Bake-off Revisited

Standby for open wallet surgery DocFoster. Welcome to the forum too. Jim

 

Thanks for PM invite.
Will do!

Final question on this for now:
If all (?) cables make a difference to the sound (and only a 'bad' difference in a hifi sense), when wiring up hifi components, is reducing cable lengths to minimum distances as important a consideration as the choice of cable itself...?

Thanks for your time on all this!

DF

P.S. Syntax advice too? It's a holistic service you get here isn't it?
P.P.S. Sorry, should that be 'an holistic'...?

 

It would save you some money.

I was always taught, an before a vowel and a before consonance. Anyway who cares. Jim

 

theres a [in]famous saying ....you show me the best cable in the world and I can improve it .....

the answer of course is to cut it in half .....

so yes

use the least amount of cable as you can get away with ...

think of a cable as a filter to music ...the longer the length the more music is removed.

 

Thanks for confirming that belief.
My interconnects are as short as 25cm (as suggested above driven by cost as well as a leap of sonic faith).
Surprisingly ;-) you don't often hear cable manufacturers pushing this idea...
DF

 

All depends if the "h" is aspirate, as in holly - it is considered a consonant and takes a. If you don't pronounce the h in hotel, then it is considered invisible and then you go by the o which, being a vowel, takes "an".

 

My first post.

Cables are my misery at the moment. I suppose I could be described as a perfect customer.

I have been upgrading my Hi-Fi for some years now and have three totally different systems employed in my house to date. One valve, one solid state and one hybrid.

I have conducted various A-B tests with cables, (both speaker and interconnectors), yet I am bemused by this whole cable thing. I know that I have become seduced by the "Audio-Candy" brigade, yet over a span of 4 years I continued to seek out something 'better'.

I spent too much money trying to match up cables with my different systems. In the end I caught myself on!

What I did was to invest in two rolls of cable, one of interconnectors and one of speaker cable. My choice was based on what was asthetically pleasing and, more importantly, gave me "peace of mind".

I truely believe that a lot of the hype around Hi-Fi in general is about what makes you comfortable, (to a point where you listen to your music without 'brain intrusions' about cables, electricity supply, room gains etc).

I concurr with Digital & Jimbo when they suggest getting your ears syringed. I lost some hearing in one of my ears some time ago which I compensate for by moving a few centimeters from my listening position.

In my experience with cables I have found that my "head" tells me what I want to hear.....If I am happy with "believing" I have good cables then that's one more thing out of the equasion...I can sit down and listen happily.

I would never be happy with 99p cables therefore I would feel something is missing from the music, I am not getting the best that is possible. If I replace them with 20 pound a metre cables then I'm happy, one more thing out of the way.

Been through Cardas Golden Reference and others and I'm now quite happy with QED Silver Spiral because I feel, looking at the cables, that the music flows through as best it could.

Time to tell the music "mixers" to get in tune!!


Regards NaturalVoice

PS. JR149's rule

 

cables!!

I can't believe the nonsense spoken on this subject. I recently upgraded my integrated to a Unison research pre power combination, so consequently needed another IC. Used a stock IC I had lying about, sound was abysmal! no bass, no dynamics, no soundstage. Tried to save a few bob by making a pair with Maplins Shark, slight improvement, but by now I was wishing I had not bought the Unisons. Finally borrowed a pair of Acoustic Zen Matrix2 from my son and voila! audio heaven.Glorious deep controlled bass, superb attack and great soundstage. this was not a subtle change, this was a massive difference.
These people that talk science and scoff at high end cables must be deaf

 

These are the sorts of things I have thought about for years and brought up in discusions, never seems to get anywhere with non believers though.

An interesting point about your friend not heaing the airport announcer. Another point of interest, some people listen to music differently, bass lines vocals etc etc, I am sure we have all been to a demo or a friends house, and had something pointed out to us, and I have on a few occassions been slightly taken aback by noticing a part of the performance due to it being pointed out, which due to my own listening habit may have gone un-noticed.

A good reason to take it easier on reviewers and give the HiFi comics some credit, as well as some of the better dealers.

Maybe listening courses is not such a bad idea?