The Good vs. Bad cable debate rages on...

F1nut

All wire is equal, but some wire is more equal than others.

CoolJazz

MacLeod wrote: »

Power cables especially! Youve got power coming from the power plant many many miles away running thru plain old steel cable, running thru several transformers, then into your house and thru all the basic wiring thru your walls then finally out to your outlet. You really think the 3' of "magic" extension cord is going to affect things that much? Especially when you consider that as soon as that AC power hits your gear, its switched to DC before it ever gets to anything! Even if it did affect things, all it could affect would be power input. If it bolstered it like a capacitor in car audio then you would get a smidge more power for deep sub bass parts in music. You wouldnt hear it in any other frequencies because 1000 Hz doesnt require anywhere near the power to reproduce as say 40 HZ. So if you say the magic extension cords increase sub bass response I might could buy that a little easier but saying that it affects soundstage, imaging or the clarity of highs is just not possible.

This is the argument thrown up over and over by those that don't understand how power delivery really works and what is presented to your electronics at the wall outlet.

The delivery system before the transformer on the pole outside your house is almost irrelevant. The reason why that point is so critical is threefold. One is the monster stepdown performed at that transformer. This steps down transients and other garbage at the same ratio as the intended voltage. Two is the secondary (your house side) center tap ground. This secondary then forms the low impedance point for power deliver to your panel. (This is critical to understanding power and transients!) Three - the transformers natural filtering characteristic which is tuned to pass 60hz and acts to attenuate the higher frequency noise.

This means little of the outside world effects your house under normal circumstances. Falling outside of this "normal" is the brownouts and blackout conditions obviously. A short term brownout might be handled by a conditioner, maybe, if short enough and delivery demand is low enough at that moment. But otherwise, power cables aren't going to be a big factor for these conditions.

Where the household power system gets the biggest influences is from the transients resulting from on-off's of power hungry devices, trash impressed on the lines from noisy devices like ceiling fans and light dimmers and, ironically enough, directly from the components in your stereo system!

You see, it's all about the impedances the devices pull their power from. Keep it low impedance as possible and the transients get minimized. This is why the direct run from the panel to your system can make so much difference. Your system then "sees" that lowest possible point in the house and seperately, so does the other noisier devices in the house.

The problem is the trash high frequency garbage impressed on the line thats anything but 60hz. The on off's of the diodes in the electronics of your system is a really good example of this. Cheaper diodes in particular have very sharp nasty quick cycles of pulling power. Quick means high frequency! This ranges up into megahertz frequencies and can couple into your audio several ways.

Power supplies only have only so much efficiency at high frequency attenuation. At some point, it has enough level to be present into the DC side! Being very high in frequency, it can also couple airborne through proximity. And it can be present in the grounds and cross coupled between devices.

Your comments about the DC being so isolated from the AC side shows your level of understanding about power supplies. In your 150db world of car stereo's, the problems are different...very different. Anybody that has studied power supplies or tried to do a good job of building one understands very well the effects between the primary side and the resulting DC side!

To come back around full circle to the power cord quality issues, the twist the better cords use is one big and obvious difference that has great effect, is never present in "normal" cords and has nothing to do with your one cited cord effect of conductor diameter.

This missive is long enough, much more can and has been written about other factors of the cords themselves, but I suspect that you have no desire to really examine these issues and no desire to learn as it wouldn't fit into your predetermined mission to protect everyone else from your idea that "cable is cable".

If you could one time sit and look at a power line signal on an oscilloscope display, you'd get much more interested in this physical connection between all our household devices and what it means. Or take the time to read the excellent reports on this very website from DarqueKnight on the PS Audio products and the screenshots that he includes showing and explaining these issues. But I suspect you're much to smart to be influenced by these writings.

CoolJazz

madmax

MacLeod wrote: »

I disagree Max. The claims for cables are never "the differences are so slight that it will take you a few weeks to notice them". Theyre always "drastic improvements in soundstage, imaging, bass, highs, you name it". If the differences are that drastic you should be able to pick them out instantly. If I did an ABX test for you using an amp with no bass boost then another one with 3 db boost at 80 Hz, youd pick it out right away, every single time.

