't explain. Schumann Resonance Generators for example. They do something, but what? And why?
Is it like UFOs?
I do not know, and perhaps will never know.

 

In an lone level analog signal C is less important (except for phono level)
Basically all it indicates is leakage to ground
Assume 20 Hz and 100 pF/ft
X = 80 e6 Ohm at 2 V , 2.5 e-8 A
Leakage is 78 dB below the signal

digital is different, the smaller C, the smaller the time constant, the faster the V rise time
Critical with 1's and 0's

 

No, I did not realize you were exclusively talking about DIY but I still think the same, I am not going to enter an endless debate on why cables or connectors for that matter can sound different. If your experience is that there is no difference then I am fine with that.