Well, it wouldn't be too hard to make a totally transparent interconnect (speaker cable is a bit tougher). You could even make one with transparent colors, maybe a transparent red conductive stripe for plus and transparent green for minus, embedded in a transparent sheath.
I propose a contest: how much would you charge for a 1 m pair of transparent interconnects to help create a perceived value? What would be the line you'd give to explain why these sound soooo much better than those crappy opaque copper and silver interconnects?
My entry: "The photons of any light bang against the conducting material. Conventional metals (like copper or silver) look the way they do, shiny and opaque, precisely because photons interact with the electron cloud characteristic of conductive metals. That random interaction with the electron cloud which is responsible for the conduction of the metal certainly affects signal passing through it in a random way. The electrons jump around in their conduction bands every time one of those photons hit it, causing random fluctuations in the timing and arrival of musical cues.
In the case of OUR interconnects, the photons pass through without interacting with anything. That's TRANSPARENCY. The random photons in any listening room don't interact with the cable and don't fuzz up the music."
I propose a contest: how much would you charge for a 1 m pair of transparent interconnects to help create a perceived value? What would be the line you'd give to explain why these sound soooo much better than those crappy opaque copper and silver interconnects?
My entry: "The photons of any light bang against the conducting material. Conventional metals (like copper or silver) look the way they do, shiny and opaque, precisely because photons interact with the electron cloud characteristic of conductive metals. That random interaction with the electron cloud which is responsible for the conduction of the metal certainly affects signal passing through it in a random way. The electrons jump around in their conduction bands every time one of those photons hit it, causing random fluctuations in the timing and arrival of musical cues.
In the case of OUR interconnects, the photons pass through without interacting with anything. That's TRANSPARENCY. The random photons in any listening room don't interact with the cable and don't fuzz up the music."
My final thoughts for now
Well it seems this thread is getting hijacked for other purposes... so here are some final thought for now:
I also agree with the second paragraph quoted above with the additional qualifier that you can only trust your ears when you don't know what you're listening to. Otherwise what your ears hear will be very much altered by your knowledge of the equipment you're listening to. It's the same reason many serious wine tastings are done without the wine bottle labels being shown. They learned a long time ago seeing the labels dramatically alters the results.
The last paragraph quoted above can be argued. Yes, perhaps many have been told that measurements are nearly meaningless, but they've also been told you have to use $28 resistors to be taken seriously along with countless other things that have no basis in fact. So just because it's a widespread myth, doesn't make it true.
As I and others here have pointed out, the most accurate test known for amplifier fidelity is all but ignored these days--apparently because many aren't interested in the truth. Nobody in this thread has yet to explain, in a credible way, why the null test is not a valid indicator of all forms of amplifier distortions and errors in a real-world environment.
Yet another analogy are the kids these days who trick out their cars. They go out and spend $1000 on a stainless steel "phat" exhaust system with a sewer pipe sized outlet for their $2500 used Honda Civic and claim it makes the car "way faster" (most likely because it SOUNDS faster). When you put these cars on a dyno and actually measure the horsepower at the rear wheels, the aftermarket exhaust systems often have little if any positive effect. But the owner doesn't want to know that. They'd rather believe their $1000 was well spent and is making their car much quicker. In effect, they're living in a fantasy world.
Many of the folks here are doing the same thing with audio. They want to keep the fantasy intact and believe their high-end money was well spent.
To ashok: A friend and I coined the word "unobtainium" back in the 80's to describe the next likely material that high-end stylus cantelievers would be made out of (they were using boron, ruby, exotic alloys and all sorts of things back then). It started to show up elsewhere years later--I'm sure coined by someone else.
To vic: You bring up a good point. An amplifier may well perform differently into a pair of electrostatics versus dynamic speakers. First, that's why the null test is so useful as it can take the speakers into account. Second, if you're only going to use the amplifier with a given pair of speakers, do your blind test with them (and the rest of your system) and be done with it. If the amp sounds different in another system, what do you care? If you think you'll be upgrading your speakers someday--keeping the same amplifier--and you're worried about the future match, then what you suggest has some merit but isn't very practical.
To Fred Dieckmann: I agree there are some great people doing studio work. I agree there are some great recordings made with exotic gear. But I have the catalogs of those recordings. There just aren't more than a handful most people really want to listen to very often.
I have over 4000 CDs and 500 vinyl albums. MUSIC is why I have a nice sound system to begin with. I, like many others, have found lots of very enjoyable, recordings that were made with rooms full of run-of-the-mill studio equipment.