That is an extreme example. If you increased something like soundstage by 3db the sound would be so exagerated you would no longer be in the audiophile class of equipment. However, after you notice even the smallest difference of presentation it becomes very easy to identify that difference later. If this difference is towards whatever you consider a positive experience it becomes a huge loss if lost. That is why the claims are seemingly exagerated. A/B never turns up more than the obvious +/- 3db differences you mention unless one gets lucky.
madmax

megasat16

MacLeod wrote: »

Id argue that you didnt bro. If you flip a coin a few times and try to guess where its going to land, youll win 2 or 3 times out of 4 just out of luck. The scientific and objective way is to pick many times like 14 or 16. If you pick the correct cable 12 out of 14 times then you have proven you can tell the difference. If you get 7 or 8 out of 14 then youve just played the odds.

A good way to A/B your cables at home is have one guy (preferably your wife or somebody that couldnt care less) flip a coin 16 times then write down the results. Now take 2 cables and designate one as "heads" and one as "tails. Now you position the rig so youre in front of the speakers but CANNOT see the amps and cables. Now your partner hooks up whichever cable is first on the list and you listen then write down which one you think it is. After you write down all 16 guess, compare your notes. If you got 12 or more right, you da man and youve just proved me wrong.

Your point is well taken, bro! I am sure there is probably a good degree of
"probability" in play but sometimes, you know what you know and you don't know what you don't know. Sometimes, it's nothing about luck or probability or math. It's just something you know!

Of coz, there are so many variables in A/B tests and so many things could go wrong. If you flip the coin, the probability to get the right answer is always 50%. But if you know what you are holding for sure without looking (like touching the surface), your chance of getting it right is 100%.

All I am saying is that it takes training to your brain and what to look (listen) for the differences are. Of coz, ears are sensors and without a good pair of them, one may not likely hear any differences at all. I have recently tested my hearings range so I know I can still hear from 20Hz-19.5KHz.

madmax

megasat16 wrote: »

All I am saying is that it takes training to your brain and what to look (listen) for the differences are.

+1. I had a problem with this for many years. I didn't know how to listen, what to listen for or even that there was a lot of recording techniques which had to be identified before knowing what it should sound like. Its more than sitting down and paying attention. Its a process and you can't really pay attention to all the parameters at the same time.
madmax

madmax

Here is a technique of listening I'll have to try. http://www.avguide.com/forums/the-eustachian-tube-audiophile-listening-technique-explained
Pretty soon we will all look like babbling idiotts...

Sometime we will have to start a thread on how to listen and what to listen for. I'm sure there are a LOT of things I don't know yet.

wz2p7j

sTiLlLeArNiNg wrote: »

Buy quality cable's in bulk and terminate yourself, best way to go IMHO

"Terminate myself?" That might hurt! :)

Chris

MacLeod

F1nut wrote: »

A famous speaker designer, who's name escapes me right now, once stated that he designed a speaker with a ruler flat response. He said it sounded like crapola.

Another thought, live music is never ruler flat, so why would anyone expect their rig to be!?!

Youre misunderestimating my point Jesse. Im not saying the music should be reproduced flat. What Im talking about is the frequency response. If I put in pink noise from 20-20KHz playing it would read as a flat line because no frequency is at a higher level than another so when it leaves the source its ruler flat. Now when it hits other components it should leave them ruler flat as well. Speakers are never flat, at least Ive never seen one but the best sounding speakers DO have the flattest response. That doesnt mean theyll play music flat, it just means theyll play whatever is fed in to them with virtually no coloration.

concealer404 wrote: »

There's more to sound than a frequency response chart.

Actually there isnt when you get down to it. You cant make a saxophone sound brassier without bumping 3.2-5 KHz. If female voices seem to have too much reverb, 800-1000 Hz is too hot. Male voices sound nasally then 315-500 is too hot. Take engines for instance. If you say a certain muffler increases the horsepower but the dyno charts show absolutely no increase, then theyre is no increase.

concealer404 wrote: »

Didn't you just say that the human ear can barely hear that very same difference?

