[Paladin79]

I like silver plated copper for one of my IEMs better than 100% copper. Feel free to use that single datum to guide your entire audio life.

Thank you for that wonderful insight! I would assemble some cables for you to compare but I do not do much with IEM's, on purpose.

 

[macdonjh]

Thank you for that wonderful insight! I would assemble some cables for you to compare but I do not do much with IEM's, on purpose.

While I'm not a cable denier, I lean closer to that side of the audiophile spectrum. I have heard cables make small-ish differences, but not enough to have a cable collection so I can hand match cables to equipment after exhaustive auditioning. Nor do I match the price of my cables to the prices of the gear they connect.

My two cents, and worth at least half that.

 

[OldRoadToad]

Magnius has a differential and balanced gain stage, in other words with either SE (RCA) or Balanced (XLR) input, the output can be used Balanced (4-pin XLR for headphones)

best connection between Modius and Magnius would be the XLR balanced, but the SE (RCA) connection will work as well.

Thank you! This is good to know and will make it easier for me to try out and keep cables to balance some of my headphones!

ORT

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

While I'm not a cable denier, I lean closer to that side of the audiophile spectrum. I have heard cables make small-ish differences, but not enough to have a cable collection so I can hand match cables to equipment after exhaustive auditioning. Nor do I match the price of my cables to the prices of the gear they connect.

My two cents, and worth at least half that.

Same here. I do hear (or imagine to hear) tiny differences between certain cables and interconnects, but not really anything pronounced enough to warrant paying an arm and a leg for them. There's obviously a huge jump in quality from something like an Amazon Basics interconnect to, say, a Snake Oil Taipan, but beyond that, the return on your investment curve drops off like crazy. At least from where I'm standing.

That said, there's one exception to that "rule": Speaker cables.
And that one totally snuck up on me, too.

About a year ago, I decided to replace the speaker cables I was using at the time because their connectors split to only about four inches apart, and only did so under a little bit of strain. With mono Aegirs and Vidars, that wasn't exactly ideal. Not strained enough to have me worried about the cable or the binding posts, but still enough to bother me.

The ones I was using were 12 AWG stranded "oxygen-free" copper, and I never really had any complaints about the sound I was getting.
I replaced them with cables of the same length, although about three times more expensive than the old ones were, and made of 14 AWG 6N OCC single crystal copper. Lots of mumbo jumbo that I don't care much about, and yes, also thinner conductors (14 vs. 12 AWG) than the ones they replaced. But they look really nice, so there's that. ;p

What I got from that change, and I don't use that figure of speech lightly here, almost literally blew me away. Having changed nothing else, the highs I got were noticeably clearer than they were ever before. But the biggest change was in the bass: It was always there with the old speaker cables, but now it gained a much fuller body. The bass didn't necessarily got any lower or louder, but it gained a metric Schiit-ton in definition. Before, an upright bass sounded like an upright bass alright, but now, it sounded like an upright bass that's standing right there in front of you inside the room.
Up to that unexpected "happy little accident", I didn't really believe that cables would (or even could) make such a huge difference. But since then, at least when it comes to speaker cables, I'm a believer.
(Although I will still vehemently refuse to believe that you get your money's worth when you spend more than, say, 200 bucks or so on a speaker cable. Beyond that, I really do believe that you're mostly just buying some proverbial snake oil.)

The other thing I've never had the chance to try myself, and would love to give a shot at some point, is to play around with a number of different power cables. I think that a higher-quality cable might actually make sense specifically for power amps, and I hear that you get some interesting results if you use a cable that has conductors that are both, stranded and solid core. The reason why I haven't tried anything in that regard yet is because the quality of the power that I get out of my wall is certifiably horrendous. I live at an apartment complex, and the way things are wired around here means that I am sharing my connection to the city's grid with 99 other units. I don't get any noticeable spikes when a neighbor starts vacuuming or their AC, fridge, or dryer starts up, or anything like that. I had it like that for the few years I lived in a 1920s-era high-rise in San Francisco, so it could definitely always be worse. But it's not exactly great, either. So before I play around with power cables to see if I can hear a difference, I'd like to make sure first that the power I feed into the system is as clean as possible to begin with, as that's pretty much guaranteed to make a much bigger difference than any power cable could ever provide.

I've tested a handful of power conditioners, but they do jack-schiit for me, to be honest.
I have also looked into PS Audio's PowerPlants, but for what my gear can potentially draw I would need to get a single 20 or two 12s, but those are priced a tad steep for my taste.

I really wish Schiit would consider making power regenerators. At their core, they're essentially a sine wave generator strapped to the input of a beefy power amp. There's of course quite a bit more to the controlling end of things than just that, but it's not exactly rocket surgery, either. Nothing that Schiit hasn't done in some shape or form before.

