Soundthought Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Sonic Coffee Can! I love it. We can call it "Klipscher's Choice". I'm thinking that High Fidelity relates primarily to the goal of extracting the most information from ANY given recording medium and reproducing it with the LEAST amount of distortion that's possible to obtain. Personally, my main interest is to obtain the level of sound quality that moves me the most emotionally for any given venue. Tailored, specifically to my taste. If that means I have to combine some crazy gear arrangements and employ some wild, unfounded concepts, then so be it. All of what we deal with is based upon theory, anyway. Why not try some different things? Never know until you try.... Don't get me wrong. I don't feel a pressing need to spend outrageous amounts on wire or cable. It's not really justifiable to me. Give me some expensive, exotic cable for free, and i'm all about it. Heck yeah. But, ask me to shell out the big bucks for it, then forget it. I'd rather spend that kind of money on my kids, anyday. Although, for an audiophile, I do feel that having a small assortment of different inexpensive cable types can be benefical. Especially, if your really into your system(s). It gives you opportunity to experience different signal transfer concepts and hear if they alter your system's sound in any way. Besides, I think it's kinda fun. Regards, John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- On 7/2/2003 11:53:12 PM jt1stcav wrote: ...1949 Aeolain-Skinner pipe organ... ---------------- Sounds like some sort of post-WWII circumcision machine. Someone really saw that baby boom coming! fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 What is this all about? Why would cheap, "home market" wire be more neutral sounding than expensive audio cable? and what's neutral? are amplifiers, cd players and loudspeakers neutral? never! Maybe cheap speaker cable is less revealing of the harshness in the amplifier or cd player. Then you buy an expensive cable and your system sounds harsh. Is it because of the cable? no... it's just because it lets more informations pass trough. I agree with the fact that high-end audio cable are insanely priced. But I can't believe one can use cheap home market wire for quality hi-fi. There are plenty of good audio cables, wich YES help you tailor the sound (tame a harsh amp, make a dull amp sound a little more lively)and don't cost a fortune. And it's not more "changing the original sound" than buying another amp that sounds different. Please guys, we're not talking equalizer with gadget reverb here!!! Why does an amp sound better than another? Because the circuit is more clever. Yes. Or maybe also because the componets inside, and the soldery, and the passive units on the signal are of better quality. Why would it be different with speaker cable, come on, it's also part of the electric circuit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Kerry.......at Klipsch, I don't know if every group listened to the same speaker cables. They had many different brands lying in the corner. All were of relatively short lengths, appeared to be the same lengths although I didn't measure/compare them. Seems like they were around 8' or 10' long. The group I was in compared regular 18 gauge 'lamp' or 'zip' cord like you would buy at a hardware store, to a braided cable, as Trey put it, "of popular design on internet forums." I emailed Trey but haven't heard back. I'm not sure if this was made from CAT-5 or if it was Belden 89289 as in the Jon Risch design (I love to hate this guy)that's talked about alot on Audio Asylum. The only difference I could hear (occasionally) was related to loudness. I suspect the braided cable resulted in a larger gauge allowing slightly better power transfer which was vaguely audible under certain conditions. Tone, detail, soundstage, etc., I couldn't tell a difference. We did the test with various kinds of music as well as pink(?) noise. Gil, help me out on this one. Pink or white? or did you play both? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Rowoo....at lunch I was sitting with one of the Klipsch engineers. The Monster Cable thing is basically just a marketing partnership. Brand name recognition. One reinforcing the other. A number of years ago, I had a conversation with Klipsch's Gary Gillum. He said they actually were able to measure lower distortion under some circumstances wiring the speaker with Monster Cable although it did not make an audible difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 A few years back, I was also at lunch with Jim, chief Klipch engineer, who commented that money spent on esoteric cables would be much better spent on room acoustics. DD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rigma Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 The monster cable is of a heavier ga compared to the wire Klipsch previously used. I believe that would account for any difference heard especially in the bass range due to increasing the dampening from the amp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Suddenly I'm understanding why there were so few responses to my little celebration when I upgraded my speaker wire. I do agree that, at some point, there are diminishing returns on speaker wire. Spending $100 a foot on cable is pretty tough to justify, unless you're