[music_man]

the thing is some of these companies are playing with capacitance and resistance and impedance. if they are doing that it can make a slight difference. if they did it to the point that it made a large difference most likely what you would have a is a huge degradation in sound quality!

i just like to "imagine" the cables do something. just like a sane adult may adore santa but knows the real truth. if the adult felt otherwise they would be considered to have a phycological issue. my background is based in science but i enjoy certain myths as well.
no one can say i am wrong for choosing to feel and spend my own money this way.

those of you that are confident that they scientifically make a difference when they are within proper specification are entitled to your opinion as well. however true science would suggest otherwise!

i am not being a cable "hater" i love cables as i have said many times. i just happen to know whats up as well. i think that is the best way to aproach it. many people are seperated from their money with very misleading practices.

i will also state that "placebo" is a science in and of itself. so in that realm the claims are completely legitimate. whether you care to realise this or not is up to you.

there are measurable differences in cables with a simple dmm. as, i said unless they are way out of spec those differences do not translate into different sonic properties within an audio system.

i still wish to feel they do. i just enjoy them. anyone else that enjoys cables for whatever reason they base their findings on are perfectly welcome to do so.
there are a lot worse things you can be spending money on and playing with.

there is no reason to argue this. with me at least. i know the truth. i see fit to find otherwise.

why then did i start a post asking what i did? well, i wanted to know peoples opinions thats all. copper conducts more than good enough. silver conducts better. that is based in science. does it make a sonic difference in cables of an audio system? that is up to you for whatever reason you base your findings. i simply wished to know what other people felt. i did not even ask them to state a reason for their feelings!

music_man

 

[Lenni]

I’m still a noob at this, I haven’t compared many cables to give any thoughts on the subject, but I must say I don’t know what it is about cables that I find absolutely compelling – the designs, materials, look – fascinating, if I had the funds I’d buy them all

 

[Black Stuart]

Musicman,

Does the signal travel through the whole of the conductor or does it travel virtually completely on the surface of the conductor?

If as stated the signal travels virtually entirely on the surface of the conductor then it would explain the big difference I have experienced between the same type and gauge of wire wrapped in Kapton or Teflon and bare wire - this is not placebo.

Have you or anyone else tried this very simple experiment if not then it is theory and not from practice.

I also asked if anyone was prepared to change their amp internal signal wire to replicate their i/cs - silence. It can't be because this is a difficult thing to do or that it is completely and easily reversable.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you actually know something about cables - aside from folklore and superstition - go ahead and tell us. Maybe you can finally settle 30 years of controversy with absolutely no tangible results.

I noticed you completely dodged my response to the placebo argument. So I will ask it again. Your argument is that all cables are nothing more than the equivalent of a sugar pill. If that is the case, than the biggest, flashiest, most expensive cable with the best marketing will always sound the best. That's how a placebo works.

If all cables measure and sound the same, please explain how a cable with the factors of size, flash, price, and a page and a half of marketing materials extolling its virtues can utterly fail a simple A/B test. This has happened to me time and again. I sent a Wireworld Electra 5 back because I couldn't tell it apart from a stock power cord. I sent a KAS Kaiser XT back because it sounded like crap. I sent a CPCC Top Gun HCF back because while it made everything sound "different", I didn't feel the difference was a positive one. I sent a Siltech SPX-20 back because I thought it sounded too thin and lacked bass response. Finally, I sold my Electraglide Epiphanys because while I thought that they had a lot of good qualities, their sound was ultimately a bit unfocused.

What's going on here? These should all be identical, right? The Top Gun was an enormous and very expensive power cable with a lot of great recommendations from mags like TAS and Stereophile. Why wasn't I tricked into thinking it was the best? The Electraglides have bucket loads of glitz and flash, they have all the right stuff, silver/copper hybrid foils, internal ERS treatment, etc. Why weren't they the best? Why do I like my Python CX better than all of them?

