Point taken, and I won't be impolite enough to mention again that oenophiles routinely confirm their impressions with blind tests. But in defense of the wine geeks, they rarely have reviews of a wine that are longer than a paragraph. I think one of the first things that drove me away from audio journalism were the pages and pages and pages of blather to describe a freakin' preamp. TAS had a particularly awful technically ignorant bloviator on staff (a philosophy professor, as one was reminded a minimum of four times per review, which certainly explained the excess gas) who would remain the Hot Air champion until Stereophile hired that guy with the French wife (as he would remind his readers a minimum of 4 times per review).
Comprehension of blind tests still requires a shared lexicon. Without a means to exchange observations, blind or sighted is irrelevant. Justifying an observation becomes the next step. Some here seem to believe any gradation of audio perceptions more complex than captured by tone controls is excessive. At its worst these beliefs spill into the world and reality is rejected for not confirming to, help us, audio dogma. I'll never forget being pulled into an argument by someone unconvinced about our ability to discern height in the world.
Are you confusing him with the guy pretending to be Italian, Russian wife Marina? Grinds my teeth every time.
Hi,
Excelent.
Now read Jimmy Hughes' tips (You know, that guy from Hi-Fi Answers) and see where you stand.
What makes a difference and what doesn't?
Rest assured, science will catch up.
Cheers,
I think it's interesting that this obsession with speaker cable and/or interconnects really exploded in the mid 80s, coincidentally the era of the 'flat earthers' (at least here in the UK) when any amplifier worth its salt had no tone controls - just volume and source selector and sometimes (shock horror!) a power LED!
As there were no controls on the amps to fiddle with, nothing to adjust, playing around with speaker cables became the new 'tone control' filters... albiet an expensive form of 'knob twiddling' (!). Interesting also that it tends to be those that haven't dabbled with DIY, who tend to really spend the most on speaker cables... Funny how things like speaker cabling seem less important when you're aware of other more important factors like circuit design, PSU design and so forth after having built or designed a few items yourself.
Bottom line: People NEED to have control over something!
If we had the PERFECT amplifier and source, and loudspeaker, people would STILL complain, and would start altering something, just so they have power/control over their system, and something to change. Just so that they can say to someone, well I have done THIS, and it now sounds much better than it did - better than yours!
I DO believe however the speaker cable can alter an amps behavoir - take for example Naim electronics. The cable really is part of the amplifiers design. Using any other cable (if not selected carefully) can result in sub-standard reproduction, or - worse - cause oscillation. I found the same thing using a GB150D amplifier I built. I wish more amplifier manufacturers would actually INCLUDE cable with their designs. Speaker cable seems to me the equivalent of selling someone an amplifier, but leaving out a few resistors/capacitors, giving you a bag with different values, and asking the user to 'guess' by using their ears which values are correct!!! It's rather silly - unless the amplifier really is designed so well that literally ANY cable can be used with no change to performance. It's unfortunate that cable companies and marketing departments JUMPED on this area of uncertainty and have now twisted it out of all proportion. Trouble is after so many years of all this cable ** in magazines it comes to be accepted as truth after a while...
I imagine VERY few hi-fi enthusiasts just sit there and listen to the music and never change anything for years - perhaps this is something to do with human psychology... we NEED to keep scaling new heights?
Interestingly I feel part of the reason people love the LP so much, over CD, is that - again - people like something to have control over, and to fiddle with. LP offers probably the most tweakable format out there. Every change of tracking weight, or catridge, or VTA, of drive system, platter material etc etc and so on results in slight changes to the sound. It's the ULTIMATE variable tone control system - and NOTHING will EVER be set up perfectly... (there's just too many variables which can effect playback) and that is far more desirable to the hi-fi enthusiast then something like CD which offers far less opportunity to alter the sound to such dramatic effect. People LIKE to say I did THIS, and it sounds so much better now. It's almost a form of modern voodoo!
Lastly, even though they have fallen out of favor during the last 20 years or so, I think that tone controls are a useful item to have on an amp. Time was that you used a cable which 'did the job' and allowed the system to work AS DESIGNED. If you still weren't keen on the sound and it needed some tweaking you'd alter the tone controls. When you think about it, this is all people are really doing by going through endless cable upgrades. It's an expensive form of chasing your tail, and as each recording is made on different equipment, you'd need a HUGE bag of speaker cables to get the best out of everything - lol! So all told, I think the tone control should make a comeback into the world of hi fidelity and we can kiss goodbye to this cable nonsense, and still have something to tweak for those less well recorded albums.
Anyways - just a few ramblings to keep this thread going
- John
Excelent.
Now read Jimmy Hughes' tips (You know, that guy from Hi-Fi Answers) and see where you stand.
What makes a difference and what doesn't?
Rest assured, science will catch up.
Cheers,
Well!
The term "black background" was first heard by me some 20 years ago, but I recall to have experienced it way back longer. But here you both would be able to read about it, and if you try out some of these cables, you´ll also be able to experience it.
Have a go for it.