The vast majority of the studios, good engineers or not, use gear that's built to an entirely different standard than what's likely considered "audiophile" by most of the members here. Mackie gear, for example is widely used (they have a huge market share) and loved by many. I've had friends who have worked for Mackie. You'll find the same grade of op-amps, caps and resistors inside that you'll find in mainstream consumer audio gear. Why? Because Mackie knows that more expensive parts only add to the price, not the performance of their products.
I'll grant you there are some semi-exotic makers of studio gear, like Nagra from example, but if you look at the total signal chain used in nearly all recordings, there are still plenty of cheap op-amps, cheap caps, etc. in the path. Yes distortion can be cumulative, but I don't think that's reason enough to dismiss my signal chain comments.
I have only been trying to share my true life experiences, and opinions formed by them, even though I knew I would be going against some of the grain here. Thanks to everyone who contributed but mefinnis may have said it best when he said:
The reality is, I don't expect Fred Dieckmann, Peter Daniel, fdegrove, or others like them, to agree with much of what I'm suggesting here (at least not until someone straps them into the sweet spot in their own house and subjects them to a number of indisputable blind tests--and perhaps not even then). They appear to have WAY too much invested in this hobby for someone to come along and burst their balloon and belief system with mere factual information.
For the rest of you, however, if you're willing to consider amplifiers more in the context of science, and less in the context of art and the related black magic, I'd strongly suggest you perform some simple blind tests and/or experiment with the null testing methodology. If nothing else, it will give you additional points of reference from which to evaluate what you're doing with your audio projects, budget and related decisions.
Happy constructing and listening to everyone!
Well it seems this thread is getting hijacked for other purposes... so here are some final thought for now:
I agree with the first sentence above but it's a matter of personal preference. If some of you (Peter Daniel seems to be one) want your amplifier to alter the sound in ways you enjoy, that's fine. We're back to amplifiers as art (or in this case perhaps rose colored glasses?).traderbam said:
I also agree with the second paragraph quoted above with the additional qualifier that you can only trust your ears when you don't know what you're listening to. Otherwise what your ears hear will be very much altered by your knowledge of the equipment you're listening to. It's the same reason many serious wine tastings are done without the wine bottle labels being shown. They learned a long time ago seeing the labels dramatically alters the results.
The last paragraph quoted above can be argued. Yes, perhaps many have been told that measurements are nearly meaningless, but they've also been told you have to use $28 resistors to be taken seriously along with countless other things that have no basis in fact. So just because it's a widespread myth, doesn't make it true.
As I and others here have pointed out, the most accurate test known for amplifier fidelity is all but ignored these days--apparently because many aren't interested in the truth. Nobody in this thread has yet to explain, in a credible way, why the null test is not a valid indicator of all forms of amplifier distortions and errors in a real-world environment.
Yet another analogy are the kids these days who trick out their cars. They go out and spend $1000 on a stainless steel "phat" exhaust system with a sewer pipe sized outlet for their $2500 used Honda Civic and claim it makes the car "way faster" (most likely because it SOUNDS faster). When you put these cars on a dyno and actually measure the horsepower at the rear wheels, the aftermarket exhaust systems often have little if any positive effect. But the owner doesn't want to know that. They'd rather believe their $1000 was well spent and is making their car much quicker. In effect, they're living in a fantasy world.
Many of the folks here are doing the same thing with audio. They want to keep the fantasy intact and believe their high-end money was well spent.
To ashok: A friend and I coined the word "unobtainium" back in the 80's to describe the next likely material that high-end stylus cantelievers would be made out of (they were using boron, ruby, exotic alloys and all sorts of things back then). It started to show up elsewhere years later--I'm sure coined by someone else.
To vic: You bring up a good point. An amplifier may well perform differently into a pair of electrostatics versus dynamic speakers. First, that's why the null test is so useful as it can take the speakers into account. Second, if you're only going to use the amplifier with a given pair of speakers, do your blind test with them (and the rest of your system) and be done with it. If the amp sounds different in another system, what do you care? If you think you'll be upgrading your speakers someday--keeping the same amplifier--and you're worried about the future match, then what you suggest has some merit but isn't very practical.
To Fred Dieckmann: I agree there are some great people doing studio work. I agree there are some great recordings made with exotic gear. But I have the catalogs of those recordings. There just aren't more than a handful most people really want to listen to very often.
