Is It Possible for a Manufacturer to Create a Design that Minimizes the Effects of Cables? Anyone you are familiar with?

[Ron Resnick]

Also they prefer the sound signatures created by simple single ended circuits.

This is what I'm curious about. Yes, this must be the case.

Why did they prefer the sound signatures created by simple single-ended circuits.

People using SE connection are not supposed to use long cables ...

Absent an actual noise problem or an actual grounding problem David Karmeli is of the view that there's nothing wrong with using long single-ended cables. My personal experience supports this view.

 

[gleeds]

below is a pdf of an article published in the Sept 2001 Stereophile magazine, written by Herve Deletraz (i still have a hard copy of that issue). this was a year prior to Herve launching the darTZeel brand in 2002, with the Stereo 108 amp, and is the basis for the 50 ohm 'Zeel' BNC interface which is intended to minimize the effects of cables.

the main perspective of the article is that conventional cable interfaces (RCA and XLR) are not capable of proper impedance matching and so allow for signal reflections which reduce transparency. and that improvements in impedance matching matter. i'm sure i'm glossing over lots of details. but that is my take to the degree i can understand it.

the math and theory is beyond my capability of understanding. but it is one person's vision and was implemented and in my view had success. i still use a 7.5 meter Evolution Acoustics 'zeel' BNC set of interconnects between my dart 18NS preamp, and dart 468 mono blocks. btw; not all 50 ohm bnc cables sound the same. the quality of the plug construction and cable matters alot. cheap BNC's sound cheap. the EA's i use are the best one's i've heard over the years.

https://www.townshendaudio.com/PDF/Impedance_matching%20deletraz%20paper.pdf

this link was provided by @marty and was found here.

Mike, I have always been a fan of the Zeel interconnects; the EAs version was exceptional.

 

[microstrip]

This is what I'm curious about. Yes, this must be the case.

Why did they prefer the sound signatures created by simple single-ended circuits.

The more usually referred reason is simpler signal path, less components. And then people associate a lot of subjective qualities to this fact.
Or simply they do not like the sound signature of balanced. It is a common subject in high-end designers interviews.

Absent an actual noise problem or an actual grounding problem David Karmeli is of the view that there's nothing wrong with using long single-ended cables. My personal experience supports this view.

If you disconnect safety grounds on amplifiers it can be hum free - I had to do it on Lamm ML3's to use long cables. But each case is a separate case, depending on mains system and system layout. However SE usually does not have problems with up six feet cables. A long SE cable will always create a ground loop - the area defined by the ground of the signal cable and the ground of the mains cable. It is simple geometry. We can break it using special devices, but is code approved in some countries.

 

[italia]

Here's an (translated) explanation from an amplifier manufacturer regarding single ended vs balanced connections:

"We always recommend RCA input and output for the following reasons:

In balanced, you have one stage taking care of the positive part of the signal and a second stage taking care of the negative and then you add both together to receive or to send to another unit (amplifier, preamplifier). In adding them you create something that nobody wants; it is a cross distortion.

You experience this distortion because a perfect amplifier does not exist, and you are using 3 different amplifiers to achieve ‘true balance’ but these amplifiers do not have not the same behaviour and are never identical.

Moreover, your power supply is supplying all these amplifiers and then is not as powerful and efficient.

You increase the output stage impedance and then you have less control. Sometimes, it seems better because everything is less on control and the bass is smoother. The gain is higher (the noise also!).

But it is not the truth.

The quality of the XLR contact is only a piece of metal and is of less quality than a good RCA connector.

The only reason to be true balanced is when you are using very long cable in professional studios to avoid humming problems. This is the reason it became fashionable and we see today that even a poor Japanese product can provide balanced outputs and inputs.

We provide balanced XLR connectors for those customers who want or who need absolutely use these connectors for very long cables.

This is normally very rare in domestic installations.

 

[DasguteOhr]

Where are they using BNC in audio? Digital streams? It's an RF based connector?


Rob

BNC is not a signal type but a connector type you can use it for all what you want. e.g Naim audio use it for phono connection over years with chord cables , or as word clock connection(digital) is bnc today standard.

