good sounding interconnects, oh Lordy here we go again!

mantis

danger boy wrote:

i'm not knocking anyone and i hope this doesn't offend anyone here either.

I found this link to a handmade interconnect. it's $650 for a 1 meter length. it has hand made African blackwood connectors. and some other exotic features.

At this point i'm sure it's a good sounding cable. but at what expense? There is a point where cables just become ridiclous in price vs performance. I think this may be that type. Plus having a handmade wood connector covers.. who the hell is gonna see em anyways? they're hidden behind your components.

Yes. I think once you reach a certain level, you basically obtained a perfect conductor. I don't know if one really exsists , but like anything else, you gotta know when to call it quits. If your cables quality surpasses your systems quality, you have gone 2 far. Matching is key.

Dan

reeltrouble1

Yes Dan, matching into the system is the key. A while back someone told me "trust your ears" they will tell you when to stop. Very good advice.

RT1

AsSiMiLaTeD

MacLeod wrote:

So youre saying there is a tonal difference but you have to buy the really expensive cables to get it and even then only 1% of people will hear it?

Sorta, well pretty much except the expensive cables part. Actually, when comparing cables, the higher up you go in price when comparing usually the more subtle the difference (so there's more of a difference between $10 and $100 ICs than there is between $500 and $1000, even though the price gap is smaller.

The 1% is just an arbitrary number that I threw out for the sake of argument, it could be smaller or larger. The point is that even if only 1 man on earth can hear the difference in cables, if he can do that 100% of the time then there IS a difference - even if 600 billion other people can't hear it.

I always get flak when I make this argument because the typical response is "well if nobody can hear the difference, then what's the point?" I agree completely, and I believe THAT is why the cable companies don't publish their results.

So what's the point of my statement? That there IS difference. I stress this point of view because alot of people say that there IS NOT a difference at all, and I disagree - there's a difference, most people just can't hear it...

PolkThug

I think the audible difference claims are funny since the differences are inaudible to measuring devices.

heiney9

PolkThug wrote:

I think the audible difference claims are funny since the differences are inaudible to measuring devices.

Yeah but....our ears and brains are much better than any mechanical measuring device. I'm glad my ears still work well enough to hear differences sometimes. Not every cable is going to sound different in every system, some do, some don't. There is no correlation between measuring and hearing.

H9

PolkThug

heiney9 wrote:

Yeah but....our ears and brains are much better than any mechanical measuring device. I'm glad my ears still work well enough to hear differences sometimes. Not every cable is going to sound different in every system, some do, some don't. There is no correlation between measuring and hearing.

H9

Go get your ears tested. I promise your human response curve pales in comparison to even a $50 microphone, especially in the upper frequencies.

...and have you seen my horse?

heiney9

PolkThug wrote:

Go get your ears tested. I promise your human response curve pales in comparison to even a $50 microphone, especially in the upper frequencies.

But the only thing that matters is what we hear and how we process it. It's not all about fequency response it's about harmonics as well. A 'thing' may measure well and have a great freq response, but because of different order harmonics will not sound good to our ears/brains. Our ears and brains are much more sensitive to changes than any measuring device. Measured accuracy means nothing if it doesn't sound good. Partly just discussing for the sake of discussing.

PolkThug wrote:

...and have you seen my horse?

I've got the grill going now...I added some seasoning and a nice bb-que sauce and it should be pretty tasty. That beating while dead really made it tender.

H9

PolkThug

heiney9 wrote:

But the only thing that matters is what we hear and how we process it. It's not all about fequency response it's about harmonics as well. A 'thing' may measure well and have a great freq response, but because of different order harmonics will not sound good to our ears/brains. Our ears and brains are much more sensitive to changes than any measuring device. Measured accuracy means nothing if it doesn't sound good. Partly just discussing for the sake of discussing.
H9

Harmonics are just frequencies played at the same time, which are just as measureable as a single frequency played all by itself.

If I play a 30 Hz bass tone on a crappy subwoofer, and I very gradually turn the volume up until there is a first order harmonic distortion at 60Hz, the microphone will detect any evidence of the harmonic before the amplitude becomes loud enough for the human ear to hear it, don't bet your hard earned cash otherwise.

mmm, smells like good horse.