Do speaker cables make any difference?

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#101
Portlandmike said:




...I'd say I'll bow out now.... but I didn't keep my last bow out, so maybe it will just be, talk to you later :>)

Mike
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Hi Mike,

No..... no my friend, you're in this well past your ears now!

Fully expect you restate your position once you try modded UCD's with radically different cables 🙂 Interconnects need not apply.. just simpler that way.

I think UCD is likely to redefine your idea of what a good amp really is, and what better amp out there to prove this cable theory than an amp so load invariant that it sounds virtually the same regardless of the speaker to which it's connected, let alone cable? That, incidently, is what's grown to be my idea of a better amplifier.

By: sauuuuuce
I agree with this as well...but if you have an amp that is that unstable, the last thing you should be worrying about is cables. That's just putting a band-aid on. But yes......I agree that poor amplifiers can be "helped out" by better cables.
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Hmmmmm, I too agree with that view strongly, that of cables which makes a difference being a band-aid, and yet on the other hand, where band-aid is a cheap and quick fix, or at least cheap, cables can't really be considered as such, when there's an entire snake oil industry selling the very best band-aids for thousands a meter, with crooked reviewers who plug them, awards given, and so forth. Perhaps it's better viewed as nothing more than a scam.

Perhaps it is the mutual disgust for this (I hope) or in some cases the exact opposite, that fuels such threads as this.

I really did expect to hear some difference on the cables I tested with UCD, yet was tickled pink to realize their was none. That proved a theory for me that makes alot of sense and I can appreciate that forever, as I have in the past noticed cables that do make a difference, albeit on a less than ideal amp.

Then again perhaps none of this is real and we're all just fooling ourselves into thinking we're anything more than farts in the wind in some alternate plane of existance that, our brains make up for by defining this so called reality. :hypno1:

Anyway, I never did state such a band-aid was a good thing, or that an audible difference in cables should be considered as "helped", I'd much prefer a true solution at the root of the evil, and in the UCD I think I've found it.

By: Johan Potgieter
If I may take the example of the scoops-on-cars and ferrite-magnets-on-fuel-pipes that many people will swear make a difference, and even show experiments to prove their point, sending science sprawling .....?
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It's off topic but, there's no science to scoops on cars?
it stands to reason you get more oxygen into the intake by using a cool source of air (exterior/scoop/snorkel) rather than that of the engine bay, which is heated by the radiator/exaust etc.

.................do spart plug wires make a difference? :clown:
 
#103
sauuuuuce said:
what is this UCD you speak of? I haven't had the chance to wrap my ears around one and would like to with all the praise it seems to be getting in this thread.
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Wow.... that's nearly a bold question at this point, but a fair one.

In short I'd say it's a class d amplifier which is as equally well implemented as it is designed, as load invariant as you can expect an amp to be, and with very minor tweaking capable of reproducing the source while pushing the envelope of what one considers "high end", able to compete with the very best at a fraction of the cost.

I'd say start by going to www.hypex.nl click on "technology" and enjoy the read.

From there you can read any of the multitude of threads on it here.

Certainly well worth looking into. :nod:

Oh, and it's very robust and a blast to play with. Sonics can change a great deal depending what's been done with it like anything else so if you get to hear someone elses' be weary of it.
 
#105
We have a thunderstorm here (lots of that in Pretoria in summer) and my mail connection goes off every so often, so just a few remarks.

Mike, you make a man think (my professors would have liked to know how you achieve what they could not). But you quote me on interconnects?? I did mention construction, as in something I experienced as a young Broadcast Company technician. The studio monitor Leak TL12s were distorting somewhat, and I had some difficulty finding the cause....until a wise older guy with a knowing smile told me to undo the screw connections to the loudspeaker output leads and clean up. I sanded them a bit - gone was the distortion! The studios were at the sea-side (a stupid place to put them?) and despite decent air-filtering the expected happened. Not that one could notice anything on the metal surfaces. From that day on I regard crimped and screw connections as likely sources of - perhaps not quite diodic - but varying resistance with polarity.

Occasionally the very general question sort of fades through: Do we as scientists really know enough to say that the characteristics of cables do not matter?

