[music_man]

i should not really be mentioning this but i sold the everest for more than i paid for it and got tara omega gold. well, they are not completely mine i am demo'ing them with the everest as collateral. these are what i was looking for and they only have 3 hours on them! the things are i mean huge! as in size. if people feel cables do not make a difference then they should just buy a bose system. if i go from a radioshack cable to any of the multi thousand dollar cables the difference is like you just spent that much on a better amp and speakers! the top tier of equipment is not complete without the cables.

sure, at some point there are diminishing returns but do you put steel wheels on a lamborghini?

copper speaker wires are where it's at for me. i just prefer them. i use solid silver ic's and aes/ebu cables. for me at least that combination renders the sound i am looking for.

maybe the tara is 5% better than a $1,500 cable but it is worth it to some people me included. i don't care if a silver speaker cable was a million i doubt i'd like it.

to the above post, silver tarnishes. copper oxidizes. the reason gold is so coveted is because no matter what you do to it ti is still gold. i don't know if gold is a good conductor though. i am waiting to try van den huls carbon cables. that is really the only departure from metal by anyone as far as i know.

i mentioned before that i thought the lowes cable is comparable in signature to the tara! still, i can't live with having lowes $15 wire on the type of equipment i have. i might be a snob and a sucker but it is my choice. i think both are better than the odin which i would also trade if i go for the tara.

music_man

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif if people feel cables do not make a difference then they should just buy a bose system. if i go from a radioshack cable to any of the multi thousand dollar cables the difference is like you just spent that much on a better amp and speakers!

If only someone could finally demonstrate that to be the case.

It's been decades. So far, nothing but talk.

se

 

[BIG POPPA]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koyaan I. Sqatsi /img/forum/go_quote.gif If only someone could finally demonstrate that to be the case. It's been decades. So far, nothing but talk. se

Transparent Cable demonstrated this easily comparing the stock cable to their cable, to their cable with conditioning. I was in their demonstration with about 500 people at Music Matters 5 event at Definitive audio in Seattle. There was a handful of Head-fiers in attendance besides me. Definitive Audio custom home theater, high-end audio, video and systems integration for the Seattle Tacoma area

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BIG POPPA /img/forum/go_quote.gif Transparent Cable demonstrated this easily comparing the stock cable to their cable, to their cable with conditioning. I was in their demonstration with about 500 people at Music Matters 5 event at Definitive audio in Seattle. There was a handful of Head-fiers in attendance besides me. Definitive Audio custom home theater, high-end audio, video and systems integration for the Seattle Tacoma area

I meant something more than a dog and pony show.

se

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif to the above post, silver tarnishes. copper oxidizes. the reason gold is so coveted is because no matter what you do to it ti is still gold. i don't know if gold is a good conductor though. i am waiting to try van den huls carbon cables. that is really the only departure from metal by anyone as far as i know.

I'm not sure I would describe gold as "coveted", as its lower on the conductivity scale than copper. It's great as plating material for connectors, and mixed in with silver in tiny amounts as used by Siltech, Crystal, and Mundorf, where it can balance silver's hyper detail with warmth and body. You may find Siltech speaker cables very much to your liking.

Stealth offers pure carbon interconnects in the Nanofiber, and metalized carbon in the Metacarbon. Both are supposed to be quite good, but not as balanced and pure as Indra. The new Sakra is basically Indra supercharged, and could be the best interconnect out there.

Some tiny companies I've never heard of have experimented with liquid conductors before, but Audio-Magic is the first big brand I've seen try it with their Liquid Air series. And of course Harmonic Tech's Cyberlight series have no metal in them.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koyaan I. Sqatsi /img/forum/go_quote.gif I meant something more than a dog and pony show.

It's simple. Get some cables and try them out. if you notice an improvement, keep them. If you don't, send them back.

 

[BIG POPPA]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koyaan I. Sqatsi /img/forum/go_quote.gif I meant something more than a dog and pony show. se

This it what they did. Played a song twice with the stock cable to get familiar with the song. Played the song again with the power cable, then again with the cable with conditioning. Their cables are better than stock. They are not my cup of tea but the demonstration worked simply and effectively. Dog and Pony.....Hardly.... To the POINT. Absolutely. It doesn't take rocket science to demonstrate their point, just good preparation. And they were just fine.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BIG POPPA /img/forum/go_quote.gif This it what they did. Played a song twice with the stock cable to get familiar with the song. Played the song again with the power cable, then again with the cable with conditioning. Their cables are better than stock. They are not my cup of tea but the demonstration worked simply and effectively. Dog and Pony.....Hardly.... To the POINT. Absolutely. It doesn't take rocket science to demonstrate their point, just good preparation. And they were just fine.

