I Gave Up Searching At Farnell..........
Enquire at electrical wholesalers about 10-pair or 20-pair indoor telephone cable - they should understand what you mean.
Get the cable with buff coloured sheath as per my photo.
Eric.
To the smart-alecs, keep comments about cable directionality or otherwise in some other thread, and right out of this one thanks (J.Carr excepted).
Simon,SimontY said:
Enquire at electrical wholesalers about 10-pair or 20-pair indoor telephone cable - they should understand what you mean.
Get the cable with buff coloured sheath as per my photo.
Eric.
To the smart-alecs, keep comments about cable directionality or otherwise in some other thread, and right out of this one thanks (J.Carr excepted).
Re: I Gave Up Searching At Farnell..........
You implied that if cables aren't running "in the same direction", then some sort of frequency-dependant anomaly would occur. I, and many others, would disagree with that assertion. Are you saying that no-one is allowed to challenge your claims?
mrfeedback said:
You implied that if cables aren't running "in the same direction", then some sort of frequency-dependant anomaly would occur. I, and many others, would disagree with that assertion. Are you saying that no-one is allowed to challenge your claims?
Arniel,
The technical reason for a difference is simple enough - drawn copper is naturally born with a chevron-like structure, because it has been 'pulled apart'. I think the reason for a sonic change is because the electrons have to jump from one grain to another and this happens more effectively in one direction compared to the other.
No-one is claiming frequency dependant artefacts, only that some audible difference may occur from wiring it up the wrong way round! What's the problem with that? I see it as insurance against yet another unnecessary imperfection in the chain. To me this is so logical, to the point of being barely worth talking about!
Now think about this one: someone offers to upgrade your hi-fi for no cost, but the difference would be subtle, and you may not even hear the difference, certainly not in a minute or two of listening. Do you say: "no, because I might not hear the difference" or do you say: "yes please! an upgrade is an upgrade, and a free one is great!" (I know which one I'd more like!)
Does this help you to realise a more balanced view? I bloody well hope it does, or I've wasted my time (well, ok I'm bored at work so hey...)
The reason Eric doesn't want to hear about cable arguments is probably because it really has been done too much already! As for challenging claims, that is inapropriate for a thread whose central theme is helping to alleviate the classic 'solid-state-sound' - a worthy topic. No-one is going to benefit from bickering.
-Simon
The technical reason for a difference is simple enough - drawn copper is naturally born with a chevron-like structure, because it has been 'pulled apart'. I think the reason for a sonic change is because the electrons have to jump from one grain to another and this happens more effectively in one direction compared to the other.
No-one is claiming frequency dependant artefacts, only that some audible difference may occur from wiring it up the wrong way round! What's the problem with that? I see it as insurance against yet another unnecessary imperfection in the chain. To me this is so logical, to the point of being barely worth talking about!
Now think about this one: someone offers to upgrade your hi-fi for no cost, but the difference would be subtle, and you may not even hear the difference, certainly not in a minute or two of listening. Do you say: "no, because I might not hear the difference" or do you say: "yes please! an upgrade is an upgrade, and a free one is great!" (I know which one I'd more like!)
Does this help you to realise a more balanced view? I bloody well hope it does, or I've wasted my time (well, ok I'm bored at work so hey...)
The reason Eric doesn't want to hear about cable arguments is probably because it really has been done too much already! As for challenging claims, that is inapropriate for a thread whose central theme is helping to alleviate the classic 'solid-state-sound' - a worthy topic. No-one is going to benefit from bickering.
-Simon
millwood said:
My guess would be that the grains are spaced in such a way that walking is not possible😉
In general people who argue in favour of directional loudspeaker cables are able to support their argument with some bizzare branch of electron theory unknown to the rest of us 🙄
Cables Discussion Is Now In Another Thread.........
ANYTHING to do with cable direction has been moved to this Cable Directionality (Moved Threadjacking) thread, and is not welcome here.
To you 'smart-alecs', go ahead and teach us all you know about cables there, elsewise keep out of this one thanks.
Simon and I are having an interesting, pleasant and fruitful speakers and system discussion here, and we prefer that it remain so.
Eric.
ANYTHING to do with cable direction has been moved to this Cable Directionality (Moved Threadjacking) thread, and is not welcome here.
To you 'smart-alecs', go ahead and teach us all you know about cables there, elsewise keep out of this one thanks.
Simon and I are having an interesting, pleasant and fruitful speakers and system discussion here, and we prefer that it remain so.
