Hi Dillon - You and I are saying the same thing.
People see a high price, they immediately think "rip-off" and shut off their thinking ability or open-mindedness.
Cables can make a huge difference...
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People see a high price, they immediately think "rip-off" and shut off their thinking ability or open-mindedness.
Thanks, Dave and duly noted. The products I have recently added came to me croyo'd by the manufacturer. I haven't sent anything out to have the treatment done....mainly for those fears. I'm not one to take a gamble like that with expensive products.
He cryo'd an entire amp? I thought that was a no-no....
Tom
Unlike some cars and watches, expensive power cords and cables typically do not appreciate in value. Therefore, it is a commitment spending a lot of money on a power cord or cable. They better perform or they are going back. I kept mine.
As with every pursuit, the nicer the nice, the higher the price. But it isn’t proportionate. At first, doubling your investment (say from £2,000 to £4,000) can result in a system that is many times better than what you started with, especially if careful with selection and allowing good condition used equipment to get the best system you can afford. As you move up however, you find yourself spending ever so much more for ever so much less until you end up paying everything for nothing (or hardly anything). At a certain point all wire is good, but sounds different. Satisfaction comes from choosing a wire interconnect (or power cable) that balances deficiencies in the rest of the system. But this level of fine-tuning is very expensive considering how small the potential result will be. I personally would spend it on best quality recordings as they will make a much greater difference to your listening enjoyment than new expensive wire.
I don’t consider the results small at all. If it were otherwise I too would have spent my money on something else. Buying cables isn’t sexy like a shiny new amp or more expensive speakers. The satisfaction comes with what I hear.
This is a great resource which outlines why/how power cables can make a difference: https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks...t="Since a power cord is,or 1 meter in length.
Thought I'd share it for anyone else who may not know.
Common sense will get you there plain and simple. Let's see a standard ticket cost's $50 thru a resale $250. You can make the argument that "well their willing to pay it" doesn't change the fact that the resale ticket is a rip off. Making someone pay 5X over cost clearly taking advantage. Scalping used to be illegal. Some how it's the new norm.
Same thing with cables cost of materials, labor, R and D if any? and over head if any. Justify 75K.
Rob
Ok course ultra expensive cables or amps/speakers/music servers can be justified. The technology developed for high performance products trickles down to the more affordable products.Common sense will get you there plain and simple. Let's see a standard ticket cost's $50 thru a resale $250. You can make the argument that "well their willing to pay it" doesn't change the fact that the resale ticket is a rip off. Making someone pay 5X over cost clearly taking advantage. Scalping used to be illegal. Some how it's the new norm.
Same thing with cables cost of materials, labor, R and D if any? and over head if any. Justify 75K.
Rob
I couldn’t even think about a 65” 4k OLED TV a few years ago. Now they are cheaper than a new tooth. (I just came from the dentist.). But someone had to buy those TVs when they were $10k+.
People stand in line to pay $1500+ for a telephone. How crazy is that? And if you say you won’t pay that for a phone- that’s great but billions of others do.
Talking cables only. You chose to justify it? Your choice!
Being an early adaptor go for it. It's your money do as you will
Rob
I’ve had the same experience. I’ve actually found a lot of ‘audiophile’ power cords can have too much impact to the sound, imparting obvious colorations leading to a “sameness” in the sound from recording to recording.
It is not a crime to ask questions… is it?
No but the manufacture, could provide something other than paragraphs of prose.
They could show that something had changed.
It is not that far of a reach to ask. No one is forcing me to support them, so I can at least wait until I am comfortable... and they will be there then.
If it was only that easy.
There are no power cord demonstration places close by, or that I have found.
If I was in LA, NY, Paris or Germany, then it seems like it should be easier.
But I am also more interested in ICs, than power cords.
Not knowing how they work, or being shown that they do work, it is a bit of different than me wanting them to work.
And the AQ/dBS stuff is provided with an explanation of what the biasing to designed to be doing… there is a patent, and not a state secret.
It is not like a cell phone, where one can make a call, and show that it works.
