Cable Cost vs Equipment Cost
Apr 6, 2007 at 8:51 PM Post #18 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by mlhm5 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
If someone ever does DBT of cables and power cords and Blue Jeans loses out, then and only then might I consider spending more than $20.


This is a DBT-free forum.
 
Apr 6, 2007 at 9:03 PM Post #19 of 139
The Nordost Valhalla cables connected to my DAC cost 8 times more than the DAC itself. I have also rewired the DC wiring with Nordost Valkyrja speaker cable.

I have tried high-end gear and they sounded worse with the same tweaks (because of bigger capacitors and longer signal path). The future is $1k DAC, $1k amp, and $30k worth of Valhalla cables.
 
Apr 6, 2007 at 9:30 PM Post #20 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I have tried high-end gear and they sounded worse with the same tweaks (because of bigger capacitors and longer signal path). The future is $1k DAC, $1k amp, and $30k worth of Valhalla cables.


That's an interesting assessment of bigger capacitors capacitors making the signal path longer.

Why Valhalla?
 
Apr 6, 2007 at 9:54 PM Post #21 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The future is $1k DAC, $1k amp, and $30k worth of Valhalla cables.


Maybe in "bizarro world."
biggrin.gif
 
Apr 6, 2007 at 11:10 PM Post #22 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by TreAdidas /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Why Valhalla?


Valhalla gives fake transparency from the silver plating. It compensates for muddiness in the system. For me it's either stock cable or Valhalla. Everything else I tried made the sound worse. I tried Vishnu and the difference was very small, it just sounded smoother than stock cable, it didn't fix the muddiness problem because Vishnu is more neutral. Valhalla has deeper silver plating than Vishnu, and it solved the muddiness problem.

You can compensate for the muddiness by infecting the gear with AC noise, EMI and vibration, but they all sacrifice detail in the process. They also give less transparency because it sounds bright and harsh. With Valhalla you get exaggerated whiteness of the sound which sounds clean and smooth. Since it's smooth you also get more transparency and bigger soundstage.

Those who want to fix brightness problems in the system, don't spend it on warm sounding cables, spend it on ERS Paper instead. You can treat the whole system for less than the price of Valhalla cable! When you go too far and it sounds too dry and dull, it's Valhalla time!
blink.gif


You could also try cheap bulk silver plated wiring and make your own cotton dielectric cables. That's probably what I would do if I didn't already have Valhalla. You can get better than high-end sound for very cheap if you have enough time to spend on tweaking.

It is better to solve the problems with the system instead of buying magic high-end boxes from greedy manufacturers who take advantage of the ignorant customers.

Here is how you solve the problems:

EMI) ERS Paper
Vibration) Magix levitation feet
AC noise) PS Audio P300 Power Plant

If it sounds too dry and dull, replace Magix with Solid-tech Feet of Silence, they give similar coloration as Valhalla and are cheaper than Magix.

So it's either Magix + Valhalla, or Feet of Silence + muddy cables. The latter is 20 times cheaper. You can build a good system for very cheap, but people who own $20k sources will say otherwise to justify their purchase. But I can't deny the truth, I have wasted $14k on high-end gear I no longer use because they make it sound worse, they are just collecting dust now. $1k DAC is more than good enough, and so is a computer as transport with crappy Toslink cable.

Only the tweaks that solve the problems are important to me, not what is inside magic boxes from greedy manufacturers who don't know what they are doing.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 12:12 AM Post #24 of 139
IMO, cables are the last thing to worry about. Add a Valhalla to a crap speaker you get crap sound. I will never be above good old Blue Jeans Cable, as recording artists use the same stuff if not worse stuff. Sorry, I do not buy into all the marketing hype and nonsense that some cable companies vomit forth to the public. I would rather set my money on fire than spend it on esoteric cables.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 12:28 AM Post #25 of 139
I'm goign to replace all the rubbish £0.50 cables in my setup after I get myself a decent digital source. The Precide 078 and the Blue Jeans are the front runners for the honours. At the minute, ive got a QED J2P from my soundcard, and a stock Stax rca for the SRM-717 and a 2metre monsteraudio from the CD player I have on loan.

Having a CD player on loan is what is makign me question my previous belief that "all digital sources must be the same". Whether the price difference justifies the performance difference isnt something I've decided yet.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 12:33 AM Post #26 of 139
While there's undoubtedly a whole load of hooey in the cable market, cables do become more & more important as the performance level of the system goes up.

We can use the analogy of cars and sparkplugs. In a run of the mill car such as a Honda Accord, any half-decent sparkplug will do and there's practically no difference between a $5 plug and a $30 iridium plug other than longevity. Now take a high performance car such as a Ferrari, now you start seeing some differences in the horsepower curves, and with cheap plugs the engine may even stumble a bit at times. Move it up another notch to an F1 engine and the sparkplug becomes absolutely critical. If it's not the best plug which man can make, the engine will sputter horribly and possibly grenade itself.

It's much the same in audio, the higher up one goes on the performance ladder, the more everything matters.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 1:41 AM Post #27 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
IMO, cables are the last thing to worry about. Add a Valhalla to a crap speaker you get crap sound. I will never be above good old Blue Jeans Cable, as recording artists use the same stuff if not worse stuff. Sorry, I do not buy into all the marketing hype and nonsense that some cable companies vomit forth to the public. I would rather set my money on fire than spend it on esoteric cables.


http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...2&postcount=27
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 4:03 AM Post #28 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...2&postcount=27


While I am happy for this person, they could have bought another world class headphone for 500 bucks that would probably sound better.

Again, all of those CDs that were used as benchmarks used Mogami cable. You realize this debate will never end, right? Why? The subjectivity of this topic and the priorities of one's use of money toward audio components.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 4:18 AM Post #29 of 139
Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
IMO, cables are the last thing to worry about. Add a Valhalla to a crap speaker you get crap sound. I will never be above good old Blue Jeans Cable, as recording artists use the same stuff if not worse stuff. Sorry, I do not buy into all the marketing hype and nonsense that some cable companies vomit forth to the public. I would rather set my money on fire than spend it on esoteric cables.


My feelings exactly.
 
Apr 7, 2007 at 4:36 AM Post #30 of 139
In general I don't spend too much on cables, just like no snake-oil well made ones. But as far as expensive cables, after a recommendation I made an exception with the Zu, and don't regret it.

One thing I'd like to mention here, the Zu is measurably different in terms of resistance with respect to the stock Sennheiser HD650 cable.

Both the Zu and stock cables I have are 10 feet long. The way I measured their resistance: all the way from the right channel at the plug, then shorted the right headphone connector, and then measured back on ground at the plug. So in fact I measured the resistance of 20 feet of wire in each cable.

With my Zu and using my digital multimeter I measured just 0.5 ohms. Same for its left channel.

With the stock cable I measured 1.6 ohms, and same for its left channel. Slightly more than 3x the resistance of the Zu.

These results should be easily repeateable and verifiable by anyone with a stock Senn cable, a Zu Mobius, and a multimeter.
 
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