2-Channel Analog Interconnects/Speaker Cables - Page 3

pennygray,

I've read through many of your posts and respect your opinions and the way you usually present your points. However, I have to disagree with your perspective on cables. While I agree that speakers and room play the most significant role in sound, I have learned that EACH component plays a different role in sound. Speakers and room form the foundation of the sound, electronics bring out all the detail and dynamics the speakers and room are capable of and cables refine and polish the system's performance. An optimized system at a given price point should seek to balance these objectives, which may mean spending $$$ on cables. Just some food for thought...

Matt

Cmon Azman - there are individual senses that are effected by real differences. Any two peoples individual senses may react differently to the same stimulus. But those individual senses react the same if the stimulus to them does not change.

I would love to believe that I could make a difference in my system by improving the cables. But ALL of my reading here, more specifically ALL of the studies on the topic, have shown that such changes do not result in any discernible improvement in SQ.

Are you aware of, or have you ever conducted, a truly blind test with many test subjects to see if they could tell the difference between decent quality ($10-20), mid-quality ($100) and ultra-premium quality ($500 - $1000) cables (IC or speaker)?

If so, please share a link to these results. I would like to read them.

If not, consider setting up such a test at your work and conducting it, then sharing the results.

Otherwise, explain to me why I should accept the minority opinion (based on individual subjective, non-blind experience only) vs the majority opinion (which has studies to back it up)

Actually 'az' there in lies much of the 'cable dilema' , for too many folks are easily swayed by 'eye candy'. I stated earlier ( for which I was interegated) that there are affordable, well made cable companies that provide good service for those that have no intrest in DIY projects, utilizing zip cord, etc.

Of course we do have the other side that will spend 25k on their MIT esoteric speaker cables, thank God that is a real minority.

Just a couple of comments on your points....First, price of cables does not equate to quality of cables, although there is most likely a correlation with plenty of outliers.

You can read all you want, but until you try out different cables in your OWN system with your OWN ears, you will never know if they make a difference. If you are truly curious in exploring the possibility of performance gains via cables, I would recommend trying ones that you can audition for 30 or 60 days and send back for a full refund if not convinced. Since you won't be expecting an improvement and you can get your money back, you should be objective in your evaluation.

I'm not going to post the brand I use to avoid giving fuel for attacks to the "anti-cable cult", but I will say that they utilize OCC single crystal copper, and this along with solid design and construction is what gives them their highly transparent qualities. As I mentioned in another thread, I didn't even know that my previous OFC cables were adding any grain or distortion until it was gone.

To steal a line from "Green Eggs and Ham" that I read to my two year old son:

"You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say."

For some (obvious) reason, part of rick240's post quoted below completely blew over you, didn't it.

Granted and agreed.


Not agreeing here.

If cables make a difference then they should make a difference everywhere - given that minimum acceptable conditions are met. Those that believe in cables insist that the system/environment must be revealing enough.

OK. So I would like to see an objective test done in such an environment that shows cables make a difference.

In my own environment I could do a test with an assistant, having them swap out cables and then having me see if I can determine which cables are in.

But again, I'd like to see a single objective study showing that such experimentation is justified.


Please PM the brand to me, I'd be interested. I will not broadcast it

Did you ever do any blind testing with an assistant, or have all of your conclusions been drawn after personally making changes and being aware of what was installed?


My faith in your opinion just went up (I'm a big Seuss fan).

The difference here is I think it's more of a case:

- I already know I like green eggs and ham

- we aren't talking about trying green eggs from chickens on a different diet (that would result in egg composition differences that could be determined through lab analysis)

- we're talking about trying green eggs from chickens who slept on feather pillows instead of hay

- we're talking about having people like you who says "I've cooked them and liked them better (knowing what I was eating)"

- I'm looking for a report from a 3rd party breakfast institute that says "75% of people prefer green eggs from pillow-sleeping chickens in a blind test"

After I have upgraded all of my components and improved my room to the point that some say cables may make a difference, I'll probably try. In the meantime I keep doing my research and hoping that an objective test will show such experiments are worthwhile.

This is a pretty old test done in "Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity", but may be of interest to some of you.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...1-12-2000.html

"A link to a blind test of interconnects" What kind of blind test? I'm asking because it makes a difference. What say you?

Read and see for yourself. THEN criticize the test.

There's no data.

I did prior to my reply. I wanted to see what you would say and why you have chosen that site to link here. Lets hear it.

objectively it is not a "compare and see if you can differentiate" test. The only way to look at the data in that regard would be via regression analysis and potentially comparing intra-rater judgments of each cable--if anyone here is a statistician ill defer to you. Im not so sure you can make such a blanket statement as that people could "clearly" tell the differences between cables as the test was not designed to demonstrate that. One could criticize on the basis of single blind but frankly i think thats probably more than enough for such a trivial pursuit but thats my HO. Thats what I get from a kwik skimming...It certainly does not provide evidence that cables DO NOT make a difference but it can't be interpreted entirely in the opposite way either.

Just do a Google search on "monster cable versus coat hangers" for quite a different take on this subject.

Regarding the hometheaterhifi.com article, two statements jumped out at me:

"In the first phase, we carried out the burn-in process. Although some of us were not convinced that burn-in is of any value, we decided that we would do it just in case."

