Another opinion about cables...

[Mallette]

>I think we need to remember when other forum members are sharing their
experiences in audio, it's akin to opening their listening rooms to
us. We should try to be gracious guests.

Hats off, guys, a GENTLEMAN is amongst us.

Dave

[Zen Traveler]

>I think we need to remember when other forum members are sharing their experiences in audio, it's akin to opening their listening rooms to us. We should try to be gracious guests.

Hats off, guys, a GENTLEMAN is amongst us.

Dave

You 2-channel guys are a fun group to hang around, although I know your opinion of us Multichannel folks. ;-) Prost to being Gentlemen.

[DU73]

>I think we need to remember when other forum members are sharing their experiences in audio, it's akin to opening their listening rooms to us. We should try to be gracious guests.

Hats off, guys, a GENTLEMAN is amongst us.

Dave

You 2-channel guys are a fun group to hang around, although I know your opinion of us Multichannel folks. ;-) Prost to being Gentlemen.

i agree [Y] - they are so passionate.. its fantastic

in any case no matter how good your system is, if the source is not of high quality then.... well you know the rest.

[Islander]

>I think we need to remember when other forum members are sharing their experiences in audio, it's akin to opening their listening rooms to us. We should try to be gracious guests.

Hats off, guys, a GENTLEMAN is amongst us.

Dave

Well said! It would be great if attitudes like his were more typical and less remarkable.

[russ69]

JBryan says; ".... I have used cables (mainly IC's) to eq components- roughly, silver for the higher frequencies and copper for the bottom end. Over time, I was able to get a feel for the basic sound of my system and if a new component sounded a bit shrill, I would use copper IC's and if a bit boomy, silver....."

I say; We must be suffering from the same delusion. Our brains must be correcting the "unchanged" sound the same way. It must be some kind of mass brain washing, like Jonestown........... Can l have another cup of kool-aid please!

Thanx, Russ

[maxg]

Which is the most important cable is an interesting question. For me there is no straight answer to that one as it depends very much on the system. I have heard relatively dramatic changes for all 3 of the basic cables (speaker, IC and even power cables).

If, for example, the system has cabling spaggetti behind his system with power cables and signal cables mixed, wrapped around each other and overlapping left right and centre then a power cable with better shielding might yield a more dramatic change than anything else.

I should probably point out at this point that whilst I do believe cable changing makes a difference to the sonics I also beleive that there is usually, if not always a damn good real physics reason behind it.

Going on the basics of capacitance, resistance, inductance and RF noise and taking into account the weakest link of the whole thing - namely the connections themselves most changes can be explained. Voodoo is rarely required. Shielding counts more - in my opinion - than the weave employed to strand the cables together.

In the example above changes to power cables and/or interconnects might well make a bigger difference than a speaker cable change.

Of al of the cable changes the power cable is the one that is usually greeted with the most incredulity. What difference can the last 2 meters of cable make to a signal that has travelled hundreds to get there? Well all I can say is this. It is the last 2 meters that are the closest to your system and the rest of the cables. It also happens to be the one that carries the most power and therefore can reasonably be expected to the one that is the largest potential generator of noise within the system.

Ignoring the markettng hype- the job of a power cable is not to keep noise out of the power - it is to keep it in and prevent it leaking out to the other signal cables.

Here is a little experiment anyone can do:

Take your power cable (especially if it is a normal computer cable type affair) and tape about a meter length of it to any other signal cable (IC or speaker).

Now listen to your system - can you hear the noise? I would be very surprised if you cannot.

I will now give you a recent example of a cable problem I had - apologies for the length of this post:

Recently I noticed a hum on my system. Ah - ground loop I said to myself. I set about changing every damn plug on the system with cheaters until the noise abatted. It didn't. No matter what was "Cheated" the noise remained.

After a day or so of struggle I noticed that the noise was only present with the TT - the tuner and the CD player had none. After all sort of play with changing interconnect points, more power cable playing and so on and so forth I was totally flummoxed.

Discussiing it with a friend he asked me - have you changed the antenna on your TV recently? Er....yes - I just re-connected it (was using only the satellite).

Turns out that the cable for the antenna runs behind the stereo. My TT is set up with the earth direct to the TT itself (and not the arm) with the earth for the arm connections hanging loose. This was picking up noise from the antenna cable running behind it (through the wall). Even touching the earth cable changed the noise. Actually rigging up an earth connection for it (as opposed to removing it entirely) worked completely.

Cables count - weird stuff happens to them.

Actually here is a little trick for a free cable upgrade. Every so often - unplug all your cables and then plug them back in again. Oxidation builds up on connections along with dirt, dust and so on - the mere process of unplugging them and reconnecting them can make startling differences.

Not all cable "science" is bunk.