Another question related to cables...for valve amps

yes hippy spot on, vlave amps do sound better, that is widely held, yet not too many know that they have evil capacitors in the signal path,
1/2 a mile of very thin copper wire, an iron core to go through, THEN into the speaker cable and all that.....and still sound better...o anyone who preaches short signal path for sound quality you can reject immediately, tho it may help for noise/rfi issues.

Its one of the things that profoundly disturbs me, the deep seated manufacturer driven lies that people so tune into, believe and even enjoy, and its like swimming against the tide, its almost impossible to dispel.Its insidious, damaging, wrong, I hesitate to say, evil, but it is, things like this, ideologies do have some psychological hold, otherwise they wouldn't exist, its very strange, I don't entriely think psychologists and peddlars understand it, but they exploit it.

 

Chill out data, maybe some us actualy hear a difference and are happy to spent 'our' money.

 

No totally untrue !

Don't forget you can relatively easily build a set of speaker cable using silver plated ptfe insulated equipment wire or as in my case 1mm solid core pure silver biwire, for the 2x8m runs you could do it for less than £200 and have a cable that would be unbeatable except by the very best at any price.

 

Was that directed at me, zanash?

 

no............ your post beat mine by a nano second

aimed off centre at data

 

ah, no probs

 

Penance needs his post-purchase rationalisation. I reckon that's one of the reasons threads like this get so contentious; some of us have already committed our money and mouth to it. Having said that, I'll probably end up with my own expensive cables, just to make sure you know, albeit second hand or old stock.

 

Clothy has a good point in there.
However I feel penance knows his own system better than we do, as we each know our own systems.
Personally I've tried close to 120 power leads in our test systems, the closest I've felt to the refernece being the Ultra Khan 'Epipthany'.
Though I more than happy to use 'another make'.
Each system varies and one cable may well give a different result without question.
Never dismiss anything until you've heard one in your own system. Wm

 

Do you know me cloth?
No! didnt think so.

I need to rationalise nothing, let alone my choice of cable.

 

OOOOhah ! Touchy touchy now. I thought that might happen, LOL. Well, I don't kno yoo, no, but at least you are onside when it comes to Cats = we're friends. :beer:

 

But to cable manufacturers and their pricing policies I say : KISS THIS - :moony:

 

Maybe i get touchy when people make assumptions about me when infact they do not know me at all.

 

Meow. Peace.

 

By the way, I have Absolute Sounds Swiss Wire. Does anyone kno what the electrical characteristics of this cable are, e.g. high/lo/medium capacitance, inductance etc, not that I understand that, but just for comparison's sake in judging what to use with my new Exposure amps, i.e like or unlike Exposure cable; like or unlike Chord/Nordost expensive alternatives.

 

I'm still auditioning the Eastern Electric MiniMax amps, and using NAC-A5, which is cheap, nasty, but still the sound is very good with a great tonality. I think A5 isn't nearly as bad a cable as I once thought, and whilst it's clearly no Nordost, it is infinitely better value and a better cable than the more affordable flatline speaker cables. In a prior system I made it up to s/h SPM speaker cable and i/cs and to be quite honest it was a big mistake. Small, incremental gains for big bucks. Better spend the money on better sources, amps and speakers, and spend a couplea hundred on sorting your mains out - no fancy conditioners, just a dedicated CU and spur(s) - and then the cable becomes a bit of a non-issue...

Just my opinion & experience, mind you...

John

 

"...dedicated CU and spur(s)....." Interesting. I want an Isotek box but will not pay the LUDICROUS money for one, so what you are saying here interests me. Can you elaborate on what each of these things you mentioned actually are. I had an electrician put in a new double point on its own for my hifi, then I use a Belken multiway plug thingy, but does that extra point in itself do any good?

 

Hi Cloth-Ears ;-)

Basically a dedicated consumer unit is a fuse-box by any other name, which is used only for the stereo. The incoming meter-tails are split between meter and existing consumer unit, and a new consumer unit installed. In my case, a six-way Memera 2000AD6 running 5 32A RCBO modules, 1 of which powers a spur to a second system. The four remaining spurs power a double unswitched socket each, one for turntable PSU, one for preamp and phono stage, one for power amp and and one for cd player.

Some people prefer the sound of one single spur split however-many-ways to that of multiple spurs, but I have gone down the multiple spur route with no regrets.

I would categorically state that the improvements brought by sorting out the mains in this way exceed by a considerable margin the improvements brought by any amount of fancy power cables, interconnects and/or speaker cables. I would also imagine that the sound of a system powered using a dedicated CU and spurs will easily out-perform a similar system with an Isotek box on the end of a shared ring main. However, that's a comparison that I have no interest in trying!

Little things like using unswitched sockets, thicker electrical circuit cable (e.g. 6mm.sq. or 10mm.sq.) and better RCD-style modules (such as the moderately expensive RCBO modules) will bring significant gains by basically providing your system with a 'better class' of current supply with much less interference from other nasties which might creep in were you sharing a ring main, say. Does it work? Take my word for it; we wouldn't waste our time being ridiculed by the local sparkies for nothing, would we?

John

 

Thanks, that's great. Anyone else with that experience? Could an electricity supplier object to having two meters. or did you mean still have one meter? This sounds exciting modding. Plus, we're talking household electrics here therefore there won't be the margins heaped on as in the hifi world. The labour will be reasonable as well, unlike the high class hookers some cable companies seem to be hiring to twist wire, if you judge by the prices.

 

Just one meter - you will need to remove the master fuse (and this might be a good opportunity to move to a 100A fuse if you don't already have one) - though you ought to get a qualified sparky to do the meter tail splitting, and to be fair, the CU installation as well. It was lucky that my father in law is a retired electrician ;-)

John