HiFi+....at it again!

Yes Alex, I have. And whilst some cables make a big difference to say a digital source (say £500 player witht £500 cable vs £1000 player), to suggest spending £4K on that piece of Arcrap is quite incredible and just plain ridiculous and reeks of a sellout.

Still, some people do actually identify with Nordost's characteristics so strongly that for them nothing else will do. I know one such person, who lives & breathes Valhalla, even though his total component cost is £6K.

These people are however in the minority, what might be referred to as the lunatic fringe, and to give someone an award for an article about it is utterly ridiculous because it is hardly representative of or applicable to the publications less than enamoured readership.

 

To be fair merlin, that article was not the one that won the competition. It was a followup on the results of trying his newly won cables in his mediocre system. So, the guy hasn't actually spent the money on the cables - which really would be an absurd waste of money but IMO any sane person in his position would sell the cables ASAP and use the proceeds to really improve his system.

Michael.

 

Maybe the effect is fixed - I have a £4K player; if I spend £4K on Nordost cabling, will it also then sound like a £1K player....?

 

Just read the above mentioned article and find.....that it has been grossly mis-represented by members of this forum.
The article is a description of the effect that Nordost cables had on a competition winners system.he didn't buy the cables he won them.
He used £2000 worth of cables , an interconnect and power lead and said they improved his £300 Cd player , said it sounded better than some £1000+CD players and that he was happy with his FREE cables, but that his player still had weekness and DID NOT recomend spending this much on cables for a cheap CD player.
There were problems with the article , he doesn't actually compare the diiffernce the cables made to his CD player to a more expensive player without the nordost cables, nor describe what innerconnects he originaly used , but this was not the purpose of the article.

Just go to show the problem with the internet and why I still read magazines, people shout their mouths off with half truths and distortions and can cause trouble for genuine companiesand there is no comeback, were as if a magazine is inacurate then they are get into hot water over it.

 

See my previous post, where I make that very clear. I never suggested he had bought the cables himself.

I don't have the article infront of me right now so I can't make a direct quote but it's ambiguous from the sentence whether the power lead and IC cost £2000 in total or £2000 each. Since he was using the top of the range Nordost stuff, of which the power lead alone costs £1750 I assumed the latter (£2K each).

He starts the article talking about receiving £15Ks worth of cable "in his lap". Presumably after substracing the £4K of power lead and IC the remaining £11K is the speaker cable - who's individual price he never mentions.

The point I was making was that the impression given was that he was going to keep the cables and then spend money upgrading the rest of his system as and when funds allowed. Unless the terms of the competition somehow prevent him from being allowed to sell the cables s/h then that is a most absurd way forward for him. He would be far better off selling the cables and using the proceeds to upgrade his CDP, amp and speakers and getting some cables appropriate for that system.

Michael.

 

Your right Mike, he could get a dac 64 and get a decent holiday plus a spot of spending dough, heaven forbid, he may even start chatting to Girls

 

A while ago i went to a Hi-Fi show, Glasgow Nov 2002 I think. One of the Demo's was for some kind of Nordost cabling, I can't remember which particular models where being demo'd but i do remember that the price tag for these bits of wires was a staggering £12,000! This should be interesting thought i , especially as they where using one of my personal fave brands of (relatively budget) Speakers for the demo, ( Danish System Audio floorstanders). I think that the partnering equipment might have been a Quad CDP and Amp ( 99 or 909 seems to ring a bell, don't quote me though, I'm a crap box spotter/rememberer ).

The Demo was very brief as the guy was busy doing something else, The one over riding thing that did stick in my mind though was how very ordinary this £15,000 Hi-Fi 'system' sounded. I came to a conclusion right there and then that I've found very hard to shake off, despite what others might try and say since and that is:

" A £10,000 Hi-Fi system connected up using £1,000 of cabling will look and sound like a £10,000 Hi-Fi System.
A £1,000 Hi-Fi system connected up using £10,000 of cabling will look and sound like a £1,000 Hi-Fi System. "

Quite often people say that that listening to stuff at a Hi-Fi Show in a hotel isn't the same as listening in ones own home. If the construction technique of my timber framed house is anything to go by I'd say that the room construction and accoustics of the average modern built hotel suite very much approximates the average 'normal' listening room in a normal family home, built on the average small housing estate, all connected up to the same Electricity sub station just down the road.
Hi-Fi +
And here's me thinking, via various different posts on the matter, that one of the only magazines worth bothering with is Hi-Fi+.
Just goes to show i suposse that just because a magazine only bothers with reveiwig Hi end gear within its thick , glossy ( and smelly ) pages it doesn't mean to say that the content isn't going to be the same old bollox we've all heard so many times before...

 

spxy,
Based your quotations it gave the impression that the aim the article is worded in a way to suggest that cables from interconnects, power cords and speakers cables could make the electronics more accurate then before. In that respect something is clearly very wrong with that author understanding.

It is like suggesting next time a research laboratory wanted to upgrade their old instruments they should not buy new, more accurate and higher grade instruments. They should keep all the old models and upgrade all the cables with these magical audiophile cables and somehow the old cheap instruments will perform more accurate them they were designed originally and transformed into higher spec £1000+ instrument. IS that possible????