Or an airbag or Hans device, where one see how the theory of how basil skull fractures are prevented.
One can say that I am uninformed, but I have not seen a lot of ways to become informed, other than people saying to find a cord and listen… and here we are.You complaining that I speculate when I should be looking for cables, and me in Western Australia.
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You have a valid point that it is geographical in terms of ability to get a cable loan. Here in the US it's really easy with some companies willing to ship you the cables to try before you buy if you are not local to them.
I think Wire World dealers offer a 30 day in home trial with full refund if you don't like them.
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Unless you have a Physics degree you are not likely to understand how cables work beyond the basic V=IR. If you have a Physics degree then you would have already researched a lot of this for yourself to gain that understanding. I don't have a degree in Physics, I do not understand how hifi cables work beyond the basic LCR theory. But then I also cannot design and build my own amplifier or DAC. I do not need to know that to assemble a stereo system. Our skill set as audiophiles- which we develop in this hobby is building a system using components such as amps, DACs, turntables, speakers and cables, and room acoustics to faithfully reproduce music. I think I still have room for improvement based on my visits to AXPONA, hifi shops and other's hifi systems. And then I get input from others who hear my system which usually causes me to have to change something. In the end it sounds better so I am happy I made the effort. Maybe one day someone will develop a computer model that will analyze your system and provide you with the optimum solution of cables. Probably won't be in this half-century.
Everything about high end audio gets complicated. The hardest thing for me is that I get used to the sound of my system, as colored or glaring as it might be and it takes hearing other systems or feedback from others to realize I have room for improvement. Cables are tricky. You either just go with something or spend hours and hours comparing and contrasting but unless you take good notes you can end up going in circles. (Actually, my system sounds pretty decent now and that is not just me talking but there is always still room for improvement.)
You have three choices: Figure out how to get cables to your home to audition. Audition cables at AXPONA or at a hifi shop. Don't buy high end cables- just stick to what you have. The wrong high end cable is worse than no high end cable because the stereo will not sound that great and you will be out a lot of money.
And it is like a cell phone. Go to a store and have them audition cables for you to show that they work.
I stick to cable manufacturers with a pedigree. It costs a little more but I am counting on their veracity and I am reducing my complexity. I've been burned before. Life lessons are not cheap.
He's not complaining. He's trying to help. How would he or anyone else know that you are in Western Australia and getting access to audio gear to hear and / or audition is difficult? Are you complaining? Not to be judgemental and disrespectful, but it sure comes across that way to me.
Like anything else, people can provide opinions and suggestions but, in the end, isn't it your responsibility to figure out the way forward, given your unique circumstances, and resolve the issue to your satisfaction? Best.
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Usually I am… complaining…
But there is more to like, than to complain about.
The main complaint is that there is no easy way to sort through cables and the claims.
Some provide fact, or clues. And they have capacitance and inductance specs.
Or they say that their cables trade capacitance for inductance, etc.
those manufacturers make it a lot easier.
I do have a physics degree… which probably helps to understand why I like the subject so much.
It is just totally fascinating how the electric field is in the dielectric, and if we want to effect the field, then we cannot do that with the metal. Something else MAY be happening there inside the conductor…
@TonyW You wrote a very gentlemanly post by the way…
There is a lady with a phd and background in SONAR (I think), who has been doing some stunning work in room reflections and ray-tracing.
The forth option would be gin up some.
I regularly do that using the Mogami and Nuetrik, and if nothing else, I avoid a situation looking like snake festival, with a bunch of ICs.
At least it gives me a baseline to start from, and it seems to sound pretty decent so far.
When I shove back in the AQ ICs, it sounds about the same, or I cannot hear a difference.. albeit those AQ ICs are older, and moved them on recently to a young friend.
I am leaning towards lower capacitance and inductance ICs, and hence leaning away from Teflon, to go with either foamed teflon or silk or cotton.
If I could only go get an old Nokia…
Half the smart phone apps are only available in one country and not in another.
