Cables and the Peter Principle

[microstrip]

Funny you mention the ET. My system at the time also had an ET-2 mounted on a Sota Star Sapphire table.

Mep,
I also owned the Sota - ET pairing. Great sounding system, although technically incorrect - theoretically the ET sound not be mounted in such a bouncing turntable, as the horizontal axis of the system would change during playback as the center of gravity of the suspended system changed during playback. But the sound was really great, the aliveness of the ET matched the dark sound of the SOTA!
BTW I still keep my ET2, just in case someday I become reasonable about expenses in vinyl systems. It was by far the best value for money in tonearms if you could manage its peculiarities.

 

[mep]

Mep,
I also owned the Sota - ET pairing. Great sounding system, although technically incorrect - theoretically the ET sound not be mounted in such a bouncing turntable, as the horizontal axis of the system would change during playback as the center of gravity of the suspended system changed during playback. But the sound was really great, the aliveness of the ET matched the dark sound of the SOTA!
BTW I still keep my ET2, just in case someday I become reasonable about expenses in vinyl systems. It was by far the best value for money in tonearms if you could manage its peculiarities.

Micro-I too figured out the ET-2/SOTA was not a good pairing and I sold the SOTA. I still have my ET-2 as well. If the damn thing had a true ground, I would probably still be using it.

 

[rbbert]

that impression was not my intent. I value highly the effect of top performing cables, and my experience with the 'zeel' interface does not conflict with that perspective. different BNC cables do sound different when used with the zeel interface. Radio Shack BNC cables sound 'ok', but are not in the class of the BNC's that Herve sells. Herve's are quite reasonable from a few hundred for short cables up to around $2000 for an 8 meter. not real cheap but they will better pretty much any conventional cable regardless of price. I had Audience build me some BNC cables which were pretty good, but they were not as good as Herve's for 3 times as much. the Evolution Acoustics BNC's are more expensive than the Audience and are even better than Herve's, and that is mostly what I use.

the bottom line is that within a given geometry cable performance still varies.

and just because the zeel interface is superior to RCA or XLR does not mean that those type cables are not valid or that within those types of cables that performance does not vary.

Not exactly what I meant, sorry I should have been more clear. Your post implies to me (and of course I could be misreading) that Herve's cables are designed and built to specific engineering standards with a specific sonic and engineering goal in mind. Most cable manufacturers, and their reviewers, want you to choose their cable for reasons they express in what are really vaguely descriptive terms: warmth, detail, tightness, etc. Whereas I think your post says that Herve's cables are designed to connect his components in as neutral and accurate a way as possible.

 

[mep]

Not exactly what I meant, sorry I should have been more clear. Your post implies to me (and of course I could be misreading) that Herve's cables are designed and built to specific engineering standards with a specific sonic and engineering goal in mind. Most cable manufacturers, and their reviewers, want you to choose their cable for reasons they express in what are really vaguely descriptive terms: warmth, detail, tightness, etc. Whereas I think your post says that Herve's cables are designed to connect his components in as neutral and accurate a way as possible.

I think you summed that up quite nicely.

 

[Bruce B]

Not exactly what I meant, sorry I should have been more clear. Your post implies to me (and of course I could be misreading) that Herve's cables are designed and built to specific engineering standards with a specific sonic and engineering goal in mind. Most cable manufacturers, and their reviewers, want you to choose their cable for reasons they express in what are really vaguely descriptive terms: warmth, detail, tightness, etc. Whereas I think your post says that Herve's cables are designed to connect his components in as neutral and accurate a way as possible.

I think I read in the review that using the balanced connections actually degraded the sound... or at least the reviewer preferred the BNC over the XLR.

 

[Shaffer]

This is a dubious affirmation unless you live in a radio station or your equipment has no capability of rejecting RF. There is such a wide type of equipments in audio that we can not have such strict general rules. Even speaker cables can have susceptibility to RF, although this is not an issue with most amplifiers.

I agree in a general sense, especially if one lives in a less populated area.

