Hi Guys,
I have just bought a jadis orchestra reference integrated valve and would like some advice in regards to cables/interconnectors.
Firstly I have been told that the flex power cable does influence the sound of my valve, what are peoples opinion on this and is there a particular brand I should look out for?(bearing in mind I am in australia) If it makes a difference I dont mind spending a few hundred, but not thousands, secondly what brands can people recommend for rca interconnects from my cd > valve,of all good brand of speaker cables/plugs biwire pair 3m for around $500, and last of all what are the best brands for ( and I know this comes somewhat down to personal taste) kt90/88 valves.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, there just seems to be so many options out there it can be over whelming!
I have just bought a jadis orchestra reference integrated valve and would like some advice in regards to cables/interconnectors.
Firstly I have been told that the flex power cable does influence the sound of my valve, what are peoples opinion on this and is there a particular brand I should look out for?(bearing in mind I am in australia) If it makes a difference I dont mind spending a few hundred, but not thousands, secondly what brands can people recommend for rca interconnects from my cd > valve,of all good brand of speaker cables/plugs biwire pair 3m for around $500, and last of all what are the best brands for ( and I know this comes somewhat down to personal taste) kt90/88 valves.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, there just seems to be so many options out there it can be over whelming!
analog_sa said:
I second that. There was quite a long (and bloody) thread about cables a little while ago. I'm partial to whatever I find in the junk box myself...
hyper04 said:
That's something else which may not go down well. The circuit design of that make of amp and how the valves are run in them are erhm.... contentious. But gee, the thing looks nice
You would be far better off spending some money on tubes- buy some pairs of NOS Mullard / Miniwatt / Valvo / Telefunken / AWV ECC83 (12AX7 equivalent) and some decent output tubes. You should consider getting the amplifier modified to take EL34s or KT88s as KT90s are pretty rare these days?
A perfectly decent power cord can be bought for about $10. If you want speaker cable / interconncects, Jaycar does some pretty good stuff at a low cost.
A perfectly decent power cord can be bought for about $10. If you want speaker cable / interconncects, Jaycar does some pretty good stuff at a low cost.
hyper04 said:
Of course it's a myth. Do you think that a couple of metres of 'excellent' power cable is going to make a difference to your amplifier? What about the hundreds of kilometres of 'questionable' cable bringing the power to your house? How is a few pathetic metres of ridiculously expensive cable going to make a difference?
On the other hand, you could buy a cheap mains filter that will probably do a whole lot more good and will cost a lot less.
Chris.
hyper04 said:
None of us can ignore the fact that the electricity grid is a shared system and that every audio system which is to gain the best possible performance with the power supplied should at least have adequate filtering of the mains side /and/ most importantly DC filtering of the supply so that the noise is very much a non-issue.
No one with their head on straight will claim that one cable (in the role of mains) has a sonic difference over another as the fact remains that the whole point of the design of a power supply is to both isolate and filter noise of any electricity that is fed to it, not to listen to mains but to gain the most efficient power from the mains Sine-wave waveform and turn that oscillation into a non-oscillating DC electricity supply.
Now if anyone thinks that one cable is more efficient than another cable and can proove a difference that noisy sine-wave 240v 50hz/115v 60hz oscillations will actually care about this then they are horribly wrong, because they obviously don't use gold-coated ruby-encrusted overhanging wires outside or inside the generators of power stations or into your mains distribution box and I don't think to this date that a fool for a person with millions of dollars has spent his time and money to tear out that hundreds of km's of cable and replace it with gold-coated tooth polisher has heared a difference too...
But, there will always be the issue of adequate filtering in components /other/ than a cable and I don't see any cable which by god's will automatically filters and cleans all the noise which is fed into our power points until a golden ruby Sine wave is left but there certianly are mains filtering units capable of this.
And unless you have a generator in your back yard or shed you won't hear a difference either.
Chapter 2:
Now CD > Amplifier interconnects or RCA Stereo or any shielded coax cables are a slightly different matter, they use extremely low voltages in comparison to mains and this is a problem as any signal which is emitting near this cable is obviously going to drown out the littler signal, isn't it?
Add this to the internal wiring of your generic CD player which is obviously going to use quickly-done PCB tracks and be thrown around all sorts of other signals inside which are interfering with it.
I personally tackle this with better shielding and awareness of ground-loops and obviously physical distance from larger-signals in other cables but THIS IS ALL THAT MATTERS! Shielding and Reliability of the connection to transfer close-to 99% of the signal.
All of my RCA interconnects are dual-shielded copper 75 ohm coaxial cable with nothing but spring-ended silver plugs from Jaycar (springs are to prevent cable bending).
These cables provide one of two things, a reliable connection to each RCA plug and socket and /plenty/ of shielding to easily transfer a macro-volt signal from an Antenna outside my room of wide-band Television signals without enough interference to cause even the slightest bit of local noise on my Television set.
My personal opinion is that the day that someone designs a CD player with integrated on-die shielding with a star-ground topology and point-to-point wiring for every little track with shielding for those leads aswell for every little IC will I eat a stack of factory-sealed-Laserdiscs for breakfast, with Jam of course =)
But there is and always will be a better way to design one PCB over another and that is what defines a cheap and expensive CD player, to the demise of everyone else companies just LOVE re-designing the wheel to accommodate every model they have.
If any of you moderators have something to say about this then please delete my reply, I'm not one whom wants to explain this out of ego, just one whom wants to save another from the perils of Snake Oil buisnesses.
Wow, this was really long and tedious. Of course, judging from your confidence in this matter you have never ever experimented with PS cords, right?
I, otoh, get quite annoyed by the non-trivial sonic effects of mains cabling on most of my gear (a DD turntable seems unaffected). So much so, that i built a 50Hz pure sine regenerator to power my phono pre. And guess what? Even through the regenerator, using just my old and tired ears i can still hear the mains cable.
The only possibly good advice is to just experiment and see if cable differences are audible and important. IME great cabling cannot make a mediocre system great but poor cabling can effectively destroy a great system.
Hi there.....KT90 has higher thd compared to 88 series and many MI users my end mention it has a harder sound (wer'e all different on this whether you agree).....make sure that EI KT90's are tap/run-in tested for internal shorts. I had a whole batch of basically duff tubes......EH may be better.
rich
Hi,
To my ears the KT88 are too sweet, too romantic sounding.
The KT90s sound more penthode-like, cleaner and clearer IMO.
Much like the EL/PL 509/519s in fact.
No experience with the EHs just the EIs which can be flaky if post Yugo war...
Also there's alot more you can do to bring the Jadis closer to what it can sound like by replacing some of the electrolytics in the PS and a few cathode resistor decoupling caps as well.
No mircacle powercord can change that IMO.
Cheers,
To my ears the KT88 are too sweet, too romantic sounding.
The KT90s sound more penthode-like, cleaner and clearer IMO.
Much like the EL/PL 509/519s in fact.
No experience with the EHs just the EIs which can be flaky if post Yugo war...
Also there's alot more you can do to bring the Jadis closer to what it can sound like by replacing some of the electrolytics in the PS and a few cathode resistor decoupling caps as well.
No mircacle powercord can change that IMO.
Cheers,
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.