This is out of hand in a fun way. IMHO it's important to know and listen to your feelings and intuitions. But more important to keep an open mind, to doubt, question, test, and confirm them or override them based on whether they test true. Some areas of audio fall under religion and you can't convert the faithful on the basis of fact. Unfortunately self-delusion will not be compensated for by being in touch with your inner fool. Stubbornness and strong convictions are only virtues if you are right LOL! A small amount of experience may be worse than none, and cause all kinds of incorrect attribution errors. I'm an atheist in more ways than one.
Connectors and cables are a difficult subject for many. They tend to work or fail horribly as far as I'm concerned. They have all kinds of contamination, oxidation, and corrosion problems. And cables, well the problems start with capacitance and mediocre shielding, shield failures, several types of microphonics... I'll generally use the electrically "best" connectors that come easily to hand LOL. They are problems. But know the real problems if yu want to address them. Believing things that are not true leads to sub-optimal decisions.
Doesn't real copper start to turn to brown oxidized surface almost immediately uon exposure to oxygen?
Many people try to make the claim that many unmeasurable effects and unconfirmable impressions may accumulate serially and add up to a detectable difference. And I can imagine situations where that could occur. But trying to confirm that has fallen flat when it comes to connectors:
My experience is probably very different from some hi-fi tweeks. I used to occasionally work pro sound for live performance large-scale concerts. The technology has changed a lot since then, with optical digital snakes and digital boards, Ethernet intercom, etc. now. Now a digital signal is intact or not, and the signal is not "degraded" or redundancy and correction would have fixed it. But back in those days, all totaled, a concert setup might have many thousand analog audio connectors, at the musician's racks, mic cables into fan-outs into stage boxes into main snakes and splitter boxes...boards with offboard effects racks and EQ, delays, line drivers, amp racks...just lots and lots of connectors. Sometimes a patch panel in a rack case, and then an external connector to the case, that kind of setup may quadruple the connectors in the signal path. The signal from one mic would go thru hundreds of connectors at various levels or in combination with others but serially before coming out of the speakers. And I will confirm that connectors were a major source of failure. But not really of degradation. Yes, sometimes they didn't just fail completely, but the sound degradation of an intermittent connection experiencing some diode-like clipping or passing only signal above some level was immediately audibly obvious. Now you might pooh-pooh live sound because of compromises very different from hi-fi, but in general the live source material has much better dynamic range and resolution than hi-fi, and your ears have access to live material for instant reference. You CAN really hear when there are problems, assuming the venue isn't too noisy at the time. I have definitely heard obvious audible diode-like effects due to connectors; but that's a failure, not a connector characteristic. Some failed more, others less. In many ways, live sound is the ultimate fidelity challenge.
IMHO, for RCA connectors, some spring tension device around the ground ears is probably more important for preventing failures than whether the wire is welded or soldered. Yes, welding or crimping ANY wire connection is theoretically preferable, but crimping doesn't stand up to heat cycling and strain unless it's so tight it's actually welding under a different name. Dissimilar metals don't weld well. Of course eliminating connectors is more reliable! And of course soldering is sufficient. No, I can't hear the difference between different solders, but silver solder doesn't melt off the ends of power resistor leads and drip into the chassis like eutectic lead/tin did in my power amps.
I remember working on an old 4361 mainframe. All the terminal connectors looked dull, oxidized. The CE informed me that the metal involved had a very thin physically stable conductive oxide which actually conducts better than clean metal. I did not know that, but now I do have some connectors made of such metals. They don't sound better, but they do fail less often. They do cost more. They are worth it if you can afford it. That's a way to spend money which actually eliminates a major problem area.
In those pro PA days of old, the only way those systems were reliable was due to periodic preventative maintenance. The decisions were usually between contacts that didn't corrode versus ones that were easy to apply regular maintenance to. We always used a chemical cleaner, some kind of rinse, then a chemical wetting agent/protectant. I was always a bit skeptical of the contact wetting agents, afraid of introducing a conductive path across insulation, but we never experienced an actual problem like that. I was told from experienced sources I trust, that when you treated more than some critical threshold of your connectors on a regular schedule, say 90% every two months, the wetting agent tended to get exchanged between plugs and jacks in use, spreading like a sexual disease, and eventually all were exposed to this stuff and huge benefits of reliability improvement were realized. But I later found out that was straight from an advertisement by the guys selling the stuff, though he claimed it to be true. There was Caig, Cramolin, carbon-tet in a bottle, and some stuff that claimed to contain real gold, which was kind of scary to me.
Pro sound also points up the importance of power cables. Sufficient guage to maintain voltage at the required current over long runs mostly. Physical separation from audio cables by independent routing and sufficient distance. Possibly shielding both the audio and the power cables. Organizing rack cables so the behavior was consistent.