I'm definitely not holding my breath, of course, but a boy can dream, right? ;p

 

[Paladin79]

While I'm not a cable denier, I lean closer to that side of the audiophile spectrum. I have heard cables make small-ish differences, but not enough to have a cable collection so I can hand match cables to equipment after exhaustive auditioning. Nor do I match the price of my cables to the prices of the gear they connect.

My two cents, and worth at least half that.

What you say is certainly reasonable.
I do not go overboard with cables. Quality materials with quality construction. If I have questions I turn to an engineer with specific knowledge In metallurgy. I do not do pseudo-science.

 

[US Blues]

We've reached the part of the Sine Wave where cats and dogs are living together. Must be time for a new product.

Urd.

My post from 25 March. ^^^^^^^^^^

Called a new product.

Not the one I was hoping for.

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

Folkvangr: Gets you pleasure.
Folk-wanger: Gets you arrested.

It's all in the nuance.

 

[RickB]

Same here. I do hear (or imagine to hear) tiny differences between certain cables and interconnects, but not really anything pronounced enough to warrant paying an arm and a leg for them. There's obviously a huge jump in quality from something like an Amazon Basics interconnect to, say, a Snake Oil Taipan, but beyond that, the return on your investment curve drops off like crazy. At least from where I'm standing.

That said, there's one exception to that "rule": Speaker cables.
And that one totally snuck up on me, too.

About a year ago, I decided to replace the speaker cables I was using at the time because their connectors split to only about four inches apart, and only did so under a little bit of strain. With mono Aegirs and Vidars, that wasn't exactly ideal. Not strained enough to have me worried about the cable or the binding posts, but still enough to bother me.

The ones I was using were 12 AWG stranded "oxygen-free" copper, and I never really had any complaints about the sound I was getting.
I replaced them with cables of the same length, although about three times more expensive than the old ones were, and made of 14 AWG 6N OCC single crystal copper. Lots of mumbo jumbo that I don't care much about, and yes, also thinner conductors (14 vs. 12 AWG) than the ones they replaced. But they look really nice, so there's that. ;p

What I got from that change, and I don't use that figure of speech lightly here, almost literally blew me away. Having changed nothing else, the highs I got were noticeably clearer than they were ever before. But the biggest change was in the bass: It was always there with the old speaker cables, but now it gained a much fuller body. The bass didn't necessarily got any lower or louder, but it gained a metric Schiit-ton in definition. Before, an upright bass sounded like an upright bass alright, but now, it sounded like an upright bass that's standing right there in front of you inside the room.
Up to that unexpected "happy little accident", I didn't really believe that cables would (or even could) make such a huge difference. But since then, at least when it comes to speaker cables, I'm a believer.
(Although I will still vehemently refuse to believe that you get your money's worth when you spend more than, say, 200 bucks or so on a speaker cable. Beyond that, I really do believe that you're mostly just buying some proverbial snake oil.)

The other thing I've never had the chance to try myself, and would love to give a shot at some point, is to play around with a number of different power cables. I think that a higher-quality cable might actually make sense specifically for power amps, and I hear that you get some interesting results if you use a cable that has conductors that are both, stranded and solid core. The reason why I haven't tried anything in that regard yet is because the quality of the power that I get out of my wall is certifiably horrendous. I live at an apartment complex, and the way things are wired around here means that I am sharing my connection to the city's grid with 99 other units. I don't get any noticeable spikes when a neighbor starts vacuuming or their AC, fridge, or dryer starts up, or anything like that. I had it like that for the few years I lived in a 1920s-era high-rise in San Francisco, so it could definitely always be worse. But it's not exactly great, either. So before I play around with power cables to see if I can hear a difference, I'd like to make sure first that the power I feed into the system is as clean as possible to begin with, as that's pretty much guaranteed to make a much bigger difference than any power cable could ever provide.

I've tested a handful of power conditioners, but they do jack-schiit for me, to be honest.
I have also looked into PS Audio's PowerPlants, but for what my gear can potentially draw I would need to get a single 20 or two 12s, but those are priced a tad steep for my taste.

I really wish Schiit would consider making power regenerators. At their core, they're essentially a sine wave generator strapped to the input of a beefy power amp. There's of course quite a bit more to the controlling end of things than just that, but it's not exactly rocket surgery, either. Nothing that Schiit hasn't done in some shape or form before.

I'm definitely not holding my breath, of course, but a boy can dream, right? ;p

A sine wave UPS made a good difference in my case. I live in a 50 unit old apartment building, and I've never had complaints about the quality of power while using the UPS.