I have over 4000 CDs and 500 vinyl albums. MUSIC is why I have a nice sound system to begin with. I, like many others, have found lots of very enjoyable, recordings that were made with rooms full of run-of-the-mill studio equipment.
The vast majority of the studios, good engineers or not, use gear that's built to an entirely different standard than what's likely considered "audiophile" by most of the members here. Mackie gear, for example is widely used (they have a huge market share) and loved by many. I've had friends who have worked for Mackie. You'll find the same grade of op-amps, caps and resistors inside that you'll find in mainstream consumer audio gear. Why? Because Mackie knows that more expensive parts only add to the price, not the performance of their products.
I'll grant you there are some semi-exotic makers of studio gear, like Nagra from example, but if you look at the total signal chain used in nearly all recordings, there are still plenty of cheap op-amps, cheap caps, etc. in the path. Yes distortion can be cumulative, but I don't think that's reason enough to dismiss my signal chain comments.
I have only been trying to share my true life experiences, and opinions formed by them, even though I knew I would be going against some of the grain here. Thanks to everyone who contributed but mefinnis may have said it best when he said:
mefinnis said:
The reality is, I don't expect Fred Dieckmann, Peter Daniel, fdegrove, or others like them, to agree with much of what I'm suggesting here (at least not until someone straps them into the sweet spot in their own house and subjects them to a number of indisputable blind tests--and perhaps not even then). They appear to have WAY too much invested in this hobby for someone to come along and burst their balloon and belief system with mere factual information.
For the rest of you, however, if you're willing to consider amplifiers more in the context of science, and less in the context of art and the related black magic, I'd strongly suggest you perform some simple blind tests and/or experiment with the null testing methodology. If nothing else, it will give you additional points of reference from which to evaluate what you're doing with your audio projects, budget and related decisions.
Happy constructing and listening to everyone!
Tube_Dude....method...
Actualy i use a evolution of the Hafler method:
If the amp at test have a pot at the input fine...if not you must put one even temporalely...
Put 2volt sinus or music from a CD and load the amp with the loudspeakers of your choice
Put the ground of the osciloscope proof at the + of the loudspeaker and the other side of the osciloscope prove at the input of the amp before the pot...
Imagine that you are doing the proof with 2Volts sinus...
at the minimum of the volume you will see 2 volts at the osciloscope as the output is at zero
Now increase the volume...the voltage in the osciloscope begin to decrease and you will find a minimum where the output voltage is the same as the input voltage...that residual signal is the overall distortion of the amp...and this is true for all distortion typs invented or not yet invented...
So easy ...so simple...and so true
traderbam said:
Actualy i use a evolution of the Hafler method:
If the amp at test have a pot at the input fine...if not you must put one even temporalely...
Put 2volt sinus or music from a CD and load the amp with the loudspeakers of your choice
Put the ground of the osciloscope proof at the + of the loudspeaker and the other side of the osciloscope prove at the input of the amp before the pot...
Imagine that you are doing the proof with 2Volts sinus...
at the minimum of the volume you will see 2 volts at the osciloscope as the output is at zero
Now increase the volume...the voltage in the osciloscope begin to decrease and you will find a minimum where the output voltage is the same as the input voltage...that residual signal is the overall distortion of the amp...and this is true for all distortion typs invented or not yet invented...
So easy ...so simple...and so true
Well now. If you are arguing that the difference between input and output of an amplifier, provided the input signal is undistorted by the amplifier, contains all of the amplifiers distortions, then yes. Of course! Who could argue?
But this statement leaves us begging for more...
The real question is how do you correlate the difference signal to sound quality?
Re: Re: P2P.
Yup. And I found myself in just the opposite situation. In my latest amp, I'm using the straight PC mount Redels for all the connections, input, output and power. I've got an 8 pin TO-3 (the Apex PA-02) and the input transformer coming in on one side of the board and all the input/output connectors on the other side of the board as close as possible to the pins that they connect to on the PA-02.
Could never get anything that tight with point-to-point unless I could shrink myself down to about half an inch and crawl in between the heatsink and the rear panel.
se
Peter Daniel said:
Yup. And I found myself in just the opposite situation. In my latest amp, I'm using the straight PC mount Redels for all the connections, input, output and power. I've got an 8 pin TO-3 (the Apex PA-02) and the input transformer coming in on one side of the board and all the input/output connectors on the other side of the board as close as possible to the pins that they connect to on the PA-02.
Could never get anything that tight with point-to-point unless I could shrink myself down to about half an inch and crawl in between the heatsink and the rear panel.
se
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