Right. They can barely hear the difference but 80 Hz is probably the most noticeable frequency in the spectrum. Its not only a big chunk of the "punch" of a kick drum but its also the "boom" of a stand up bass so a 3 db increase from an amps bass boost would be immediately noticeable in a side by side comparison.

concealer404 wrote: »

So we're wasting our money paying more than $50 for our cd players, then... effectively we could grab an old Discman and just run a y-adapter to any old $50 sonance amp and pair it with some SDA 1.2TLs and it would sound the same as if you paid $4000 for a Music Fidelity cdp and some Carver tube monoblock?

Not saying that at all. Im not knocking high end gear in the least. You buy that $50 CD player and youll get induced noise, shoddy build quality and no features. You buy the $500 CD player and get bullet proof build quality, zero induced noise and plenty of cool features. There are tons of differences between cheap and expensive CD players. Tonality just isnt one of them. Ive had 5 CD players in my car from $300-$650 over the last 5 years and the only difference was the looks. The $650 player does have an optical output to my processor so there is no hiss at loud volumes that comes from the RCA outputs which is caused by going from digital to analog back to digial and back to analog again in the processor.

madmax wrote: »

That is an extreme example. If you increased something like soundstage by 3db the sound would be so exagerated you would no longer be in the audiophile class of equipment. However, after you notice even the smallest difference of presentation it becomes very easy to identify that difference later. If this difference is towards whatever you consider a positive experience it becomes a huge loss if lost. That is why the claims are seemingly exagerated. A/B never turns up more than the obvious +/- 3db differences you mention unless one gets lucky.
madmax

A 3 db increase can make a huge improvement if put in the right place. Mainly tho cutting frequencies are usually the order of the day because its reflections that are peaking problem frequencies. If youre saying that certain cables make such minute differences that it does take weeks of attentive listening then I agree an ABX test wouldnt show much. But like I said, all the claims Ive seen are always of drastic and intense differences. Those should be easily picked out.

Like this one from Magic Power: "Unmatched frequency extension and detail retrieval as well as an improved soundstage and blacker background."

Or this one from Audioquest: "...the result is considerably more transparency and dynamics than possible even from a cable in continuous use..."

Or this from MIT: ..."ensures that the soundstage will retain its proper dimensional proportions, regardless of power demands, while Jitter Free Analog ensures that all images emitted from within the soundstage are heard from a black background with precise location and clarity, regardless of your choice of volume setting."

Those are some pretty distinct differences I would think and should be easily picked out in an ABX test. So I agree with you....but I disagree with MIT, Signal Cable and Audioquest.

megasat16 wrote: »

All I am saying is that it takes training to your brain and what to look (listen) for the differences are. Of coz, ears are sensors and without a good pair of them, one may not likely hear any differences at all. I have recently tested my hearings range so I know I can still hear from 20Hz-19.5KHz.

That I definitely agree with. When I first started competing in sound quality back in 2005 I really didnt hear that big of a difference between my crappy rookie system and a world champions. I couldnt tell that the soundstage was all up front and on top of the dash where mine was in the floor. I didnt hear the realism and breath in the male voice. I couldnt tell that the center image was focused in the middle of the dash where mine was smeared halfway across the dash. Now I dont mind bragging about having some pretty good ears. I can listen to music and pick out, within the ballpark at least, what frequencies are too hot or need to be boosted. There are SQ judges out there that can pinpoint down to a 1/3 octave a problem frequency! Its very impressive. It definitely takes a lot of listening to get that good.

Face

Frequency response isn't as important as people make it out to be.

Yes, you don't want any peaks or valleys, but a small dip as a BBC curve can be a good thing(which I prefer). But frequency response is only a measurement of energy, not sound quality.

concealer404

Face wrote: »

But frequency response is only a measurement of energy, not sound quality.

This is what i was trying to say.... but i'm not quite as smart as Face :o

inspiredsports

MacLeod wrote: »

. . . Ive had 5 CD players in my car from $300-$650 over the last 5 years and the only difference was the looks.

Overall, you make a lot of decent arguments and we may have to agree to disagree, but how much of your argument are you basing upon car audio?

I can't speak for yours, but my particular dedicated listening room in my home is perhaps a 4 or 5 orders of magnitude different from the listening environment in my car.

