Musing following some cable posts...

I'm aware that Nordost make their own cable. One of their laughably expensive cables was one that I heard making a small difference in a test at Dev's, but I thought it sounded less good than a freebie set of red and black ICs. Perhaps Nordost cables are deliberately designed to sound a bit wrong, for a lot of audiophiles it seems hearing a difference is more important than working out whether something is actually an improvement. Having said that, I've sat through Lars' Nordost cable dems at a couple of shows and thought that none of the cable swaps he was doing made any noticeable difference at all. The fact that he kept turning the volume up each time he put a more expensive cable in was entirely coincidental, of course, heaven forbid that he should try to kid people by doing the old volume trick :-)

-- Ian[/QUOTE]


Right good at least you heard a difference. I would be interested in what you found was wrong with it (I found them dynamically flat). I doubt that Nordost would engineer something wrong with them, I am sure they would say it was improvement. And they do listen to them.

Odd when I heard Lars do the demo the volume remained constant (and he made a great point about doing that) maybe he read your e-mail !!!
 
brilliant your hifi credibility score goes up and with luck you sell more equipment - Thanks Ive learnt very little about improving Hifi here yet but I have about selling it you are deffo an Uncle
 
George Sallit said:
Right good at least you heard a difference. I would be interested in what you found was wrong with it (I found them dynamically flat).
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I wouldn't get too excited, the difference was so tiny it could easily have been in my head. I'm quite certain I couldn't reliably pick the cable out. Having said that, in a sighted test on a piece of solo piano I thought it sounded off, the piano just didn't sound quite right.

I doubt that Nordost would engineer something wrong with them, I am sure they would say it was improvement. And they do listen to them.
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Given that a £10 piece of wire passes an audio signal perfectly, whether or not they listen to them is beside the point, what they are manufacturing is essentially pointless (apart from to make a profit for them). There are simply no strictly audio reasons for cables to be expensive, it's an unnecessary luxury.

And no doubt you're also aware of the miles of cheap cabling the signal has gone through in order to end up pressed on the record or CD in the first place. If there was any signal loss with cables the damage would already have been done long before you ever played it on your hifi.

-- Ian
 
Given that a £10 piece of wire passes an audio signal perfectly, whether or not they listen to them is beside the point, what they are manufacturing is essentially pointless (apart from to make a profit for them). There are simply no strictly audio reasons for cables to be expensive, it's an unnecessary luxury.


£10 cable....No it doesn't. You can measure how inferior it is....



And no doubt you're also aware of the miles of cheap cabling the signal has gone through in order to end up pressed on the record or CD in the first place. If there was any signal loss with cables the damage would already have been done long before you ever played it on your hifi.

-- Ian[/QUOTE]

Of course and it is a crying shame but the tide is turning. Why are there studios that have changed their cables to Cardas cables. These hard nosed professionals can't have been duped into buying clap-trap by the snake oil guys surely!! Including Bob Clearmountain, Chad Blake, Tony Faulkner (and others) what idiots and fakers, wasting all that money on snake oil. Or did they actually hear differences??? Where are their results??? Where are their 1,000 sample ABX tests????
 
George Sallit said:
£10 cable....No it doesn't. You can measure how inferior it is....
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12.3%?

I very much doubt you can demonstrate any £10 IC available from Maplins or similar has inferior measurements to any boutique cable. We've had enough unsubstantiated claims on this thread already, there's no need to pile them up.

Of course and it is a crying shame but the tide is turning. Why are there studios that have changed their cables to Cardas cables.
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This is just naive. The fact that a couple of audiophool studios use boutique cabling makes no difference to the 99.9% who don't. If you've spent much time in working studios you will know full well that boutique cabling is not just a non-issue, but would be regarded as an absurdity.

Most of the best recordings ever made were made with what today some audiophiles would regard as little better than bell wire.

-- Ian
 
Ian thanks for coming back - Whats your view on running in cables /equipment - Ive wondered whether the equip doesnt change at all but your brains idea of the signal does.

