Copper vs. Silver and brightness?
Mar 13, 2005 at 7:04 PM Post #76 of 87
Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilS
That was not my argument, but no matter. I do appreciate you educating me though.
orphsmile.gif



It looked very much like you were using the fact that not everyone reports differences as a route to dismiss placebo.

Sorry if I misunderstood.
 
Mar 14, 2005 at 4:19 AM Post #78 of 87
Quote:

Originally Posted by RnB180
I feel dirty after reading that.


So, in summary: all cables sounded great (at their respective price points), remarkably similar in fact. The reviewer wishes he could have spent more time listening, listening sitting in the front row in the correct position, listening in a more carefully set up test environment, and ultimately recommends that anyone able to do so get out and buy some of those cables and try them out in your own system. Now that's advice I can use.

I should start a company modding the Home Depot HD-14G extension cable. $799 per 50ft. cable for cryo-tweaks, magic solder, super-spades, and the promise that only 11% of cables tested pass my highly stringent electrical properties criteria. (Sorry).

-coma
 
Mar 14, 2005 at 8:08 AM Post #79 of 87
Quote:

Originally Posted by comabereni
So, in summary: all cables sounded great (at their respective price points), remarkably similar in fact. The reviewer wishes he could have spent more time listening, listening sitting in the front row in the correct position, listening in a more carefully set up test environment, and ultimately recommends that anyone able to do so get out and buy some of those cables and try them out in your own system. Now that's advice I can use.

I should start a company modding the Home Depot HD-14G extension cable. $799 per 50ft. cable for cryo-tweaks, magic solder, super-spades, and the promise that only 11% of cables tested pass my highly stringent electrical properties criteria. (Sorry).

-coma


Actually, if you read the host's comments that went like,

"Allow me to take the budget leading VH Audio cables, for example...in my system, these have easily bested the likes of the following: Cardas Golden Reference, Cardas Golden Cross, Acoustic Zen Silver Reference MkII, Zu Varial, Argent Jaden Sig, Argent Pursang and many more. So as you can see, all of the cables present at my home yesterday, offer an INCREDIBLE level of performance. If you have a chance to try them in your own system, I think you'd agree.."

The cables present were not some random bunch of cables thrown together, which happened to all sound so great "at their respective price points". No, no... There are a couple of mountains' worth of other cables that came before and evaluated. Cardas GR, Acoustic Zen, etc, etc that were mentioned and ones not mentioned.

These sessions are not meant to be some kind of duke-it-out hostile shootouts. These are the creme de la creme and among the most cutting-edge (some here would call snake-oil) cabling in the world, and these sessions are held by people who are interested in furthering their experiences and to be more educated in what may sounds like what. Please note that the $2100 IC was considered not as preferable as the $1499 one. Some also feeling that the $550 IC were as good in different ways to way more expensive ones. How else is anyone going to even start to choose which direction to go when considering buying cables?

I could never afford (or would want to afford) some of the expensive wires tested, but now I have a much better sense of what design/material fits my own tastes, which I can utilize to buy similar commercial cables or make my own.. Already, I have a few ideas to go. And why are we putting in such amount of labor into such "little" matters like cables? In the end, everyone in that room just wanted to get closer to their favorite music which enthralls us.
 
Mar 14, 2005 at 9:55 AM Post #80 of 87
I was just having a little tongue-in-cheek fun. Sorry about that.

Probably the only thing that griped me about that review was the fact that it was a comparison between brands and models with limited discussion of the physical properties of the cables used. I guess that's fine if you're already planning to spend X-dollars on cables and are looking for one people seem to like, but that's not enough information for me to make a sound decision. "I drove the Ford. I liked it. I drove the BMW. I liked it better. You'd really enjoy either one. Congrats to Ford for making such great quality available in an affordable car."

I'll probably never commit more than a few hundred to cables while I have kids at home and it would be nice to hear discussions that are more educational than, "Wow, I'd definitely consider the Zombie Audio and the Acoustic Whoopdie Doo."

What's most discouraging to me about the process of understanding cables is the utter lack of agreement (knowledge?) about what makes for a superior one. There are a few basic things related to electrical conductivity/resistance, seemingly sound recommendations related to gauge and length, etc., but the very fact that an $18 Home Depot extension cord got so much attention in a major audio publication and all over the Internet speaks to the fact that probably few audiophiles have a clue what to look for in a great-sounding cable and use only the most superficial of marketing cues to make their decisions instead. Indeed, I've entertained the thought more than a couple times this weekend that I could make a comfortable living in the high-end cable market armed mostly with my marketing knowledge (and not much else) and would have only happy, smiling customers and experienced, careful listeners willing to defend me and my products to the grave. There's certainly no harm in that, is there? Or do you *really* think there's solid engineering going on behind the hype? (Or is it hit-and-miss for everyone and cable makers just play around more than anyone else until something 'clicks', then market the scrud out of it?)