Eric.
schinging
We've been looking into this since 1980. At that moment we found that an amplifier which distorts at even level over its full frequency range acts smoother on sibilants. Such an amplifier is mostly an amplifier without overall negative feed back and/or a tube amp.
In almost all CD- and DVD-players there's also an amplifier circuit at the output, configured with operational amplifiers (integrated circuits) with a lot of feed back and a steeply rising distortion figure from 10 kHz and up, thereby generating those ugly ss-es.
A different cause for this type of event is detection of high frequency signal in the first stage of an amplifier. This occurs if a digital source (CD etc) has a huge amount of clock residuals at the output. When a transistor in the amplifier detects this (acting as a detector diode) it will generate an extra DC-signal offsetting the following stages in the amplifier. Those stages then will produce extra distortion especially in the higher frequency region.
If the latter is the case you can find this out by simply connecting a different CD-player in your system. If the character of sybilants changes you've found the cause!
We've been looking into this since 1980. At that moment we found that an amplifier which distorts at even level over its full frequency range acts smoother on sibilants. Such an amplifier is mostly an amplifier without overall negative feed back and/or a tube amp.
In almost all CD- and DVD-players there's also an amplifier circuit at the output, configured with operational amplifiers (integrated circuits) with a lot of feed back and a steeply rising distortion figure from 10 kHz and up, thereby generating those ugly ss-es.
A different cause for this type of event is detection of high frequency signal in the first stage of an amplifier. This occurs if a digital source (CD etc) has a huge amount of clock residuals at the output. When a transistor in the amplifier detects this (acting as a detector diode) it will generate an extra DC-signal offsetting the following stages in the amplifier. Those stages then will produce extra distortion especially in the higher frequency region.
If the latter is the case you can find this out by simply connecting a different CD-player in your system. If the character of sybilants changes you've found the cause!
Thanks John,
I completely agree with you.
Part of what I am saying to Simon is that cable electrical characteristics and loudspeaker electrical characteristics interact with the amplifier to emphasise these 'esssing' distortions.
RF input from the source (CDP) serves also to worsen this amplifier load dependent characteristic.
Eric.
I completely agree with you.
Part of what I am saying to Simon is that cable electrical characteristics and loudspeaker electrical characteristics interact with the amplifier to emphasise these 'esssing' distortions.
RF input from the source (CDP) serves also to worsen this amplifier load dependent characteristic.
Eric.
Re: Cables Discussion Is Now In Another Thread.........
I heard they usually crowl on their backs, 🙂
I thought this thread is about solid state sound. However did it get into a speaker but not cable discussion?
Peter Daniel said:
I heard they usually crowl on their backs, 🙂
mrfeedback said:
I thought this thread is about solid state sound. However did it get into a speaker but not cable discussion?
I heard more of this "essing" on the bus couple days ago. (Don't worry, I can distinguish bus sounds from music. Heh!) It was coming from an iBook so it was probably MP3 creating the annoying racket, but it sure sounded as if the little 1" speakers in the laptop were making it much, much worse.
Could it be that the little speakers being driven well below their normal frequency range were showing the distortion as "essing" sounds?
🙂ensen.
Could it be that the little speakers being driven well below their normal frequency range were showing the distortion as "essing" sounds?
🙂ensen.
Yes, operating the driver at its resonance frequency will emphasize 'essing' sounds.
This has been covered much earlier in the thread, and the cure also given.
Eric.
This has been covered much earlier in the thread, and the cure also given.
Eric.
In case of an SS amplifier it doesn't actually have to be be a design without global feedback IMHO. It would be sufficient to have a constant NFB factor throughout the audio range.
Another look at sibilance: I have seen that many higly-regarded speakers have a HF response that is quite extended but their whole amplitude response from LF to HF is falling very slightly with frequency.
Regards
Charles
NFB
The problem is that the amplification factor tumbles down with 6 dB/octave from 500 Hz and up. So the feed back factor decreases and distortion goes up. The only way IMHO is to use "local" feed back.
The problem is that the amplification factor tumbles down with 6 dB/octave from 500 Hz and up. So the feed back factor decreases and distortion goes up. The only way IMHO is to use "local" feed back.
This is true for the ordinary average amplifier.
But this does not necessarily have to be accepted as given. An amplifier can deliberately be designed to behave differently !
Regards
Charles
Hey Eric!
Got my friend round with my (previously untried) Kimber 4PR, and after a quick listen to a few albums, got to work attaching it to my oh so annoying Neutrik Speakons...