I thoroughly appreciate the sentiments behind such doubts. No, there certainly are many things we do not know, but we know certain things. And in the electrical characteristics of copper and di-electric materials (I am talking of normal applications) there really are nothing capable of nearly contributing sound-wise in cables IN AUDIO. Of all the scientific analyses published by those who contend that there are, I have not seen one item that proves this - in the audio spectrum! I would be the first one to try benefit from such research the moment it comes up. But please note that I am not reviving yet another attempt to disparage folks' hearing experience. I am simply stating where the reason can not be.

Classd4sure....now-now-now!
I will risk the ire of a moderator by saying: Do not catch me with scoops! Temperature-wise, you are correct. I was really referring to folks trying to make use of all that head air-pressure. (It does feel tempting when you hold your hand out of the window, but measurements show that your speed needs to be well over 100 mph to make even a few percent difference, super-charging-wise.)

Thanks, Moderator.

Regards.
 
#106
Johan Potgieter said:
Occasionally the very general question sort of fades through: Do we as scientists really know enough to say that the characteristics of cables do not matter?
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Johan

ocassionaly we do see the results from cable distortion measurements. One particular interconnect (ordinary Belden coax) was so far below the residuals of the measuring equipment that it could only be said its distortions are in order of -150dB or lower. Quite possibly much lower.

Now, I don't know about golden ears, but I'm not going to be worried about that. In fact scientific applications depending a lot more on freedom from cable distortion than domestic audio systems don't seem to worry about it either. (hence none of Cardas/Monster/Slinky/SlimyLink etc manage to sell much to say radio astronomers and gravity wave detecting mob. Which is a shame as say Square Kilometer Array project will have cabling measured in hundreds of kilometers - can you imagine profits some of cable companies could make with their 5000$ per meter cables 😀 )

If you want to talk about corroded/loose/poorly crimped/badly soldered/etc connectors and poorly terminated connections, critically stable output stages, that is a competely different cattle of fish.

Bratislav
 
#107
Johan Potgieter said:
We have a thunderstorm here (lots of that in Pretoria in summer) and my mail connection goes off every so often, so just a few remarks.

Mike, you make a man think (my professors would have liked to know how you achieve what they could not). But you quote me on interconnects?? I did mention construction, ....
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Glad to make you think 😉

Occasionally the very general question sort of fades through: Do we as scientists really know enough to say that the characteristics of cables do not matter?
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I think we understand alot. And maybe I've been fooled, but I think not. Maybe my amp was marginally stable, but I think not. I actually do measure loop gain and phase sometimes 😉
Its just over the years, I've started to trust my ears more than my education, because its more useful.

...But please note that I am not reviving yet another attempt to disparage folks' hearing experience. I am simply stating where the reason can not be.
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Be careful with your assumptions! Rather than say why they can not be(hear) is presuming all the important aspects are modeled.
But, you could be correct. It might just be wanting to hear it as Lipshitz would say, but I've heard so many things not wanting to hear them that I can't convince myself anymore 🙂
I must point out that I think super high price cables are a scam, and I've never paid more than 50 bucks for any piece of wire ever, and a buck of foot for speaker wire is pretty much my limit.
I've also discoverd, with two other people, that a RCA cable, rather bad at that, and old, and ultamatly crusty, somehow not only runed the sound of a system, but managed to do it to the BASS mostly. How the hell do we hear that when it ohms out down to the threshold of my DVOM good? Its just wierd stuff like that that makes me a skeptic of the "ohms law, or maxwells equation beaters. I'm sure its all discribed perfectly well, but we might have the circuit wrong. Like a mentor once told me, all circuits work perfectly well, its just our understanding of them that isn't working 😉

Classd4sure....now-now-now!
I will risk the ire of a moderator by saying: Do not catch me with scoops! Temperature-wise, you are correct. I was really referring to folks trying to make use of all that head air-pressure. (It does feel tempting when you hold your hand out of the window, but measurements show that your speed needs to be well over 100 mph to make even a few percent difference, super-charging-wise.)

Regards.
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Perhaps the analogy should have been green markers on CD's 🙂
I can proudly say I never fell for that one!

Good Night!

Mike
 
#110
Johan Potgieter said:
snipe:

Classd4sure....now-now-now!
I will risk the ire of a moderator by saying: Do not catch me with scoops! Temperature-wise, you are correct. I was really referring to folks trying to make use of all that head air-pressure. (It does feel tempting when you hold your hand out of the window, but measurements show that your speed needs to be well over 100 mph to make even a few percent difference, super-charging-wise.)

