I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[Kawaski11]

Originally Posted by wintermute

Well I know one thing... digital can suffer from bad cables too... I couldn't play DVD's on my linux HTPC.. the errors I got in the syslog when googled always turned up the same thing... "Buy better quality SATA cables"...

Eventually I did, and what do you know I can now play DVD's.. Now I suspect in this case it is more the connectors on the ends of the cables than the cables themselves, but I had tried at least 4 cables (all cheapies, some sata and some sataII), and none had fixed the problem. When I got the "special shielded ones" that cost three times as much (as a last resort) to my surprise it started working.

I'm a computer technician, it's how I earn my living. I've built at least 400 computers with SATA cables in them, and never once have I run into any that wouldn't play DVD's. And I just used the cables that come with the motherboard, nothing fancy.

BTW, all SATA cables are shielded, and there is no difference at all between SATA and SATA II cables, it's just marketing.

[DSP_Geek]

Originally Posted by Curly Woods

John.

I do think that single drivers offer some advantages over multi-way for vocal and jazz music and small small ensembles. No they are no where as dynamic, but they have coherency in spades.

As I said above, the single drivers I heard were an education, and that was meant in the most literal sense. After thinking about how the ear might perceive waveforms, followed by listening to Iain McNeill's demos of linear-phase and minimum-phase systems at BAF 2008, it seems that a lack of coherency could be attributed to phase shift in the low mids, which might be caused by a higher-order crossover such as an LR4 in that region.

More generally, no design, whether single-driver, planar, dipole, horns, line array, or anything else, has a monopoly on their particular virtue - they just make it easier to attain a certain corner of audio heaven for a given amount of effort, but there is no reason that careful work with another type of design cannot reproduce those virtues.

[wintermute]

Originally Posted by Kawaski11

I'm a computer technician, it's how I earn my living. I've built at least 400 computers with SATA cables in them, and never once have I run into any that wouldn't play DVD's. And I just used the cables that come with the motherboard, nothing fancy.

BTW, all SATA cables are shielded, and there is no difference at all between SATA and SATA II cables, it's just marketing.

Hi Kawasaki, Were any of those PC's Linux boxes? From what I have read, many of the people who were having the same issues (as I was) with DVD's on linux had no problems at all with the exact same cables when dual booted to Windows! When I read this I thought that it probably indicated a bug in linux. However in the end I decided it was worth the $9 for a "better" cable just to rule it out as the culprit. The fact is that the only thing that changed was the cable and it fixed the problem and I had previously tried at least four different cables some that came with the motherboard, and some I bought from the pc shop for $3 each.

I suspect that linux (In my case fedora Core 10) probably pushes the hardware to the limit, where as Windoze is more conservative and hence will cope with sub standard hardware.

As for SATA II, I generally refer to SATA cables with the latching mechanism (which was introduced before SATA II became more about marketing and was abandoned as the name for the standard) as SATA II cables. It is I believe more plugs that make the difference.

You might note in my original post I used quotes around a lot of the terms like "special shielded" and "better" that is to emphasise the marketing overtone

I've been working in IT for 24 years, and whilst I have certainly not built anywhere near the number of pc's you have with SATA cables, I have certainly probably had the covers off and fixed issues with probably close to that many over the years. from XT's right through to the current stuff In many cases the most bizarre faults were usually fixed by reseating a card or the chips on the motherboard (especially with the older gear).

Back on topic: I was actually thinking that some of the more esoteric cables are probably much more likely to upset systems (I'm think about the amp here) than improve them. Cables with high capacitance or inductance due to their construction surely must be more likely to cause detrimental effects?

Tony.

[Curly Woods]

Originally Posted by wintermute

Hi Kawasaki, Were any of those PC's Linux boxes? From what I have read, many of the people who were having the same issues (as I was) with DVD's on linux had no problems at all with the exact same cables when dual booted to Windows! When I read this I thought that it probably indicated a bug in linux. However in the end I decided it was worth the $9 for a "better" cable just to rule it out as the culprit. The fact is that the only thing that changed was the cable and it fixed the problem and I had previously tried at least four different cables some that came with the motherboard, and some I bought from the pc shop for $3 each.

I suspect that linux (In my case fedora Core 10) probably pushes the hardware to the limit, where as Windoze is more conservative and hence will cope with sub standard hardware.

