Cables made a difference

[Marvel]

On 11/18/2021 at 4:05 PM, captainbeefheart said:

The flat fifth in musical terms is called the blue note, it was actually illegal by the church to play this interval as it was so dissonant it was called the devils music.

There is nothing I can find in any Church documents (Catholic or Anglican) banning the use. Maybe it was the Presbyterians and other  reformers.

[captainbeefheart]

1 hour ago, Marvel said:

There is nothing I can find in any Church documents (Catholic or Anglican) banning the use. Maybe it was the Presbyterians and other  reformers.

 

You won't find an official law or banning per se. In the middle ages a Monk whom I cannot remember wrote early music theory named the interval "devils music". It's use was more or less prohibited because it was believed to be the work of the devil. Composers didn't dare use it as it was considered devils music and nobody questioned the church or else. In my music theory courses the professor touched upon this briefly and I thought it was very interesting.

 

https://www.fender.com/articles/tech-talk/the-devils-chord-the-eerie-history-of-diabolus-in-musica

 

 

[Marvel]

Yes, more of... don't play those notes together, it sounds dreadful. Makes sense to me.

[CWelsh]

Were there any rules prohibiting more cowbell?  🤣

[CoryGillmore]

32 minutes ago, CWelsh said:

Were there any rules prohibiting more cowbell?  🤣

The Lords Law Of Harmonies: Music Through Christ, written in 1932 by Imade Thisup, an Italian author, concludes that there is no such thing as too much cowbell. 

[CWelsh]

Signore Thisup is clearly a very wise man.

[muel]

It is interesting to me that I had a similar experience as the OP when I traded my 12 ga Blue Jeans speaker wire for Duelund 16 ga tinned stranded wire.  It seemed more clear but with a bit of loss on the low end.  Swapped for Duelund 12 ga and the low end was better than ever.  Only 6 foot runs so it was cheap.  I shouldn't have heard a difference but I did.  I expected to NOT hear a difference but I did.

 

I don't claim magic or work of the devil either.  We don't come close to knowing all there is to know... we just don't know how much we don't know.  I think we ain't even close yet!  I think science is perfectly capable of figuring this out if motivated to do so.  Making psychological claims could have some validity in some circumstances but feels like mostly just a way to dismiss people as having misperceived experiences.  

 

I've got lots of questions and I enjoy the how and the why discussions but it would be nice to keep things respectful and let people discuss the equipment.  Granted, by Internet and social media standards the crowd here stands out as relatively polite and considerate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[captainbeefheart]

5 hours ago, muel said:

It is interesting to me that I had a similar experience as the OP when I traded my 12 ga Blue Jeans speaker wire for Duelund 16 ga tinned stranded wire.  It seemed more clear but with a bit of loss on the low end.  Swapped for Duelund 12 ga and the low end was better than ever.  Only 6 foot runs so it was cheap.  I shouldn't have heard a difference but I did.  I expected to NOT hear a difference but I did.

 

I don't claim magic or work of the devil either.  We don't come close to knowing all there is to know... we just don't know how much we don't know.  I think we ain't even close yet!  I think science is perfectly capable of figuring this out if motivated to do so.  Making psychological claims could have some validity in some circumstances but feels like mostly just a way to dismiss people as having misperceived experiences.  

 

I've got lots of questions and I enjoy the how and the why discussions but it would be nice to keep things respectful and let people discuss the equipment.  Granted, by Internet and social media standards the crowd here stands out as relatively polite and considerate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long thread but that was already discussed and well explained.

 

It is not magic at all and easily explained, what you experienced is another perfect example of how speaker cable CAN make a sound difference.

 

You changed the gauge of the wire, physics does not care what brand it was, only that you increased and decreased your cable impedance by changing gauge. With the thinner 16awg you increased the cable resistance giving you less woofer damping and power losses, the lack of bass makes it seem more clear. Then when you switched back to the thicker 12awg, especially at a short 6' run you got the bass back because of the lower resistance, you got better damping with the thicker cable and less loss across the cable so more power to speaker.

 

Speaker cables can make differences as shown here, which is why if you just remember to keep your speaker cables as short as possible and size the gauge appropriately, most instances thicker is better you will get best results.

[Edgar]

3 hours ago, captainbeefheart said:

You changed the gauge of the wire, physics does not care what brand it was, only that you increased and decreased your cable impedance by changing gauge. With the thinner 16awg you increased the cable resistance giving you less woofer damping and power losses, the lack of bass makes it seem more clear. Then when you switched back to the thicker 12awg, especially at a short 6' run you got the bass back because of the lower resistance, you got better damping with the thicker cable and less loss across the cable so more power to speaker.

There is another effect, potentially at work in this particular case. I recall an article that I read, oh, it must have been thirty years ago, about speaker cables. They found significantly more effect from poor connections than from differences in wire. They weren't taking about cable terminations (whether to crimp or solder); they were talking about how well the wire was connected to the amplifier on one end and to the speaker on the other. Loose connections, corroded connections, differences in contact surface area, all had a greater effect than the wire itself.