So, the testers subscribed to the nonsense about cable burn-in, which says something about their expectations regarding finding differences among the different cables. By believing cable burn-in was needed ("just in case"), they have already decided cables will affect the SQ, not only in construction, but over a time dimension as well. In other words, they assumed what they claimed to be testing.

"During the test, all connectors were treated with the antioxidant lubricants DeOxit and ProGold, and we definitely consider this to be necessary."

And beyond just burning in the cables they also subscribe to this voodoo, even claiming it was "necessary". Surely, the green felt marker pens can't be far behind at this point.

These two statements tell me that the conclusions reached were foregone before the tests even began. They were completely determined by the observer-expectancy effect, that is, the conclusions they reported were reached primarily because they went into the test fully expecting to find differences.

Uhh guys, gold does NOT tarnish or oxidize. That is the reason it is used in making contacts in the first place.

I'm still waiting to hear from mjbuoni.

Of course, you are free to use whatever wire you like in your system - coat hangers are about $1 each, so knock yourself out.

You can disagree all you want, my opinion is backed by $$$ (see $1million challenges, etc). There is a reason why speaker internals do not have so called expensive wire. There is a reason power cables do not need to be $500, there is a reason why ICs just need to be properly built and no more expensive then what BJC builds them for. Its called audio science.


Speakers and room is 99% of the battle. Electronics past X$$ is built properly. You can over pay all you want after that but you are not improving the signal at that point. If you didnt do the speakers and room right, its pointless to spend more $$$ on other thrings. posting " electronics bring out all the detail and dynamics the speakers " is just subjective and meaningless banter, a speaker has the same detail potential and same dynamics potential if the electronics does not alter the signal. You do understand that electronics isnt there to color a signal unless we request it to do so??

You can post all the subjective opinion in the world and it does not mean anything if there is no data to back up that opinion.

If you were to start measuring and start learning what can be measured and what the differences show then you would not be so subjective in your opinion.

lmao, will you guys realize that these companies have a goal and they $$$ is made fom supporting audiophile myths, hypes and snake oil products.

Hometheaterhifi is far, far, far from an objective audio science reference.

You should never use any site like that as facts!

If you want to really learn then go to sites with real science. If you want to continue to be confused and uneducated on the truth about audio stick with the pretty pictures in hometheaterhifi

Now you see, we read the same books

My 3 year old daughters loves when I read it to her...I use a grumpy deep voice in it

Anyone can buy what they want. People just should not post opinion online without evidence to back it up and if they do post opinion they should expect questions and to be challenged. If someone doesnt want to be challenged then do post.

Also, Anyone that thinks they have a good setup should own a measuring mic and some free software like ARTA.

In two minutes they could run a measurement and show the CSD..

Here is my current speaker build, tweeter (Waveguide/CD)



You can do that then polars and you get a better understanding of what is happening in your room with any amp, any cable....any electronics change.

It's interesting to see how many people post their opinions as fact and then get turned sideways when asked for supporting data. Data other than "my ears tell me so"

So this goes out to you, mjbuoni (who I offerd this to in a PM which he ignored) and anybody else. Let's setup a system with whatever speakers, amplifiers, preprocessors, transports, room you like. Then you pick out any set of cables that you like. You know the ones. Those that you can tell a night and day difference in. The ones that open up the high end and add dynamics to the bass. Any ones you want at any price. I'll provide the same cables under $50. All equpment driven within spec. We'll do an ABX and if you can reliably pick out your cables I'll give you $10,000. If you can't you give $10,000 to any charity you want as long as it's honest and above board. We'll put the money in escrow with a mutually agreed upon contract. So what say you? Should be easy pickens for you, right?

Like I said, pennygray, I do respect your dedication to the science of audio. But what I don't respect is your judgment that your point of view is the absolute truth. You seem like a well educated guy, as am I. I believe that for every perception that we have, there is a physical basis for it and something that could be measured to support what our senses tell us. However, I believe that it many cases the instrumentation that is used just isn't accurate enough. You mention that 99% of the battle is speakers and room. Even if that is true, that still leaves 1%, which in terms of the signal is only -20 dB. So next time you are listening to music at 95 dB, turn on 75 dB of noise and see if it makes any difference to you.

I'm not sure how you concluded that I believe electronics is for coloring the signal. I said that electronics "bring out the detail and dynamics that the speakers/room are capable of". What I mean is that better electronics can PRESERVE more of the original waveform, i.e. do not compress or smear the signal at high or low volumes. And some speakers do use so-called "expensive" wire internally. My speakers use Kimber internally, not sure how much of a different that makes, but I do like the end result....

I never said the differences in cables was "night and day". And I don't believe that cables have much of an effect on dynamics. What I hear is that lower level ambient cues and background details come through with greater realism.

that's good, a conductor can have absolutely no effect on dynamic range.

Only absolute truth is absolute truth. Anyone can present such thing if they know where to find it.


Has your belief been confirmed to be true?


Speakers / room bring out the detail and dynamics that electronics are capable of.


This applies to which interconnect and speaker cables?


Once you are sure of it, please let us know.

You are obviously an ISTJ personality. That is why you have a difficult time respecting others who don't proclaim their opinions as fact. Look it up and you may learn something about yourself.

You obviously don't care to engage in a debate about 2-channel analog interconnects/speaker cables. Why are you here? To troll.

that does not mean it makes any difference.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#thetruth