[AudioCats]

Why not conduct your own test: find a few pairs of cables, from the $5 radioshack to the $40 monster to the $200 fancy stuff. Take a listen and make the decision by yourself.

"the world is full of rich fools", so you think?

To my "placebo" ears, geometry can make a big difference, as long as the cable is longer than 18".

 

[synaesthetic]

I've made dozens of 3- and 4-conductor flat and round braid cables using the generic plugs and connectors off Digi-Key, and they are just as good as the really awesome-looking "designer cables" out there.

Actually, they're better, because they are a bare fraction of the price.

I am not a "cable cultist," but I will replace or change cables for reasons other than trying to change the sound, and I will DIY A/V cables to save cash. The cheapy pack-in ones aren't durable, and even the low-cost end of well-made A/V cables are more expensive than some silver-plated copper wire, a few plugs, some solder and heatshrink.

Anyway, I just like to braid cable. It's fun for reasons I can't describe. Some girls knit, this girl braids A/V cables.

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AudioCats /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why not conduct your own test: find a few pairs of cables, from the $5 radioshack to the $40 monster to the $200 fancy stuff. Take a listen and make the decision by yourself.

I never have heard any diffs in cables. not ever. maybe you think less of me, now?

so I stopped using my ears for test equip and rely on repeatable things that have more sensitivity than my ears.

Quote:

"the world is full of rich fools", so you think?

not quite full.

but I fully believe that the higher end in audio you get, the more the hocus-pocus factor enters in and the less facts enter in. sorry.

 

[olblueyez]

If someone has not "heard" a difference than it means exactly that. Doesnt mean it doesnt exsist. I also think geometry is important especially when the cable is not well shielded (describes alot of DIY cables). Look at the Kimber Kable website, they use geomitry in place of shielding for most of their cables. Audioquest is the oposite. Which is better? I have no ideal, all I can say is the Audioquest King Cobras made a 40 or 50 percent sound quality improvement and an unshielded cable I bought from a cable maker (no names) was noisy as hell even though it was a litz braid and never stood a chance. Cable placement also affects this but I rather be on the safe side. My KC's added dymanics, detail, and warmth in that order and are perfectly quiet.

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pars /img/forum/go_quote.gif Amb uses the same box for RMAA testing, as do I (based on his recommendation). Where did you see reference to it not testing so good as you put it? When I have run loopbacks on it it has tested quite well. For example, The β22 Stereo Amplifier, including the loopback baseline testing just the box itself.

well the fact that I can hear a difference in ADC quality between my old M-audio delta 66 (same chip technology as the audiophile, but higher up the range) and my RME fireface firewire pro audio interface; (and the apogee hjigh end are more noticeable again) as well as seeing the difference in the sampled file. says to me that its not that great. if I can hear that its lower quality doesnt that say that its not better than my ears?? The audiophile may have an appropriate name, but it is FAR from being high end. in fact its the entry level into a range of mid-fi audio tools. thats not to say its a piece of crap, because it isnt. but IMO not great either.

in fact that issue is at the core of the matter. most modern audio technology including speahers, some but not all headphones, amps, audio cards, cables, synths etc, etc, can reproduce audio that is 'outside' our supposed senses. but we can (at least I can) tell the difference between a modern mid-fi piece of kit and a high end one. so clearly its not all in the numbers; there's something else going on.... otherwise they would all sound the same. Now i realize there is camp of conservative type (non-believers) that would argue just that; but IMO that utter rubbish.

 

[Muzica]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif well the fact that I can hear a difference in ADC quality between my old M-audio delta 66 (same chip technology as the audiophile, but higher up the range) and my RME fireface firewire pro audio interface; (and the apogee hjigh end are more noticeable again) as well as seeing the difference in the sampled file. says to me that its not that great. if I can hear that its lower quality doesnt that say that its not better than my ears?? The audiophile may have an appropriate name, but it is FAR from being high end. in fact its the entry level into a range of mid-fi audio tools. thats not to say its a piece of crap, because it isnt. but IMO not great either. in fact that issue is at the core of the matter. most modern audio technology including speahers, some but not all headphones, amps, audio cards, cables, synths etc, etc, can reproduce audio that is 'outside' our supposed senses. but we can (at least I can) tell the difference between a modern mid-fi piece of kit and a high end one. so clearly its not all in the numbers; there's something else going on.... otherwise they would all sound the same. Now i realize there is camp of conservative type (non-believers) that would argue just that; but IMO that utter rubbish.