As for SATA II, I generally refer to SATA cables with the latching mechanism (which was introduced before SATA II became more about marketing and was abandoned as the name for the standard) as SATA II cables. It is I believe more plugs that make the difference.

You might note in my original post I used quotes around a lot of the terms like "special shielded" and "better" that is to emphasise the marketing overtone

I've been working in IT for 24 years, and whilst I have certainly not built anywhere near the number of pc's you have with SATA cables, I have certainly probably had the covers off and fixed issues with probably close to that many over the years. from XT's right through to the current stuff In many cases the most bizarre faults were usually fixed by reseating a card or the chips on the motherboard (especially with the older gear).

Back on topic: I was actually thinking that some of the more esoteric cables are probably much more likely to upset systems (I'm think about the amp here) than improve them. Cables with high capacitance or inductance due to their construction surely must be more likely to cause detrimental effects?

Tony.

Tony,

I have never heard of anyone trying to make their system sound worse, have you :-)

[Salas]

There must be a reminder about the distinction between the term adequate and better in audio practice in general. Where the right cable can be mistaken for better quality and the wrong cable can be dismissed as inferior.

Tony found the adequately better for his Linux box problem as it seems from the story. 2 in 1.

[wintermute]

Originally Posted by Curly Woods

Tony,

I have never heard of anyone trying to make their system sound worse, have you :-)

Nope but I have heard of amps having problems with exotic speaker cables It might not have been the intention, but in some cases probably was the result

Tony.

[wintermute]

I did a search on high capacitance cables and amplifiers and came across this video on youtube. The first thought was look at how the first cable is coiled up (and also the length) secondly the special cable is mostly out of view so could be very short in comparison. The fairly normal looking heavy duty speaker cable seems to put in a pretty good performance... also I'm not sure but the middle trace (difference between the two signals) seems to be thicker when testing the "special" cable, or am I just imagining it... In any case, if the cable does make a difference, the difference between it and the pretty standard heavy duty cable shown is pretty small, at 385 pounds for a 2M pair I'd say we were well into the territory of diminishing returns!

finally there is no mention of the levels involved. Good video for marketing purposes, doesn't stack up when looked at critically from a scientific point of view though IMO.

Tony.

[Curly Woods]

Originally Posted by wintermute

I did a search on high capacitance cables and amplifiers and came across this video on youtube. The first thought was look at how the first cable is coiled up (and also the length) secondly the special cable is mostly out of view so could be very short in comparison. The fairly normal looking heavy duty speaker cable seems to put in a pretty good performance... also I'm not sure but the middle trace (difference between the two signals) seems to be thicker when testing the "special" cable, or am I just imagining it... In any case, if the cable does make a difference, the difference between it and the pretty standard heavy duty cable shown is pretty small, at 385 pounds for a 2M pair I'd say we were well into the territory of diminishing returns!

finally there is no mention of the levels involved. Good video for marketing purposes, doesn't stack up when looked at critically from a scientific point of view though IMO.

Tony.

I would agree that the differences are normally small when comparing two cables. The differences in my experience, are most heard once the better cable is removed and you return to the previous "standard" and find out what is missing, more than what was "extra" from the new cabling.
People are looking for the small incremental differences that seem small at first, but if you take them away, it creates a real sense of loss.
I never want to go backward. Again this will only happen if the new component makes the musical experience better in your system. Changes for changes sake are not always good. This takes a little time to determine.

[Panicos K]

Originally Posted by wintermute

Nope but I have heard of amps having problems with exotic speaker cables It might not have been the intention, but in some cases probably was the result

Tony.

I know of one or two amps that have such problems.It is not a cable's fault,more the amp's design.A cable that will upset these 1-2 amps will not upset thousands of others You don't really need an exotic cable to upset theese amps.

[PaleRider]

Originally Posted by PaleRider
Speakercables must be seen as extensions of the amps powerways and must be dimensioned with that in mind. For SS-amps there`s one main focus; aviod any resistance by using short, thick massive conductors.

That`s the fact folks, simple as can be.

Originally Posted by Curly Woods

Thank you for the earth shaking bit of news. I do not live on a flat planet myself. Be careful when you travel. The edge is nearer than you think :-)

If you can`t se the logic in this you should not post here at all.