 

[433521]

What you say is certainly reasonable.
I do not go overboard with cables. Quality materials with quality construction. If I have questions I turn to an engineer with specific knowledge In metallurgy. I do not do pseudo-science.

I bought some pnj speaker cables, they sound fine, I tried 10 ga vs 16 ga on a subwoofer to see if I could hear a difference in pink noise, I could, 10 was louder deeper etc. And smart people say they can hear it, smart people say they can't!

 

[433521]

Thank you! This is good to know and will make it easier for me to try out and keep cables to balance some of my headphones!

ORT

Snake Oil has great cables and flat connectors that allow you to put your gear close to a wall.

 

[ImagesbyMurray]

While I'm not a cable denier, I lean closer to that side of the audiophile spectrum. I have heard cables make small-ish differences, but not enough to have a cable collection so I can hand match cables to equipment after exhaustive auditioning. Nor do I match the price of my cables to the prices of the gear they connect.

My two cents, and worth at least half that.

One aspect of cables is the simple act of bonding a new connection. With speaker cable connection from mono Vidars to my Apogees, I found a simple snug of connection points on amp and speaker terminals seems to make a small difference (at least in my seriously warped mind).

 

[Paladin79]

One aspect of cables is the simple act of bonding a new connection. With speaker cable connection from mono Vidars to my Apogees, I found a simple snug of connection points on amp and speaker terminals seems to make a small difference (at least in my seriously warped mind).

Occasional cleaning does not hurt as well. Often I use gold plated banana plugs and solder the speaker wire to the plugs using silver content solder. I have tried most connectors you can imagine and some of the pin connectors and spade clamps can work loose. I try to spread the banana plugs strips to maintain good contact.

 

[OldRoadToad]

One aspect of cables is the simple act of bonding a new connection. With speaker cable connection from mono Vidars to my Apogees, I found a simple snug of connection points on amp and speaker terminals seems to make a small difference (at least in my seriously warped mind).

Warp factor 5 Mr. Sulu?

I know whereof you speak, sir. It is about hearing your life and having fun doing so. Was it not warp factor 10 where time travel was initiated if we also used the gravitational pull of a planet to get 'er going? Nothing wrong with being a bit warped. Unless you are a record...

Thank you for the smile!

ORT

 

[bcowen]

In a design that doesn't push tubes to the max, life can last many years. I used to think tubes were horrible because of a preamp that used 6DJ8 and the spectacularly explosive Dynaco mk 6 monoblocks. The preamp burned through tubes in a year. The amps were probably the worse design Dyna ever put out. There are many threads about fixing the design. Monthly they would blow a tube or the resistor. These two products converted me to solid state for years.

I kept reading about a tube amp that was easy on tubes. Bought one used and called Kevin Deal to buy a tube set. He quickly told me there was no warranty if I had a certain brand amp, because they ran the tubes to the max. My brand was easy on tubes. Those tubes still sound great 5 years later. Depends on how hard the designer pushes the tubes. Tubes can be quite reliable and are user replaceable, transistors are not.
Don't give up on tubes.
Thanks,
barondla

There was an audiophile fave back in the '90's (Audible Illusion Modulus 3A) that ate tubes about as fast as you could swap them. Juiced the tubes to the bleeding edge of their spec, and most tubes don't like that. IIRC Kevin Deal had a similar disclaimer on his site for that particular preamp back then.

I can't honestly say I've ever "worn out" a tube. Yes, I roll a lot, so many of them don't get a bunch of hours. But some do. The 300B's in my speaker amp are 20+ years old and likely have close to 10k hours on them. I still cannot perceive any sonic difference between them and a new (backup) pair that I swap in every now and then just to see. The used ones currently test at about 70% of NOS GM, but again I can't hear a difference at this point. I have a particular Foton 6N8S that I've used off and on for about 3 years now, and would guess it has 1500+ hours on it. It still tests very close to NOS GM. A year is not what I'd expect for the majority of tubes....probably more like 3 years (and more) for most. But a lot has to do with how many hours a day/week the tube is used, and even more importantly how it is run in the circuit as you noted. If run at its maximum parameters, then a year might be about right. If run conservatively, it should last much longer. Just my experience, which may or may not align with the experience of others.

 

[433521]

Whisper-Silent Tube Stage—With Tube Shutdown
Now, you can enjoy a tube preamp without the hiss and hum of classic designs. Freya+’s all-new tube stage with new-production 6SN7 tubes, DC heaters and semi-circlotron, noise-cancelling output stage is whisper-silent. Better yet, it turns off when you’re not using it! That’s right, both the tube heater and high voltage rails go away when not in use, so you can preserve lifetime of costly tubes.

It'd be nice if maybe Freya didn't shut down the tubes quite so quickly. A minute or a little more would be my preference.