Other than your personal “subjective hearing”, any scientific/technical underpin?
Your personal “subjective hearing” is not ours !

 

[olblueyez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muzica /img/forum/go_quote.gif Other than your personal “subjective hearing”, any scientific/technical underpin? Your personal “subjective hearing” is not ours !

The first and best test will always be "Your Ears" so search for numbers till your blue in the face, I have better things to do than trying to lead a horse to water. Also, the word your looking for is "underpinnings".

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muzica /img/forum/go_quote.gif Other than your personal “subjective hearing”, any scientific/technical underpin? Your personal “subjective hearing” is not ours !

did you actually read my post or are you just prone to knee jerk reactions. my whole point is that tests are not going to prove this one way or another. and besides if the M-audio audiophile was as good as RME or apogee interfaces; nobody would buy the more expensive ones would they. and pro audio people are much more pragmatic than us audiophiles. oh and By the way the RME and apogee test much better too. especially ADC which is the main objective here. why would I point out the flaws in gear that I actually own if it werent true??. do you own either one of these or even something similar??? in fact I have actually lent the M-audio to a friend indefinitely because it doesnt hold a candle to the RME. but again I was only saying that for testing something like this if you could be bothered doing it at all, IMO you should do it with something that handles dynamics etc as well as the gear it is testing. The audiophile is OK for outputting spdif but the problem I had with it was it didnt have a very stable clock; sounded ok when I slaved it off the RME but by itself it wasnt that spectacular.

and where did I say you heard what I did. clearly you are the one that needs to back up your statements

 

[Pars]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif sorry but I doubt the appropriateness of the audiophile by M-audio for this test. the audiophile itself doesnt test so good. its hardly high end IMO sorry but in my experience the m-audio products are very consumer grade. thats their niche. all the same it may well still be able to find some differences. how accurately rendered those differences are is another question.

It might be this statement that is eliciting such responses. I asked for references and you reply with I can hear it

Thats great...
While I am sure the M-Audio Firewire Audiophile is not the last word in ADC resolution, it is (or was) a) affordable, and b) gets the interface out of the computer's noise field.

 

[digger945]

The M-audio Firewire is what AMB uses to give specifications and benchmarks for his amps, including the Beta22.

 

[holland]

Interpretation of measurements are subjective as well. The basis of the test may not be to prove or disprove things like EMI or RFI rejection in the cable design...but the measurement may be there and it may be meaningless as the environment it was measured in may be pristine to begin with.

For signal wiring, I always assume the worst and go for shielded twisted cable where one in the pair is always ground, and the shielding is connected. Short of measurements in the usage environment, it's hard to say whether or not it matters, but it doesn't hurt to shield, ever.

To add to that, "Your Ears" is heavily colored by one's own prejudices and preconceived notions. One's mind is a very powerful tool in distorting sensorial information. That's why audio tests must be DBT or it's meaningless.

One more thing to add, and this is especially applicable to audio cable discussions.

 

[qusp]

