Cables??????

About a bit of a revelation last night...

I have spent the large part of the last two weeks listening to music, bedding in and fine tuning my new speakers and set up in general so I was confident that I was familar with the sound and set up I now have.

I recently ordered some very expensive cables froma well known supplier on a sale or return basis, they are a demo pair "burned in" and ready to go and cost around 400 quid for a 3 meter pair.

My partner in hifi crime came over and we spent the evening "blind" testing them against my VDH CS122 at 10 quid a meter.

Simple premise of guessing which cable was being used and using the same tracks both on CD and vinyl.


Our results were no better than chance, in the 30 tunes we sampled we just couldn't reliably tell the difference.

This could mean a number of things,

We are both deaf
Cables have little effect on the sound
My system is pants and can't reveal the differences
The new cables are no better than the ones I have and have a similar "sound"

Now I reckon that it's point 2 but I'm sure that this view will be derided here as heresy.

I would be interested in finding out how other people decide that a cable works, what should I look for and how can I be positive that A is better than B? Perhaps the gains are lost on me.

I think I have used a very clean and accurate method so far but I have just not heard any improvement.

I feel that I'm either missing out or that cables are more placebo than fact.

I know this has been done to death but I hope we can have some objective views here without the crap these discussions have usually attracted in the past.

TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR I am not saying it doesn't work but rather that I couldn't tell.

For the record the cables are Kimber and the system is capable,
Xerxes/Lavardin/Audes.

Finally I have gone from 100 quids worth to 400 quids worth should I be looking at spending even more to realise the gains that a better cable is suppsed to bring?

 

BINGO!!

Seriously though, I stopped worrying about them long ago. As long as they arent simply a load of crap, there should be little differences to be heard. But of course, nobody here will agree with us I feel.... :JOEL:

 

Re: Re: Cables??????

nevermind the cables, what about your avatar..? phwoah!!

 

OK, just to add some proper weight to the argument...

I have tried various cables (speaker, power, interconnects), and most of them had little effect at best. For example, i could tell the difference between FFRC and Silver Anniversary, given that it is a COMPLETELY different type of cable (silver plated stranded copper cable vs solid core braided copper) then thats hardly surprising really. However, when i recently compared 69p a meter Maplin 79 strand copper cable against the silver anniversary, I *perceived* a slight drop in quality, but this is placebo more than anything else. However, I noticed MORE bass from the 79 strand than the Silver Anni.

Interconnects make a very small difference to me and my friends' ears. We have tried comparisons between Cambridge Atlantic, VDH The Bay C5, TNT X1.5, Ecosse CA-1, and Sonic Link Violet. We generally always came to the conclusion that the CA-1 was the worst and the VDH The Bay and X1.5 were the best. The CA-1 was regarded as weak bass, and muffled sound, meaning it was a crap cable. In the middle, was the Violet and Atlantic, both reasonable no nonsense cables, but still room for improvement. The Bay and X1.5 were about equal, good strong bass and detail, these are good cables, yet they cost very little. However, the overall difference between them all is somewhat minute, and I'd have a hard time telling in a blind test.

Not to mention at the bake off there was a negligable difference between a free cable and a £600 one. I would have thought a £1.5k amp, £2k speakers and a £1kish front end would have been enough to be able to tell pretty easily, but apparently not...

Finally, power cables. Seems to depend on the device used. The most noticable differences I noticed was on my old Corda HA-1 when used with the Eupen, a slightly stronger bass was noted (and it was needed). Also, when the Eupen was used on the Pioneer DV-350 it actually sounded WORSE, grainy and harsh sounding. When I used a signals Blackcurrent on my old Cambridge DAC3, again a more confident bottom end was noted, but there was virtually no difference when using the Eupen with the DAC3. I sold the Eupen, and I use the Blackcurrent on my Rotel amp, but like the Eupen, I can hear no difference at all using the blackcurrent cable on the amp. Frankly, I think I might sell it. Any offers for a 2-meter blackcurrent lead anyone?

 

Thats about the closest Pauls got to those in a long while

 

If I where you, and was happy with the sound of my system, I would stay away of trying cables... :JPS:

But I am not you, so I did try cables whenever I wasn't completely happy with my system's sound, until I found a better solution... :MILD:

And price is not the solution, but synergy, so be prepared for many tests and surprises...

 

I try and create a livley debate and it gets hijacked by a pair of knockers..... Great avatar though.



Very hypnotic.

 

Not true. MO's girls got nice titties

 

I'm sorry

 

Re: Re: Re: Cables??????

