moving cables

Thank you. And wilfully ignorant. Sad.

 

:moony:

 

Hi Dave.
That's very interesting. I managed to get to the Heathrow show and met Steve from Vertex. He did a very convincing demo using a stethoscope showing the effects of mechanical noise being transmitted through interconnets. He was in the Lyngdorf room which had a digital room corrected system wired with Vertex cables. Lyngdorf obviously take isolation very seriously as they were also using a Stillpoints ESS rack and component stand.
I must say that it was by far the best sound I have ever heard at a show. I stayed for a good hour and listened to a wide range of music and I would have liked to stay longer. How much influence the Vertex cables had on the over all sound is hard to say. Only downside is the look of the boxes on the cables. I know they are needed, but they could be a bit neater.

Have you tried the Vertex cables yet?

 

Hi Andy,

No I have not tried their stuff yet. I have talked to them over the phone, and at some point I will try them.

I have been experimenting with this for a while. My studio is acoustically treated, with no primary reflections, so you tend to be able to hear subtle effects more accutely.

I tried (on someones recommendation) putting my speaker cables on top of supports to raise them off the floor. I made my own out of paper coffee cups. Now the ineresting thing, was not that this made a sonic difference, but that it made my system unstable. Moving these cups around even by a millimeter was like moving controls on a graphic equalizer. I would spend hours trying to get the sound right, then it would all fall apart. My cables now rest on the floor.

Another thing I have experimented with is using blue tac to stick cables to the wooden floor, for some cables, this works a treat, whilst for others it is a disaster.

Of course non of this has been verified double blind

Unfortunately I missed the Vertex room at the show, so I did not get to see their cables. Can you tell me what their boxes look like, and any idea what is in them. What I want to know, is whether something can be designed and built that can be applied to other cables?

Dave

 

I like a man who gets to the bottom of things! Now, if you could come up with an audiophile horse, perhaps I could get a refill:

P.S. I just noticed that this stuff comes from Salisbury! Anything in that, do you think?

 

The more they can get people believing in this sort of thing the better for them because it makes the more central cable assumptions seem normal and thus believable and accepted as fact. In other words, better that this sort of fringe argument become contentious rather than the main issue of whether cables make a difference.

My own view and experience is that cables make a difference. However I have taken part in cable rants before myself. I also believe there is a lot of bullshit about the subject and I also think cable rants focus on the wrong thing. I think we need to focus not so much on whether they make a difference as how the hell the prices can be justified. All speacialist hifi is overpriced. Its just that cables are among the worst examples and we need to say NO ! We also need to avoid being distracted by shite like the above.

 

Tones, still not really explained work harddening of copper (irrespective of any cable debate). I dont think for one minute that bending a cable will change its sonic character.
Surely if copper is bent easily at first, then gets gradually harder to bend until its breaks, something is changeing?

Have to agree, the horse poop joke is getting a tad boring now.

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Makes some of the other rubbish spouted by cable believers seem quite reasonable by comparison.

Michael.

 

http://www.vertexaq.com/
Looks like the site is under construction, but you can look at the HF+ award pdf. Interesting that Paul Messenger liked them as he is not into cables.
I have no idea what is in the boxes, but no doubt someone will be along soon to tell us it's foo foo dust or something similar

 

Arguing on the internet is like wrestling with a pig in
mud... After a while you figure out that the pig enjoys it...


Oink Oink.

 

It depends on what you mean. I take it that you're talking about a single bend/break session, not the difference between fresh and aged copper, that, at the start it's relatively easily bent but later it's harder to do? I've never tried it, so I can't comment. I don't know why this should be, but it could be (and this is only my idea) a result of flow properties. In the case of liquids, some liquids under shear will actually become stiffer and harder to shear (it's called dilatancy). Perhaps the grain boundaries of the copper (formed when the metal solidifies from the melt) move easily at first but then lock in some way under stress. Must look into it for interest.

I like my horse poop! (If you see what I mean). It's become an old friend,as it were. And now that I've discovered that it comes from Salisbury (falls on knees, pointing in the direction of The Holy City), I shall cling to it (if you see what I mean).

 

Who, me?

 

Yes tones, i mean a single session. It can be demonstrated by hammering copper aswell, at first it is very malliable but quickly becomes less so and need anealing to carry on shapping with a hammer. So this is not age related, it happens by being worked. I would be interested to know how this happens, if you do find out.

I like horse poop aswell mate, but i prefer it in my veg plot, works wonders with me brassica's!

 

tones, I hope you never stop pointing out the manure infested nature of our hobby.

Theres a silent group of people who agree with you entirely!

 

You can laugh, but I was Crying!

The last thing that I want is to have to fiddle with my system to get it to work, or more importantly to keep it working. I have in the past pursued sonic improvements with some zeal, mainly through DIY modifications. However, I stopped doing this about a year ago, as it became apparent that system setup and tuning were becoming hyper critical. It took me quite a bit of effort to find ways of keeping my system stable, and without the need of constant tuning.

I don't particularly care, whether most people hear think that I am talking sh*t. If laughing at people like me gives you a rush then go ahead.

Dave

 

Chris,
Try growing Brassica's mate

 

Andy, I'm no scientist, but a lot of metals and plastics behave in this way, if you take a piece of plastic and keep bending it eventually it will snap, is this what you are describing. I always thought that was down to stress and materials all suffered from that. Isn't there something called a plasticity index? I'm digging into very old learning here so could well be wrong. It sounds to me that that is what you are describing.
Alternatively as Copper ages it oxidises, this is a change of condition as a new compound is formed.
I could of course be barking up completely the wrong tree

 

I guess it is along the same lines, I know its off topic now, but surely something must change within the material for it to become brittle?

 

OK, I found this --

Taken from http://www.unb.ca/che/Undergrad/lab/deformation.pdf

It talks about recrystalising of metals when heated, so does that not mean there is a change to its structure when worked?

 

Lordsummit mentions plastics. When you submit a plastic sample to something like an Instron tensile tester (it gradually pulls the sample apart), you can stretch the material just so far until its elastic limit is reached - beyond that, it is permanently deformed and won't return to its original shape. There then follows a period of non-elastic deformation until break. In this form, it is more brittle.

The elastic limit of copper is very low (it doesn't take much of a bend to be permanent), but perhaps in the area between permanent deformation and break there is a similar decrease in elasticity that allows it to break.

However, to return to the point of departure, I can't see anyone accidentally torturing their beloved cable to such an extent that the sound changes!