Taken from MIT´s homepage:
Audio Interfaces
MIT Cables’ mission has always been to help audiophiles experience the best sound they can by solving the problems inherent in standard wire. This mission began back in 1981 when Bruce Brisson designed the first purposefully built high-end audio cable: Interlink Reference, built by Monster Cable. It was the first audio cable in which everyone could hear the difference.
All audio cables alter the signal that is passing through them because they act as inefficient low pass filters; that is to say they are inefficient at transporting power. How efficient or inefficient a cable is at any frequency within the audio bandwidth is what makes one manufacturers cable sound different than another’s.
MIT goes beyond this. We start by engineering all of our speaker cables and interconnects with the best possible materials.. Then we add to them our patented Multipole Technology in parallel to the main conductors. These networks optimize the transportable power, at predetermined points (or Articulation Poles), throughout the audio bandwidth. The more articulation poles in the cable the better the cable will sound. When you connect an MIT cable up to your system, you will enjoy recorded music in an entirely new way. The background is black, increasing the contrast between the instruments and voices. A lifelike soundstage opens up with pinpoint imaging at any volume level.
More than just cable: It’s not a saying. It’s what we do to help you experience recorded music in a completely new way.
The term "black background" was first heard by me some 20 years ago, but I recall to have experienced it way back longer. But here you both would be able to read about it, and if you try out some of these cables, you´ll also be able to experience it.
Have a go for it.
Taken from MIT´s homepage:
Audio Interfaces
MIT Cables’ mission has always been to help audiophiles experience the best sound they can by solving the problems inherent in standard wire. This mission began back in 1981 when Bruce Brisson designed the first purposefully built high-end audio cable: Interlink Reference, built by Monster Cable. It was the first audio cable in which everyone could hear the difference.
All audio cables alter the signal that is passing through them because they act as inefficient low pass filters; that is to say they are inefficient at transporting power. How efficient or inefficient a cable is at any frequency within the audio bandwidth is what makes one manufacturers cable sound different than another’s.
MIT goes beyond this. We start by engineering all of our speaker cables and interconnects with the best possible materials.. Then we add to them our patented Multipole Technology in parallel to the main conductors. These networks optimize the transportable power, at predetermined points (or Articulation Poles), throughout the audio bandwidth. The more articulation poles in the cable the better the cable will sound. When you connect an MIT cable up to your system, you will enjoy recorded music in an entirely new way. The background is black, increasing the contrast between the instruments and voices. A lifelike soundstage opens up with pinpoint imaging at any volume level.
More than just cable: It’s not a saying. It’s what we do to help you experience recorded music in a completely new way.
Its not nonsense, but it is a cheap effects box.
It fakes that "black background" and, when dialed in, you also get a very slight euphonic effect. Using only a slight amount of this (via its mixer), there's not much added distortion. Caveat: Any beneficial effect does not increase beyond the illustrated setting (rotate the dial till you first start to hear a change and then turn back just a bit--this may take several tries). The device is a capacitor based "passive buffer" and as the name implies, its Not very effective as a buffer, but it is under $5. This is a really cheap way to simulate a lot of spendy effects, such as custom caps, custom cables, tricks with preamps, and the like. Fortunately its an effects box that you can also turn off, much unlike spendy specialty items that are fixed in place.
Sharing some experience.
1. I have a class D amplifier here, the NCD. Originally it was just using a thickest power cord we could find on the market, which was primarily for power tools. Once someone wanted to try a Siltech power cable. We made the switch, and it was so umbearable that we took it out in less than 1 minute of listening. Some people swear by Siltech. But it seems there is much more involved than meets the eye.
2. I have a pair of the real early MIT 330 shotgun interconnect which a purchased after listening to them. I would just bring the cables around to different places to do a "shoot out", there was so significant an improvement that it chould be heard within the first minute of listening, and without any argument which was the winner.
3. We had a cable shootout around here a while back. One of the speaker cables
I brought in was braided as described in an old SpeakerBuilder magazine. As we when through the other cables, everyone was in discussion as to what the differences were. When this braided cable went up, everyone became silent. Afterwards, someone even asked to borrow it. I also had a pair of 3M old MIT-330. When this one when up, everyone wondered how could such dirty looking cable have such clean and good sound.
1. I have a class D amplifier here, the NCD. Originally it was just using a thickest power cord we could find on the market, which was primarily for power tools. Once someone wanted to try a Siltech power cable. We made the switch, and it was so umbearable that we took it out in less than 1 minute of listening. Some people swear by Siltech. But it seems there is much more involved than meets the eye.
2. I have a pair of the real early MIT 330 shotgun interconnect which a purchased after listening to them. I would just bring the cables around to different places to do a "shoot out", there was so significant an improvement that it chould be heard within the first minute of listening, and without any argument which was the winner.
3. We had a cable shootout around here a while back. One of the speaker cables
I brought in was braided as described in an old SpeakerBuilder magazine. As we when through the other cables, everyone was in discussion as to what the differences were. When this braided cable went up, everyone became silent. Afterwards, someone even asked to borrow it. I also had a pair of 3M old MIT-330. When this one when up, everyone wondered how could such dirty looking cable have such clean and good sound.
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Well, we ARE talking about a piece of wire. A single valued transfer function. No evidence whatever of anything different.
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