My own stereo isn't even operational right now, as my rental living space won't support it, as it has, well, rather extreme electrical requirements. But connector reliability is a major issue even at that scale because I use active triamp and balanced lines, with active adjustable crossover and EQ by the listener and power amps by the speakers. Twenty power amp channels and lots of cables.
So from my equally limited but perhaps different experience, I hope sharing may contribute something of value in the conglomerated forum.
Connectors and cables are a difficult subject for many. They tend to work or fail horribly as far as I'm concerned. They have all kinds of contamination, oxidation, and corrosion problems. And cables, well the problems start with capacitance and mediocre shielding, shield failures, several types of microphonics... I'll generally use the electrically "best" connectors that come easily to hand LOL. They are problems. But know the real problems if yu want to address them. Believing things that are not true leads to sub-optimal decisions.
Doesn't real copper start to turn to brown oxidized surface almost immediately uon exposure to oxygen?
Many people try to make the claim that many unmeasurable effects and unconfirmable impressions may accumulate serially and add up to a detectable difference. And I can imagine situations where that could occur. But trying to confirm that has fallen flat when it comes to connectors:
My experience is probably very different from some hi-fi tweeks. I used to occasionally work pro sound for live performance large-scale concerts. The technology has changed a lot since then, with optical digital snakes and digital boards, Ethernet intercom, etc. now. Now a digital signal is intact or not, and the signal is not "degraded" or redundancy and correction would have fixed it. But back in those days, all totaled, a concert setup might have many thousand analog audio connectors, at the musician's racks, mic cables into fan-outs into stage boxes into main snakes and splitter boxes...boards with offboard effects racks and EQ, delays, line drivers, amp racks...just lots and lots of connectors. Sometimes a patch panel in a rack case, and then an external connector to the case, that kind of setup may quadruple the connectors in the signal path. The signal from one mic would go thru hundreds of connectors at various levels or in combination with others but serially before coming out of the speakers. And I will confirm that connectors were a major source of failure. But not really of degradation. Yes, sometimes they didn't just fail completely, but the sound degradation of an intermittent connection experiencing some diode-like clipping or passing only signal above some level was immediately audibly obvious. Now you might pooh-pooh live sound because of compromises very different from hi-fi, but in general the live source material has much better dynamic range and resolution than hi-fi, and your ears have access to live material for instant reference. You CAN really hear when there are problems, assuming the venue isn't too noisy at the time. I have definitely heard obvious audible diode-like effects due to connectors; but that's a failure, not a connector characteristic. Some failed more, others less. In many ways, live sound is the ultimate fidelity challenge.
IMHO, for RCA connectors, some spring tension device around the ground ears is probably more important for preventing failures than whether the wire is welded or soldered. Yes, welding or crimping ANY wire connection is theoretically preferable, but crimping doesn't stand up to heat cycling and strain unless it's so tight it's actually welding under a different name. Dissimilar metals don't weld well. Of course eliminating connectors is more reliable! And of course soldering is sufficient. No, I can't hear the difference between different solders, but silver solder doesn't melt off the ends of power resistor leads and drip into the chassis like eutectic lead/tin did in my power amps.
I remember working on an old 4361 mainframe. All the terminal connectors looked dull, oxidized. The CE informed me that the metal involved had a very thin physically stable conductive oxide which actually conducts better than clean metal. I did not know that, but now I do have some connectors made of such metals. They don't sound better, but they do fail less often. They do cost more. They are worth it if you can afford it. That's a way to spend money which actually eliminates a major problem area.
In those pro PA days of old, the only way those systems were reliable was due to periodic preventative maintenance. The decisions were usually between contacts that didn't corrode versus ones that were easy to apply regular maintenance to. We always used a chemical cleaner, some kind of rinse, then a chemical wetting agent/protectant. I was always a bit skeptical of the contact wetting agents, afraid of introducing a conductive path across insulation, but we never experienced an actual problem like that. I was told from experienced sources I trust, that when you treated more than some critical threshold of your connectors on a regular schedule, say 90% every two months, the wetting agent tended to get exchanged between plugs and jacks in use, spreading like a sexual disease, and eventually all were exposed to this stuff and huge benefits of reliability improvement were realized. But I later found out that was straight from an advertisement by the guys selling the stuff, though he claimed it to be true. There was Caig, Cramolin, carbon-tet in a bottle, and some stuff that claimed to contain real gold, which was kind of scary to me.
Pro sound also points up the importance of power cables. Sufficient guage to maintain voltage at the required current over long runs mostly. Physical separation from audio cables by independent routing and sufficient distance. Possibly shielding both the audio and the power cables. Organizing rack cables so the behavior was consistent.