It's a dog and pony show. Like the old patent medicine guys used to do.

se

 

[Uncle Erik]

You have to take suggestion and psychology into account when conducting listening tests. If people expect to hear something they usually hear it. Check out the studies on wine where people are told that the same wine alternately costs $10 and $100. When told that it costs $100, it always rates as better while the $10 "version" usually gets low marks. This is the same reason people can't tell the difference between a coathanger and a four figure cable when they don't know what it is.

As for oxidation, copper, silver and gold all oxidize. Silver tarnish is oxidation. Gold tarnishes, too, but at a much lower degree than most metals. I recently put a roughly 60 year old gold Zenith wristwatch back into daily use. It was lightly tarnished and needed a polish. I've also seen it on coins that have lain untouched for a few decades as well as jewelry.

Oxidation is mostly a cosmetic thing, anyway. I've kicked around lots of old electronics over the years. There are lots and lots of oxidized parts inside a 60 or 70 year old radio. Not a big deal. A lot of it can be ignored and the set will still operate - and measure - jus fine. Once, I got an old General Electric fan (ca. 1920-1925) that had been left outside for at least several years. The wiring was marginally OK, so I blew the leaves out of the base and head, oiled it, then plugged it in for feces and giggles.

It worked. Took a few minutes to loosen up, but it ran fine.

Of course, I replaced the wiring after. You should have seen how awful the headwire was. Talk about oxidation, it was cloth wire, probably around 80 years old and had been left outside for a period of years. It still conducted OK (assuming, of course, that a DMM actually works and gives accurate measurements, which is contrary to some beliefs here), but I felt better with a new wire.

I've found the same after yanking the innards from old light fixtures, too. Even 100+ year old wire that is massively oxidized still works, it just becomes unsafe from the breakdown of the dielectric.

Then again, sometimes I kick myself for throwing out all that ancient wire. Just think of the decades of "burn-in" it had. Maybe there's a market for extremely burned-in wire.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then again, sometimes I kick myself for throwing out all that ancient wire. Just think of the decades of "burn-in" it had. Maybe there's a market for extremely burned-in wire.

Actually, some of the Japanese audiophiles covet 60-80 year old Western Electric cloth covered wire.

se

 

[Black Stuart]

Good to see only one threadcrapper has appeared, which means we can still have a sensible discussion.

DaveBSC/Musicman - good input from both. If someone has the money to buy quality gear why should'nt they - there are far worse things money can be spent on but I agree totally that it would be far better to uprate the rest of your rig rather than spend lots of money on mega priced cables.

Dave - you've described silver wire very well and that's why after using both copper and silver exclusively I just had to try silver/plated copper and for me

I do hope someone will try my suggestion of changing the signal wires in their amps - if you don't like the sound you can always replace the original wiring, so who will try it?.

 

[music_man]

well, as i have stated many times i do believe! i want to believe. some adults beileve in santa. thats all that matters to me. i hear a difference for "any" reason. it does not matter to me what that reason is. i hear all the arguements that they do not make a difference. i "believe" they do. i enjoy them. as black stuart just said there are far worse things to spend your money on. some people believe drugs make their lives better. cables will never let you down in that way! sure, one day they may no longer make a difference to you. so what will you do? go buy the newest better ones! i enjoy them,ok?

look at the watch and cigar thread. it can be said a timex keeps better time than a zenith and all cigars taste the same. go tell them that!

music_man

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif thats all that matters to me. i hear a difference for "any" reason. it does not matter to me what that reason is.

I have no problem with that at all as that's exactly how I approach it.

Quote:

well, as i have stated many times i do believe! i want to believe. some adults beileve in santa.

That doesn't jibe with what you say above though.

On the one hand you say you don't care what the reason is. Yet on the other, you say you believe it's for one particular reason. So contrary to what you say above, it seems that the reason does indeed matter to you.

Anyway, the reason I responded to you originally was your "if people feel cables do not make a difference then they should just buy a bose system" comment.

I think that was a bit uncalled for.

se

 

[music_man]

well i guess that was kind of a rude statement sorry. i know many people understand high end systems and do not hear any difference in cables as well.

i meant that i am open minded. many choose to take an aproach based on science and not their ears. i did the opposite.

now, i was wondering if vdh are considered the "good" silver over copper cables. they can be had very cheap from sources. so if they are the good ones i'd like to know. the others that are mentioned are much more expensive. i still don't think mixing copper and silver is great. use one or the other. or use one in one place and the other in another place as i did. i don't know if a couple hundred dollar vdh will sound better than the tara omega gold but anything is possible. as i just said, i am open minded. i never decided it is not possible. i aproach this with the feeling "anything" is possible.

i am sorry i insulted bose and the readers here by making such a statement. i retract that.

music_man

 

[BIG POPPA]

music_man your example was fine. The person who got offended just likes to stir things. You can't please everybody, don't worry about it.