I'm almost uncomfortable saying what I'm about to say now, because it seems too good to be true!! Only time will tell how happy I really am. Here are our perceived differences:
- less hard/etched/annoying(!)/falsely bright/hyped
- more relaxed, rich, warm, coherent, full, satisfiying, musical!
This is no exaggeration, just the way it sounds to me (and in part my friend, but he had to go before long). I could barely tear myself away, I kept wanting to hear more.
If anything is inferior with this cable in my system it is a slight lack of clarity and cleanness, and maybe vagueness in imaging. But I couldn't give a monkeys, because it's more musical.
I have no trouble admitting I feel stupid for not trying this cable earlier - could've given me months of enjoyment! Contraversial now(!!!) - I've got the cable wired the wrong way round for now, as I already had bananas on one end, so it was more convinient to hook it up that way. Maybe there will be another, smaller gain in quality from correcting the directionality, not to mention re-stripping the ends and applying contact-enhancer!
When I sleep tonight, I may actually dream of the delightful low-bass resonance and sweet female vocals I've just been hearing!!!
I think the phone wire experiment has been relegated to 'try someday' status now. I am happy with this quite cheap, pvc-coated Kimber. I can only imagine what it will be like when I internally wire my speakers, and even amp with this stuff (there is wire from pcb to terminals 🙂)
Thanks for reading!
-Simon
Got my friend round with my (previously untried) Kimber 4PR, and after a quick listen to a few albums, got to work attaching it to my oh so annoying Neutrik Speakons...
I'm almost uncomfortable saying what I'm about to say now, because it seems too good to be true!! Only time will tell how happy I really am. Here are our perceived differences:
- less hard/etched/annoying(!)/falsely bright/hyped
- more relaxed, rich, warm, coherent, full, satisfiying, musical!
This is no exaggeration, just the way it sounds to me (and in part my friend, but he had to go before long). I could barely tear myself away, I kept wanting to hear more.
If anything is inferior with this cable in my system it is a slight lack of clarity and cleanness, and maybe vagueness in imaging. But I couldn't give a monkeys, because it's more musical.
I have no trouble admitting I feel stupid for not trying this cable earlier - could've given me months of enjoyment! Contraversial now(!!!) - I've got the cable wired the wrong way round for now, as I already had bananas on one end, so it was more convinient to hook it up that way. Maybe there will be another, smaller gain in quality from correcting the directionality, not to mention re-stripping the ends and applying contact-enhancer!
When I sleep tonight, I may actually dream of the delightful low-bass resonance and sweet female vocals I've just been hearing!!!
I think the phone wire experiment has been relegated to 'try someday' status now. I am happy with this quite cheap, pvc-coated Kimber. I can only imagine what it will be like when I internally wire my speakers, and even amp with this stuff (there is wire from pcb to terminals 🙂)
Thanks for reading!
-Simon
Congrats........
"If anything is inferior with this cable in my system it is a slight lack of clarity and cleanness, and maybe vagueness in imaging. But I couldn't give a monkeys, because it's more musical."
Yup, musical is what it is all about.
That aparent clarity and cleanness and 'imaging' can be a product of the false highs that I mentioned - the pity is that they can drive you out of the room eventually.
Are you sure that you have both speaker cables wired in the same direction ? - "vagueness in imaging".
Do yourself a big favour and fit banana sockets on the cabinets and banana plugs on your leads - this will enable you to swap polarity easily from track to track and properly enjoy your system on every track.
You have now been listening for a couple of days - what are your longer term impressions ?.
Eric.
"If anything is inferior with this cable in my system it is a slight lack of clarity and cleanness, and maybe vagueness in imaging. But I couldn't give a monkeys, because it's more musical."
Yup, musical is what it is all about.
That aparent clarity and cleanness and 'imaging' can be a product of the false highs that I mentioned - the pity is that they can drive you out of the room eventually.
Are you sure that you have both speaker cables wired in the same direction ? - "vagueness in imaging".
Do yourself a big favour and fit banana sockets on the cabinets and banana plugs on your leads - this will enable you to swap polarity easily from track to track and properly enjoy your system on every track.
You have now been listening for a couple of days - what are your longer term impressions ?.
Eric.
Dam, copy and paste is broken, dam this wretched borken machine! Sorry, I can't quote...
Firstly, the false highs - I'm inclined to agree that part of the old cables strong points were possibly largely due to un-natural colouration.
Directionalty is most definately correct, all the same way and as marked originally on the cable. The vagueness in imaging was partly me angling the speakers further out.