My ears tell me the epuip improves with age but I have doubts. Where are you on this?
 
I have a valve amp that takes a few minutes to settle down from switch on, but "running in" is another myth, IMO. The idea of running in cables seems particularly silly. Tones is a good person to ask about this, he knows a great deal about materials science.

-- Ian
 
If for a moment we run with the idea that interconnect cables effect the sound of an audio system I would hope we can all agree that the 'perfect' cable has no sound, ie when inserted into the signal path it's presence cannot be heard or measured. It follows from this that a cable cannot improve the signal passing through it, only pass that signal unmolested.

If we accept this, it follows that inserting a cheap n nasty £2.99 phono cable from the likes of Maplin into the signal path should actually degrade the performance of the system in some way.
You can test this easily with an active pre amp equiped with a passive tape loop (note - it must be passive). Simply insert the cable under test into the loop and ask someone to to switch from tape/source.

I've done this many times with a number of people present, including some posters on this forum and none of them can detect the cheap/giveaway cable in circuit
Form an orderly que outside my door and I'll be happy to repeat the test - bring your own source, power amps and speakers if you wish (...& beer...lets keep it friendly ;) ).

You will hear no cable effects.
 
I'm really the odd man out here then. For the past twenty years in this hobby, I've consistently found cheap cables outperform expensive cables. Perhaps I've swallowed the sinker and line but not the hook? ;-)

regards,

dave
 
blackdog said:
I'm really the odd man out here then. For the past twenty years in this hobby, I've consistently found cheap cables outperform expensive cables. Perhaps I've swallowed the sinker and line but not the hook? ;-)

regards,

dave
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I think there are two possible reasons Dave.

1 - You believe what your ears tell you but have high expectations for the expensive wire. When they don't perform as the inflated price tag would indicate you naturally feel a bit disappointed.

2 - There are a few cables out there that have odd electrical properties and act as filters in some systems.
 
I think it's number 2 as you've stated, Rob. With respect to expectations and high dollar stuff; they all perform, it's just the performance simply sounds like an equalizer with a chimp at the controls has been inserted into the system.

Personally I believe most of the audiophile cable manufacturers have significantly altered the I-R-C or some other electrical parameter to make a difference (not an improvement) to guarantee no returns. With my experience, most audiophiles appear to be satisfied with differences, not improvements.

regards,

dave
 
If in real life a person listened to music for just one track of music at at time and couldnt hear a difference between cables swapped I would accept that there is no point in spending good money on cables. For me (and others I expect) often I sit down for 3 hours at a time. (though not when im contributing to this thread) To make a cable test valid the testing time should reflect the listening time.

For serious listeners short term A/B testing is a completely unsatisfactory method of testing cables or indeed any audio equipment for quality unless your aim is to show theres not a discernable difference between things skeptic apply here. At Audiophile levels (by this I think I mean a system that costs over £400) It takes time to learn the particular qualities of something.

A just perceptable quality difference over 5 minutes equates to a much larger difference over 3 hours. Additionally there are several lots of cable in most systems. These small differences add up and can make the difference between liking an loathing a system. Human ears are very sensitive especially if you have an open mind

Thats probably why most dealers are particularly happy to loan equipment over extended periods - They understand that it takes time to make a proper assessment of equipment. Havng the skill and knowledge to building up a hifi system that is not overly expensive that gives me long term enjoyment has taken me many years.

My 35 years of audiophile experience have led me to believe

A/ Cables make a huge difference
B/ Cables and equipment needs running in
C/ Pound for pound vinyl is significantly superior to CD.
D/ Equipment racks are also a critical component part of a system

Many on this thread dont hold the same views - I think they may be missing out on a cost effective path to improved system quality -Thats why we are here isnt it?
 
This discussion is very religious!

I would have thought that both sides would realise that no matter how good your arguements you won't make any conversions.
 
dcathro said:
This discussion is very religious!

I would have thought that both sides would realise that no matter how good your arguements you won't make any conversions.
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try boring - then you're closer to the mark... ;)
 


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