My own stereo isn't even operational right now, as my rental living space won't support it, as it has, well, rather extreme electrical requirements. But connector reliability is a major issue even at that scale because I use active triamp and balanced lines, with active adjustable crossover and EQ by the listener and power amps by the speakers. Twenty power amp channels and lots of cables.
So from my equally limited but perhaps different experience, I hope sharing may contribute something of value in the conglomerated forum.
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Are you saying that gold paint moves away from your plugs, because if this is the case then they have fake gold platting.
Fibre glass pen tension is adjustable by the working lenth of the fibers, therefore your story does not stand in a court of law.
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Gold is **soft** , doubly so if plated (electrolytic by definition) .
So much so that gold has almost never been used pure (in the last couple thousand years at least) but alloyed (check gold 18k vs. gold 24k) .
To boot, the gold you see on electronic parts is very thin, so called "flash" gold, a few microns thick, so it's easy to remove with abrasive tools.
Fact is, gold will never rust , be attacked by sulfur dioxide or other contaminants in the air, humidity, etc. so if you see it dirty, just wipe it with a slightly wet cloth to remove whatever dried on its surface (think some electronic equipment in Katrina or the Long Island hurricane).
In fact, if it needs mechanical abrasion, that one is fake gold 😛
Hmm lot of obfuscation , willy waving and the sharing of knowledge for the sake of it . 😛
The point of the thread is are copper rca's better than brass or generic alloys ones.
I have tried both and would say copper is better . by a small amount in terms of clarity of information .
Either they are per se , or that difference is in my head . I have read absolutely nothing that would allow me to reasonably and proportionately conclude the difference is in my head .
The point of the thread is are copper rca's better than brass or generic alloys ones.
I have tried both and would say copper is better . by a small amount in terms of clarity of information .
Either they are per se , or that difference is in my head . I have read absolutely nothing that would allow me to reasonably and proportionately conclude the difference is in my head .
Strange: I saw just efforts towards clarity and education, but some people then placed their fingers in their ears and started poking their tongues(?) out. I guess somewhere in the world this might be a traditional greeting on joining a new club?Daniel quinn said:
Then instead of reading, try to do an ears-only comparison experiment to demonstrate that basic electronics materials theory (the kind that allows us to image inside bodies, fly jet planes, and land spacecraft hundreds of millions of miles away) is incorrect. Perhaps you'll shake the foundations of science. Or perhaps you'll find out (as many of us have with many extraordinary claims) that it IS in your head.
How . I would submit , the measurements dont exist . And at best all you will get is a correlation between audible phenomena and value . Best just to buy , try ,listen, keep or send back i find . 🙄
One thing is for sure - if there's sound difference there's also signal difference. Differences in signals can be measured - it's just a question about how.
What SY was pointing out is that ordinary electronic theory and practice (based on good science and mathematics) is perfectly adequate to carry out difficult tasks, so is perfectly adequate to carry out a simpler task such as transmitting and amplifying a low frequency voltage signal such as music.Daniel quinn said:
Science pays attention to unsolved problems. Audio electronics is a solved problem. Plugs and sockets require no new electrical science, and almost no new materials science. Those who understand electronics know this. Those who don't understand electronics often feel the need to 'contribute' something to their system so they play with cables and connectors as a displacement activity.
It is the 'true believers' who always have a fit of the vapours when science enters a discussion.
Trivial potential dividers (otherwise known as connectors) are well understood. The relevant measurements are included in good datasheets. No special extra measurements are needed for audio.
Conventional English punctuation and spelling would make your posts easier to read.
Wrong in many ways...
Audio reproduction is basic electronics for the circuitry, analogue audio is analogue electronics, same with digital...so what applies to all electronics applies to audio.
It has been pointed out many times that there has been a lot of research in the past (and still going on) regarding audio, the problem is that those that believe in the more esoteric beliefs find it hard to grasp the fact that these areas are not being researched because they are either already covered by current understanding in physics and electronics or are just to far fetched to warrant research. There is also a LOT of research going on into hearing and audio that is not mainstream, a lot funded by the USA problem:
"The Growing Cost of Auditory Disability for Veterans"
So in many areas research is being done, it just does not involve endless discussions on whether copper or brass sound different for connectors!!!!! But on more mundane things like how our hearing works, what affects our perception of fidelity when listening to sounds (THD, Noise subjective as well as objective research involving DBTs).
The measurements do exist its just that they disprove many esoteric audiophile beliefs beliefs so they are ignored or ridiculed.
Again explanation by analogy . Not one simple ,coherent explanation as to why RCA connectors cant sound different and that difference may give rise to preferences in reproduced sound .
I have to say gents , if my submissions to the judges of England and Wales were of commensurate quality, I would probably be unemployed . 🙂
I have to say gents , if my submissions to the judges of England and Wales were of commensurate quality, I would probably be unemployed . 🙂
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