Stupid question regarding speaker wire... - Page 3

Who said anything about designing by specs? Read the original quote again:

The guy who said that is a scientific illiterate, pure and simple. His speakers might be good, but if they are, it's an accident.

Maybe you would like to actually listen to the whole interview, it seems you are taking the statement out of context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-dLu...elated&search=


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVPGx...elated&search=


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaqmf...W%20How%20Made[/quote]

Also, you may want to listen to some Dynaudios sometime before deeming the designer illiterate and that his speakers are what they are due to pure luck.

Do you realize how ignorant that actually sounds?

By the way, as far as ICs are concerned....reposted from another forum

""Direction certainly makes a difference if the cables are shielded. Generally shields are only terminated at one end. That is done so that the shield does not carry current and end up coupling noise into the conductors that it protects. The purpose of the shield is to keep out magnetic fields that can introduce noise from power cables and the like.""

ah, yes, "the gear isn't good enough"...

and no, you can't equate "speakers" to "wire"...


media room is salks... ht2-tl mains, ht2c center, custom ht-1 on walls for surrounds... dual seaton submersive hp's...

wife's kingdom is onix rocket 850 sigs, and a pair of grado ps1000 cans (i still have not forgiven bfreedma for allowing her to listen to his)... amoungst other things that go in her ears...

if i could find a 100 dollar avr that had the dsp i needed/wanted and was robust enough to drive the salks i would have bought it... the media room avr is a denon a100... wife's kingdom has a denon 5800... she also has a cheapo chinese tube integrated and a pair of salk jordans in the bedroom...

wanna know the video stuff too? just so you can see that i'm a bit, umm, "picky" when it comes to a/v?

fwiw, i'm very lucky... we have no kids, and my wife is as big an a/v nut as i am... and while my budget is not "unlimited", if "high end cables" actually did anything, i think i could find room in it for them... heaven knows i've found room in it for any number of tweaky things that actually work (not to mention some that didn't/don't work, but i wanted them anyway)...

my gear, while not the best, is "good enough"... although i do need to upgrade this piece...

"Be aware that besides all technology, all measurements, all computers, and all theories; The human ear is so much more sensitive than ANY measurement instrument in the world"

The ear-brain's processing is capable of a great deal.

But to say that no other measurement technology is more acute or accurate than the ear is pure nonsense.

That is like saying that a hearing aid cannot assist the ear, or that measurements cannot distinguish discrete signals beyond the limitations of the ear-brain's resolution such as the Haas interval where the individual discrete signals are smeared into one event.

Just like the telescope, microscope, magnifying glass and numerous other technologies can discern far more than the simple relatively near objects limited to the visible spectrum in vision, there are numerous technologies that similarly extend the capabilities of our ability to perceive behavior in the realm of audio frequencies, both within the audible spectrum and beyond.

His bit of hyperbole is just that, hyperbole that overreaches what is credible.

That is not generally true. For example, the shield of a single-ended cable is the ground return and must be connected at both ends. Balanced cables usually have the shield connected at both ends by default but often make provision to lift one end to reduce ground loops (hum). Most shielding material, e.g. copper and various foils, do not change magnetic fields nor offer magnetic shielding. BTW, anytime there is current flow, there is an associated magnetic field. Finally, which end do they suggest the shield be connected to?

I suppose the end I have in mind would be appropriate in Chris's picture above...

Back on-topic -- With all this talk of electrons, my holes are feeling very neglected...

You believe this because you don't understand basic electronics.
In an unbalanced cable, the shield carrys return current, it is required to be connected at bothe ends.

^^^

hey don... it's AMAZING how well you read my mind sometimes...

you been blowin' your horn?

I did, but I didn't want to embarrass you publicly.

I thought I might have seen an aftermarket power cable hiding there too, but it could have been a wandering garden snake.

^^^

lol...

actually you did see a couple "aftermarket" power cables... those are carefully handcrafted (of the finest materials, no less ) right here in beee-u-tiful collingswood...

i made those because the existing ones had the one problem that all power cables have, that being they don't work very well when they aren't long enough to reach the plug...

edit: back to speaker wire... you also didn't point out my custom speaker cables... you don't see purple speaker cables every day...

Also, you may want to listen to some Dynaudios sometime before deeming the designer illiterate and that his speakers are what they are due to pure luck.

Do you realize how ignorant that actually sounds?[/quote]

What kind of cabling does Dynaudio use inside their speakers?

If it's out of context, who's fault is that?


Nah, someone's already cornered the market for ignorance in this thread.

One of my coworkers had to ask why I was laughing so much while I caught up on this thread during lunch today.

Yes, better have a backup plan in case it fails during a Bolero orgy

I am agreeing with Wilfred, all the way.
If you believe in what I wrote, it is for both of us.

It is just a bit of marketing hyperbole. We all know what he means, and that is along the lines that the human brain is capable of "perceiving" more cumulatively than what the instruments can measure singularly in individual tests.

