[Stereodude]

Hey, CD stabilizer rings and similar products were all the rage for a while.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Hey, CD stabilizer rings and similar products were all the rage for a while.

So were cassette tapes 

 

[Stereodude]

Quote:

So were cassette tapes 

Scarily enough they're making a comeback (supposedly).  link

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Scarily enough they're making a comeback (supposedly).  link

Just a movement fueled by hipster irony. It won't last, I hope.

 

[livewire]

Just for S&G's I'd thought I'd chime in on this cable stuff.
 
For the longest time I didnt believe in "cable voodoo". Kinda still dont.
But a month ago I had an epiphany regarding USB cables. They can and do sound different!
Problem was that my generic $2 cable sounded much, much better than a $30 "audio" cable.
 
I paid $30 for the super-duper mid-fi cable when I upgraded my system thinking that maybe,
just maybe I could hear an improvement. (although nothing sounded wrong with the old cheapo cable)
And being from the school of thought that data is just zeros and ones, I wasnt expecting any change, good or bad.
 
Boy-o-Boy was I surprised when the new cable sounded like dog crap.
Of course the marketing hype drew me in: "gold plated connectors, silver plated OHFC large guage conductors,
clad with super zoot insulation and a woven dual outer shield high efficiency ground plane.
Boy was I a sucker to think that any of that really mattered.
 
Lessoned learned: more expensive dont equal more better.
 
Afterwards I did test the new cable on my DMM for bad internal connections and all tested good.
I do not have equipment for testing signal degradation, so I left it at that and put the new cable to use
as a regular USB data cable. (Not as part of my audio chain!)
 
And I sure as h*ll wont be paying $100's or $1000's for cables in the future
although now I do believe that it is a good idea to compare a few reasonable priced units to see if differences do emerge.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Jim, I had exactly the same experience w/ optical cables a few months ago.  Out of a sampling of 8 or 9 different optical cables ranging from $5-$75 I ended up keeping two.  A $9 and $15 cable.  An LED just blinks and the light travels down the fiber to the receiver unit right?  Go figure.  Haven't played w/ USB yet to see if I notice anything.  Can't say that I have w/ any of the free cables that came with whatever gear I have laying around.  I do believe companies can make stuff worse.  One of the opticals I returned was the high-end audio version of a cable I kept.  That did sound worse as well.

 

[bmiamihk]

I bought silver cables and they did help my Shure 535. A bit more in the bass department.

 

[tmars78]

Quote:

Just a movement fueled by hipster irony. It won't last, I hope.

I love the last comment. Everyone has a tape player laying around. I haven't owned a tape player in 10 years or more. 

 

[Lenni]

well, I was checking reviews about an Esoteric CD transport and stumbled across this article about digital stream... and thought it may relate to whatever this topic is. check the Footnotes about Jitter, Bits, Errors etc... too.
 
fwiw, here it is

 

[drez]

Quote:

Scarily enough they're making a comeback (supposedly).  link

Hmm let me think...  What is the easiest medium to distribute music...  Lets see theres vinyl, casette...  I cant possibly think of any other medium to distribute music with...  DUHHHHHHH

 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

Just for S&G's I'd thought I'd chime in on this cable stuff.
 
For the longest time I didnt believe in "cable voodoo". Kinda still dont.
But a month ago I had an epiphany regarding USB cables. They can and do sound different!
Problem was that my generic $2 cable sounded much, much better than a $30 "audio" cable.
 
I paid $30 for the super-duper mid-fi cable when I upgraded my system thinking that maybe,
just maybe I could hear an improvement. (although nothing sounded wrong with the old cheapo cable)
And being from the school of thought that data is just zeros and ones, I wasnt expecting any change, good or bad.
 
Boy-o-Boy was I surprised when the new cable sounded like dog crap.
Of course the marketing hype drew me in: "gold plated connectors, silver plated OHFC large guage conductors,
clad with super zoot insulation and a woven dual outer shield high efficiency ground plane.
Boy was I a sucker to think that any of that really mattered.
 
Lessoned learned: more expensive dont equal more better.
 
Afterwards I did test the new cable on my DMM for bad internal connections and all tested good.
I do not have equipment for testing signal degradation, so I left it at that and put the new cable to use
as a regular USB data cable. (Not as part of my audio chain!)
 
And I sure as h*ll wont be paying $100's or $1000's for cables in the future
although now I do believe that it is a good idea to compare a few reasonable priced units to see if differences do emerge.

That is evidenced by the results of blind comparison testing where cheaper often does as well as if not outperforms expensive.
 

 

[JRG1990]

Perhaps the expensive cables are sometimes over engineered and that results in there poor performance.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

Perhaps the expensive cables are sometimes over engineered and that results in there poor performance.

I doubt it as ABX testing finds no difference at all. Cable companies emphasis how well their cables are made and suggest that makes them sound better, but there is no evidence linking build to sound, so long as it works properly in the first place.
 

 

[bmiamihk]

From an English magazine. "
[size=10pt]You can also get a replacement silver cable, which (after we published the initial review) we were sent to test. This is beautifully crafted from thick pure silver cabling plated together and terminated in a high quality gold plated jack connector - it certainly looks the part. It doesn't incorporate a wire for moulding the cable round your ear but we didn't find this at all problematic, and in fact it proved to us that which we've thought for a while; that you don't really need malleable cables. The thicker nature of the cable did introduce a bit more microphony, though. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the listening and indeed it does seem to improve things. In short, it's a bit like adding a decent headphone amp, providing improved bass response and just generally a bit more presence to the sound. Indeed, as much as anything the 'phones simply seemed a tad louder with this cable attached. We definitely approved. However, with it costing £140 it's not an option we'd recommend going for until you've had some time with the normal cable."[/size]

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

From an English magazine. "
[size=10pt]You can also get a replacement silver cable, which (after we published the initial review) we were sent to test. This is beautifully crafted from thick pure silver cabling plated together and terminated in a high quality gold plated jack connector - it certainly looks the part. It doesn't incorporate a wire for moulding the cable round your ear but we didn't find this at all problematic, and in fact it proved to us that which we've thought for a while; that you don't really need malleable cables. The thicker nature of the cable did introduce a bit more microphony, though. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the listening and indeed it does seem to improve things. In short, it's a bit like adding a decent headphone amp, providing improved bass response and just generally a bit more presence to the sound. Indeed, as much as anything the 'phones simply seemed a tad louder with this cable attached. We definitely approved. However, with it costing £140 it's not an option we'd recommend going for until you've had some time with the normal cable."[/size]

What's the significance of that quote?