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post #16 of 260
9/21/07 at 3:00am
for cable burn in to work can anyone explain what happens when essentialy a low level signal enters the wire? PS while I has witnessed break in/burn in with speakers, headphones and to some degree electronic components what is it about a strand of wire a solder joint and an rca connect that change as a very low level electical signal enters them?

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post #17 of 260
9/21/07 at 9:33am
Yes it is.
post #18 of 260
9/21/07 at 9:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fkclo View Post
Well, burn-in period as depends on the material. Pure silver cables can take a very long time - at least 500 hours, to settle in. Copper requires less. This is one reason why many do not like pure silver as they are drawing their conclusions too early.

Gold cables, however, does not seem to respond to burn-in like other conductors. It sounds smooth and coherent from the start.

F. Lo
Gold cables?! Some silver cables are almost 18.000 dollars, imagine the cost if these were gold!

Gold sounds harsh!

Pure silver can sound softer, if it's a new designed silvercable. Some older pure silvercables in those days had sibilance in the highs and extreem low, so it was out of proportion and sounded unbalanced. new good silver cables don't have that anymore!

Silverplated copper gives the best sound for me. Smooth natural sound with extended highs and lows, but not any sibilance over the spectrum, good balance.

Copper sounds smooth and sometimes somewhat dark or warm. It missed the last detail in the upper regions. Therefor some might prefer the coppercables, since it is capable of hiding imperfections in a system.
post #19 of 260
9/21/07 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick82 View Post
If you leave the cable unused for a few months you need to burn it in again.

I experimented with my Valhalla interconnect, it has 8 conductors inside and I only use 1 conductor per signal. I kept it running for half a year, then I switched the conductors and it sounded dull with lack of low-level detail. But after a few days of burn-in the transparency was back like before.
Patrick, Nordost states in their manual of the reference series of IC's that it is possible that the cable needs to burn in again if you don't listen to your rig for over a week. It is true, if i don't listen to it for a week, i need to play a few hours before it sounds it's best again. This has to be something with the dielectric, or better known as insulation. Teflon needs a settling period for the signal to provide the best dielectrical propperties.

Vacuum is the best, then air and then teflon! Nordost uses both air and teflon! So, the obviously did their homework.

It is now more and more believed that the type of dielectric has quite a huge impact of how a cable actually sounds.
post #20 of 260
9/21/07 at 10:53am
Yes, cable burn-in in real.
post #21 of 260
9/21/07 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jp11801 View Post
for cable burn in to work can anyone explain what happens when essentialy a low level signal enters the wire? PS while I has witnessed break in/burn in with speakers, headphones and to some degree electronic components what is it about a strand of wire a solder joint and an rca connect that change as a very low level electical signal enters them?
if you don't believe in it, then just leave it at that.
post #22 of 260
9/21/07 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tourmaline View Post
Gold cables?! Some silver cables are almost 18.000 dollars, imagine the cost if these were gold!

Gold sounds harsh!

Pure silver can sound softer, if it's a new designed silvercable. Some older pure silvercables in those days had sibilance in the highs and extreem low, so it was out of proportion and sounded unbalanced. new good silver cables don't have that anymore!

Silverplated copper gives the best sound for me. Smooth natural sound with extended highs and lows, but not any sibilance over the spectrum, good balance.

Copper sounds smooth and sometimes somewhat dark or warm. It missed the last detail in the upper regions. Therefor some might prefer the coppercables, since it is capable of hiding imperfections in a system.
My experience is very different on the gold. I have a pure gold mini-mini from Qables and this is the best ipod interconnect I have had - very smooth, very coherent, balanced, fully body, and most importantly, without loosing details. My experience with Gabriel Gold Extreme and Revelation (not pure gold, but gold and silver alloy) also display similar qualities. Very pleasing to the gear. More recent, I try AweSound Simply Gold - a XLR pair. Again, same rich, resolving sound, and extends very well at both end of the spectrum.

And yes, gold is expensive (especially when the dollars are weak today).

"hybrid" copper-silver is said to have the best of both worlds, but to some extent, it can also be seen as a compromised solution. Nonetheless, it is a safe pet and copper-silver hybrid (either in alloy form or plated) is less sensitive to component character.

F. Lo
post #23 of 260
9/21/07 at 1:05pm
Just want to add that purity of the conductor material plays a key part in how it sounds. For example, 24k gold sounds better than 22k, 5N Silver sound better than 4N silver, and single crystal 7N copper sounds better than anything less.

Also for silver, aged annealed wires sounds better than new stock wire, and hot drawn wires sound better than cold draw wires...

