Master Built-What are Owners Hearing That They Didn't Hear With Other Cables
- Thread starter Steve Williams
- Start date
Hello friends,
As promised, over the last couple of weeks I've been communicating with the engineers of MasterBuilt in regards to the MB website and some of the post made on the forum by a few members stating that the information on the website is false. The engineers have sent me a response to these post. And I have included it in the following post...
I understand that this response will most likely receive reply's both positive and negative as we see in so many other threads.
In the end.....
What are MasterBuilt cable owners hearing
All the best
Leif
As promised, over the last couple of weeks I've been communicating with the engineers of MasterBuilt in regards to the MB website and some of the post made on the forum by a few members stating that the information on the website is false. The engineers have sent me a response to these post. And I have included it in the following post...
I understand that this response will most likely receive reply's both positive and negative as we see in so many other threads.
In the end.....
What are MasterBuilt cable owners hearing
All the best
Leif
MasterBuilt Responds to WBF
After an initial barrage by a vocal minority erupted on this forum based on the term “super” conductor and the technical claims on the MasterBuilt website, we have decided to explain a few things. Although we at MB use complex formulas on a daily basis in our aerospace R&D, it is quite a different thing to write a text book primer for the average audiophile who may or may not be interested in how a complex cable system operates in real life. To put out a fire started by two or three people and to make things easier for the customers who only wished to comment on purely the sonic attributes, Mr. Swanson stated that under no circumstances would MasterBuilt “give away” our proprietary technology, and that the thread should be confined to listening impressions only. As with most topics found on the Internet news groups, this did not sit well with a few members of the forum. Now that I’ve personally read the thread, I can say “thank you” to the many people that came to MB’s defense.
From our experience, many people don’t actually care about specs, they care about sound. These are the ones who actually enjoy their systems more than they enjoy arguing with others about things that no one can prove: do all amps sound the same? Does zip cord sound identical to expensive cables? Do vinyl records sound better than DSD recordings? Although we use A/B/X blind testing, as we do not wish to fool ourselves into believing that we’re hearing things that do not exist, we also compare our prototypes to other brands of cables, and although measurements are important to use as a road map, they cannot possibly describe how a stereo component sounds. Many SET users don’t mind the 10% distortion their 8-watt amps add, but they’re horrified of the sound that a Japanese receiver with only 0.002% distortion makes. Not that we’re knocking Japanese receivers; a few of us here have them in our bedrooms or small home theater systems and think they sound great for the very low cost.
Let’s get back to the specs vs sound quality: how many of you recognize and understand these simple Maxwellian equations that are routinely used to design a winding geometry that will nearly nullify basic problems with twin conductor speaker cables, especially the inexpensive “professional-grade” studio/PA/home theater brands:
F=cILB sin Ø and B=?H=?c1 x I 1 /2 ?
These equations describe the relationship between the magnetic fields as they travel down a conduction path, and are related to electro motive force, besides describing the physics behind movement of electrons. By the way, we do not use these simplified principles exclusively, they’re far too basic and do not take everything into consideration (for instance, the copper or alloy strand separation, purity of alloys, insulation material type and quality thereof, spacing materials used to separate the individual Litz conductors, non-metallic shielding coatings, noise reduction technique, and so forth). Audio cables designed with simple theory relegate everything to a basic common denominator; should equations force everyone to use zip cord to wire up their expensive rigs? What about using rusty baling wire? Does anyone here honestly believe that simple math is going to be the “magic bullet” that will magically make your system perform at its best?
The two equations above do not make interesting reading, do they? More importantly, do these two basic equations tell you anything about how our winding geometry works, or more importantly, how this version of the geometry sounds? There are literally thousands of ways to fabricate an audio cable, and unless you do a lot of testing and listening, you’ll never get anything out of measurements alone.
So, after reading the MB threads very carefully over the past several weeks, we the engineers at MB have come to these conclusions:
Some of the claims for MB cables, especially the ULTRA series, were poorly written (although they are not false). It is common knowledge that the large parent company we work for was one of the suppliers of materials for the CERN project, along with many other high tech companies. (MB’s parent company has also built industrial and military wiring systems, besides being a major supplier to the original NASA group). ULTRA was inspired by the idea that it was possible to design a transmission path that would sound louder, have more detail, have better timbre density and neutrality, and a larger, deeper sound stage; especially at very low volume levels. We should have written simply that ULTRA was a “superior” conductor. We never stated we were using the exact same conductor used at CERN for the Ultra cables.
