Cut-Throat Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 I haven't played around much with speaker cables, but sure have sampled the IC's, and definitely can discern differences in those. What I.C. construction do you prefer? - (i.e. Gauge, Wire material, Shield, ground topology etc.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 Then looking at the big picture - sometimes I wonder why people get so hung up about small things like wire when there are other things that have much larger impacts on the sound. People will argue adamently that they can hear differences with wire, which is fine with me, but they will adamently reject other concepts that others claim have a larger impact...even if they have no experience with the other concepts. Could that be considered close-mindedness? Whatever it is, it makes me call into question the validity of those getting stuck on the wire issue. Cables are inexpensive, at least when compared to most of the rest of a system, so it doesn't cost a lot to swap them in and out to try to get the optimum combination. A new amp or pair of speakers will make a much larger difference, but they're bigger and more costly, plus some people are really detail-oriented (a politer way of saying "obsessive") and enjoy making little tweaks. Where it gets really vague is the cones, pods, cable elevators and so on. Just try to measure any of the changes those things are claimed to make... Maybe what makes the cable issue so polarized is that there really are two groups: the true believers and the non-believers. Each group thinks the other one is either deaf or gullible or sometimes both at once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted September 4, 2007 Author Share Posted September 4, 2007 Dr. Who said: "sometimes I wonder why people get sohung up about small things like wire when there are other things thathave much larger impacts on the sound." Which I guess was in the back of my kind when I put up Andy's comments. There is a whole industry out there pushing fancy speaker wire on an unsuspecting public. I really don't care if somebody with lots of disposable income and very high end gear wants to play with this stuff but I think debunking some of this nonsense can save some working folks some hard earned dollars. Peddling cable is the audio/video world's version of the "underbody rust prevention treatments" offered by car salesmen. The markups are astounding and the benefits are illusionary. It's a pure and simple profit gouge. Yet almost any responsible engineer will, and one just did, say right out loud that this whole speaker wire thing is nonsense. Ic's are a little more of a judgment call. After all I have heard a barely discernable difference exactly once in an IC and it made the sound worse. So IMO, save your money folks and put it towards some well recorded music. Now there's bang for the buck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psg Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 If they can prove it in a double-blind ABX test to a statistically significant difference then I will personally give them $100. I would say $1,000, but I dont have $1,000, and then my offer would be a lie, but I do probably have $100 at any given time. (Note to would-be muggers: I dont keep that kind of cash on me.) LOL!! That was so funny! This physicist agrees with you 100% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 Dr. Who said: "sometimes I wonder why people get so hung up about small things like wire when there are other things that have much larger impacts on the sound." Which I guess was in the back of my kind when I put up Andy's comments. There is a whole industry out there pushing fancy speaker wire on an unsuspecting public. I really don't care if somebody with lots of disposable income and very high end gear wants to play with this stuff but I think debunking some of this nonsense can save some working folks some hard earned dollars. Peddling cable is the audio/video world's version of the "underbody rust prevention treatments" offered by car salesmen. The markups are astounding and the benefits are illusionary. It's a pure and simple profit gouge. Yet almost any responsible engineer will, and one just did, say right out loud that this whole speaker wire thing is nonsense. Ic's are a little more of a judgment call. After all I have heard a barely discernable difference exactly once in an IC and it made the sound worse. So IMO, save your money folks and put it towards some well recorded music. Now there's bang for the buck! I used to go with low end Audio Quest ICs. Not more than $ 90 a pair for Coral on sale. Now on the internet there are very "soundly" built cables with more than capable Belden or other wire from Better Cables or Blue Jean that are a bargain. How they sound is up to the individual listener but not a huge risk for much less than heavily marketted audio store brands. As Thebes said better recorded music is a far better investment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 Why is choice and preference of speaker wires more personally vested than other parts of the system? Is it because of the greater variability of approach (existing wire, DIY, commercial products), the ease of swapping them out, or is there more sensitivity in our equipment and/or our ears? Are we not "audiophiles"? Seems to me that this is one of those situations where one is inclined to beleive that for a particular system, including the listener, there must be an optimal type of wire. To not find it is to beleive that your system is not doing it's best. Since most of us have already addressed the less subtle things like placement and treatments, the wires (and ICs) are the last frontier of the diminishing returns. This is the part of the curve where more money is spent for less discernable results. Marketers know this and can confound the whole arena. I just bought a roll of thin solid single strand copper wire to play with, and I am eyeing my 4 AWG jumper cables. I have some mono records and just wonder if I will hear a difference if I put the thin on one channel and the thick on the other... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mas Posted September 4, 2007 Share Posted September 4, 2007 Why is choice and preference of speaker wires more personally vested than other parts of the system? Is it because of the greater variability of approach (existing wire, DIY, commercial products), the ease of swapping them out, or is there more sensitivity in our equipment and/or our ears? Are we not "audiophiles"? Seems to me that this is one of those situations where one is inclined to beleive that for a particular system, including the listener, there must be an optimal type of wire. To not find it is to beleive that your system is not doing it's best. Since most of us have already addressed the less subtle things like placement and treatments, the wires (and ICs) are the last frontier of the diminishing returns. This is the part of the curve where more money is spent for less discernable results. Marketers know this and can confound the whole arena. I just bought a roll of thin solid single strand copper wire to play with, and I am eyeing my 4 AWG jumper cables. I have some mono records and just wonder if I will hear a difference if I put the thin on one channel and the thick on the other... Pauln, I understand and quite agree with your point, but are you sure the cables with either the blue or