There is a sort of textural bloom to the sound which can make it seem vague now. This 'bloom' seems to have replaced the harsh part of the sound though. This change is 100% welcome on most discs I have played so far. I can now listen to Madonna and Abba - these were far too edgy before - totally beautiful now, though Madge could do with more punch in the bass, but that'll be my amp lacking there.
Anything I play with heavy bass: the bass is more rounded and integrated with the whole now. Maybe less punchy, but more tuneful and deeper.
Basically my longer term impressions are that I just love Kimber Kable!
I will take my x-overs offboard as soon as I find the time, then I can mess around a bit more!!
Thanks
Simon
Firstly, the false highs - I'm inclined to agree that part of the old cables strong points were possibly largely due to un-natural colouration.
Directionalty is most definately correct, all the same way and as marked originally on the cable. The vagueness in imaging was partly me angling the speakers further out.
There is a sort of textural bloom to the sound which can make it seem vague now. This 'bloom' seems to have replaced the harsh part of the sound though. This change is 100% welcome on most discs I have played so far. I can now listen to Madonna and Abba - these were far too edgy before - totally beautiful now, though Madge could do with more punch in the bass, but that'll be my amp lacking there.
Anything I play with heavy bass: the bass is more rounded and integrated with the whole now. Maybe less punchy, but more tuneful and deeper.
Basically my longer term impressions are that I just love Kimber Kable!
I will take my x-overs offboard as soon as I find the time, then I can mess around a bit more!!
Thanks
Simon
x-over tweaking/zobel etc.
Hi folks, sorry to dredge this thread up again!
But I think I said I'd get back to looking at x-over 'enhancements', and people here gave me a couple of ideas to try...
I've been thinking about adding a zobel network to my x-over for the bass drivers, even though the typical rising impedance doesn't seem too prevalent from looking at the graph, as can be seen further back in this thread. If this improves the midrange, I'll leave it in, if not, it'll come out, no big deal...
The 2nd thing is, there is a peak at around 1500hz, which is certainly in or near the range I find unpleasant. Someone suggested placing a 1-2uf cap across the tweeters. This, in series with a 6.8R (roughly) resistor would make a zobel network, but is this really what the tweeter needs? How about a 'notch' filter to remove this hump more accurately? I have seen calculators that ask what frequency the impedance doubles at, is this the correct formula to make a notch impedance flattening circuit?
One more thing that I can't figure out myself - the x-over currently has one set of components that are not hi or lo pass... there is a 33uf cap, 6.8R resistor, and an inductor in series with each other, and in parallel with the entire x-over, placed before it. Is this some kind of impedance correction? ...there are no large peaks so I wonder what effect this is having, or is meant to have. Any ideas?
I hope this is still relevant to 'annoying solid state sound' - I think it is, because of the interaction between amp and speaker, and there is a slightly annoying element to the sound! 🙂
I've started work on my x-over boxes, which will make it easy to play with the x-over, if I get the time to cut them! Maybe correct component layout, use of appropriate cable, removal of PCB, and 'externalisation' of the x-over will cure my ills...??
Any advice is appreciated!
-Simon
Hi folks, sorry to dredge this thread up again!
But I think I said I'd get back to looking at x-over 'enhancements', and people here gave me a couple of ideas to try...
I've been thinking about adding a zobel network to my x-over for the bass drivers, even though the typical rising impedance doesn't seem too prevalent from looking at the graph, as can be seen further back in this thread. If this improves the midrange, I'll leave it in, if not, it'll come out, no big deal...
The 2nd thing is, there is a peak at around 1500hz, which is certainly in or near the range I find unpleasant. Someone suggested placing a 1-2uf cap across the tweeters. This, in series with a 6.8R (roughly) resistor would make a zobel network, but is this really what the tweeter needs? How about a 'notch' filter to remove this hump more accurately? I have seen calculators that ask what frequency the impedance doubles at, is this the correct formula to make a notch impedance flattening circuit?
One more thing that I can't figure out myself - the x-over currently has one set of components that are not hi or lo pass... there is a 33uf cap, 6.8R resistor, and an inductor in series with each other, and in parallel with the entire x-over, placed before it. Is this some kind of impedance correction? ...there are no large peaks so I wonder what effect this is having, or is meant to have. Any ideas?
I hope this is still relevant to 'annoying solid state sound' - I think it is, because of the interaction between amp and speaker, and there is a slightly annoying element to the sound! 🙂
I've started work on my x-over boxes, which will make it easy to play with the x-over, if I get the time to cut them! Maybe correct component layout, use of appropriate cable, removal of PCB, and 'externalisation' of the x-over will cure my ills...??
Any advice is appreciated!
-Simon
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