[Hawkertempest]

I to was a cable sceptic until I was helping a friend try and decide which cable he should purchase from a group his Hi-Fi Shop had recommended, Wow did I get an education, some of them were shocking, but the Nordost were so far superior to anything else.
His and my system are all Nordost Tyr now and I wouldn't use anything else but Nordost, although I do use a Cardas Clear USB between my Computer and DAC.
Never again will I use standard cables and I just don't understand how anyone can purchase high quality gear and then compromise it with cheap shoddy cables. It beggar's belief really, they may as well have gone out and purchased a Walkman. 

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

... It beggar's belief really, they may as well have gone out and purchased a Walkman. 

 
Let's not go overboard with the hyperbole here...
 
But, you must have had a lot of EMI in your setup to notice that much of a difference. Not sure a cable would make a difference for ground loop noise... but maybe there are also some benefits in impedance matching, phase noise, etc. Can you tell us more about it? I'm in the process of looking at my cabling now also, and I'm curious as to which measurable characteristics were improved and how...  

 

[Hawkertempest]

Quote:

   
Let's not go overboard with the hyperbole here...
 
But, you must have had a lot of EMI in your setup to notice that much of a difference. Not sure a cable would make a difference for ground loop noise... but maybe there are also some benefits in impedance matching, phase noise, etc. Can you tell us more about it? I'm in the process of looking at my cabling now also, and I'm curious as to which measurable characteristics were improved and how...  

My Friend has a stunning system: Wadia 581se, Amazon 2 Turntable with Morch DP-8 Arm and Transfiguration Proteus MC Cartridge fitted , Sutherland PH-D, Plinius Tautoro Pre-Amp, Plinius Ref-103 Power and Martin Logan Summit X Speakers. He lives at the end of the road overlooking a protected  wetlands native reserve river estuary. There are no RFI or EMI issues. the nearest village is 10 kms away and the Tasman Sea is less than 1.5 kms away. Over the horizon about 2,700kms is Australia. He lives in a place that people would only dream of.
He had no bad cables to start with, I won't name them as I don't think that's relevant or fair. All I can say is Jheena Lodwicks' Feelings2 XRCD is beautifully recorded and the song "feelings" will really show just how good your system really is.
When we played it with the original set we thought it was very good, in fact we thought it was the bees knees and we were wasting our time really. We swapped out the cables with some of the others and quite frankly we could hear no differences.
We were about to give up and not try the Nordost but changed our mind and did so and thank god we did, because the difference was more than subtle. The cymbal's, and her voice came alive, there was more decay and air, the soundstage grew, it was like the whole system had had a massive spring clean and been polished. It was a jaw dropping experience for both of us. It convinced the both of us beyond all doubt that cables do in fact make a massive contribution to the sound of your system.
Since then, he has sold the Plinius Reference 103 and purchased a pair of Cary 500.1 Mono Blocks, but last week a pair of Acousticimagery ATSAH 500 Mono Power Amps arrived and are they something to listen to. Even fresh out of the box with only a few days run in by John Young these Amps are simply gorgeous.
So long story short, I stand by my statement, if you have good gear and you throttle it with "cheap" cables then you may as well have saved even more money and purchased "cheap" gear. Because you are never going to hear what your gear is capable of producing and all it takes is walking into your "local" Hi-Fi Dealer and asking him/her if you can try some cables in "your" system. It doesn't hurt to ask and you might get a big surprise like I did. 
Good Luck
 
Cheers
John  

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

I don't think the rainforest has anything to do with EMI.. But thanks for the vivid description. The only thing you left out were lat/long coordinates

I think the short answer to my question is "We don't know about the performance beyond how we feel it sounds" correct?

That's fair enough if it is. I will keep looking for objective measurements. Thanks.


Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon

 

[Hawkertempest]

I don't think the rainforest has anything to do with EMI.. But thanks for the vivid description. The only thing you left out were lat/long coordinates

I think the short answer to my question is "We don't know about the performance beyond how we feel it sounds" correct?

That's fair enough if it is. I will keep looking for objective measurements. Thanks.


Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon

HaHaHa.....yes your right. It is down to the individual but I promise you there is no harm in having a listen and trying it out for yourself. Who knows you might get a pleasant surprise.
Then again you might hear nothing at all
Nothing ventured nothing gained though?
 
Cheers from New Zealand

 

[Dillan]

Might I suggest letting your friend change the cables while your back is turned and you guessing which is which?

 

[Hawkertempest]

Might I suggest letting your friend change the cables while your back is turned and you guessing which is which?

Not a problem, will try it this weekend.

 

[433521]

audioscience review dot com (yeah, our old buddy Amir!) is up to his old tricks again, claiming you can measure musical sounds with an electrical device!

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/nordost-tyr-2-review-usb-cable.31730/

 

[gregorio]

I stand by my statement, if you have good gear and you throttle it with "cheap" cables then you may as well have saved even more money and purchased "cheap" gear.

Assuming of course that the “cheap” cables are the correct type for the job and are not broken, then they do not “throttle” good gear. The top commercial recording studios have the best gear/listening environments there are, far better than what you have described, and none of them use audiophile cables.

I promise you there is no harm in having a listen and trying it out for yourself.

You can’t promise that. There can be harm in having a listen for yourself because unless you “have a listen” under controlled conditions you are very likely to perceive a difference that doesn’t exist.

audioscience review dot com (yeah, our old buddy Amir!) is up to his old tricks again, claiming you can measure musical sounds with an electrical device!

1. He wasn’t measuring musical sounds with an electrical device, he was measuring an electrical signal (analogue audio signal) with an electrical device. What do you think we should measure an electrical signal with?

2. What do you think an ADC (Analogue to Digital Converter) does? ADCs are electrical devices, if they couldn’t “measure musical sounds” then we couldn’t record musical sounds and obviously you couldn’t reproduce them. Although again, as with point #1, we’re actually measuring (and then reproducing) an analogue audio signal, not sound. For sound we need transducers, a microphone to convert the sound into an analogue signal and speakers/HPs to convert the analogue signal back into sound.

I'm curious as to which measurable characteristics were improved and how...

None were improved. There are measurable differences but they are minuscule, way below the ability of speakers/HPs to reproduce.

G

 

[433521]

1. He wasn’t measuring musical sounds with an electrical device, he was measuring an electrical signal (analogue audio signal) with an electrical device. What do you think we should measure an electrical signal with?

I don't know, but I'm not making any claims that there are sonic differences between and expensive cable and a cheap cable or not. Without doing a/b blind comparisons I don't think these measurements show what the cable sounds like, if indeed it 'sounds' like anything at all.

 

[gregorio]

Without doing a/b blind comparisons I don't think these measurements show what the cable sounds like, if indeed it 'sounds' like anything at all.

Yes, exactly my point. A cable doesn't input or output sound, it inputs and outputs an electrical signal, so it can't sound like anything, unless you have electrical connectors implanted in your skull!

What it "sounds like" after the electrical signal has been converted to sound, picked up by your ears and then perceived by your brain, is a function of your ears/brain, not of the cable. So to answer the question "what does it sound like?" you would obviously have to measure your brain. If we want to know the performance of a cable though, obviously we measure the cable, not your brain.

G

 

[whitedragem]

Oh No - the ’audio science’ people are ruining a perfectly fine thread; pretty sure NO DBT is written in this threads‘ overarching category. (for a reason)

As a Nordost ‘convert’, my experience with Nordost cables was a night/day difference. (and that was using their most basic/most cheap speaker cable that they made)

Their cable lineup had properties measuring transmission as a % of ‘speed of light’, and were engineering excellence.
They had been building cables for NASA, who had a lot of specifications to be met, least of which to me as an audiofool was the flammability of the materials.

As a teenager and being highly willing to experiment, I figured I would give some a go.
Finally a second hand ‘trade-in‘ set turned up at my local Nordost supplier.