green with purple striped insulation wouldn't sound better? [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Why is choice and preference of speaker wires more personally vested than other parts of the system? I'm not sure it is. Do people get more excited about their speaker cables than their speakers? I think not. Is it because of the greater variability of approach (existing wire, DIY, commercial products), the ease of swapping them out, or is there more sensitivity in our equipment and/or our ears? Are we not "audiophiles"? There appears to be an almost dirty connotation to the word "Audiophile" that I have never fully understood. For me it is simply the pursuit of the best possible sound I can muster in my home. If my choice of cables either add to that quest or even appear to add to that quest then so be it. Seems to me that this is one of those situations where one is inclined to beleive that for a particular system, including the listener, there must be an optimal type of wire. To not find it is to beleive that your system is not doing it's best. Since most of us have already addressed the less subtle things like placement and treatments, the wires (and ICs) are the last frontier of the diminishing returns. This is the part of the curve where more money is spent for less discernable results. Marketers know this and can confound the whole arena. I have never been comfortable with the concept of diminishing returns in the light of an audiophile's quest as covered above. Going from not having any music system to getting - even a $1,000 system is a leap forward - one that is unlikely to be matched by any further step - so? People get hung up on this idea that an improvement should ideally be dollar matched to the last one. This does not happen in any area - whether it is a stereo or a car or a home. I can buy a car today for, say 15,000 euros that goes from 0 to 60 in 11 seconds. For 30,000 it might go from 0 to 60 in 7. For 300,000 that might drop to 5 - hardly on a par for the added investment. Does this matter? To some yes and to some no - neither party can claim to be correct for the other. I just bought a roll of thin solid single strand copper wire to play with, and I am eyeing my 4 AWG jumper cables. I have some mono records and just wonder if I will hear a difference if I put the thin on one channel and the thick on the other... Knock yourself out. You may or may not hear a difference. I did something similar once with an uneven pair of cables and noticed that the image shifted markedly towards the speaker with the heavier cable. No doubt it could have been caused by something else but I cannot readily see what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Funny thing, page 2 Scott Operating Manual......"We highly recommend ordinary lamp wire (#22 guage wire according to the electrical code). If you plan on using wire lenghts of 50 feet or more, it is advised to use #18 gauge wire to prevent excessive losses of power."...........Go Figure !!!!!! your talkin' 16 watt's .....with the Scott nooooo need for heavy cable, EH ..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Oh Duke, you need a certain number of watts to qualify for use of high quality speaker cables ? I missed that somewhere, this is just an old subject that repeats all the time............If they sound good or better to the buyer, So be it........no problem here....I use 16 gauge anyway...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trioid Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 - Contact Antique Electrronic Supply - Purchase 21 Ga magnet wire. ($5 for 100 ft). - Twist in pairs to get 18 Ga, strip the ends to bare Cu. - Hook up to speakers using any technique you like (bi-amp, bi-wire, bi-whatever) - Sit back and enjoy - Spend the money on music Another physicist has shared his opinion....[8-|] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 ...are you sure the cables with either the blue or green with purple striped insulation wouldn't sound better? [] I think I know where you are going... Blue for better bass, green/purple to ensure dielectric is influenced only by copper additives in the insulation... Was reading (and laughing at) an Asylum thread last night...featuring May Belt. It is in the Propeller Head Plaza forum, quite funny that it is subtitled "Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics." http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=prophead&m=35519 Lot's of nonsense, but one poster offered that the color of the wire insulation contributes to the wire's physical attributes via alteration to the dielectric. Each color is the result of different additive substances...iron oxide pigment gives reds, carbon pigment gives black, cobalt gives violet & blues, titanium gives white, yellow & beige, lead gives white & yellows, copper gives greens & purples. Some posts confirmed problems with black, blue highly recommended for strong bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 What about my magic crystals!!! After all that money spent on my magic crystals with a coil of speaker wire around them. Red was for bass, purple for mid, green for treble, and the clear was for putting next to the crossovers. It's just not fair.[bs] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy W Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=prophead&m=35519 I scanned through the article by Hawksford. And I stopped cold right here: _______________________________________ Table of d and v for copper against frequency f frequency skin depth velocity v f hertz d, mm m/s ______________________________ 50 9.35 2.93 100 6.61 4.15 1,000 2.09 13.12 10,000 0.66 41.50 20,000 0.47 58.69 ______________________________ Did he just say that 50Hz signal propogates in copper at 2.93m/s? Let's see... Carl Lewis can run the 100 meters in 9.5 seconds... That's 10.5 meters per second. Let's see if we can validate this claim with an experiment... I set up my amp and speaker with a 100m meter cable, and put my finger on the button of my signal generator set to 50Hz... Meanwhile Carl gets set up in the starting blocks... Take your mark! Get set! Bang! Carl Lewis lost the race before he even got out of the blocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev313 Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 Let's see if we can validate this claim with an experiment... I set up my amp and speaker with a 100m meter cable, and put my finger on the button of my signal generator set to 50Hz... Meanwhile Carl gets set up in the starting blocks... Take your mark! Get set! Bang! Carl Lewis lost the race before he even got out of the blocks. In order to maintain the scientific integrity of this discussion it should be noted that Carl never ran a 9.5 (I'm prety sure no one else has, yet, either) and would probably top 10 these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 "The following table gives example calculations of skin depth and velocity against frequency." Not in the direction you are thinking... the velocity he is calculating is the velocity of penetration at right angles (normal) to the length of the conductor. The velocity through the length of the conductor is still fast, about 70-80% light speed in free space. And of course the displacemnt of the individual electrons in a wire conducting DC is only a few inches per hour, tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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