running a $100K system and you really hear a difference. But that's what it comes down to - whether or not you hear the difference. I've heard the difference. I'm an ex-zipcorder. I used to use the 12-gauge lamp cord they peddle down at Rat Shack for 20 cents a foot. I bought a short roll of Monster XP to see what the fuss was about because, quite frankly, I was a skeptic. When I heard the difference, I was shocked. Both on my JBLs and the Infinity RS-2's I used to have connected to this system, there was a dramatic difference in both amplitude and frequency response. My speakers were louder at the same volume and there was so much more detail than before - low end I assumed my speakers were incapable of producing suddenly materialized out of thin air. Midrange I assumed was not in the source was. So I started experimenting. One by one, I started replacing the garden variety cheap RCA cables in my rig with Monster Interlink 400's. Every single time I did proper A/B testing to verify my results. Every time, I was not disappointed. So just recently I stepped into a set of Original Monster speaker cables - 10ft pairs - again - I was astounded - that low end got even lower, and the highs got higher. Suddenly there was a dramatic difference between my SACDs and my standard CDs, instead of a subtle one. Do I sound like a press relase for Monster cable? Probably. I'll tell you straight up that they don't pay me, quite the contrary I've paid them - quite a bit. Spent over $500 on cabling between my home rig and my studio rig systematically replacing cheap stuff with Monster. Over and over again I've heard the difference. My Monster Instrument 500 bass cable vs. the Horizons I always used - WOW, what a difference. Monster Interlink 200 Toslinks on my A/D and D/A converters vs. those goofy little ones Alesis shipped with my AI3 - like night and day. I have yet to be disappointed by a Monster purchase - and it's not self-delusion - it's proper A/B testing of each cable. I've had friends over to hear it too - and every time they've been shocked. But hey, that's my POV, based on my experience. If your experience has been different, good for you, enjoy. I'm not willing to accept "good enough" when I can have "audibly better"... And hey, if you need better anecdotal evidence, get in touch with Dick St Nicklaus (ex-Kingsmen) - he doesn't get endorsements from Monster, but he'll swear to you over and over that he wouldn't use anything else in his studio, and he'll tell you you're a fool if you don't. He and I had quite a discussion on this and other topics over the phone a few months ago when we were brainstorming about a particular recording project a friend of mine needed done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- On 7/3/2003 1:10:11 PM rigma wrote: The monster cable is of a heavier ga compared to the wire Klipsch previously used. I believe that would account for any difference heard especially in the bass range due to increasing the dampening from the amp. ---------------- Monster Z-Series (what Klipsch advertises as the internal wire in the Reference series stuff) is not just heavier gauge. It also uses multiple-gauge wire networks (patented Monster process called Time Correct) to compensate for phase inaccuracies between frequency ranges. Solid core down the middle (where the lower frequency info tends to gravitate), with finer gauge wrapped around it in a braided form - it's a simple concept - make the HF information travel on a longer run so they arrive at the same time as the slower bass frequencies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddc Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- ...But that's what it comes down to - whether or not you hear the difference. I've heard the difference. ... So I started experimenting. ... I did proper A/B testing to verify my results. Every time, I was not disappointed. ... And hey, if you need better anecdotal evidence, get in touch with Dick St Nicklaus ... ---------------- That's the problem, all the evidence is anecdotal. I'd love to see a correct study done that proves it true but I've never found one. Clearly, there is a real point of diminishing return. The question is whether that point occurs when cord costs $0.01/ft or $0.10/ft or $1.00/ft or $100.0/ft. Scientifically, I'd bet much lower on that price continuum. When reviewers or audiophiles state they can definitely identify a difference in A/B testing I want to know what controls were put in place. In medicine for example it has been shown many times that people can have disease cured by taking placebos (sugar pills). As a result new medicines must be proven effective in double-blind scientific studies. But that wouldn't help sell hi-fi gear now would it? Imagine if all professional reviewers could only review components in blind/balanced conditions. The reviewer would be forced to write his complete review then at the end of his review the editor would note what components (if any!) were changed in his system. Sometimes no components would be changed just to test the reviewer's ear. My gosh, I'd pay good money to read that magazine!!! My favorite snake-oil is super-high-end digital cables that purport to warm the sound or enhance treble and bass. Come on folks, it's d i g i t a l! The only way to change the sound (prior to the DAC) is to add or remove the little 1's and 0's. You can't "warm" a 1. The DAC can, but not the digital cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- On 7/3/2003 3:26:46 PM mdeneen wrote: make the HF information travel on a longer run so they arrive at the same time as the slower bass frequencies. =========== This is a put-on, right? Dear Lord, I hope this isn't something published by Klipsch or Monster. mdeneen ---------------- I'm just giving you a condensed version of what's on the Monster website about Time Correct. All I know for sure is that most of the cabling in my system has this feature, and I'm very much impressed with the results. 