 

[DasguteOhr]

Unless you quantify such statements it is like saying that the weight of a passenger affects plane speed. Yes, it affects. Cable termination must be seen from the separate perspective of signal time and signal amplitude.

This debate lives on the ambiguity of mixing them. Audio cable termination was not created by DartZeel - Meridian Audio used it is the 80's in their systems, curiously using 75 ohm cables and termination. The main reason for being unsuccessful was poor implementation and poor understanding of the role of cables in the analog domain. .

The introduction of digital cables in the 90's, when timing of fast digital signals became critical and cable termination become mandatory made the situation even more confusing for audiophiles.

If you don't stick to the standard, it is measurable. And what is measurable definitely has an influence on the transmitted signal. You can measure whether the 50 ohm cable is suitable for this. Wave resistance in german use translator

Messung des Wellenwiderstands einer Leitung

Messung des Wellenwiderstands einer Leitung

www.dl1glh.de

A really good cable for that is aircell 7 ecoflex very flexible and very good dense shielding

 

[Ron Resnick]

A long SE cable will always create a ground loop

It is inadvisable to be this dogmatic.

 

[microstrip]

It is inadvisable to be this dogmatic.

Well if you cut a sentence from context, omitting the more important part of it, surely it is becomes as dogma. Otherwise it is a logic sentence even children can understand - unless they are reading it on the iPhone.

 

[Ted Denney III]

I have a question that no one will be able to answer. What components exist today, that sound identical, regardless of which cables are connecting them?

I’ll wait.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Well if you cut a sentence from context, omitting the more important part of it, surely it is becomes as dogma. Otherwise it is a logic sentence even children can understand - unless they are reading it on the iPhone.

No. Let me add back the deleted clause, but the meaning does not change. Adding back the clause "- the area defined by the ground of the signal cable and the ground of the mains cable" doesn't change your declarative and absolute statement that "a long SE cable will always create a ground loop."

I have long SE cables (47 feet) and I have no evidence that they create a ground loop. This is why I am objecting to your statement, professor. If there is one instance which disproves the absolute statement, then the absolute statement is false.

 

[microstrip]

No. Let me add back the deleted clause, but the meaning does not change. Adding back the clause "- the area defined by the ground of the signal cable and the ground of the mains cable" doesn't change your declarative and absolute statement that "a long SE cable will always create a ground loop."

I have long SE cables (47 feet) and I have no evidence that they create a ground loop. This is why I am objecting to your statement, professor. If there is one instance which disproves the absolute statement, then the absolute statement is false.

It seems to me you do not know what is a ground loop, or even a loop.
You can have ground loops and no noise at all, absence of hum is not a proof of non existence of ground loops!

BTW, even a short SE cable creates a ground loop - but as the area is much smaller we systematically ignore it.

As I said if the code does not oblige you to have a safety ground or you or the manufacturer do not mind with it you can avoid the ground loop.

 

[Ron Resnick]

It seems to me you do not know what is a ground loop, or even a loop.
You can have ground loops and no noise at all, absence of hum is not a proof of non existence of ground loops!

Okay. My view is that I don't care about any ground loop from which I cannot hear any deleterious sonic effect.

 

[Atmasphere]

I understand the long runs but they aren't normally required in home audio.

A big reason for having long runs (if you can eliminate cable artifact) is you can have really short speaker cables. This is particularly important if you use tube amplifiers, since their output impedance is higher they tend to be more sensitive to the effects of speaker cables. But even with a solid state amp you lose resolution by running longer speaker cables. So if you can run long interconnect cables (without artifact) you can get around this problem and so minimize the effects of the speaker cables.

It may be coincidence, or it may be causally related.

Its not. That was all done with intention. If you read up on the history of balanced lines you'll see how that came about.

It makes sense to me that adherence to the balanced standard would result in the subjective sonic differences among balanced cables and connections having lower perceived variance than the subjective sonic differences among single-ended cables, due to common mode noise reduction.