Then by all accounts all Italian cars are superior to German cars because there's more emotion involved

Cars are much more defined by the part spec and the way they are put together, there's no voodoo involved just as there isn't with a speaker wire. I don't think you'll get many car guys to say that BMW does something more "human" than the others, but more than likely they have more demanding specs and construction criteria.

I'd really like to know if Dynaudio uses voodoo wire inside their speakers to hook the components together...

I wouldn't buy a speaker designed by you, either.


Or a car.

Definitely not a car.

BMW specs are not demanding any more than any of it's competitor.
It is the final "tuning" of the design by human feel that makes it what it is.
If it was made by specs alone, it would have been imitated a long time ago.
but it is not. It needs time, energy and passion to get that done.

I wouldn't buy a product that you designed and sold me only on specs and measurements alone. They NEVER tell the complete story. Not yet. When the scientists get all the parameters that matter and their optimal measurements in place, then only.

No, it's the power of suggestion.

Same thing with audio.


I suspect you have no clue what scientists do and do not know. But your faith in fairy dust is charming.

Won't convince this guy, he'd rather believe a sales pitch...one born every minute.

Oh, believe me, I know.

But the idea that German (German!) automotive engineers tweak a car by trial and error to improve the driving experience is pretty funny.

If a tech product were designed by trial and error, I would not connect it to my house wiring under any circumstances.

@Chris: Had a major issue come up at work on Good Friday and have worked that day and every day since. Did have a concert in the middle, and it went pretty well. At least a fellow player told me he liked my solo in one piece and high-note work in Bruckner... Done one lead gig since but am gearing up for more this summer, and just signed on for a July 4th production that should be blast! Gotta' practice more...

@CharlesJ: I will never, ever, forgive you for mentioning "Bolero", one of the most dastardly pieces I think I have every heard or played! Just for that, I will mention the most unforgettable of all songs, guaranteed to stick with you until the end of time after one trip through the Disney ride; "It's a Small World". So there!

It often comes up that some people can hear things that can't be measured.

Well that may be true-IF they are using the WRONG measurement tool/system and/or have no idea what they are measuring or what to measure.

Very often people consider the only audio measurement tool to be an RTA. If you can't hear the differences that show up on an RTA-then you are deaf..

It is a pretty much worthless tool-for any sort of detailed measurements.

Using a better tool-you can "see" all sorts of things that you cannot hear.

I would love to challenge anybody to hear some of the changes that you can measure-and see if they can hear it. And even better-to be able to describe accurately what they are hearing.

Sometimes you can hear a difference-but which one is right?

I remember an audio conference a number of years ago on measurement and alignment-in which there were over 150 top audio guys in attendance.

At one point 2 different tracks were played. They were both pink noise-one was flat and the other had a "difference". You could hear a difference. But I am not sure that there was anybody who was SURE of which track was correct.

It was very easily measured-but not so easily determined.

A blind test is a lot harder than most people think. ESPECIALLY when you realize that you could be wrong-you really start to second guess what you are hearing. That is why the "golden ears" don't do double blind tests.

ANybody who has ever mixer sound for any length of time will tell you this same story. How many times has a musician asked for you to make a change-and before you actually make it-they say"Thats better"?

Or how many times have you adjusted the eq on a channel on a mixing console-only to realize that either the eq was bypassed-or you adjusted the wrong channel? But yet you SWEAR you heard the change you didn't make!

Anybody who says they haven't done that is either lying or hasn't done it long enough.

When you "think" you are making a change-it is not hard to convince your mind that you have actually made a change.

It is also quite funny how much even 0.5dB of a difference in level can change the whole tonal character of a loudspeaker-but that is another story-yes I have chased down tonal issues-that were only very slight level differences-and I was not along!

Exactly. The average consumer has no idea how these things are designed. It's a bit like Asimov's comment about magic to him. So that marketing fluff about "the things you can't measure" makes perfect sense to him.

But man-made products are not mysteries of nature. If we didn't know how they worked—if we didn't know exactly how they worked—we couldn't design them at all. Anything we cannot measure, we cannot build. Period.

Thank you for the quick reply on my speaker wire turning green. I did trim the wires and scraped all the green recently when I installed good banana plugs. I upgraded the speaker connections on my JBL L-100s long ago to a more robust type. The old spring loaded ones were sure cheesy. Never understood that.

Again, thanks for setting my mind at ease on the slight corrosion issue. Now...stop making fun of the guy with the directional wires! We are know that expensive speaker wires a la Monster Cable from Best Buy are just a scam. When I went there in the past to buy something the guys would not leave me alone about upgrading my wires once he found out that I just used regular zip cord. There must be a high profit on these high-tech wires and that is only reason they want to sell them to you.

The Barnum Effect at work.

That is super. Then I won't worry about dimensia

It is all about $


Not sure what instrument to use to measure their imagination.