In my case, we have a grand total of 11 broadcast towers within a 2 mile radius of our home. All types: radio, TV, microwave.... The area is relatively flat with one big hill approaching downtown, housing the bulk of the transmitters, and we're right there. It's difficult the describe the effect driven by listening to a particularly compelling passage, while "Running with the devil" is bursting through the background. The interference can range from unbearable to just tolerable. Solutions? Number one, aside from intelligent equipment selection is cable, cable, cable and cable. I can demonstrate the effects of RFI reflection on a moment's notice leaving zero doubt as to the remedy. Once I get an Ayre phono stage and run balanced, these problems will diminish greatly. It's the only real solution I know of.

As for wire, hell, we can go from a full radio or TV broadcast (depending on which way the wind blows and on how I position the tonearm cable) to almost none simply with a change in interconnect between the phono stage and the integrated.

 

[microstrip]

I think I read in the review that using the balanced connections actually degraded the sound... or at least the reviewer preferred the BNC over the XLR.

The XLR of the NH108 goes in a small Neutrik unbalancing transformer - as you say most people feel that this input degrades the sound quality of the DartZeel. If you really need to operate it in balanced mode you should use the Steve McCormick's SMc Audio "Interocitor One" .

 

[audiobuff]

The point is that cables (speaker, Interconnects and Power cords) do alter the sound. To say that they make no difference is ignorant. They do not always make the sound better. Silver cables will often sound different than copper. Cable's with the little boxes attached to them are altering the signal. and so on...........You are very lucky that you can't hear a difference assuming that you have experimented...
because if you didn't then you really have no right commenting.

 

[IanG-UK]

You are very lucky that you can't hear a difference assuming that you have experimented...
because if you didn't then you really have no right commenting.

... and so we reach the usual conclusion of hearing a difference when sighted but hearing no difference at a statistically significant level when unsighted!

 

[audiobuff]

I don't even know what that means...what are trying to say.

 

[Speedskater]

It means that it's much harder to hear differences when you are limited to only listening.

 

[audiobuff]

Since we are talking about Audio Systems...Hearing is all you have. Never did try tasting anything.

 

[audiobuff]

I'm assuming that your referring to measuring differences with some sort of machine...Check this out.
http://youtu.be/CXwRTzJZ7Y0

 

[IanG-UK]

I don't even know what that means...what are trying to say.

It means what Speedskater says in his message which follows yours.

This forum and others are great places for options - which is good - but opinions on cable differences made in sighted environments never seem to be validated by evidence that the same conclusions can be drawn in unsighted situations.

So the person who wires up their loudspeakers with low cost good gauge copper and claims to hear no difference to astronomic cost esoteric silver has just as valid an opinion as the person who claims to hear substantial differences in favour of the silver (because it is never the other way round!), at least until such time as he substantiates those differences in unsighted trials.

 

[Lee]

In my experience using one brand of cable is best on signal wires but I think on AC cords it is quite a different animal. I think some companies like Shunyata have got current delivery figured out so I tend to go with them for all things power. I will probably try some signal cables from them soon. So I'm not as sure having one manufacturer is all that important. But then again I'm a renegade and don't follow silly rules of thumb like "spend 10% of your system cost on wire" or "fix everything else before you do wires or power or tweaks". In a world where everything matters, I say keep experimenting with everything!

As for cables creating sound quality differences, I have found the more resolving my system has become, the more I can hear differences in just about well everything unless the new Sort Kones I have under my SACD player.

It's a funny hobby because there is so much ongoing improvement in technology and to some pricing seems insane but only appears so on unresolving systems that don't always highlight the differences as well. Then you have the arm chair engineers who are either unemployed or uninformed or inexperienced arguing stupid things like "hirez digital doesn't make a difference", "all USB cables sound the same", etc.

So many Flat Earthers invaded the Hardware section on the Hoffman board that it drove out many experienced and intelligent audiophiles and has caused me to post a lot less.

 

[Lee]

It can happen. This just shows that in your system you should not use this type of Kimber ICs. Many people use Kimber with great results and have to buy a tuner to listen to radio.

I lived for a long time close to an AM radio station - about 200 meters from the antenna. I could lit a small 6V 30 mA lamp (OK it just got reddish) using a 20 meter antenna, and could listen in a small speaker fitted with a matching transformer using a galena. But never had any interference in my system using Kimber PBJ unshielded cable. The only interference problem I ever had was it an Eminent Technology tonearm and a particular RIAA stage I do not remember the brand anymore that could pick a mix of the BBC world service and a german station in shortwave.