I am no metallugist but read about all these and then verify with my ears. There may be exceptions though, I think the above is in general true.

Just my 2 cents.

F. Lo
post #24 of 260
9/21/07 at 2:10pm
sorry didn't read the first sentence of the thread.
post #25 of 260
9/21/07 at 2:26pm
ditto
post #26 of 260
9/22/07 at 1:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by krmathis View Post
Yes, cable burn-in in real.
Yup.
post #27 of 260
9/22/07 at 5:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tourmaline View Post
Gold cables?! Some silver cables are almost 18.000 dollars, imagine the cost if these were gold!

Gold sounds harsh!

Pure silver can sound softer, if it's a new designed silvercable. Some older pure silvercables in those days had sibilance in the highs and extreem low, so it was out of proportion and sounded unbalanced. new good silver cables don't have that anymore!

Silverplated copper gives the best sound for me. Smooth natural sound with extended highs and lows, but not any sibilance over the spectrum, good balance.

Copper sounds smooth and sometimes somewhat dark or warm. It missed the last detail in the upper regions. Therefor some might prefer the coppercables, since it is capable of hiding imperfections in a system.
Maybe I can add some of my exprience.
Gold cables are about 3 to 4 times the price, purely based on silver or gold price. This means if I build exactly the same cable once using silver and once using gold, the goldcable will come out 3-4 times as expensive.

I think it is hard to say "that gold sounds harsh" as a fact. I think that is pretty much depending on the whole chain it is used in and in what way (construction) it is used. I do believe it sounded harsh for you though.

As to the actual sound my opinion is that gold is absolute transparent and I agree with Francis, it requires much less burn in in fact hardly none. maybe that has to do with the fact that unlike silver and copper, gold is from nature resistant to pollutions(impurifications?) and it has a much closer molecular structure. Whereas the other two are very happy to (eg) oxidize etc.

Rgds Hans.
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post #28 of 260
9/22/07 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoosterw View Post
Maybe I can add some of my exprience.
Gold cables are about 3 to 4 times the price, purely based on silver or gold price. This means if I build exactly the same cable once using silver and once using gold, the goldcable will come out 3-4 times as expensive.

I think it is hard to say "that gold sounds harsh" as a fact. I think that is pretty much depending on the whole chain it is used in and in what way (construction) it is used. I do believe it sounded harsh for you though.

As to the actual sound my opinion is that gold is absolute transparent and I agree with Francis, it requires much less burn in in fact hardly none. maybe that has to do with the fact that unlike silver and copper, gold is from nature resistant to pollutions(impurifications?) and it has a much closer molecular structure. Whereas the other two are very happy to (eg) oxidize etc.

Rgds Hans.
Read any paper on conductors and they will tell you that (every) most cable manufaturers think silver is the best conductor for sound, not gold! Not only because of the price, but because of the properties of gold concerning sound.

Oxidation is not a reason for bad sound, as a matter afact lessloss cables state that oxidized cables don't have to sound worse then not oxidized cables!
post #29 of 260
9/22/07 at 10:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tourmaline View Post
Read any paper on conductors and they will tell you that (every) most cable manufaturers think silver is the best conductor for sound, not gold! Not only because of the price, but because of the properties of gold concerning sound.

Oxidation is not a reason for bad sound, as a matter afact lessloss cables state that oxidized cables don't have to sound worse then not oxidized cables!
Like I said, my opinion! So you have found 1 manufacturer now that does not share that 'general' opinion.
And that is very lucky for all of us, because if we would all like the same, we would all be married to the same partner .

Rgds

Hans
Qables Insider

It is our philosophy to manufacture true High End cables for specialized connections in headphone, MP3 player, and HiFi component interconnections ...

» Get the latest news and updates at the Qables sponsor page.
post #30 of 260
9/22/07 at 10:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoosterw View Post
Like I said, my opinion! So you have found 1 manufacturer now that does not share that 'general' opinion.
And that is very lucky for all of us, because if we would all like the same, we would all be married to the same partner .

Rgds

Hans
Not 1, the mayority of brands use silver as their top end cables. As a matter afact, you have to search with a big loupe to find a brand using gold as conductor! And all these brands state that they think silver is best for audio.

Conductivity in silver is even better then in gold;
Silver 1.59 Best
Copper 1.72
Gold 2.44
Aluminum 2.84
Zinc 5.8
Platinum 10.0
Steel 10.4
Tin 11.5 Worst


Probably why silver and copper are the choice conductors in audio, price and conductivity.
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