One of the cables’ properties was that irrelevant of how the cable was treated, it would go on sounding ‘the same’. (dealers being happy to ‘screw up the cable’ quite roughly in front of prospective customers)
I replaced my hundreds of dollars worth of ‘well selected’ cable with the basic ‘entry level’ nordost.
At the time my setup was nothing exceptional; I was using a nad 3020 and rotel RB850 setup, bi-amping some incredible hand built speakers (built by a professional speaker maker for his best friend as a ‘wedding gift’), speakers I have never heard better than… (the midrange drivers were probably $1500 a piece)

VS my alternative high end audio speaker cable (one of the best I could find on a roll in a dedicated high end audio shop), the Nordost just did wonders. It was a bi-amp cable (like my other cable) and so was easy to insert, and the difference on those budget amplifiers (it cost more than both of them put together) was phenominal.

Every person I have recommended Nordost cable to (it IS the only cable brand I have ever recommended) has thanked me for the introduction.

It ain’t snake oil.
Nordost are one of the forefathers of ‘good cables’ and are probably more responsible for so many speaker cable companies trying to come to market, than any other brand: due to the fact that THEY DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE- quite a notable improvement.
I won’t write word salad about what I experienced,.. and the science of it must simply come down to a cable that actually doesn’t smear a signal and ‘by timing’ has everything land in much the same way it entered.
To say audio benefits were perceived is a factual statement. (hence not an understatement or overstatement)

Do I see Nordost cables as value /valuable?
Yes, absolutely -
They will go on working for years flawlessly, and are just one piece of the puzzle that we can place and be done with…
When I upgraded that NAD 3020 to a Musical Fidelity X-A1, the improvement was greater still.. and these were budget (Nordost most basic) cables on relativley budget equipment.

Last year when I was looking at recabling my headphones I went out of my way to ring all around town until I was speaking with the Nordost dealer who handled headphone cables.
I understand others who haven’t used Nordost might have a sordid tale to tell, or feel ‘snake oil’ ripped off and hence ‘negative’ to the prospect of cables making a difference.
They absolutely do, and is probably why Nordost can run such an easy demonstration to rooms filled with people.
Night/day difference.

Nordost for the win!

 

[gregorio]

Their cable lineup had properties measuring transmission as a % of ‘speed of light’, and were engineering excellence.

So do cables costing a few bucks a metre.

They had been building cables for NASA, who had a lot of specifications to be met

Commercial recording studios also have a lot of specifications to be met, and they are met by cables costing a few bucks a metre.

NASA go for the lowest bid that meets their specifications, not the highest.

One of the cables’ properties was that irrelevant of how the cable was treated, it would go on sounding ‘the same’.

That’s a required property of cables used in commercial studios, which get a lot more abuse than those used by consumers.

It ain’t snake oil.

Sure it ain’t.

Nordost are one of the forefathers of ‘good cables’ and are probably more responsible for so many speaker cable companies trying to come to market, than any other brand: due to the fact that …

That a few audiophiles would spend thousands on cables that cost peanuts and profit margins were therefore through the roof.

Incidentally, Nordost were founded in 1991, over a century AFTER ‘good cables’ were required (to circle the planet!). Not sure how that makes them a ‘forefather’?

To say audio benefits were perceived is a factual statement. (hence not an understatement or overstatement)

Perceived, yes. Actual audible difference, no.

Do I see Nordost cables as value /valuable?
Yes, absolutely -
They will go on working for years flawlessly

Studio cables costing a few bucks a metre go on working for years flawlessly. So, no absolutely!

I understand others who haven’t used Nordost might have a sordid tale to tell, or feel ‘snake oil’ ripped off and hence ‘negative’ to the prospect of cables making a difference.

I have tried and tested a Nordost cable, differences are way, way below audibility.

G

 

[The Jester]

Heard of “The Abbey Road Cable”?
Not Nordost but another designer who focuses on timing ….

 

[gregorio]

Heard of “The Abbey Road Cable”?

Nope. However, I have actually worked at Abbey Road Studios on a number of occasions. They use standard, relatively cheap cables (a few bucks a metre) made by various mass production manufacturers, although most of it was standard Van Damme cable.

Don’t get sucked in by false/misleading marketing. The audiophile market, particularly the cable sector, is packed with it!

G