It remains to me an open question -- and a mystery -- why Bill Conrad and Vladimir Lamm and André Calmettes, among other designers, designed only single-ended circuits, forfeiting the theoretical advantages of balanced cables and connections. There must be they didn't like balanced cables and connections.

Yes- as best I can make out, they didn't study how balanced lines work. Nothing mysterious at all, especially when you add in the cost variable. Prior to us coming along, if you were to make a tube preamp circuit that supported the balanced line standards, the only way to do it was with an output transformer (meant to drive 600 Ohms). That is how all the tube studio gear did it. We came along and being the OTL people, patented an OTL method of driving a 600 Ohm balanced line directly. None of the people you mention knew we had done that and I seriously doubt they would have approached us about licensing the patents. I also doubt they would have wanted to put an output transformer on their preamps- a good one costs real money and limits bandwidth while increasing distortion. If that's the only difference its easy to see how you might simply forgo the transformer and do single-ended instead.

I have a question that no one will be able to answer. What components exist today, that sound identical, regardless of which cables are connecting them?

I’ll wait.

Robert Fulton more than anyone else in the world, founded the high end audio cable industry in the 1970s with his Fulton interconnect, Fulton Brown and Fulton Gold speaker cables. I met him in 1979 and attended listening sessions with him and Bill Johnson of ARC (they were good friends) at Bob Fredere's house (Fulton's next in command) near Lake Street in Minneapolis. I've been around the phenomena of hearing cable differences a very long time.

The second sentence of the post above can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. So I'll address those interpretations.

Obviously different equipment sounds different regardless of the cables because of the distortion signature (which is the sonic signature) of the equipment.

That should not be conflated with the cables.

If the equipment is single-ended you'll hear cable artifacts unless great care is taken to prevent it (such as having a 50Ohm output driving 50Ohm cables). So then you have to sort out which cable sounds best in your setup- an impossible task for most since there are hundreds of cable companies so thousands of different cables to audition.

If the equipment is balanced but not supporting the balanced standards you have the same problem.

Most studio gear will sound the same regardless of what cable is used since the balanced standards are observed; for example my Otari MX70 8 channel 1' tape machine does not sound any different with any balanced cable. Neither did my old tube Ampex 351 or 350 recorders. Yet these machines are very revealing of subtle changes in microphone placement, what kind of mic is used and so on.

Here's the bit that might seem counter-intuitive. If you can hear cable differences that's a bad thing. The reason is simple: if you compared two cables and found one to be better than the other (better stage depth, more detail, smoother sound, etc) the simple fact is next year that manufacturer will have a newer better cable and if he doesn't someone else will. So obviously both cables were wrong from the outset.

The only way off of the white elephant merry-go-round cable game is to use equipment that supports the balanced line standards. Then you never have to worry about interconnect cables again (you will still have to pay attention to speaker cables and power cables).

In balanced, you have one stage taking care of the positive part of the signal and a second stage taking care of the negative and then you add both together to receive or to send to another unit (amplifier, preamplifier). In adding them you create something that nobody wants; it is a cross distortion.

This statement is false. Case in point- my old Ampex tape machines. They employed single ended circuits for the most part until you got the the output which was push-pull. The balanced line connections were handled by transformers. Our balanced preamps don't do anything like this either.

Moreover, your power supply is supplying all these amplifiers and then is not as powerful and efficient.

This too is nonsense. The advantage to the power supply is the internally balanced amplification presents a constant load to the power supply. Sheesh.

The quality of the XLR contact is only a piece of metal and is of less quality than a good RCA connector.

The only reason to be true balanced is when you are using very long cable in professional studios to avoid humming problems.

These statements are also false. Neutix makes connectors as good or better than any RCA, IMO/IME. One reason to have long interconnects is the source might be a long way from where the signal is being received. My surmise is these people really didn't research these comments carefully.

 

[microstrip]

Okay. My view is that I don't care about any ground loop from which I cannot hear any deleterious sonic effect.

I suggest you think twice before calling someone of dogmatic ...
There are other ways to debate audio matters.

 

[Atmasphere]

Okay. My view is that I don't care about any ground loop from which I cannot hear any deleterious sonic effect.