Get best cables and then built a system around it......... what's next. :newbie:

 

Woofie fear not, the path is clear, the way forward is open for all to see. Let it not worry you about expensive cables and kit that is not £500@box, but do concen yourself with BLUE & its pure essence.
For you see Blue is colour that cures all audio ills, even Linn, never again will it force to contemplate the meaning of Zen, why negitive Ion trails, leave no trace maybe even that a scotts man can be UNcanny.
Trival matters aside Blue is were its at, forget, expensive boxes, upgrading or even equipment resting devices sent from Devine sources, woofie you will rest easy with Blue, follow the light (The blue one) let it wash over you, and redress your Ying & Yang, its harmonising effects are legendary, be at peace, be BLUE

 

My transport and processor have dazzling blue lights.

Unfortunately, the multi-channel power amp has the usual dull red variety. I wonder how easy it is to change this so that they shine in harmony in the dark.

 

Be at peace with your soul woofie, replace the red led, for the chosen one, then your harmonious return to prefect musical balance will be complete

 

"spxy,
Based your quotations it gave the impression that the aim the article is worded in a way to suggest that cables from interconnects, power cords and speakers cables could make the electronics more accurate then before. In that respect something is clearly very wrong with that author understanding. "

Er no and this is not what the article is about.But anyway a better cable will reveal more of the information that comes out of a CD player than a pourer one.That is a different concept than suggesting the cable makes the electronics more accurate , it almost suggests that the cable would change the electronics and make them work better ,which is mainly wrong.If your CD player was connected with a lead cable to your amp .less info would come through than a copper one, the equipment hasn't changed just the information transfer between it and the amp.

"It is like suggesting next time a research laboratory wanted to upgrade their old instruments they should not buy new, more accurate and higher grade instruments. They should keep all the old models and upgrade all the cables with these magical audiophile cables and somehow the old cheap instruments will perform more accurate them they were designed originally and transformed into higher spec £1000+ instrument. IS that possible????"

That is a classic case of bad analogy, straw man argument,and much too general.What is being measured?And whos suggests that this is the case?
The point is the slants given here were not the slant of the actual article.And the imprssion given was that a certain magazine was promoting the use of expensive cable in a cheap system as an optimal upgrade, which it wasn't.
The subject of whether some cable constructions are better than others and how they might affect sound is a different one.
I personnaly would not see the nead to spend thousands on cables, but have experienced benifits from higher standerd of cables than the general mass market produce.(I said higher standard , not the same as higher priced by the way)I have a few types of cable about and find the benifits of the ones I prefer obvious, and not subtle .

 

We are in danger of falling back into old argument again. Never the less, here is my understanding. The author of the article suggest a better constructed cable which happens to be ridiculously expensive makes a cheap CDP sounds better. The measurement here is it performed better when he uses his ears to quantify the performance. In fact so much better that the measured improvement (using his ears) is as good as CDP with higher specification or construction that is available in a higher price bracket. IS that possible?

Article worded like this would be better.
Poorly constructed cables make £300 CDP sounds poorer then it should be.

Cables that are constructed well make £300 CDP sounds like a £300 piece of equipment.

More expensive cables CANNOT make a £300 CDP sounds any better.

£300 CDP connected with good cables could sounds as good as £1000 CDP when connected with poorly constructed cables.

 

You claim to have experienced that some cables have additional benefits compare to others. How is this benefit measured? I assume it is carried out using your extremely sensitive ears. It is a good measurement since it the only measurement that is important in this hobby. Our ears are actually very accurate too. However, it is not very precise in the sense it could be influence by a lot of factors unconsciously. If you know you have been influenced, then you could have accounted for it in the first place. Therefore some of us will continue to challenge you as to whether the benefit you claims to have heard are done using some form of blind comparison. It is not to ridicule you that you had been delusional. It is because it does not tally with our findings. All previously improvement attributed to cable changes has been influenced by observer expectation.

 

Wolf youre arguement is flawed, but at the same time almost correct.

Yes good cables make the £300 CD player sound like it should, but without them you will never hear how good a £300 CD sounds.The sound of a fully performing £300 CD player at its best could in fact be better than a £1000 CD player with bad cables, adding the good cables would make the £1000 job even better.

You are confusing use of language here.When someones says there £300 player sounds like £1000 with these cables what they mean is that the full potentioal of the player is so great compared to with the bad cables that it sounds as good as £1000 CD player with bad cables.If they put the same cables on the £1000 CD player they would realise the full potential of that player and realise £1000 CD players are better than they thought.

If it costs less to buy the good cables for the £300 CD player than to buy a 31000 CD player it would make sense to do so ,latter when they could afford a better CD player ,with the better cables they already have , they would be able to fully realise its performance.

 

I use at the mo Kimber 8tc , I also own QED silver something or other and normal cheap wire.
I use the same connectors and connection method with all cables.With 8tc the bass is deeper crisper and firmer.My speaker do realitively deep bass.
If you had small speakers you may not notice this.If you play tracks with little deep bass you may not notice this.
The difference to bass is not subtle.
There are other differences but they are more subtle , such as grain and sweetness.

 

Logic tells me that a cheap CDP hooked up with very expensive cable should actually sound far worse than if it was hooked up with something much cheaper.

 

Not too hot on the logic are we then?

 

I can see where Alex is coming from.
If you had cables that are top notch and revealing and also add nothing to the music, then it could make a cheaper component sound bad as it would show all weakness's in that component.
Although, things dont always work as you expect

 

Spxy, cables are a contentious issue, and huge arguements develop seemingly out of nothing on the subject.

Calling someones arguement 'flawed' will almost certainly wind them up!.. Its a subtle difference, but we try and encourage

''My opinion is different to yours - I disagree because...''

or similar!!!!

Thanks for your understanding.
all the best
cheers
Chris