Face

Anyone who bases sound quality based on what they hear in a car is lost.

MacLeod

Face wrote: »

Frequency response isn't as important as people make it out to be.

Yes, you don't want any peaks or valleys, but a small dip as a BBC curve can be a good thing(which I prefer). But frequency response is only a measurement of energy, not sound quality.

Very true. I dont mean to say that the frequency response is the "be all end all" however it is a very accurate measurement of how a component performs and an excellent measurement of a components transparency. A component shouldnt dip, roll off, peak, bump or change in anyway the original source. Thats for the listener to do with speaker placement, EQ'ing and so on.

inspiredsports wrote: »

Overall, you make a lot of decent arguments and we may have to agree to disagree, but how much of your argument are you basing upon car audio?

I can't speak for yours, but my particular dedicated listening room in my home is perhaps a 4 or 5 orders of magnitude different from the listening environment in my car.

I would never say a car audio system is as good as a dedicated HIGH END home audio system - BUT I will say there are several car audio systems out there in the sound quality competition lanes that WILL hold their own against home systems costing the same. Granted there are no $100,000 car speakers like there are in the home but I have sat in several cars (Steve Cook's Avalanche with his Morel Elates, Matt Robert's K1500 with his Scanspeak Revelators, Kirk Proffitt's Acura with his Audio Technologys and Eddie DeJesus' S10 with his DLS Nobeliums and I will GUARANTEE that you could sit in them and close your eyes while listening and believe you were in a listening room. I would even go as far as to say mine wouldnt be awfully far behind a simple LSi7 rig.

Ya gotta think, the systems Im listening to and tuning and referring to arent a simple set of 6x9's thrown in the rear deck running off a 50 watt power booster. We're talking custom built dashes, MEGA re-enforced door and body panels, kick panels built with lead shot that weigh 45 pounds, $1000 EQ's and processors that include discrete 6 channel time alignment, crossover and 31 band EQ, several thousand watts of power and thousands of dollars in speakers and amps. And the people Im referring to including myself are people that spend countless hours in their cars obsessively tuning, listening for and tweaking every minute detail imaginable using primo source material from Mapleshade and Chesky. We use $1500 RTA's and filtered pink noise to find and map out hot spots in the car that cause reflection and cancellation of EVERY frequency over 1/3 octave increments in order to fix them.

Dont base your opinions of car audio on the douchebag down the street with four 15's pounding at 3 AM. Those guys aint us.

I can assure you, a car audio SQ competitor is more than qualified to discuss audio and sound quality with you home audio boys. Its a different venue but we're all after the same result - the best, most realistic sounding music possible.

Face

MacLeod wrote: »

Very true. I dont mean to say that the frequency response is the "be all end all" however it is a very accurate measurement of how a component performs and an excellent measurement of a components transparency. A component shouldnt dip, roll off, peak, bump or change in anyway the original source. Thats for the listener to do with speaker placement, EQ'ing and so on.

Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of speakers out there who "measure flat", but are far from transparent and vice-versa.

Systems

F1nut wrote: »

A famous speaker designer, who's name escapes me right now, once stated that he designed a speaker with a ruler flat response. He said it sounded like crapola.

Dave Wilson?


Designers like Paul Barton(PSB)Kevin Voekes(Revel)Joe D'Appolito(Snell) to name just a few consider achieving linear frequency response (on and off axis) as high priorities in their designs.A number of years ago some in depth research was done at Canada's famous NRC acoustical labs regarding loudspeakers and listener preferences. The study concluded that experienced listeners prefered the speakers that exhibited the best measured on and off axis responses. The designers and or companies mentioned above have all used the NCR's facilities for their own R&D and have concluded the same, that having linear amplitude response is very important .

xj4094dg

MacLeod wrote: »

, several thousand watts of power and thousands of dollars in speakers and amps. .

How does one power several thousand watts of power on a twelve volt system in most cars? Not hating, just clueless....