^That^ sort of moves one back to Mogami and Canare stuff pretty quickly... there maybe another brand I missed, but most studios are using “standard” but high quality cables… and doing it my the Mille, or at least hundreds of meters.
However if some silver ICs can be made up to got to/from the preamp, then I am thinking of trying that.
You can’t hear a difference if your setup cannot reflect changes, that’s perfectly normal. It can be better or worse but there should be a difference.
I recommend silk. It sounds very good while cotton sounds a tad warmer.
I've given this some thought. I have a theory why cables are more important in a playback system than in the studio.
Imagine standing in front of a live, acoustic band. Close your eyes and you can place the location of each of the instruments. That is because of phasing. This live band with several sources of sound is a jumble of frequencies and phasing. But even though the phasing is different this is how we can tell with our ears location- left, right, up, down, front, and back of all of the different sounds. This jumble of phasing from all of the various sources on stage sounds natural to us because this is our physical world. Phasing does not change with distance. Only amplitude changes with distance. And yes, high frequencies get dampened faster. So we all find our favorite spots to sit in a concert venue. Some like the front rows for a louder, more engaging concert, others like the middle rows for a balanced sound and some prefer the back rows for a more relaxed presentation. It's a matter of taste. While everyone is experiencing either a brighter or more mellow sound depending on seating position they are all experiencing the same phasing of the sound.
Put this band in a studio with multiple mics and pickups and now the studio must faithfully preserve this sound in a recording. As long as the microphone cables and pickup cables are identical then the phasing should be preserved. Note that no high powered amplifiers are used in the recording chain. That is a significant difference between studio and playback. (I'm not counting the high powered amplifiers used in the cutting lathes for making vinyl records). As long as the studio preamps and equalizers preserve phasing then the fidelity of the recording is maintained. Of course patch cords between preamps to recording device play a significant role in preserving fidelity but only after the recording is down mixed from multiple channels to two channels. And I think power cords, quality of power coming into the studio is just as critical as it is in a playback system. Any phasing information, any detail that is lost during the recording process is lost forever. So one question is: How much care do studios take in the use of power cords?
Now the playback system has the task of reassembling not just frequency and amplitude information but the all too important phasing information. The quality of reassembling the phasing information directly correlates to the realism and naturalness of the reproduced music. Most, not all of that responsibility falls to the speakers with the second most important component being the cables. The cables, being wires can't help themselves. They move signals at different speeds relative to frequency. Yes, sound waves move through the air at different speeds relative to frequency but the proportions between electrical wires and air is much different. So cables can alter the phase information in the musical recording. To complicate that, any speaker that is not a one way design such as a Quad ESL, has a crossover network that splits the frequency range of music and directs it to different drivers design to reproduce a specific range of frequencies providing more challenges to the preservation of phasing of the original music. So our playback cables not only need to reject noise, interference from the outside, but also try to maintain phasing as these signals traverse the wire. We see cables with network boxes and others that use a blend of dielectrics and wire materials to preserve phasing. I think that we find some wires work better with certain speakers than others because the cables need to compliment the crossovers with respect to phasing and also frequency response.
This is somewhat simplistic but still too long. The magic of it all to me is how I hear a 3D soundstage (left, right, front, back, up and down) as if the band is right there in front of me. But at the same time some of our hifi systems sound more real than real. It's not really hifi then, is it? What I mean is I can feel, not just hear the plucks on guitar strings- maybe in real life I'm sitting 3 feet from the guitar player. Or I hear clarity beyond what can be heard at a live session. It is the same as watching our HDTV's. We all, at least I do, have the color saturation, the contrast and the sharpness cranked up so that the picture looks more real than real. HDR was supposed to give us a more true rendition of the scene. HDR stinks.