- coma
 
Mar 14, 2005 at 2:17 PM Post #81 of 87
Quote:

What's most discouraging to me about the process of understanding cables is the utter lack of agreement (knowledge?) about what makes for a superior one. There are a few basic things related to electrical conductivity/resistance, seemingly sound recommendations related to gauge and length, etc., but the very fact that an $18 Home Depot extension cord got so much attention in a major audio publication and all over the Internet speaks to the fact that probably few audiophiles have a clue what to look for in a great-sounding cable and use only the most superficial of marketing cues to make their decisions instead.


Well, first, it's a very, VERY lucrative business (profit-margin-wise), so sticking to things that marketers can latch onto (legally
wink.gif
, especially when he's in the business (surprise!)) is all you've got (with regard to audio "performance") and that's because:

Those basic things like conductivity, resistance, gauge, length, et al, are all that matters for a wire in an application like this. You'd truly have to intentionally mis-design your wire to make it inadequate for delivering the full signal intact.

There's no money in just accepting the fact that those (relatively) few parameters perfectly (for all intents) predict the behavior of signals thousands of times higher in frequency than our droll little 20KHz audio signal, though.
 
Mar 14, 2005 at 5:04 PM Post #82 of 87
Quote:

Originally Posted by comabereni
I
Probably the only thing that griped me about that review was the fact that it was a comparison between brands and models with limited discussion of the physical properties of the cables used.

I'll probably never commit more than a few hundred to cables while I have kids at home and it would be nice to hear discussions that are more educational than, "Wow, I'd definitely consider the Zombie Audio and the Acoustic Whoopdie Doo."

Or do you *really* think there's solid engineering going on behind the hype? (Or is it hit-and-miss for everyone and cable makers just play around more than anyone else until something 'clicks', then market the scrud out of it?)

- coma


I know exactly what you mean, but notice the link is a "listening session report," NOT a "review" at all. The thread is already so long that actual physical descriptions/logistics, etc would take too much space and drown out the sound impressions. All these cables can be studied/viewed on the web easily.

It's annoying when you are looking for a cable recommendation and someone says, "Put X and Y on your short list," etc, but that really is the only way. All the other people's recommendations and experiences will not translate to how the particular cable will sound in your system, room, and especially for your TASTES. There's absolutely no getting around personal preferences without personal experience. I would personally never put down this kind of $$ without hearing the cable first; I don't know about you, but I work way too hard for my money to donate it to (possibly) some cable charlatan who's good at marketing. And yes, for every honest, great cable manufacturer, there are many not-so-great ones. We've listened to many of these cables also, unfortunately.

One can really try to "beat the system" by DIY'ing, and I have a couple room full of silver, copper, gold, alloy wires, teflon tapes, tubings, connectors, dozens of finished/unfinished DIY cables to prove it's not so easy. Most people, professional or DIY'er, START with a basic design that has good capacitance/resistance/inductance properties, but it really takes many, many , MANY hours of tweaking, adjusting, fiddling around to get good sound. I"m 100% sure this is how the best commercial cables out there have been born.

The problem is, by the time you buy the expensive silver ribbons, connectors, etc, and spend many hours to build a decent-sounding cable, the total cost (materal + labor) may have exceeded the cost of buying a good commercial cable new/used. At one point, I had my entire system wired with my DIY cables, using cross-connected silver foil/coax speaker cables and power cords, Belden 83802 shotgun cords, silver/gold alloy IC's, etc, but currently I can get better results by mixing with a few "commercial" cables, whose desired characteristics I cannot reproduce exactly. Some of these "evil" cable manufacturers actually know what they are doing. Unfortunately, many charge way too much money, but it's always OUR choice to buy or not.

Cheers and good listening. If all fails, it always works to go buy some great new music!
 
Mar 20, 2005 at 12:11 AM Post #84 of 87
Serious question here. How does the material in 3 feet of cable determine the sound, when the signal has to go through 2 connectors that are made of a different material? Wouldn't the connector material determine the sound, since that is the last thing the electrons flow through before going through the other components?
 
Mar 20, 2005 at 1:24 AM Post #85 of 87
Quote:

Originally Posted by meat01
Serious question here. How does the material in 3 feet of cable determine the sound, when the signal has to go through 2 connectors that are made of a different material? Wouldn't the connector material determine the sound, since that is the last thing the electrons flow through before going through the other components?


Why would the fact that the connector is on the end negate all effects of everything in the middle?
 
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