The actual alloys and technology we have designed for the MB audio cable line have never been used by any other company. Any patent description would have to necessarily include insulation type and application, non-metallic agents added to the exterior of the wire for various purposes, our proprietary shielding, our winding geometry, and other trade secrets that took hundreds of thousands of dollars to perfect. If we published our patents, it would become a recipe for other companies to copy. It is common knowledge that by slightly altering just one step of the materials and process, a competitor could easily side-step the patent, making it worthless or extremely expensive to defend. We have no interest in educating other manufactures with our research and technology.
Talking about Maxwell’s series of four equations seems to have been the “proof” that some have referenced that MB’s claims are “smoke and mirrors” or was it “snake oil,” can’t remember the particular phrase. Maybe they were referring to EE 101 (first year engineering student)’s Maxwellian equations, derived from Gauss, Faraday, Ampère, and other mid-1800’s pioneers? Did you realize that Maxwell’s original formulae depended on what he called “aether” to operate in? It was discovered two years after Maxwell’s death that “aether” was proven by others to be non-existent. Most of the inspiration by Maxwell was to blend and form a unified theory from his predecessors, such as Michael Faraday, who did not attend university.
It looks like you’ll also have to study and understand the concept of free radicals in insulation and how they GREATLY affect the overall sound quality when being bombarded by the electron signal flow that travels upon the surface boundary between the metal alloys and the insulation materials. Some of our technology concerns the electron beam method of coating Poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene ( a form of Teflon used in a variety of products, in this case: insulation. The bombardment of electrons from the electron beam generator releases PTFE free radicals to bond with each other on the surface of the conductor. How the gentleman who claims there is no such thing as a free radical electron in an audio cable might want to review his advanced physics; the same goes for the person who said “electronics don’t behave normally in MB’s world.”
Concerning free radical electrons and their effect on the signal transfer, there should have been a little more information in this statement. First, the free radical electrons are a desired property of cross linking the outer insulative coating by the use of either chemical means or electron bombardment processes. There is no reason for me to go into the many pages of text that are necessary to explain the differences (mechanically, chemically, and sonically) between various insulators. Not surprisingly, all of these chemical types of thermoplastic all sound different and are applied in different fashions, depending on their atomic structure. Some forms of insulation do not have the free radical electrons inherent in their manufacturing process, but the better sounding versions, such as air-foamed Teflon, do use the free radical electron linking schemes. Once any of the insulators are fabricated onto the raw metal, some of the particles rest on the wire in small, unlaced clumps. An electron signal flow enables these radicals to be stabilized, but until they are formed into a unified layer, the signal is not quite as smooth and dimensional. Our method is proprietary and will not be discussed.
I certainly hope that this lengthy explanation is sufficient to ease your concerns about our products. If it does not, and you wish to debate this further, we suggest that you show proof that what we state is incorrect.
After an initial barrage by a vocal minority erupted on this forum based on the term “super” conductor and the technical claims on the MasterBuilt website, we have decided to explain a few things. Although we at MB use complex formulas on a daily basis in our aerospace R&D, it is quite a different thing to write a text book primer for the average audiophile who may or may not be interested in how a complex cable system operates in real life. To put out a fire started by two or three people and to make things easier for the customers who only wished to comment on purely the sonic attributes, Mr. Swanson stated that under no circumstances would MasterBuilt “give away” our proprietary technology, and that the thread should be confined to listening impressions only. As with most topics found on the Internet news groups, this did not sit well with a few members of the forum. Now that I’ve personally read the thread, I can say “thank you” to the many people that came to MB’s defense.
From our experience, many people don’t actually care about specs, they care about sound. These are the ones who actually enjoy their systems more than they enjoy arguing with others about things that no one can prove: do all amps sound the same? Does zip cord sound identical to expensive cables? Do vinyl records sound better than DSD recordings? Although we use A/B/X blind testing, as we do not wish to fool ourselves into believing that we’re hearing things that do not exist, we also compare our prototypes to other brands of cables, and although measurements are important to use as a road map, they cannot possibly describe how a stereo component sounds. Many SET users don’t mind the 10% distortion their 8-watt amps add, but they’re horrified of the sound that a Japanese receiver with only 0.002% distortion makes. Not that we’re knocking Japanese receivers; a few of us here have them in our bedrooms or small home theater systems and think they sound great for the very low cost.
