It's not about making sense. It's all about marketing, if you get my drift...
I remember thinking that the car was more powerful after an oil change. When I was a teenager, I tried "legal highs", listed in a booklet from the local magic shop, converted into a quasi head shop when lamp part pot pipes became popular. Hydrangea, tomato leaves, coleus, etc. I always thought I could feel something, before realizing it was placebo effect.
If you drop 100 bucks or more per foot of ofhc or silver wires, treated cryogenically and with magic break in signals, you will have to hear a difference. The alternative is the sinking feeling of buyers remorse.
I advocate double blind A B X testing. No having your buddy swapping stuff in the same room. The listener (victim) chooses between A B or X. X is guaranteed to be either A or B, and X is randomly assigned to either one. If there is a difference, switching between X and whatever X is will be the same. It should be possible to score better than chance if there is a sonic difference.
But, the listener will complain of ear fatigue, or argue that the relays or switches are muddying the waters.
I like the XLR interconnects I use to and from the active crossovers on the front channels, and the rear Hafler style amp. Inexpensive, no muss no fuss, no added noise I can hear, with small amps and 100db+/watt speakers. Light and flexible too, and that matters to me
They are great connectors! I like how the male female relates to in and outs. Rare you would need a male to male or female to female, they keep everything well shielded, and hold up well on the road. And of course the balanced line. You could do it with 1/4 phono plugs but then everything on the equipment has to be female.
I'd always wondered where the name came from. No one I talked to knew. Just looked. The XLR name comes from a particular X connector from Cannon Electric, which was modified with a latch (the L) and a synthetic rubber compound (the R).
And, while I'm getting pedantic,
The BNC connector comes from initialism of "Bayonet Neill–Concelman"
RCA is Real Cheap Audio 😀
A friend's brother went to redo his kitchen floor. Underneath the linoleum the floor was papered in 20 dollar bills.
They say you can't make this stuff up
I say you can. I'm waiting for some Sinner-gee type company to market a new kind of speaker wire. Plastic tubes filled with conductive water, and terminated at each end with conductive quantum metals in contact with the water inside. Some pale paper describing its self damping properties and non crystalline structure resulting in a not precisely equalled performance. Studies would indicate 4 out of 5 housewives believe they can hear an improvement, even from the kitchen.
In a far sighted vision, this would pave the way for cryogenically treated water too.
Somewhere, Serpigo is chanting Sinner-gee! Sinner-gee! Sinner-gee!
Hey, in a universe where all things are possible, but few things are likely, it could happen.
I say you can. I'm waiting for some Sinner-gee type company to market a new kind of speaker wire. Plastic tubes filled with conductive water, and terminated at each end with conductive quantum metals in contact with the water inside. Some pale paper describing its self damping properties and non crystalline structure resulting in a not precisely equalled performance. Studies would indicate 4 out of 5 housewives believe they can hear an improvement, even from the kitchen.
In a far sighted vision, this would pave the way for cryogenically treated water too.
Somewhere, Serpigo is chanting Sinner-gee! Sinner-gee! Sinner-gee!
Hey, in a universe where all things are possible, but few things are likely, it could happen.
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I like to use this stuff for speaker wire, not because I have any illusions about its performance, but because I think it looks and feels nice and isn't too insanely expensive:
Supra CLASSIC-2.5 Speaker Wire per foot (13 AWG)
My Quested active monitors use literal zip cord to connect the drivers to the amplifier modules. I did some major work on the amp modules and yep, you guessed it, left the zip cord in place. It's inside an active speaker, so that means it's out of sight so I do not care what it looks like. Electrically the difference between 2' of zip cord and 2' of the very best fancy-**** speaker wire is small compared to pretty much everything else in the system, including other things that don't really matter. The ferrofluid in the tweeters is 30 years old. That will make a much bigger difference than the wire connecting the drivers to the amps.
Also... for those who have dug up historical artifacts in your home, my recommendation is always to check and see if your state historical society wants it for their archives. They're fairly active in my state and put in a lot of effort.
Supra CLASSIC-2.5 Speaker Wire per foot (13 AWG)
My Quested active monitors use literal zip cord to connect the drivers to the amplifier modules. I did some major work on the amp modules and yep, you guessed it, left the zip cord in place. It's inside an active speaker, so that means it's out of sight so I do not care what it looks like. Electrically the difference between 2' of zip cord and 2' of the very best fancy-**** speaker wire is small compared to pretty much everything else in the system, including other things that don't really matter. The ferrofluid in the tweeters is 30 years old. That will make a much bigger difference than the wire connecting the drivers to the amps.
Also... for those who have dug up historical artifacts in your home, my recommendation is always to check and see if your state historical society wants it for their archives. They're fairly active in my state and put in a lot of effort.
I recently went fully active, aside from a blocking cap on each tweeter, in my homemade speakers. Built a shelf between the baffles and each horn to put an amplifier, and use short speaker wires.
