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

[IanHarvey]

It seems very likely to me that the effect of a cable depends hugely on what's at either end of it.

If Paulinator has spent his money wisely, he will have well-mannered speakers and an amp that doesn't mind what it's driving. It's perfectly possible, then, that Radio Shack cables introduce no audible defects in this system; why should he spend money on anything more expensive?

Equally, there are many perfectly plausible ways in which cables may cause or expose amplifier and loudspeaker 'faults'. My No. 1 vote is amplifier instability - you can bet that for every 'AM transmitter' case there are a dozen 'slightly fuzzy sound' cases which aren't immediately recognised as faults. (These "my amp ran cooler" effects ought to ring warning bells).

It seems some problems are cured by lowering the resistance, inductance or capacitance, and others by increasing it. This makes me rather suspicious of any claim that just buying a more expensive interconnect will improve the sound - much better to experiment with something cheap but different.

Cheers
IH

PS: As for "surveys" - if people who post negative results have to endure flames like "you have sub standard hearing", can you think of another reason why these surveys end up with lots of positives?

[mcp]

When I first read this post, I didn't know what to make of it. On one hand, The Paulinator is right, on the other wrong. It all really depends.

Take a high-end speaker cable and use it on a mini-compo, no difference. Install the wrong cable in a $100,000/- system and it can sound worse than a $10,000/- system. As a system gets better, the effects of cabling becomes more pronounce, interconnects as well as speakers side. This is due to the resolving power of the system.

As a professional in this industry, this is something I look into very carefully. My perspective is not strictly in the sense of cabling, but rather conductors. It doesn't matter whether it is carrying small signal or power level, as long as it is part of the signal chain, it affects the sound. Whether the system is capable of producing those sonic differences is a different matter altogether.

This is an experiment that I conducted in my early years in audio that convinced me about the sonic signatures of conductors. In order to save cost, I decided to use the heatsinks as supply line conductors (this is still the practice of some very notable PA brands). As long as the 2 heatsinks are isolated from each other and the chassis, the collectors can be mounted directly onto the heatsinks, without micas. Better thermal transfer, superior current carrying capabilities when compared to pc tracks and lower cost.

Yes, you get all that and more. It sounded terrible....grain, harsh, glare, sandpaper....the entire lot. I thought there was something wrong in the system. I was aghast when I finally traced it to the heatsinks.

Another experiment in cost savings. In high powered amps, I use solid copper, instead of pcb, for the high current lines. I happened to chance upon some nice looking rods use for brazing. Wow, much cheaper than solid copper. Wired an amp up with these brazing rods..........impossible to listen to.

So what do I use nowadays, solid copper rods, sometimes bus bars. For high end amps, pure silver bus bars.

Regards

[ThomasLMcLean]

mpc;

These things are very much dependent upon the equipment used and how much noise and hash there is in the environment.

Isolating the heat sinks from the grounded chassis and then connecting the collectors directly to then, was the same as connecting an antenna to your signal path.

Copper colored welding rod doesn't have much copper in it, it isn’t even all metal. The same problem occurs with some copper tubing and water pipe although your make good conductor from these if you select the correct type.

I also like copper bus bars, particularly for the return in a dual (+-)
power supply.

If I had enough money for silver bus bars I think that I would buy a good oscilloscope and hunt down and eliminate all of the noise level signals I could identify until I had a noise floor that was about 120 db below normal maximum output. If the amplifier is reasonably stable and linear that would give all of the detail and holography that is possible given the speaker system and program source.

[mcp]

Thomas,

The practice of floating the heatsink, thereby introducing noise into the system is valid. So does running cables from the power supply caps to the transistors. It's only a question of degree.

But since noise is added to the heatsink, let's discard it. Maybe the industry would like to use aluminum bus bars instead, much cheaper than copper. Or pcb with aluminum tracks.

The main point I was putting across is "conductors do influence the sound". This, I believe, we are not in disagreement.

Where we do diverge is my choice of using silver. I do not install silver on amplifiers that are not up to scratch. Low floor noise, reasonable stability and linearity are not the only mechanisms in a top flight amplifier.

[mrfeedback]

Originally posted by mcp


This is an experiment that I conducted in my early years in audio that convinced me about the sonic signatures of conductors. In order to save cost, I decided to use the heatsinks as supply line conductors (this is still the practice of some very notable PA brands). As long as the 2 heatsinks are isolated from each other and the chassis, the collectors can be mounted directly onto the heatsinks, without micas. Better thermal transfer, superior current carrying capabilities when compared to pc tracks and lower cost.

Yes, you get all that and more. It sounded terrible....grain, harsh, glare, sandpaper....the entire lot. I thought there was something wrong in the system. I was aghast when I finally traced it to the heatsinks.
Regards

Hi Mike,
Are you saying that you used aluminium heatsink as a power conductor, or as output conductor ?.
I would expect aluminium used as a conductor to add harshness and glare, and drive me out the room.

I have tried ETI-480 design where the output stage is 'upside down' and the collectors common at the output point.
I used a heavy copper plate as the heatsink, insulated from the chassis and connected to both collectors, and the ouput taken from this copper plate.
I found this copper heatsink plate (fan cooled) to sound very fine indeed.
I also have a pro-audio amp that uses a copper fan cooled heatsink, and this has a pleasant sonic character that is not evident in other amplifiers.


Eric.

[ThomasLMcLean]

mcp:

Conductors can make a difference. But, it is the application not the material. It was the fact that the heat sink couples the circuit to a noisy world that made the problem not the fact it was made of Aluminum. Aluminum isn't used because it is impossible to make a clean solder connection to it. Bad solder joints are not conductors. Semi-bad solder joints are even more fun.

My problem is that I studied physics at the university and that back ground leads me to believe that metals do not leave significant electrical signatures. Their oxides and some of their non-metal alloys are different

Maybe we can agree to a difference of opinion here.

I visited your web site last night. Very impressive.

BTW, I have been part of a project that used silver bus bars in my early years. They measures 4 by 8 inches, were water cooled, and passed about 10,000 amps. That’s another story and it wasn't audio.

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by ThomasLMcLean
My problem is that I studied physics at the university and that back ground leads me to believe that metals do not leave significant electrical signatures.

What about quantization distortion?

se

[ThorstenL]

Koinichiwa,

Originally posted by ThomasLMcLean


My problem is that I studied physics at the university and that back ground leads me to believe that metals do not leave significant electrical signatures. Their oxides and some of their non-metal alloys are different

You are of course absolutely right. But any Conductor material other than pure gold ALLWAYS includes oxides and non-metal alloys.

Sayonara

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by Kuei Yang Wang
You are of course absolutely right. But any Conductor material other than pure gold ALLWAYS includes oxides and non-metal alloys.

Sure. But the consequence is... what exactly?

se

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Sure. But the consequence is... what exactly?

Semi-conductor effects for starters.

Cheers,


P.S. Greetings from the local blind Shaolin priest.