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black Stuart /img/forum/go_quote.gif Musicman, Does the signal travel through the whole of the conductor or does it travel virtually completely on the surface of the conductor? If as stated the signal travels virtually entirely on the surface of the conductor then it would explain the big difference I have experienced between the same type and gauge of wire wrapped in Kapton or Teflon and bare wire - this is not placebo.

IIRC, the higher the frequency of the signal, the more it travels towards the surface of the conductor. This would explain why SPC is great for S/Pdif, or component video, etc. which are in the MHz region. On the other hand, low frequencies within the audio band are traveling below the surface, and when a different surface material is used like silver plating, can clash with high frequencies traveling on the surface. This explains why solid OCC copper sounds better than SPC for this type of application, and why you generally do not find super high end SPC interconnects or speaker cables.

Dielectrics absolutely make a difference. A bare wire with no insulation will sound better than a Teflon insulated wire, but it's not practical to have bare wire power cables or speaker cables. This is why you see "air tubes" in a lot of high end cables - they are trying to keep the dielectric away from the wire as much as possible. Stealth in particular is big on this with their cables.

 

[music_man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lenni /img/forum/go_quote.gif I’m still a noob at this, I haven’t compared many cables to give any thoughts on the subject, but I must say I don’t know what it is about cables that I find absolutely compelling – the designs, materials, look – fascinating, if I had the funds I’d buy them all

this is exactly how i feel and why they are so dear to me.

you all make valid points. the points are based on science. however i am not one to say if the points are factual or hearsay. some of the most expensive cables sucked to me and i was totally cool with spending the money.
in fact i think one of the absolute best cables is $1.15usd a foot! everyone that has tried it said they heard a huge difference over what they were using. i do not know if all this is bs. why such cheap non audio cable would be liked so well and by so many? in fact i did not discover this, bound for sound did years ago!

i am not one to say if cable differences are fact or fiction. science would mostly refute them. however is there science behind why a rembrandt painting is so sought after? why would someone pay 50 million dollars for something that they simply "like"? what is it's intrinsic value?

i and many others choose to believe that cables have sonic differences. what ever reason drives that belief may never actually have a thumb placed upon it. at least not in science. what is so wrong with this notion that it gets some others infuriated? there may be valid reasons for debating this if any so wish. however there is no reason to argue it. it is good,clean,honest,moral fun on the behalf of the purchaser. so long as they do not have remorse feeling they were mislead by marketing which is rarely the case. most people are ultimately happy with some cables. that is why there are so many.

which is better, chocolate or vanilla?

i know what science has to say about cables i choose to let my emotions decide. isn't most all of modern hi-fi based in emotion. the emotion of a performance comes to mind. you do not go home from a concert and say, honey that was the best scientific symposium i have been to!


now to return you to your scheduled brodcast: i ask, apparently vdh are not considered very high end since they are spc(or extruded). they are certainly not priced high end. except for the third which is 100% carbon. that seems intresting to me. i will see if i can demo it this week.

i find high end cables are either pure copper,pure silver or a combination of both types of conductors. i am not finding any very high end(price wise) spc(or melted alloy,or extruded) cables. i figured there was a reason and it has been answered in more than one post in this thread. i am speaking of speaker cables which was the original topic of this thread. i can see the points made about spc when used in digital cables. again, whether that is based in fact or fiction i do not know. honestly i do not care to know either! i just enjoy the cables! i do find that solid conductors be them silver or copper or a conjugation of both most always outperform spc. which i guess to answer my own question, is why i am not finding any high end spc.

i have not even mentioned dielectric yet! of course the best of which, most of us agree is air! simple enough that one,eh?