Some over 25 year old 6' Nordost Red Dawn flat cables work fine, weigh next to nothing, are flexible and easy to use, and I didn't have to.make them. And I like how they look. I wouldn't pay their price nowadays, but back then I believed buying wire incrementally for a system would improve it more affordably than biting the bullet and upgrading each component. Doing uncompound arithmetic, they were around $ 0.18 a day, so that's makes it more bearable. Trying to sell them, I had an easy time with the monofilament power cables, and interconnects, but was earnestly told the speaker wires couldn't provide any improvement, like the others in the lineup, especially the digital silver one. It's so long ago I can't remember its name , or Google it. I do remember it is not the Silver Shadow, and the sales manager claimed it was so good you could hear the paint peel when listening with it and the Black Orpheus cans. My cable madness only came to an end when that store was dropping the Transparent line, and liquidating its inventory for an advertised 75% off. I went to buy a $2400 pair of interconnects, and the salesman asked what I liked to listen to, and with what.
Records, and an even then oldish Sony Biotracer turntable. He suggested I bring it down and he'd install a cartridge on it, paid but a trial basis. It was my first Denon DL-103, and there was enough.left over for a nice trade in phono stage. An eye opener for me way back before the turn of the century. Cables wouldn't improve my system. Better components would.
Some over 25 year old 6' Nordost Red Dawn flat cables work fine, weigh next to nothing, are flexible and easy to use, and I didn't have to.make them. And I like how they look. I wouldn't pay their price nowadays, but back then I believed buying wire incrementally for a system would improve it more affordably than biting the bullet and upgrading each component. Doing uncompound arithmetic, they were around $ 0.18 a day, so that's makes it more bearable. Trying to sell them, I had an easy time with the monofilament power cables, and interconnects, but was earnestly told the speaker wires couldn't provide any improvement, like the others in the lineup, especially the digital silver one. It's so long ago I can't remember its name , or Google it. I do remember it is not the Silver Shadow, and the sales manager claimed it was so good you could hear the paint peel when listening with it and the Black Orpheus cans. My cable madness only came to an end when that store was dropping the Transparent line, and liquidating its inventory for an advertised 75% off. I went to buy a $2400 pair of interconnects, and the salesman asked what I liked to listen to, and with what.
Records, and an even then oldish Sony Biotracer turntable. He suggested I bring it down and he'd install a cartridge on it, paid but a trial basis. It was my first Denon DL-103, and there was enough.left over for a nice trade in phono stage. An eye opener for me way back before the turn of the century. Cables wouldn't improve my system. Better components would.
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I see in previous posts, that the look of the speaker cable is important.
So, I recommend speaker cables with transparent insulation.
This makes the wire inside look thicker, a worthwhile boost to the placebo effect.
An optic effect that comes free.
So, I recommend speaker cables with transparent insulation.
This makes the wire inside look thicker, a worthwhile boost to the placebo effect.
An optic effect that comes free.
I was waiting for total internal electron reflection speaker cables...
Just waiting for someone to mention quantum entangled optical interlinks.. after all digital is so passé
Just waiting for someone to mention quantum entangled optical interlinks.. after all digital is so passé
Lol! I think I can hear it when I'm in the shower.
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Audiophile Zone!That kind of sounds familiar.
My first memory of obscenely priced wire was Monster Cable. It sure looked pretty and fat. The logic behind stranded cable was that high frequencies travel more on the surface of the conductor, so all that surface area on the tiny wires adds up. I tried to point out that since they are in contact, it's not significantly different than a solid wire. You know how far that got me.😛
How bout soft copper tubing, like the liquid line going to your air conditioning compressor? Shove it into some PVC tubing, fill the inside with conductive fluid, print some arrows on it...
Biotracer! We used to sell those at the old music store. I was always impressed by the tech in those things. An interesting new approach to an old medium, in the face of all that new digital stuff back in the day.
I remember the day one of our best customers was bringing his in for some minor service, and as he was unloading it from his car, dropped it on the asphalt in the parking lot. The poor thing was never the same. I felt so bad for the guy.
Do you still have yours? How is it running?
I had a nearly new Teac 3340s, 15 ips, full 4 channel, and was moving things around, didn't realize the cables were tight, the machine fell on it's face, dropped about 4 feet, smashed the circuit board behind the sync buttons and broke the right drive motor shaft. I still have PTSD. Post Tapedeck Smash Disorder.
Ugh! I bet you can still hear the sound it made...
I had such youthful unrequited lust for the 3340... (sigh)
I had such youthful unrequited lust for the 3340... (sigh)
A boom and crunch that would make a movie sound effects guy envious.
They are still around, and oddly, not for that much more than what they cost back in the day. Sound was not shabby at 15 ips, although I did a test once, recorded 15,000 cps sine, played it back. The trace on the o-scope was mostly noise.
What did I expect for 1 thousandths of an inch of rust? 😛
I've got a Sony Biotracer sitting in my attic... I think it's a PS-X75. It's got the same problem that a lot of these have, which is a dead microprocessor. That microprocessor (it's some Fuji part) is now unobtainium.
Element 132, Unobtainium. The russians claimed to have made 3 molecules but couldn't duplicate it.
I was poking Ebay last night. Working Biotracers going for about 500, for parts or not working around 150 to 200 or so. I noticed a seller parting one out. He didn't have the tone arm listed, mostly small bits. Add all the parts up, if he gets what he's asking, over 800. Looks like you might get a dead one, and if the processor doesn't work, part it out for a profit.
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