Let’s get back to the specs vs sound quality: how many of you recognize and understand these simple Maxwellian equations that are routinely used to design a winding geometry that will nearly nullify basic problems with twin conductor speaker cables, especially the inexpensive “professional-grade” studio/PA/home theater brands:
F=cILB sin Ø and B=?H=?c1 x I 1 /2 ?
These equations describe the relationship between the magnetic fields as they travel down a conduction path, and are related to electro motive force, besides describing the physics behind movement of electrons. By the way, we do not use these simplified principles exclusively, they’re far too basic and do not take everything into consideration (for instance, the copper or alloy strand separation, purity of alloys, insulation material type and quality thereof, spacing materials used to separate the individual Litz conductors, non-metallic shielding coatings, noise reduction technique, and so forth). Audio cables designed with simple theory relegate everything to a basic common denominator; should equations force everyone to use zip cord to wire up their expensive rigs? What about using rusty baling wire? Does anyone here honestly believe that simple math is going to be the “magic bullet” that will magically make your system perform at its best?
The two equations above do not make interesting reading, do they? More importantly, do these two basic equations tell you anything about how our winding geometry works, or more importantly, how this version of the geometry sounds? There are literally thousands of ways to fabricate an audio cable, and unless you do a lot of testing and listening, you’ll never get anything out of measurements alone.
So, after reading the MB threads very carefully over the past several weeks, we the engineers at MB have come to these conclusions:
Some of the claims for MB cables, especially the ULTRA series, were poorly written (although they are not false). It is common knowledge that the large parent company we work for was one of the suppliers of materials for the CERN project, along with many other high tech companies. (MB’s parent company has also built industrial and military wiring systems, besides being a major supplier to the original NASA group). ULTRA was inspired by the idea that it was possible to design a transmission path that would sound louder, have more detail, have better timbre density and neutrality, and a larger, deeper sound stage; especially at very low volume levels. We should have written simply that ULTRA was a “superior” conductor. We never stated we were using the exact same conductor used at CERN for the Ultra cables.
The actual alloys and technology we have designed for the MB audio cable line have never been used by any other company. Any patent description would have to necessarily include insulation type and application, non-metallic agents added to the exterior of the wire for various purposes, our proprietary shielding, our winding geometry, and other trade secrets that took hundreds of thousands of dollars to perfect. If we published our patents, it would become a recipe for other companies to copy. It is common knowledge that by slightly altering just one step of the materials and process, a competitor could easily side-step the patent, making it worthless or extremely expensive to defend. We have no interest in educating other manufactures with our research and technology.
Talking about Maxwell’s series of four equations seems to have been the “proof” that some have referenced that MB’s claims are “smoke and mirrors” or was it “snake oil,” can’t remember the particular phrase. Maybe they were referring to EE 101 (first year engineering student)’s Maxwellian equations, derived from Gauss, Faraday, Ampère, and other mid-1800’s pioneers? Did you realize that Maxwell’s original formulae depended on what he called “aether” to operate in? It was discovered two years after Maxwell’s death that “aether” was proven by others to be non-existent. Most of the inspiration by Maxwell was to blend and form a unified theory from his predecessors, such as Michael Faraday, who did not attend university.
It looks like you’ll also have to study and understand the concept of free radicals in insulation and how they GREATLY affect the overall sound quality when being bombarded by the electron signal flow that travels upon the surface boundary between the metal alloys and the insulation materials. Some of our technology concerns the electron beam method of coating Poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene ( a form of Teflon used in a variety of products, in this case: insulation. The bombardment of electrons from the electron beam generator releases PTFE free radicals to bond with each other on the surface of the conductor. How the gentleman who claims there is no such thing as a free radical electron in an audio cable might want to review his advanced physics; the same goes for the person who said “electronics don’t behave normally in MB’s world.”
Concerning free radical electrons and their effect on the signal transfer, there should have been a little more information in this statement. First, the free radical electrons are a desired property of cross linking the outer insulative coating by the use of either chemical means or electron bombardment processes. There is no reason for me to go into the many pages of text that are necessary to explain the differences (mechanically, chemically, and sonically) between various insulators. Not surprisingly, all of these chemical types of thermoplastic all sound different and are applied in different fashions, depending on their atomic structure. Some forms of insulation do not have the free radical electrons inherent in their manufacturing process, but the better sounding versions, such as air-foamed Teflon, do use the free radical electron linking schemes. Once any of the insulators are fabricated onto the raw metal, some of the particles rest on the wire in small, unlaced clumps. An electron signal flow enables these radicals to be stabilized, but until they are formed into a unified layer, the signal is not quite as smooth and dimensional. Our method is proprietary and will not be discussed.