BlueFox

My understanding of the idea behind a desired flat frequency response is that the device being measured neither adds to or subtracts from any frequency over a given range. Straight wire with gain is the old saying, and the speaker should turn that into the sonic equivalent, neither emphasizing or minimizing a specific frequency, just reproducing what is presented to it.

inspiredsports

MacLeod wrote: »

. . . I would never say a car audio system is as good as a dedicated HIGH END home audio system - BUT I will say there are several car audio systems out there in the sound quality competition lanes that WILL hold their own against home systems costing the same. Granted there are no $100,000 car speakers like there are in the home but I have sat in several cars (Steve Cook's Avalanche with his Morel Elates, Matt Robert's K1500 with his Scanspeak Revelators, Kirk Proffitt's Acura with his Audio Technologys and Eddie DeJesus' S10 with his DLS Nobeliums and I will GUARANTEE that you could sit in them and close your eyes while listening and believe you were in a listening room. I would even go as far as to say mine wouldnt be awfully far behind a simple LSi7 rig.

Ya gotta think, the systems Im listening to and tuning and referring to arent a simple set of 6x9's thrown in the rear deck running off a 50 watt power booster. We're talking custom built dashes, MEGA re-enforced door and body panels, kick panels built with lead shot that weigh 45 pounds, $1000 EQ's and processors that include discrete 6 channel time alignment, crossover and 31 band EQ, several thousand watts of power and thousands of dollars in speakers and amps. And the people Im referring to including myself are people that spend countless hours in their cars obsessively tuning, listening for and tweaking every minute detail imaginable using primo source material from Mapleshade and Chesky. We use $1500 RTA's and filtered pink noise to find and map out hot spots in the car that cause reflection and cancellation of EVERY frequency over 1/3 octave increments in order to fix them.

Dont base your opinions of car audio on the douchebag down the street with four 15's pounding at 3 AM. Those guys aint us.

I can assure you, a car audio SQ competitor is more than qualified to discuss audio and sound quality with you home audio boys. Its a different venue but we're all after the same result - the best, most realistic sounding music possible.

So do you have a high-line home system that you tune as rigorously as your cars system? Do you understand how rigorously many of us tune our home systems? I just want to figure out if we are comparing apples to apples when you denigrate our expensive cables.

CoolJazz

That would pretty much define flat frequency response. Ho-hummmm...

I don't think that there's much doubt that while you can perhaps identify poor frequency response, that it may also not be the most important aspect in making electronics signals recreate a musical event. :cool:

And anytime you put an audio blender (aka multiband eq) in the signal path, that you sacrifice some incredibly important aspects of musical enjoyment on the alter of the ruler flat response.

The difference is whether you like music that moves other objects around the room until they fall on the floor...or...if you want to set down into a comfortable chair with your favorite beverage and immerse yourself into a performance that's so incredibly real that the hair stands up on the back of your neck and your mood changes and a tear comes to your eye as she belts out a song so real that you can see her lips move in front of the microphone!

Neither way is wrong...each has it's place...but just one makes real music!! I know where I want to put my money!!

CoolJazz

Systems

BlueFox wrote: »

My understanding of the idea behind a desired flat frequency response is that the device being measured neither adds or subtracts to any frequency over a given range. Straight wire with gain is the old saying, and the speaker should turn that into the sonic equivalent, neither emphasizing or minimizing a specific frequency.

That is the idea. It's relative easy to get a ruler flat responses with electronics even inexpensive products will ace this test, but it will have little correlation with sound quality.
Speakers on the otherhand being resonant devices have a long way to go before they will achieve the ruler flat responses of electronics.Although the goal for most speaker designers is flat response (some get surprisuingly close)there will always be some response errors as even the very best drivers will have some discontinuities from resonant peaks or dips.Unlike electronics,the frequency response measurements of loudspeakers can have very close correlation with how they sound.

MacLeod

Face wrote:

Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of speakers out there who "measure flat", but are far from transparent and vice-versa

Speakers are tricky. Even if you can measure them flat with a microphone it doesnt mean itll be flat at all times. It will depend on the environment the speaker was in when it was measured, what was around it, how much power was used, and so on. Measuring CD players, amplifiers and such are not tricky because its pretty much constant. For instance, the Polk Signature Reference component set measures flatter than any car speaker Ive seen yet when you put them in your car it all changes due to the environment, mounting positions etc. Measuring the signal from a CD player to an amplifier is different because there arent the variables.

