Older gear vs. The current crop

[mep]

Frantz and Mark, since it would appear from your remarks that you do NOT believe speaker cables or ic's make any difference in the sound of your system, I would suggest maybe going to your local high-end store and asking them to do an AB with the cable that you believe is your standard ( from the sounds of it that would be zip cord). A few years back , I was present at this type of demo, the dealer never told us what was inserted into the system, so it was a 'blind' test.
Without fail, the group could tell when the "better" cables were inserted and in most instances were able to tell which part of the audio spectrum was improved.
In my system, I was previously using the Highwire cables....these are very well insulated and even feature built in RFI suppression, compared to the Nordost that I am now using, these cables loose a little definition and are seemingly
much 'slower' with a loss of air and image precision. I suppose YMMV vs. zip cord

I can’t speak for Frantz, but I don’t own any zip cord. My current speaker cables are MIT Shotgun S3 bi-wire. These have the magic boxes with some amount of “poles of articulation” whatever the hell that means. ICs are a hodgepodge of AQ, MIT, Kimber, Mogami, and BJ Cables. I happen to like my MIT speaker cables because they are well built and they allow me to quickly change from spade lugs to banana connectors.

Your explanation of the differences you heard between cables sounds like an active audiophile imagination. You said your older cables lost some definition (not “loose” by the way) and sounded slower compared to your new magic cables. Cables can’t change the speed of electrons my friend. There is no such thing as a fast cable or a slow cable. If you think this isn’t true, please show me a vetted paper that proves that you can change the speed of electrons moving through a speaker cable or IC. I think it is fairly well accepted that the propagation speed in a copper conductor is approximately 2/3 the speed of light in a vacuum. That speed isn’t going to change unless your cable has switches installed that turn the cable on and off.

The differences you hear between speaker cables and ICs are a result mainly of the parameters that have been traded off against each other (Inductance, Capacitance, and Resistance). There are things you can do to lower the noise through proper shielding techniques and how wires are twisted in interconnects (take a look inside of a Mogami microphone cable for instance to see a well-designed interconnect). But Mogami interconnects are based on science and they are cheap which is why you can’t sell them to the average audiophile.

So, unless you have some wacky impedance mismatches going on like using a 50 ohm cable for a 75 ohm digital input impedance, there shouldn’t be night and day differences heard between competently designed and built speaker cables and ICs. An active imagination can conjure all kinds of things up though. It’s all about marketing and the things you claimed you heard are probably the same claims that Nordost makes for their cables. Funny how that works.

 

[DaveyF]

Mark, so i understand what you are saying, there is no difference between the bottom of the line Nordost speaker and/or ic cable vs. the Valhalla or Odin range in their line. Except of course, the vast price difference. All of the Nordost cabling sounds exactly the same--one to the other
Conversely, all cabling sounds exactly the same if you have no impedance/resistance/capacitance mismatch
All differences are explained due to one's imagination...Yes

The only reason that you have MIT cables is because you can change from spades to banana connectors easily. Nothing to do with the fact that the MIT's sound better than zip cord ( oh, assuming the inductance, capacitance and resistance is the same in zip cord as your MIT cable...which my engineering friends argue that it is).
One last question, why did you pay for the MIT 'magic boxes' if you felt that these were truly only 'magic' and added no real intrinsic value to your sound?

 

[mep]

Mark, so i understand what you are saying, there is no difference between the bottom of the line Nordost speaker and/or ic cable vs. the Valhalla or Odin range in their line. Except of course, the vast price difference. All of the Nordost cabling sounds exactly the same--one to the other

Davey-I have no idea how different one set of Nordost cables sounds compared to another set of Nordost cables nor did I claim to. I have only owned one pair of Nordost speaker cables in my life and they were the bottom of the line (Red Dawn, Blue Sky, Green Mountain or something like that). I didn’t like them and not because of how they sounded. They are far too fragile and get damaged if you look at them cross-eyed.

Conversely, all cabling sounds exactly the same if you have no impedance/resistance/capacitance mismatch

Not what I said Davey. But what I will say is that if you have two speaker cables that have the same inductance, resistance, and capacitance, you most probably could not tell them apart. MikeL admitted that when he blind-tested his expensive speaker cables, he couldn’t tell them apart from the cheap ones that were inserted and I would bet they would have measured differently to boot. And honestly, I doubt most people could. Expensive cables do look sexy though and they can make you feel good when they are in your system because they do show you are a serious audiophile.

All differences are explained due to one's imagination...Yes

Unless you are using undersized speaker wire and the gauge is too small for the amount of current the wire has to carry, you shouldn’t hear drastic differences in sound quality from one cable to another. If you do hear drastic differences, the one that stands out as sounding drastically different probably has something drastically wrong with it that will get on your nerves sooner rather than later. If you think your speaker cables can make your amp sound faster, it is your imagination pure and simple.

The only reason that you have MIT cables is because you can change from spades to banana connectors easily. Nothing to do with the fact that the MIT's sound better than zip cord ( oh, assuming the inductance, capacitance and resistance is the same in zip cord as your MIT cable...which my engineering friends argue that it is).