music_man

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveBSC /img/forum/go_quote.gif I noticed you completely dodged my response to the placebo argument. So I will ask it again. Your argument is that all cables are nothing more than the equivalent of a sugar pill. If that is the case, than the biggest, flashiest, most expensive cable with the best marketing will always sound the best. That's how a placebo works. If all cables measure and sound the same, please explain how a cable with the factors of size, flash, price, and a page and a half of marketing materials extolling its virtues can utterly fail a simple A/B test. This has happened to me time and again. I sent a Wireworld Electra 5 back because I couldn't tell it apart from a stock power cord. I sent a KAS Kaiser XT back because it sounded like crap. I sent a CPCC Top Gun HCF back because while it made everything sound "different", I didn't feel the difference was a positive one. I sent a Siltech SPX-20 back because I thought it sounded too thin and lacked bass response. Finally, I sold my Electraglide Epiphanys because while I thought that they had a lot of good qualities, their sound was ultimately a bit unfocused. What's going on here? These should all be identical, right? The Top Gun was an enormous and very expensive power cable with a lot of great recommendations from mags like TAS and Stereophile. Why wasn't I tricked into thinking it was the best? The Electraglides have bucket loads of glitz and flash, they have all the right stuff, silver/copper hybrid foils, internal ERS treatment, etc. Why weren't they the best? Why do I like my Python CX better than all of them?

QFT. Ditto for me with the highly regarded Nordost Heimdall, which clearly causes over-emphasis with mid-range frequencies, which is especially clear in studio recordings of multiple instruments. If I lived in the same country as Nick Charles, I'd send them to him to test, but I don't.

 

[music_man]

i completely forgot that my odin on the wilsons is silver extruded over ofc. well, i guess the ultra high end spc was right under my nose all along. i don't seem to find any other companies doing this though. i bet i am wrong about that.

i will have to pull the omega gold off the fabers and try it on the wilsons. i can't switch them fast enough to be sure i notice anything though. in case anyone in the other thread is wondering, i am indeed using the cerro. i am trying to a/b with the omega gold. so far the cerro seems to hold it's own which is amazing.

music_man

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong /img/forum/go_quote.gif QFT. Ditto for me with the highly regarded Nordost Heimdall, which clearly causes over-emphasis with mid-range frequencies, which is especially clear in studio recordings of multiple instruments. If I lived in the same country as Nick Charles, I'd send them to him to test, but I don't.

Nordost in general up through the Valhalla doesn't do it for me. Like the entry level Siltechs, I find them to be thin on bass response and in general overly tilted towards the upper mids and highs. I haven't heard the Odin stuff, but if I was going to spend that kind of cash I would be much more likely to go in the direction of Purist Canorus or Siltech Royal Signature.

 

[music_man]

siltech is solid silver with a gold coating. i imagine that is better than copper with a silver coating. honestly the odin is just like every other spc. it is a shame. i made an expensive mistake there.

spc is just not to my liking. which is intresting that you two don't like nordost.

i do not know about silver/gold but i feel high end copper or solid silver to take it in either direction. not copper coated/plated/extruded/alloyed with silver. as to the original title of this thread i feel the spc cables at any level and pricepoint simply bring out the negatives of both copper and silver and not the best of both worlds as was intended. it just failed. i wonder how companies are able to continue to sell this. at the price of odin they certainly could have done a combination of solid silver and solid copper. to me alternating the two achieves what i am talking about to some extent. a lot of the positives of both with little of the negatives. spc simply misses the mark imo.

the dream has this technology(silver and copper conductors). however, i find myself still preferring completely copper or completely silver cables. usually very good copper. it might just be the rest of my system. this is in my smaller system. the odin is solidly in place on my reference system unfortunately. it is simply too hard to move the wilsons and monoblocs.

there are wonderfull high end copper cables,silver cables and a combination of both conductors. i have yet to hear any spc(even at a high end price) that i would call high end. i am not unloading the odin. i live with my mistakes as these types of mistakes are too costly to justify rectification.

it seems just about everyone that i can tell is versed on this subject agress with me thus far.

music_man

 

[Black Stuart]

musicman and DaveBSC,
why have you completely dodged my staement, very clearly made about the tremendous influence of the signal wire inside an amp/h/amp.

I will state it again - from actual experience, not theory - try as many different i/cs as you like - they all have to go via the internal signal wire - it's a is a filter that will totally control what you hear.