Imagine standing in front of a live, acoustic band. Close your eyes and you can place the location of each of the instruments. That is because of phasing. This live band with several sources of sound is a jumble of frequencies and phasing. But even though the phasing is different this is how we can tell with our ears location- left, right, up, down, front, and back of all of the different sounds. This jumble of phasing from all of the various sources on stage sounds natural to us because this is our physical world. Phasing does not change with distance. Only amplitude changes with distance. And yes, high frequencies get dampened faster. So we all find our favorite spots to sit in a concert venue. Some like the front rows for a louder, more engaging concert, others like the middle rows for a balanced sound and some prefer the back rows for a more relaxed presentation. It's a matter of taste. While everyone is experiencing either a brighter or more mellow sound depending on seating position they are all experiencing the same phasing of the sound.
Put this band in a studio with multiple mics and pickups and now the studio must faithfully preserve this sound in a recording. As long as the microphone cables and pickup cables are identical then the phasing should be preserved. Note that no high powered amplifiers are used in the recording chain. That is a significant difference between studio and playback. (I'm not counting the high powered amplifiers used in the cutting lathes for making vinyl records). As long as the studio preamps and equalizers preserve phasing then the fidelity of the recording is maintained. Of course patch cords between preamps to recording device play a significant role in preserving fidelity but only after the recording is down mixed from multiple channels to two channels. And I think power cords, quality of power coming into the studio is just as critical as it is in a playback system. Any phasing information, any detail that is lost during the recording process is lost forever. So one question is: How much care do studios take in the use of power cords?
Now the playback system has the task of reassembling not just frequency and amplitude information but the all too important phasing information. The quality of reassembling the phasing information directly correlates to the realism and naturalness of the reproduced music. Most, not all of that responsibility falls to the speakers with the second most important component being the cables. The cables, being wires can't help themselves. They move signals at different speeds relative to frequency. Yes, sound waves move through the air at different speeds relative to frequency but the proportions between electrical wires and air is much different. So cables can alter the phase information in the musical recording. To complicate that, any speaker that is not a one way design such as a Quad ESL, has a crossover network that splits the frequency range of music and directs it to different drivers design to reproduce a specific range of frequencies providing more challenges to the preservation of phasing of the original music. So our playback cables not only need to reject noise, interference from the outside, but also try to maintain phasing as these signals traverse the wire. We see cables with network boxes and others that use a blend of dielectrics and wire materials to preserve phasing. I think that we find some wires work better with certain speakers than others because the cables need to compliment the crossovers with respect to phasing and also frequency response.
This is somewhat simplistic but still too long. The magic of it all to me is how I hear a 3D soundstage (left, right, front, back, up and down) as if the band is right there in front of me. But at the same time some of our hifi systems sound more real than real. It's not really hifi then, is it? What I mean is I can feel, not just hear the plucks on guitar strings- maybe in real life I'm sitting 3 feet from the guitar player. Or I hear clarity beyond what can be heard at a live session. It is the same as watching our HDTV's. We all, at least I do, have the color saturation, the contrast and the sharpness cranked up so that the picture looks more real than real. HDR was supposed to give us a more true rendition of the scene. HDR stinks.
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If you taught a class, your students would be successful. Such an abundance of great info in just 1 post.
Hate to throw a wrench in this whole cable kerfuffle, but @steve williams is now endorsing a product https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/the-grid-protector-by-scherzinger-in-my-system-and-i’m-blown-away.39296/#post-992485 which some members in their subsequent posts have loosely implied that in some ways the perceived benefits of cable geometry and metallurgy wrt tonality and other qualities we revere may be considered inconsequential when the Scherzinger device is employed.
I heard the Scherzinger products during a Zellaton demo at Art Audio and was impressed with the overall demo that I eventually ended up with a pair of the speakers, but at the time perhaps didn’t lend enough credence to the Scherzinger at the time, which may be why I no longer have the Zellaton.
Maybe it’s time look at other solutions which seem to have better explanations and less skepticism.
I heard the Scherzinger products during a Zellaton demo at Art Audio and was impressed with the overall demo that I eventually ended up with a pair of the speakers, but at the time perhaps didn’t lend enough credence to the Scherzinger at the time, which may be why I no longer have the Zellaton.
Maybe it’s time look at other solutions which seem to have better explanations and less skepticism.
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