I certainly hope that this lengthy explanation is sufficient to ease your concerns about our products. If it does not, and you wish to debate this further, we suggest that you show proof that what we state is incorrect.
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Maybe someone from the company can publish prices of this stuff
I'd love to know if it's a cable I can afford to consider
I'd love to know if it's a cable I can afford to consider
First of all, I thought patents by default become public; am I wrong? Are we talking about trade secrets instead? Second, for my personal edification, I am going to try to run all this 'free radical' stuff by a physics professor at Boston University I know, and see what he thinks. Perhaps he can refer me to someone at MIT instead??!? We'll see. It is very well known and understood that dialetrics interact with the metals, and that's we choose one dialectric over another, and get a different sound, but my understanding is that there is electromagnetic interaction, not 'free radical' collisions as the MB website says (and I quote "affected when the electrons collide with the dielectric’s 'free radical' electrons").
I don't care to carry a technical conversation in this thread anymore
I don't care to carry a technical conversation in this thread anymore
TBH I don't think many of us here are able to carry on a technical conversation of such a nature. I certainly don't understand
However, as I read the way the thread came to a close previously there were several shouting to show us proof. Now when they try to show us proof this does not seem proper here. Seems like a double edged sword.
You took the time to answer the questions and address them in a very civil (and as far as a non-techie can guess) in a straightforward manner. Thank you. I am not here to debate anything...i am self-admittedly a non-techie, but I do enjoy reading 'stuff' from those who take the time to write about the tech stuff and how it relates to (actually in your case, 'creates the') sound quality we all enjoy.
TBH I don't think many of us here are able to carry on a technical conversation of such a nature. I certainly don't understand
However, as I read the way the thread came to a close previously there were several shouting to show us proof. Now when they try to show us proof this does not seem proper here. Seems like a double edged sword.
I think their post was welcome (and probably equally dismissive of us semi-technical dissenters), in the sense that we were allowed to post technical counterpoints at the beginning, so they deserve a voice. But we also agreed this is a how-it-sounds thread, therefore, any further technical points need to be made elsewhere.
Tasos
I totally agree with your post but let me remind you that it was you, Al and Amir who took the thread off topic by injecting much concern about untruths and confabulation. When I tried to get it back on topic it was the same 3 people who cried for proof. This seems to be what they are providing but now when perhaps there is substance to their post this suddenly is not the place for technical discussion.
I agree
In fact it was Leif yesterday who implored everyone to get back to talking about what MB owners are hearing rather than discuss the science as they provided
I can pretty easily and in lay terms explain what they are saying.
They didn't show proof or address any of our concerns. I am however reticent to explain any of that given your violent reactions and using your authority to shut down the thread, make insults, encourage others to make insults, etc. So if you want a response to them, you would have to provide assurances that you won't repeat this.However, as I read the way the thread came to a close previously there were several shouting to show us proof. Now when they try to show us proof this does not seem proper here. Seems like a double edged sword.
Tasos
I totally agree with your post but let me remind you that it was you, Al and Amir who took the thread off topic by injecting much concern about untruths and confabulation. When I tried to get it back on topic it was the same 3 people who cried for proof. This seems to be what they are providing but now when perhaps there is substance to their post this suddenly is not the place for technical discussion.
I agree
In fact it was Leif yesterday who implored everyone to get back to talking about what MB owners are hearing rather than discuss the science as they provided
I don't understand what you are getting to; we said no more technical discussions in this thread, and therefore, we are done. The MB post was an interesting read for me, but there are still serious doubts.
The prices are on the website. The Performance is the least expensive and very good.
Amir.......let it go. You are not qualified in this field. So please let it go. Their are also explanations how free radicals work in advanced engineering text books and you have no idea about the technology used in the manufacturing of these materials and construction methods and MasterBuilt knows it. And yes they did explain about free radicals.
Like they said Amir. "prove them wrong". I contend that this is so far over your head that you are gasping for straws. Prove them wrong Amir!!!! I shut down the thread because of people like you who have never heard these cables but yet in spite of the OP in this thread you seem hell bent to derail it. I won't shut it down again but rather will you if you keep doing what you are doing. Read the OP. Have you heard the cables? If not you are in no position to offer any comments about it so stay the heck out of this thread until you have first hand experience
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