Davey-you keep talking about zip cord and I haven’t used zip cord in my stereo system since I was 15. I bought the MIT cables because I did want to bi-wire, Bruce Brisson is a real electrical engineer, and he is known to make competent products. They are also pretty rugged which can’t be said for some other cables on the market. Do they really sound better than the Canare speaker cables I bought from BJ Cables? I doubt I could tell them apart honestly. The Canare cables sound just dandy. They lack the ability to quickly change from banana connectors to spade lugs though and that does come in handy at times.

One last question, why did you pay for the MIT 'magic boxes' if you felt that these were truly only 'magic' and added no real intrinsic value to your sound?

Because they came with the cables. And how could I pass up those poles of articulation??

 

[DaveyF]

Mark, this is where we will have to agree to disagree. I believe that I can hear the differences in cable set-up easily in my system and in most systems, clearly YMMV. I happen to like the Nodost line a lot and can hear the different presentations that their line delivers as you change up among their various itinerations.
In another forum, there is a considerable argument as to whether bi-wiring makes any difference at all
I'm of the camp that can also easily discern the positives in that approach. IMHO, bi-wiring makes a considerable and worthwhile difference. Others believe it is smoke and mirrors....so be it.
Apparently, there is no scientific reason as to why bi-wiring works...do you think it works for you

 

[DaveyF]

Oh, forgot to say something else.....I raise all of my cables off the ground....including the power cords! No scientific reason for this either....however, my fellow a'phile friends and I can hear slightly less grunge when we do this...crazy, huh

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz and Mark, since it would appear from your remarks that you do NOT believe speaker cables or ic's make any difference in the sound of your system, I would suggest maybe going to your local high-end store and asking them to do an AB with the cable that you believe is your standard ( from the sounds of it that would be zip cord). A few years back , I was present at this type of demo, the dealer never told us what was inserted into the system, so it was a 'blind' test.
Without fail, the group could tell when the "better" cables were inserted and in most instances were able to tell which part of the audio spectrum was improved.
In my system, I was previously using the Highwire cables....these are very well insulated and even feature built in RFI suppression, compared to the Nordost that I am now using, these cables lose a little definition and are seemingly
much 'slower' with a loss of air and image precision. I suppose YMMV vs. zip cord

DaveyF


I have been in the hobby a very long time . THIS may give you an idea of my "new" perspective :

i can understand the sneers and the and and ... I did feel the same when someone would tell me they heard no differences between cables too... since in demos such as those you described from stores it was clear to me which cable was "superior"...
Let's not make of this thread a cable thread always a contentious. I think I am one of the few who have change their mind about the cable issue .. there may be other less vocal than I about it...

Back to the subject at hand old vs new ... I sincerely believe some of these "old" items were gems ... For brief moment I had a secondary system with Diva driven by Classe DR-9 amplifiers.. I was very surprised how good they sounded. Some of the old gears were better than we thought.repeating yself here

 

[mep]

Davey-My system sounds very good with the MIT cables. My system also sounds very good with other speaker cables. I promise you that I would not want to wager $1.00 if could pick out any of the 4 or so different speaker cables I have lying around right now in a double blind test as I probably couldn’t. I doubt you could either if truth be known.

As for your love of Nordost, if you move up their line price-wise, you have to believe they sound better. If you believe they sound better, they will sound better. Could you explain electrically how they could sound better? Probably not would be my guess. You can tell me they sound faster, but since there is no propagation delay in a piece of wire the length of normal speaker cables, I can't believe that anymore than if you told me you could fly like superman.

I think the worst job in audio reviewing would be reviewing speaker cables, ICs, and PCs. I would rather take a beating. But that’s just me.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Oh, forgot to say something else.....I raise all of my cables off the ground....including the power cords! No scientific reason for this either....however, my fellow a'phile friends and I can hear slightly less grunge when we do this...crazy, huh

Not at all. Have you seen the floor in my listening room? No way I'm letting my nice clean cables lie in that grunge.

Tim

 

[mep]

The other benefit to cable risers is that if you have carpet on your floor, the bottom of the cable is lying in the pile of the carpet which has a capacitive effect on the cable and it slows down the electron flow. Once you put your cable on elevators, your cable now acts if it’s on a rail and the electrons shoot through much faster which explains how your cables sounded faster as you moved up the Nordost line and used cable elevators. That carpet pile is really nasty stuff and it will slow down your sound and put a foggy haze over it. Make sure you use a CD and LP demagnetizer so you can achieve the full benefits of having cable elevators though. Otherwise your sound will still be cloudy and your images will be looser than a roomful of girls at the Bunny Ranch.

 

[DaveyF]

Mark, I have used cable risers for over 20 years now. The first ones were called 'Footers' and worked well even though they weren't able to hold the Nordost style of cable.

Tim, I haven't seen the floor in your listening room, is your system picture posted somewhere?