Im not calling BS on ya but I personally havent ever seen a graph on a speaker that plays flat. They cant make a single driver that can play 20-20KHz for one thing and even if they did it still wouldnt play perfectly flat. Its a catch 22. To play the lower frequencies the driver needs to be bigger but the bigger you make it the less it can play the upper frequencies. Ive seen graphs of some tweeters that are very flat but only down to 1KHz then they roll off. I dont think Ive ever seen a mid with a flat curve. Even if there was, youd still get the roll off around 50 Hz and around 5 KHz. So to play the whole audible spectrum you need multiple drivers and when youve got multiple drivers, motor structures, crossover points, phases and everything else under the sun, it gets MUCH harder to flatten things out.

xj4094dg wrote: »

How does one power several thousand watts of power on a twelve volt system in most cars? Not hating, just clueless....

Believe it or not its done 99% of the time with an OEM battery and alternator. In car audio its about amps and not volts. A 12 volt battery can make 430 amps or 1800. Plus since music is dynamic and we're listening at musical levels and not "piss your neighbors off" levels, a stock charging system is more than enough. My system is only 1600 watts and draws 160 amps max but at musical levels it never reaches this max. My PUNY Honda battery is 430 amps and the engine draws at most 200 so that leaves plenty left over for the audio. The only time a stock system wouldnt cut it would be if youre going for maximum SPL where youre pushing your system at maximum load but those guys run tens of thousands of watts. SQ guys are generally in the 2000-5000 range. 100-300 watts per driver and 500-2000 per sub.

My understanding of the idea behind a desired flat frequency response is that the device being measured neither adds to or subtracts from any frequency over a given range. Straight wire with gain is the old saying, and the speaker should turn that into the sonic equivalent, neither emphasizing or minimizing a specific frequency, just reproducing what is presented to it.

Bingo! If I feed 1000 Hz into a component at say 95 db, it should pass that down the signal path at 95 db. Thats the ideal - zero coloration.

So the bottom line to the frequency response argument is that if the signal is ruler flat entering AND leaving an RCA cable, the sound hasnt changed. You cant get more air in a female voice without bumping 12.5 KHz. You cant get punchier midbass without boosting 63 Hz. Soundstage is 85% speaker placement, 10% phasing and 5% crossover point. Neither of those are affected by RCA cables or power cords.

Jstas

Wires. Pfft!

F1nut

So the bottom line to the frequency response argument is that if the signal is ruler flat entering AND leaving an RCA cable, the sound hasnt changed. You cant get more air in a female voice without bumping 12.5 KHz. You cant get punchier midbass without boosting 63 Hz.

I think you've been playing with EQ's too long.

I also think you're flip-flopping between car audio and home audio and getting the two confused.

Soundstage is 85% speaker placement, 10% phasing and 5% crossover point. Neither of those are affected by RCA cables or power cords.

Sorry Mac, that's simply not true. I've heard way too many examples of RCA's and power cords affecting the soundstage in home audio.

superjunior

I havn't read this whole thread so my apologies if this has already been brushed over. I'm looking to upgrade my front speeker cables from old plain jane to some budget mits or perhaps audioquest in the same price range. Is there a major preference to either brand or should I go with the mits since I'm running mit3 ics

danz1906

superjunior wrote: »

I havn't read this whole thread so my apologies if this has already been brushed over. I'm looking to upgrade my front speeker cables from old plain jane to some budget mits or perhaps audioquest in the same price range. Is there a major preference to either brand or should I go with the mits since I'm running mit3 ics

Mit would work,they make nice sounding speaker cables.

madmax

This thread is
madmax

Systems

madmax wrote: »

This thread is

OK I'll bite,is what?:D

treitz3

Normal for CP?

madmax

GV#27 wrote: »

OK I'll bite,is what?:D

It just is. Nothing more, nothing less. Kinda like a cow pie lying in the middle of a deserted field.

sTiLlLeArNiNg

madmax wrote: »

Kinda like a cow pie lying in the middle of a deserted field.

At least the cowpie has the possibility to provide you with a mushroom lol