3 years ago there's no way you could convince me that a 3 foot RCA cable of any manufacture could make an appreciable sonic difference. Today I'm telling you that I've heard that difference, even on my relatively low-end system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rigma Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 It really depends on the coefficient of friction in the wire. I can tell you as an ex racer that some times the high groove (long way around to race track) is the fastest so if the grip (friction) is higher in the fine wire it may actually be faster, making the high (faster) note arrive even faster, not good. The friction (grip) that the electrons get is dependant on variables, such as temp, humidity, age of wire(it wears out & gets electron build up) etc. So if you don't have precise control of all of this you are screwed!! If you belive all this you are really screwed!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- On 7/3/2003 3:41:01 PM toddc wrote: My favorite snake-oil is super-high-end digital cables that purport to warm the sound or enhance treble and bass. Come on folks, it's d i g i t a l! The only way to change the sound (prior to the DAC) is to add or remove the little 1's and 0's. You can't "warm" a 1. The DAC can, but not the digital cable. ---------------- Now here's where I'll get right behind you and say yeah, that's bullshirt. The reason I use the Monster 200 opticals, for example, is simply that they're better constructed, more durable jackets, laser-cut fiber (to reduce jitter error), and springloaded ends to maintain constant contact, even under stress (when your recording rig is constantly mobile, as mine is, sometimes you have to stretch a cable to make the run - a cheap optical wouldn't maintain contact with the signal point if it's stretched) When you're dealing with any kind of digital cable, there is science, and there is hype. You're exactly right - any claim other than that of maximum signal accuracy is fluff. And you're also correct as far as the diminishing returns issue. There are audio cables out there that cost more for a 1m pair than all the cabling in my system combined. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that they're worth it. What none of you seem to understand is that from bottom to top of the audio cable industry there's a ridiculous amount of markup. In fact, if you look at it from a percentage basis, Best Buy makes more margin on RECOTON (the cheapest of the cheap) than they do on Monster. (around 900% markup vs. 100%). Whether a cable is expensive or not is irrelevant - where markup is concerned, it's just a matter of who you want to be raped by, not whether you will be raped or not. The money in the higher end cables is simply a matter of R&D - once they figure out how to make a copper wire, the actual manufacturing doesn't cost much at all - unless they use some outrageous materials to sleeve it up and so forth - and again, I'd raise an eyebrow unless someone could show me a conclusive whitepaper about the EMI and RFI rejection of this material vs. that in a sleeve. I'm not an idiot, I know what I hear and what I don't hear. I do audio for a living (not reviewing equipment, but producing music) - I get paid for the accuracy of my ears. If they're not accurate, I don't get paid very long... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 toddc, Can different types of digital interface cables affect the sound of a system? That is, if we leave everything else alone, and switch the digital cable connecting our CD transport to our DAC, can we change the sound? Uh, gee, I don't know. Can different types of digital interface cables result in measurable differences in some aspect of the transmitted signal? That is, if we leave everything else alone, and switch the digital cable connecting our CD transport to our DAC, can we detect any differences through objective measurements? Abso-posi-tively-lutely. Here is an equipment review in Stereophile that demonstrates this. To skip to the chase, we drive an RME Digi96/8 Pro computer soundcard with an analytical 44.1kHz-sampled 16-bit WAV file, consisting of a high-level high-frequency tone at one quarter the sample rate (11.025kHz at -6dBFS), with the least significant bit toggled at 229Hz, and run the Digi96/8 Pro's digital outputs to a Musical Fidelity X-24K D/A converter, and run this unit's analog output into a Miller Audio Research Jitter Analyzer, a "virtual instrument" running on a National Instruments PC card. The analyzer performs a high-resolution FFT spectral analysis on the reconstructed analog signal and searches for jitter-generated sidebands on either side of the 11.025kHz tone. The result, using a 15' TosLink datalink, looks like this: The overall jitter level