what would be the point of me testing one piece of gear with the other??? can you explain that to me?? either way the results would be colored with the testing equipment. Manufacturing besides the manufacturers very own websites and boxes state measurements that are inferior to the RME. and the RME isnt even top of the range. you guys are funny just because AMB recommends it, its amazing. its reasonably cheap for what it is; IMO thats probably why its being recommended; not because its such an amazing piece of testing hardware. why would AMB recommend you guys buy an expensive piece of audio production hardware just to test amps out and not make any music with it?? any really good piece of ADC hardware would cost several times more than the amp you are testing. does that sound like something to recommend. even the fireface isnt that high end. OK guys I just looked it up and the 'audiophile' is as I thought; its the entry level of their PCI based audio cards and its still using the same chip as when I bought my delta 66 about 6 years ago. which one are you guys supposed to be using the 24/96 or 24/192?? the 192 is a BIT newer but still not new at all. the ADC specs on the 24/96 from the M-audio website for dynamic range are 100.4dB (A-weighted) (A/D). and frequency response:22Hz-22kHz, -0.4, +/-0.4dB (not even as good as the headphones connected to the gear that we are testing) with the 192 being half decent with a dynamic range:109dB @ 48kHz (A-weighted) and frequency response:+/-0.1dB, 20Hz to 20kHz @ 48kHz <-still only FR as good as an ipod. if you are trying to test something that may be outlside of our hearing then surely you should test it with something that can produce /capture audio that is outside of our hearing... wouldnt you think?? I mean my hearing doesnt reliably go up past 20khz, but play a 20khz tone and I can almost hear it and it certainly has an effect on harmonics above that. add to that the fact that this is a PCI based card and there is all sorts of noise going on inside the average computer. at the very least you would be better off using an entry level firewire or usb based interface.
the fireface (and bare in mind I wasnt recommending it for this test either; just saying that I could hear a difference) it has Dynamic range AD: 110 dB RMS unweighted, 113 dBA and Dynamic range DA: 110 dB RMS unweighted, 113 dBA (unmuted) and heres the killer

Frequency response AD/DA, -0.1 dB: 5 Hz - 20.4 kHz (sf 44.1 kHz)

Frequency response AD/DA, -0.5 dB: 1 Hz - 43.3 kHz (sf 96 kHz)

Frequency response AD/DA, -1 dB: 1 Hz - 80 kHz (sf 192 kHz)

happy??

and the fireface isnt even RME's top of the line. IMO one of the mid level M-audio interfaces (preferably not a PCI based one) would be able to tell the difference between a braided cable and one as Tomb suggests scattered. but to be honest i'm not even interested. I only bothered with this because you were somehow arguing that I couldnt hear a difference and that it wasnt valid. look at those specs and tell me that I wouldnt have been able to. my point was that if I could easily hear the difference then equipment more sensitive than my ears certainly should be able to.the audible difference (apart from more IO) was the reason I upgraded in the first place.

 

[olblueyez]

Dont worry about it Qusp, let him read numbers if he likes.

 

[tomb]

The M-Audio FireWire has a rolloff at 15KHz. These show up on all of AMB's loopback tests. I use a lowly M-Audio Transit. Believe it or not, it has a slightly better frequency response out to about 19KHz with a sheer-cliff falloff after that. I agree with AMB that the M-Audio Firewire is probably a much more convenient box. Because like AMB found out, the driver for the Transit is a bit squirrelly and needs re-loading almost everytime the thing is disconnected.

However, neither performance is really that critical for RMA testing. Within reason, you simply want a repeatable baseline that can accept both input and output. Accepting it's own output as an input is what sets the baseline (loopback). The levels of relative distortion, frequency response, and noise are valid when compared to that loopback. IOW, is what you're testing equal to or worse than the device itself?

That is the beauty of RMAA testing: it brings real audio performance measurements within reach of anyone with a PC and a sound card flexible enough to provide the capabiltiy listed above. The discussion of the absolute quality of the device seems a side issue to me.

 

[linuxworks]

tom, I just received a firewire maudio box. been playing with it.

where do you see a 15k rolloff? when I enable 24/96k mode I see a VERY high frequency with valid data there (it blew me away - it was my first time playing with anything better than 'native' 16/48k on coax spdif)

I enabled analog loopback and went into 24bit/96k mode and measured freq and noise. it was astonishingly low on both counts.

I then went on to do charts of the various dacs and phones amps I have. in all cases the test equip was as good or better than the DUT (dev under test).

from what I've seen, the EMU 0404 (which I also plan to buy soon) tests even better and is the next step up in 'diving deeper' into lower noise floors and distortion levels.

people can rag on these all they want (I used to!) but I'm now a believer. these things ARE damned good and they are fully pro spec'd in the places that matter. its not built to high end standards but the specs that I've seen from local loopback tests are impressive as hell.

no 15k limit here! please explain where you saw that.