[Hershon2000]

I have officially given up on spending any more money on (relatively for me) expensive interconnect cables for my system as none of the ones I tried, improved my sound at all, in fact they make it worse by basically smoothing the sound out to much & getting rid of the music's balls that there's no life left. I don't know how people can hear this as a good thing or maybe its me! As a result, I have made the decision to stick with my cheapo Acoustic Research Performance RCA Interconnects for good as they seem, however bizarre this is, to give me the best sound. Maybe its my ears or something that I can't grasp at the frequencies some of these more expensive cables are supposidly revealing. Specifically, I just bought a bunch of Audioquest King Cobra Interconnects & I was totally psyched expecting to hear music at another realm. Instead all I heard was sterile music with no balls.
Perhaps this is the limitation of my system, perhaps not. I had these cables attached to my PD-59 Pioneer CD Player going to my Musical Fidelity X-10V3 Tube Buffer going to my Denon 3801 A/V Receiver connected to my Orb Audio Mod 1 5 Piece Speaker & Sub System (I rarely listen to headphones). Anyone else have similar experiences. If not, this is one time I'm willing to concede this is just me not the cables.

 

[Chops]

Did you give the cables any time to burn-in? If not, you should have them burn-in for a couple of days before making any big decisions on whether they were worth the $$$ or not.

 

[Hershon2000]

These cables were used by someone for a few months on & off. While I respect people on this board believing in "Burn in", I personally don't believe in it, or if there is some "burn in time" the effect is not that significant, by my beliefs which I'm sure makes me the minority on this forum. The way I look at it is if I see a woman, I know within 5 seconds if I'm attracted to her, and no longer amount of time with her is going to change my mind. Same with electronics stuff!

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif These cables were used by someone for a few months on & off. While I respect people on this board believing in "Burn in", I personally don't believe in it, or if there is some "burn in time" the effect is not that significant, by my beliefs which I'm sure makes me the minority on this forum. The way I look at it is if I see a woman, I know within 5 seconds if I'm attracted to her, and no longer amount of time with her is going to change my mind. Same with electronics stuff!

bluejeancables.com sell grade A cables for a very CHEAP price. Sorry about all your problems.. I do tend to believe that better cables do make a sonic difference, & IMO improvment..BUT I cant justify spending 400.00 on cables when you can spend that type of money improving your source..

It's not the limitation of your system. No cable can make that much of an improvment. The denon 3801 is one kick arse reciever

 

[hortiholic]

I can attest to the value of Blue Jeans Cable. Also check out the review at http://www.audioholics.com/productre...ble10awgp3.php

bluejeancables.com sell grade A cables for a very CHEAP price.

 

[Jon L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Perhaps this is the limitation of my system, perhaps not. I had these cables attached to my PD-59 Pioneer CD Player going to my Musical Fidelity X-10V3 Tube Buffer going to my Denon 3801 A/V Receiver connected to my Orb Audio Mod 1 5 Piece Speaker & Sub System (I rarely listen to headphones).

While systems 'can' be a limiting factor in hearing cables to their potential, in your case, it sounds to me like the AR cables simply synergize better with your system than AQ.

AQ King Cobra is nothing all that special, really, after you dicipher their fancy talk. All it is solid core copper conductors in foamed polyethylene dielectric, all wrapped in foil shield. BTW, this is basically the construction of many cheap coax cables. The wire AWG, exact geometry, etc are different, but there is no reason why a cheap AR cable can't inherently match up better with a given system.

Info on AR materials is scarce, but looking at the pictures, I would guess they use stranded copper wire, possibly in twisted construction. While very cheap, this kind of construction 'can' sound more lively, brighter, with more pronounced bass compared to solid core.

Audioquest doesn't really start to sound great to me until you get into some of their top models, such as Sky, using pure silver conductors. But at that kind of prices, I would rather buy something else. I also can recommend AQ's older, discontinued models, especially Lapis and Diamond. They are very good sounding cables that go for little $ on Agon.

 

[Hershon2000]

Yeah, I guess everything comes down to Synergy which I wish I could predict. Funny enough, the Acoustic Research Performance Audio Cables which you can get on Ebay or at Best Buy actually got excellent reviews: http://www.audioreview.com/cat/cable...5_1584crx.aspx


As Jon L above quite accurately states. "Info on AR materials is scarce, but looking at the pictures, I would guess they use stranded copper wire, possibly in twisted construction. While very cheap, this kind of construction 'can' sound more lively, brighter, with more pronounced bass compared to solid core." This is the exact difference I'm hearing. Well said.