 

The OP reported that his bass response improved when he returned to the original 12 ga. That's entirely possible if, in the process of swapping-out the cables, a loose connection was tightened, or some corrosion was removed, or simply a better connection was achieved.

[parlophone1]

Nothing fancy with my interconnects, I have not used fancy cables so far.

But I have noticed a change when replacing a Chord C-line interconnects with VanDenHull Name between my CD player and a preamp. The Name did bring a bit more dynamics and a certain sense of more harmony in the reproduction. Hard to explain, but it is a change and it is a good one. Nothing much but it is evident.

[Dave A]

On 11/26/2021 at 1:32 PM, Edgar said:

They found significantly more effect from poor connections

ABSOLUTELY and I went to fork crimp connectors when I found poor or even loose female or compressed male banana plugs on either the wire end or terminal cup. Wires stuck in those compression banana plugs also seem to work loose. IIf you use those make sure there is a good snug fit and remember that you accidentally kick that wire once that may be enough to cause that loose connection. I know, no one ever does that, right?

[CWelsh]

1 hour ago, Dave A said:

 IIf you use those make sure there is a good snug fit and remember that you accidentally kick that wire once that may be enough to cause that loose connection. I know, no one ever does that, right?

Is kicking wires the audiophile equivalent of a gearhead kicking tires?  🤣

[billybob]

As long as it is done with Engineer boots...

[Dave A]

Only if you use tennis shoes laced with 14g zip cord.

[Fish]

Cables do make a difference. They can degrade the signal if not performing as required........They cannot make anything sound better....This may have been mentioned , if so sorry...

[Pondoro]

I have never designed an audio circuit since I added an extra speaker to an AM radio in junior high. But I have worked a lot with cables in aircraft. Lightning is a big deal. It will get into cables. It is millions of volts. It needs to get out really fast, preferably via shielding. The shielding is fairly pedestrian stuff but it is made very, very repeatably and is designed to never break. So the cables are expensive, but not exotic. No one obsesses over the cables, you make them right but you do not make them of unobtainium and you do not worry about strands conducting sideways, the strands are made out of copper, the electricity is happy in the copper and it will stay in the copper if it has somewhere to go. You do use cable supports, to keep the cables away from stuff that is hot or sharp. You keep really high voltage cables away from low voltage cables. But you obsess over the connections. The resistance of the connectors is measured in micro and milliohms. It needs to be repeatable, even when guys in the field make and break the connections at night, in the rain, in dusty environments. The resistance of the connectors also needs to not change very much over time. Low resistance and resistance that stays low is the mark of a good connector.

 

You talk about high frequency? There is really high frequency content in the strange harmonics at the front of a square wave. Lightning is a very square wave, 0 to jillions of volts in micro seconds. It will stay in the shielding if it can keep moving along. Bad connections cause problems.

 

I had a stereo that did not get played for several years. I turned it on and it sounded noisy. This was before Monster Cable or the internet. Called the stereo store. The guy said, "Pull the RCA plugs apart and put them back together several times so they clean themselves." I did that. It worked. 

 

Connections matter.

 

I do agree that gauge matters. 

[Dr_jitsu]

I think I spent about $700 on quality cabling for my system (after looking at more expensive options...I got a good bargain) and believe that when we start getting in the the really high end stuff that the difference is placebo/psychosomatic. 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Dr_jitsu

[314carpenter]

11 hours ago, Fish said:

Cables do make a difference. They can degrade the signal if not performing as required........They cannot make anything sound better....This may have been mentioned , if so sorry...

This was my experience when I purchased Morrow Audio rca interconnects. Ordered 4 pairs in 2 different tiers to use for a new 7 channel amplifier. It took a few weeks to get them. I was advised to allow them to burn in for several weeks as prescribed by the manufacturer. I couldn't even wait that long to listen to my music at the high quality I was used to. Both tiers were lacking something. I say about a 5% decline overall, but not evenly across the entire audio band. I contacted Morrow and they were like, Oh no! don't disconnect them! they will reset and you will have to burn them in again. Returned them all for a full refund and learned a lesson at the same time. 

[SWL]

Remind me not to buy any Morrow cables....

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[Pondoro]

28 minutes ago, 314carpenter said:

This was my experience when I purchased Morrow Audio rca interconnects. Ordered 4 pairs in 2 different tiers to use for a new 7 channel amplifier. It took a few weeks to get them. I was advised to allow them to burn in for several weeks as prescribed by the manufacturer. I couldn't even wait that long to listen to my music at the high quality I was used to. Both tiers were lacking something. I say about a 5% decline overall, but not evenly across the entire audio band. I contacted Morrow and they were like, Oh no! don't disconnect them! they will reset and you will have to burn them in again. Returned them all for a full refund and learned a lesson at the same time. 

So in your case cables really did matter!