Is PBirkett a lady boy (which would be funny for the droolers out there!) or a lady (in which case respect is due!) ... or is the avatar simply a true representation of a typical toon lady? Maybe Sir Bobby's wife!!

We need an answer I think!?

 

Paul - Best avatar I've seen mate, :respect:

Joolsburger - interesting post. Nice work spending the time to properly A/B the cables. I recently had some Kimber 8VS and 4TC cables to try, and must admit I thought the improvement on my FFRC was very minimal :duck:. During the 60 day trial period though I tried some of Bob Connell's Orpheus Mithril speaker cable, which I did find sounded significantly different, and to my ears better, than the Kimber. It is also cheaper than the 8TC you've had so if you're seriously interested in speaker cables at the moment it's worth a listen IMMHO. Bob does have a demo pair, and offers a money back guarantee. Here's one of Bob's adverts from HFC, in this case for the IC, but it gives his details:

http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=6793

 

Great pair PB, you should see the rest.

......................................................................................

-I'm not sure BTW that changing just one cable in isolation is 'necessarily' going to be any great shakes. Perhaps when the whole 'network' is rewired, differences/improvements 'maybe' more apparent.

-universal statements of fact should be avoided.

->£500 (for the sake of arguing) i/c , power cord, speaker cable is not 'high-end' in the context of hi-fi.


continue........

 

Surely 500 quid is a pretty high end cable? But then you open a can of worms as to what defines high end.. I reckon price is not a reliable indicator of highend-ness.

My IS Ref is 2300 but i'd say it's got the measure of many amps that are much more expensive..

 

In the context of this forum £500+ is probably high-end. In the context of hi-fi, i'd say it was probably low-fi. I'm not advocating anything, just making a clarification. The price was just an arbitrary ball park figure anyway.

 

Take into the combat Zone No.1, lock on to all targets, and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes
remeber here boys, we are treading dangerious here, were all all against the rest of the world, nasty and vindictive, and have a hate compain out against anything other bare ladies breasts
Paul, you are a keyboard welder par excellence sir
your caring compainion on long journeys Wm

 

Ok, I've heard £75 cables better £600 ones, (by a fair margin), I've also heard a £200 power cable transform a system.
Jools, I do believe you have described this sence before, with a fair bit of different kit, (not just cables), could you just run down your kit/room/size and floor material for me please sir, cheers Wm

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Cables??????

I'm a cock in a frock :lol:

 

He's a post I found on a Yank site, seems it's not uncommon



"Hello, I just recently acquired a TEAC VRDS-25x cd player to replace the 150 dollar DVD player I've been using. This cd player was to be the first step in me upgrading my entire system, from mass market cheapo brands, to entry audiophile. Now Im not sure Im even going to continue.

I cannot, for the life of me, hear the difference between these CD players. I put the same CD into each one, then switch between the sources on my amplifier. My friends have been over, and also can hear no difference.

Admittedly, I have cheaper components. An entry level Kenwood receiver, and cerwin vega speakers, but I was expecting a little more than this, considering this is a two thousand dollar player.

What's the deal here!?"


I don't think it's a case of golden ears, maybe some people just can't hear a difference period Wm

 

WM

System and room as follows..

Xerxes/Artemiz/DV20XL/Dino/Dino + on a soundstyle wall shelf and mana soundframe roksan interconect and Claraudio titian from the P/S to the amp a Lavardin IS ref then VDH CS 122 to Audes Jazz speakers.

The speakers sit on slate plinths in a 27x15 room firing down the length and are about 4ft from the back wall and 2 feet from the side walls. The room has wooden floors and lots of absorbing rugs,curtains and soft furnishings.

It sounds well to my ears and I have no major resonances or room modes that bother me.

Mains is on a seperate spur from the consumer unit and I use 6 MK unswitched sockets.

It's all properly set up and I would expect to hear cable differences if they are there.

I can hear major differences switching cartridge loads for example or between recordings.

 

OK, Jools have you tried a good power cable on the Dino + Psu? (I know these well), the never connect inside responds really well to these.
You have a pretty big room compared to a lot of guys.
Well I reckon, you should leave well alone, if you happy nuff said.
We have built a basic demo system at work for testing various products, it runs Rogers 4's, attacam stands, superdac, isolda speaker cable and CDfix as a transport, we tell if we change anything in the system, cable,cdp/power cables/isolation.
However, genuinely a lot of guys cannot tell a difference with anything for sure.
I would like to take you up on seeing If I could make an audioable difference to your system, (no purchase needed), I love a chalenge, more often than not big money doesn't equate to improved sounds. Wm