Microstip isn't wrong. The thing about ground loops is they can be insidious. Instead of hum and buzz, they can simply raise the noise floor a little, thus obscuring low level detail and cause intermodulations which do the same and make the system less relaxed. Its the sort of thing that you really won't know about until its somehow gone.

 

[Ted Denney III]

identica

A big reason for having long runs (if you can eliminate cable artifact) is you can have really short speaker cables. This is particularly important if you use tube amplifiers, since their output impedance is higher they tend to be more sensitive to the effects of speaker cables. But even with a solid state amp you lose resolution by running longer speaker cables. So if you can run long interconnect cables (without artifact) you can get around this problem and so minimize the effects of the speaker cables.

Its not. That was all done with intention. If you read up on the history of balanced lines you'll see how that came about.

Yes- as best I can make out, they didn't study how balanced lines work. Nothing mysterious at all, especially when you add in the cost variable. Prior to us coming along, if you were to make a tube preamp circuit that supported the balanced line standards, the only way to do it was with an output transformer (meant to drive 600 Ohms). That is how all the tube studio gear did it. We came along and being the OTL people, patented an OTL method of driving a 600 Ohm balanced line directly. None of the people you mention knew we had done that and I seriously doubt they would have approached us about licensing the patents. I also doubt they would have wanted to put an output transformer on their preamps- a good one costs real money and limits bandwidth while increasing distortion. If that's the only difference its easy to see how you might simply forgo the transformer and do single-ended instead.

Robert Fulton more than anyone else in the world, founded the high end audio cable industry in the 1970s with his Fulton interconnect, Fulton Brown and Fulton Gold speaker cables. I met him in 1979 and attended listening sessions with him and Bill Johnson of ARC (they were good friends) at Bob Fredere's house (Fulton's next in command) near Lake Street in Minneapolis. I've been around the phenomena of hearing cable differences a very long time.

The second sentence of the post above can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. So I'll address those interpretations.

Obviously different equipment sounds different regardless of the cables because of the distortion signature (which is the sonic signature) of the equipment.

That should not be conflated with the cables.

If the equipment is single-ended you'll hear cable artifacts unless great care is taken to prevent it (such as having a 50Ohm output driving 50Ohm cables). So then you have to sort out which cable sounds best in your setup- an impossible task for most since there are hundreds of cable companies so thousands of different cables to audition.

If the equipment is balanced but not supporting the balanced standards you have the same problem.

Most studio gear will sound the same regardless of what cable is used since the balanced standards are observed; for example my Otari MX70 8 channel 1' tape machine does not sound any different with any balanced cable. Neither did my old tube Ampex 351 or 350 recorders. Yet these machines are very revealing of subtle changes in microphone placement, what kind of mic is used and so on.

Here's the bit that might seem counter-intuitive. If you can hear cable differences that's a bad thing. The reason is simple: if you compared two cables and found one to be better than the other (better stage depth, more detail, smoother sound, etc) the simple fact is next year that manufacturer will have a newer better cable and if he doesn't someone else will. So obviously both cables were wrong from the outset.

The only way off of the white elephant merry-go-round cable game is to use equipment that supports the balanced line standards. Then you never have to worry about interconnect cables again (you will still have to pay attention to speaker cables and power cables).

This statement is false. Case in point- my old Ampex tape machines. They employed single ended circuits for the most part until you got the the output which was push-pull. The balanced line connections were handled by transformers. Our balanced preamps don't do anything like this either.

This too is nonsense. The advantage to the power supply is the internally balanced amplification presents a constant load to the power supply. Sheesh.

These statements are also false. Neutix makes connectors as good or better than any RCA, IMO/IME. One reason to have long interconnects is the source might be a long way from where the signal is being received. My surmise is these people really didn't research these comments carefully.

To be clear. No two components, all other factors remaining constant other than a cable change, will sound the same once the cables are changed. I believe that was Crystal clear in my original statement which you replied to, but if not, it should be now. There are no audio components that use cables on this planet, where the sound of the system does not change when the cables are changed.