When I worked at Chesky Records we were doing some session at RCA Studio A in midtown Mahattan. Jeremy Kipnis and I were responsible for building the microphone tree and we had to cover the mic cable in aluminum foil to prevent several radio stations from leaking in.

 

[Orb]

... and so we reach the usual conclusion of hearing a difference when sighted but hearing no difference at a statistically significant level when unsighted!

Try doing an ABX with music where one source has 3% thd distortion added (not on the fly but reprocessed digital music files) and let me know if you can pass with 95% statistically significant.
The only successful distortion perception tests I know were never done this way, and when involving music was down only to 4% - appreciate I may had missed some studies and research done.
However we are meant to hear distortion well below 1%, and we do.
This is not a bash about ABX, just that sometimes if looking for a significant statistic with perception sometimes we may have to look at other methodologies, which is easier to prove with other concepts I appreciate.

Cables are also a serious headache as technically they can only be tested/considered integral to a complete active chain (so there is interraction beyond the scope of the usual controlled test environment), otherwise it is meaningless IMO.
There has been many times in the past where I have had to do engineering testing-measurements "in-line" as the interraction was critical to know through/with the chain and environment (not hifi though).
Cheers
Orb

Cheers
Orb

 

[mep]

Even corrected with their compensation network, that's a pretty nasty looking 10kHz square wave. How can you have a better looking 10kHz square wave coming out of the end of an output transformer for a tube amp than from a short length of an IC?

 

[IanG-UK]

Try doing an ABX with music where one source has 3% thd distortion added (not on the fly but reprocessed digital music files) and let me know if you can pass with 95% statistically significant.
The only successful distortion perception tests I know were never done this way, and when involving music was down only to 4% - appreciate I may had missed some studies and research done.
However we are meant to hear distortion well below 1%, and we do.
This is not a bash about ABX, just that sometimes if looking for a significant statistic with perception sometimes we may have to look at other methodologies, which is easier to prove with other concepts I appreciate.

Cables are also a serious headache as technically they can only be tested/considered integral to a complete active chain (so there is interraction beyond the scope of the usual controlled test environment), otherwise it is meaningless IMO.
There has been many times in the past where I have had to do engineering testing-measurements "in-line" as the interraction was critical to know through/with the chain and environment (not hifi though).
Cheers
Orb

Cheers
Orb

Hi Orb

I'm relaxed about Mr X hearing a difference (or, more accurately, claiming to hear a difference) between cable A and cable B; or even claiming that cable A sounds better than cable B; or even claiming that cable A is a closer to the original sound than cable B.

I'm equally relaxed about Mr Y hearing no difference (or claiming to hear no difference) between cables A and B; or claiming that cables A and B sound the same; or claiming that both cables are equally close to the original sound.

On fora, many Mr Xs will gladly post, perhaps because of the superiority they feel because of their perceived greater discriminatory talent.

But on fora, many (probably all) Mr Ys will rarely post, sometimes because they feel inferior because of their perceived lack of discriminatory talent.

And I suggest that Mr Xs' posts invariably correlate with cable A costing materially more than cable B. Indeed I can never remember reading a post where the £1/m cable is heard to be superior to the £1,000/m cable.

In fact I would go as far as suggesting that this latter proposition would be passed at a level of 95% statistical significance.

When, of course, the meaningful test is notable by its absence.

 

[microstrip]

(...)

And I suggest that Mr Xs' posts invariably correlate with cable A costing materially more than cable B. Indeed I can never remember reading a post where the £1/m cable is heard to be superior to the £1,000/m cable. (...)

IanG,

If you read WBF regularly you will have found that several of us refer that sometimes a very expensive cable sounds miserable in a system. There are reported cases of people preferring much less expensive cables in their systems (downgrading in price, but in their opinion sounding better) and even a prestigious speaker manufacturer preferring a middle price cable from the complete line of another prestigious manufacturer of expensive cables.

But yes, I never found a system that could sound better with a £1/m cable ...