The same person who sold me the King Cobra Cables said he uses Alpha-core tq2 Cables & he swears I'll notice an immediate night & day difference. Until I hear from others on this, I'll stick to the Acoustic Research Cables.

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, I guess everything comes down to Synergy which I wish I could predict. Funny enough, the Acoustic Research Performance Audio Cables which you can get on Ebay or at Best Buy actually got excellent reviews: http://www.audioreview.com/cat/cable...5_1584crx.aspx As Jon L above quite accurately states. "Info on AR materials is scarce, but looking at the pictures, I would guess they use stranded copper wire, possibly in twisted construction. While very cheap, this kind of construction 'can' sound more lively, brighter, with more pronounced bass compared to solid core." This is the exact difference I'm hearing. Well said. The same person who sold me the King Cobra Cables said he uses Alpha-core tq2 Cables & he swears I'll notice an immediate night & day difference. Until I hear from others on this, I'll stick to the Acoustic Research Cables.

Unles your source is utter crap I don't see any cable making a night & day differnce..

 

[alex_cs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif These cables were used by someone for a few months on & off. While I respect people on this board believing in "Burn in", I personally don't believe in it, or if there is some "burn in time" the effect is not that significant, by my beliefs which I'm sure makes me the minority on this forum. The way I look at it is if I see a woman, I know within 5 seconds if I'm attracted to her, and no longer amount of time with her is going to change my mind. Same with electronics stuff!

couldnt agree more mate. ive tried in the past to like things over an extended period, and realised the stuff you like within seconds is the stuff worth keeping.

 

[drarthurwells]

Best cables for the money are CT Silver Reference from audiogeak.com - about $40 for a one meter pair (I have 2 new pair, never used, I will sell).

This uses a pure silver conductor.

I have the expensive CT Silver Reference II (same as the $1000 Acoustic zen Silver Reference II) which has slightly more clarity and transparency.

The CT Silver Ref. for $40 are a fantatastic bargain.

 

[tourmaline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex_cs /img/forum/go_quote.gif couldnt agree more mate. ive tried in the past to like things over an extended period, and realised the stuff you like within seconds is the stuff worth keeping.

me too, within a minute i know if it's for me or not. I really like the Nordost line of cables. Be carefull with full silver though; most of em have still some kind of silver signature in the sound.

 

[jimholt]

I didn't hear a lot amongst cables until a friend who makes them up gave me some to try. The clarity and soundstage was a real eye opener( or should i say ear opener).

These are made of silver cable, but i think he uses some gold in there too.

Putting my old ones back in the other day i realised just how muddy and flat sounding they were. It seemed as though i was listening to mono. Jim.

 

[markl]

Quote:

Unles your source is utter crap I don't see any cable making a night & day differnce..

It's the other way around. Unless your source is above average or better, I don't see aftermarket cables being able to make much of a contribution.

Cables can't magically "clean up" or "improve" the sound of a lousy source or amp, all it's doing is carrying the signal it already puts out. If that signal is of poor quality, you'll get perfect transmission of a poor quality signal.

The better your source/amp, the more cable differences become audible.

 

[drarthurwells]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl /img/forum/go_quote.gif Cables can't magically "clean up" or "improve" the sound of a lousy source or amp, all it's doing is carrying the signal it already puts out. If that signal is of poor quality, you'll get perfect transmission of a poor quality signal. The better your source/amp, the more cable differences become audible.

A system is as good as it worst link in the signal path chain - be it a source, IC cable, amp, tube set-up, HP cable or HP.

This weakest link chokes the system and reduces the sound to its lowest common denominator (to some extent).

Now that being said, it is also true that upgrading any link in the system path chain might improve the system as a whole to some degree - but still be choked by the weakest link that was not upgraded.

Finding the weakest link is difficult. Sometimes you only realize it was weak after you replaced it with something that is better. Here you are surprised by how much better the replacement is, and wish you had sooner realized how much the upgrade was needed.

I once had a Focal inverse Titanium domed tweeter (used in many expesnsive high end speakers) in my speakers, and was vaguely unhappy with the treble.
I replaced it with a ScanSpeak tweeter and couln't believe how much better the system sounded. Now later upgrades also improved the system, step-by-step, which in retrospect had many weak links.

So good ICs may not transform the system but they wil help, as a start.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Hershon2000, you should try downgrading to a cheap universal DVD player and use the bundled el-cheapo interconnects. It appears you like as little detail as possible in your recordings.

Now's the time to seriously consider vinyl.