 

[Ted Denney III]

identica

Again: you'll hear those differences if the surrounding equipment does not support the balanced line standards.

I've been doing this longer than anyone else in high end audio at this point; our MP-1 was the first balanced line preamp offered to home audio. Its still in production.

My recommendation is get some studio equipment and see how audible the balanced cables really are. If your exposure it only to 'high end audio', most of the stuff we've seen over the last 35 years doesn't support any of the standards. It’s much like trying to use a USB cable that doesn't conform to USB standards; it won't work. With balanced line it will still play, but you'll hear the artifact of the cable.

In your estimation do Soulution electronics support balanced line standards?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

To be clear. No two components, all other factors remaining constant other than a cable change, will sound the same once the cables are changed. I believe that was Crystal clear in my original statement which you replied to, but if not, it should be now. There are no audio components that use cables on this planet, where the sound of the system does not change when the cables are changed.

there is an important difference between there being a 'sound' difference or not, and hearing an actual experientially different result in the music.

you can measure the sound, but not the music. it depends on humans. and sometimes we cannot hear a difference between two sets of cables. it happens. not every system shows us differences equally, either. musically context matters.

 

[Atmasphere]

To be clear. No two components, all other factors remaining constant other than a cable change, will sound the same once the cables are changed. I believe that was Crystal clear in my original statement which you replied to, but if not, it should be now. There are no audio components that use cables on this planet, where the sound of the system does not change when the cables are changed.

This statement is false except for the part about being Crystal clear. It suggests to me you've not spent time with recording equipment or the like which is understandable- most audiophiles have not.

Your statement is broadly true of most audiophile equipment and a lot of semi pro recording equipment. Its not true of ours for the simple reason we are one of the very few 'high end audio' manufacturers that bothers to support all the balanced line standards.

Its like I said before, if we are being Crystal clear; the balanced line standards make possible three benefits: no ground loops, rejection of noise impinged on the cable and no cable artifact. The benefit is there if the cable is only 6 inches long but obviously makes long cables possible too.

I've been running a recording studio since sometime in my early 20s, so since the mid 1970s. I've been hearing cable differences most of that time too, until I was able to build a preamp and amps that supported the balanced line standards.

My recommendation is get some actual recording studio gear and hook it all up. That is exactly what I did.

FWIW, I'm not killing your market or that of any other high end cable manufacturer. This is for the simple reason that what I've said only applies to equipment that supports the balanced line standards and has to be at either end of the cable for that to work. The simple fact is most manufacturers of high end audio equipment prefer to ignore the standards or are ignorant of them (I'm not sure which).

If what you are saying were actually true, record labels in the 1950s could not have put out the consistent product they did.

In your estimation do Soulution electronics support balanced line standards?

I don't know. I suspect they do not in the preamp although their amps probably do.

But you need both ends to support the standard.

One tell the preamp doesn't is they don't have a balanced input for the phono section- an obvious thing to do since phono cartridges are balanced sources. They do not mention anything about supporting AES48 anywhere on their website. They say the output of the preamp is similar to their 711 amplifier. Looking at that amp, there's no warning about the output floating (which could be a source of possible damage if a grounded subwoofer were connected to the outputs) so I think the minus output speaker terminals are at ground potential. If the preamp uses a similar circuit then its output is two single ended outputs, one out of phase with the other. So (and this is entirely surmise on my part) I think the input of the amp is AES48 compliant but but the critical output of the preamp isn't. So I expect you might hear cable differences with that gear.

 

[analogsa]

IMO it is unfortunate that the forum evolved in such way. It was not so ten years ago, people asked for correlations and wanted to understand things, not just to hear from gurus and old experienced audiophiles or share experiences for the fun of it.

I expected that modern audiophiles had forgotten the trauma of the perfect measurements of the 70's and were able to adapt for a new vision of old concepts. But as far I see the Voodoo approach still rules for much of them.

Nothing fundamentally wrong with Voodoo. Are there more convincing explanations for sonic differencies when all other variables are kept constant and just the metallurgy is varied? Ofc vs occ vs all the silver and gold flavours? And yes, let's not forget platinum too.

What do the correlations say?