If you two are genuinely interested in all aspects that decide how a cable sounds, I can't understand your reluctance to try what I have said.

Remember it's an easily reversable mod and so easy to do. If Dave and musicman will not try - is there anyone else?

If you think about it, it stares you in the face - every single component in every piece of equipment is effectively a filter with more or less effect on the audio signal. If the exterior signal wiring differs radically from the internal signal wiring of an amp then you will pass a radically altered signal onto the pot. or attenuator - it is that simple.

Likewise the boosted signal that leaves the pot./att. then encounters more signal wiring.

If as many believe from practice not theory that air is the best dialectric, then it is nec. to use a sheilded dialectric with air space between the sheilds and signal carrying wire.

Once I did this by using a particular type of low loss sat. cable the difference was clarity in spades, a naturalness that is so enjoyable - try it.

I have yet to try the ultimate in this rational approach - to remove the cable and chassis plugs by soldering direct to the pot.

As much as anything it will give a very straight forward answer - does soldering make an audible difference to the signal.

I doubt if I will keep this last mod since it allows only one piece of equipment to be connnected and with vinyl/CDP/radio and cassette mediums that's not on BUT it will give me an answer about solder/no solder.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif siltech is solid silver with a gold coating

Not exactly. The entire run of silver is not plated with gold in the sense of a SPC wire. You can read Siltech's literature if you are interested, but Siltech's argument is that silver, or at least the silver they use, has a small amount of crystalline boundaries compared to OFHC, but more than single crystal, OCC copper, and they use small amounts of gold to "fill in" these boundaries and smooth out the sound.

However they do it, it does work, as at least the mid to high end G6 and G7 cables are very smooth and enjoyable to listen to. The flagship Royal Signatures are insanely expensive, and I'm not really sure they are better than less expensive cables like Stealth's new Sakra or Purist Canorus, but they are good. I don't have any experience with Gabi van der Kley's Crystal Cables, but I've heard good things and would like to try them. She has pretty much the opposite approach of her husband at Siltech. His background is pure engineering, hers is music. One positive, if you hate huge, ultra stiff Virtual Dynamics style cables, Crystals are about as thin and flexible as you can buy.

 

[music_man]

either of the van der kley's cables sound intresting.

i saw a very good argument about silver vs. copper from aj van den hul. he says silver is no better than copper for audio. the issue is that silver is handled much better at the factory because it is much more expensive and pulled slower. that is what makes silver better. copper is left sitting to oxidize etc. he states. i suppose he is using the silver to fill voids as well then? i don't know.

black stuart, i am not at all against internal rewring. in fact it sounds like a great idea. i just don't want to do it the patrick82 way

when i have time i have no problem doing it.

music_man

 

[qusp]

SPC (its skin effect) should be and is IMO meaningless at audio frequencies. but i'm with everyone else here it seems. i've just never used any SPC i've liked, I occasionally use it for large gauge power wires, but never in the audio signal path analogue OR digital. I much prefer pure metals or actually I personally find amorphous alloys and carbon nanotubes intriguing. I dont know that I would say gabi is the opposite, crystal cables are pretty stupidly hi tech. most are made from high purity electrum with some pretty seriously modern dielectrics and construction to keep it flexy and light (well maybe not reference) its all coax too which is pretty sound. havent trued the silltec stuff.

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

I've used some high-end Cardas ICs and speaker cables (Golden Reference) as well as top-tier Harmonic Technologies (Magic Link II and Pro 9 Reference) to very wonderful effect. I preferred the HT to the Cardas. Cardas isn't clear on what copper he uses in the Golden Reference. All I can say is that it provides detail with lots of "warmth," if you like that kind of a presentation.

Interestingly, the HT Magic Link II's use a 60/40 mix of OCC Cu and AG. It's an interesting approach, but seems to really do the trick for me.

I've used some Ag plated Cu (see Signal Cable on Audiogo) terminated with some rather nice ETI Silver Bullets, but found it rather "dull" and much less detailed.