is a low 248 picoseconds peak-peak. Although some power-supply-related sidebands can be seen in this graph at ±60Hz and ±180Hz (indicated with brown numeric "2" and "3" markers), most of the jitter is data-related and comes from the strong sideband pair at ±229Hz (red "4"). If we leave everything else alone, and swap the Toslink cable for a 6' length of Illuminati 75-ohm electrical datalink (which general scuttlebutt says ought to be "better"), we get this: We only changed the digital cable, and now the 229Hz sidebands have risen from 187ps to 610ps, while the high-frequency harmonics of 229Hz have also risen in level. High-level sidebands related to the subcode frequency make an appearance (indicated with green numeric markers), but so do a large number of spurious tones (blue markers). As a result, the dynamic range has decreased to 73.2dB. Please check out the article if you can, I'm not to cool cutting stuff out of context and pasting it like this, but the article was kind of lengthy. In any case, changing the cable made a measurable difference. Whether you could hear that difference or not I don't know, but it is certainly measurable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddc Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- The reason I use the Monster 200 opticals, for example, is simply that they're better constructed.... ---------------- There is much to appreciate about fine quality of construction! As a dear friend of mine often says, "Even the best is none too good." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddc Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 ---------------- Can different types of digital interface cables affect the sound of a system? ... Uh, gee, I don't know. Can different types of digital interface cables result in measurable differences in some aspect of the transmitted signal? ... Abso-posi-tively-lutely. ---------------- Ray, I'll admit I'm a layman on this issue. The charts that stereophile uses are impressive but I'm not sure WHAT they're measuring or WHY? It seems that a very simple test would be: 1) Take the data from the CD 2) pass it through cable A 3) then write it to a new CD 4) Compare the data on the two discs 5) Switch cables and repeat If the copy is not an exact copy then we know the cable makes a difference. But if they're exact then the digital signal passed without any enhancement. It seems like the DAC is the point where all the magic happens, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 The "Time Correct" or 'Phase Coherent" crap regarding speaker is just that. CRAP. BS. I'll turnover all my assets to ANYONE who can consistently prove to me that they can hear time differences between the bass & treble due to 'time correction' in the cable. Lets see. Electricity travels (more or less) at 186,000 MILES per second. A 10KHz tone has a wave length (one cycle) of 18.6 MILES! (98,208 feet). A 100Hz tone is 1,860 MILES long! Using a 10 foot long cable, the cable is aproximately the length of 1/10,000 (1/9820.8) of the 10KHz cycle's wavelength, or about 1/10th of a millisecond. For the 100Hz tone it's about 1/10th of a microsecond. Anyone who thinks they can hear the difference between 1/10 of millisecond and 1/10th of a microsecond is suffering from delusional fantasies. If you can do that I can guarantee you the Fed's would have you locked up indefinitely for research because in human beings, the ability to make loudness judgments is compromised for sounds of less than 200ms duration. If a sound is shorter than 200ms or so, pitch assignment becomes difficult with decreasing length until a sound of 50ms or less can only be described as a pop. People are still arguing (after 50+ years) about the merits of time alignment of a few milliseconds between speaker drivers and now there are people who think they can hear 1/10th to 1/100 of that? God I hate religon. Maybe I should start selling laser treated aluminum foil speaker wire for $1000 per foot. You know, the laser makes the sound travel faster to your speakers. So fast in fact, that all time differentials (for practical purposes) disappears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KhornKerry Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 I have actually seen advertisements for high-end AC power cords, buy a $300.00 power cord to improve stereo performance what a joke. Ever heard of a color TV antenna try to build a black & white antenna. Things that affect the sound of a stereo in order of most important IMO 1 Speaker chose 2 Room acoustics (dimensions of room, sound reflection / absorption) 3 Electronic equipment (receiver, amps) 4 Ambient noise (the air conditioner the refrigerator) 5 Speaker wire gauge and length 6 Interconnection cables (poor shielding can sometimes be a problem) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkrop Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Jtscav: Just make sure you put the microphones exactly where your ears will be while listening to someone else play the organ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 I'm not going to perpetuate this futile argument. I said before, I'll say again. You want to continue on in your skepticism, enjoy. I'll continue to enjoy the difference I hear in my system... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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