Thanks, Moderator.

Regards.
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A, thus it turns into an even better analogy. Thinking you're going to "supercharge" simply with a scoop is a little bit crazy, yes, because it demonstrates a total lack of understanding. That doesn't at all make a scoop a bad thing.

Try this analogy on for size:

The "tomato can" chromed tail pipes. To some people that's a performance enhancement. Because it's shiny and loud, it's all they need to go fast and capture the admiration of many. There is no shortage at all of the soup can makers/sellers, who know that they can price certain soup cans insanely high over any other, and still have people buy them, thinking it will be shinier or louder...faster.

Those who truly understand the workings of an exhaust system, know that it isn't just make or break at the tail pipe, but that the tail pipe is a small part of an entire system that actually starts well beyond the exhaust itself, at the hood scoop actually 🙂

With all things ideal the tailpipe itself still makes very little difference, but isn't entirely ignored either, they however simply find much better places to spend most of the budget on, and use what adequately does the job for a tailpipe, it doesn't even have to look good.

Funny thing is with cars when they hit the track or dyno, there's just no arguing what works and what doesn't.

There's a much greyer area when it comes to amps, and furthering our understanding is still the only way to avoid such gross mistakes as thousand dollar a meter cables.

Regards,
Chris
 
#115
Have I started all this?? You guys will really get me into trouble with a moderator!

But back to sound, I once told someone who boasted a very loud exhaust system as proof of his vehicle's ability, that he must remember that all that sound energy must come from somewhere, detracting from his engine power. You should have seen the poor fellow's face plunging into a frown as he slowly turned away...... Not nice of me.

The saving grace with most mechanical measuring instruments is that they can be calibrated and give repeatable results. But with the ear as sensor .....

Then cars develop things; they are the source, and your particular personal preference can be part of the equation. But amplifiers (all audio equipment?) RE-produce things. What goes out must be as exact a replica as possible of what came in. That makes it both easier and harder.

Regards
 
#116
Johan Potgieter said:
Have I started all this?? You guys will really get me into trouble with a moderator!

But back to sound, I once told someone who boasted a very loud exhaust system as proof of his vehicle's ability, that he must remember that all that sound energy must come from somewhere, detracting from his engine power. You should have seen the poor fellow's face plunging into a frown as he slowly turned away...... Not nice of me.

The saving grace with most mechanical measuring instruments is that they can be calibrated and give repeatable results. But with the ear as sensor .....

Then cars develop things; they are the source, and your particular personal preference can be part of the equation. But amplifiers (all audio equipment?) RE-produce things. What goes out must be as exact a replica as possible of what came in. That makes it both easier and harder.

Regards
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Johan

You neglect acoustic effeciency. 1HP ~700W. 1 acoustic watt is a huge amount of output. It can be found that a large, say 4 square meter mouth exhaust horn could make the exhaust acoustic output much more effecient.

Have we gotten off topic enough 🙂

Mike
 
#117
So who's off topic? :xeye:

Anyway, I just replaced the manifold on my amp with a set of headers and what a difference! 😀

Maybe it's time I tried that chrome tail pipe again, just to be fair, as I didn't realize that manifold I always meant to replace was _such_ a bottleneck.

Does anyone have what it takes to make up a good number of different sets of cables towards an orthogonal array designed experiment, could even be double blind, with all the results posted online for the purpose of repetition towards further
statistical analysis.

Well, I'll try my old tail pipe again first. 🙄
 
#118
Portlandmike said:
You neglect acoustic effeciency. 1HP ~700W. 1 acoustic watt is a huge amount of output. It can be found that a large, say 4 square meter mouth exhaust horn could make the exhaust acoustic output much more effecient.
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Guilty as charged and plead insanity.

I knew that, Mike, but the boastful guy with the loud car did not. I have many faults myself, but I never could stand boastful guys. Not that type. So one finds a parry, even if it, er, means twisting science a little.😉

You would not have been caught by that. But then I would not have tried it on you.

Regards.
 
#120
I told you guys you are going to get me into trouble!

Seriously, CAL, apologies - I think I may have started this in post #95, there intending to point out by a more literal example than involving a human sense, that it happens in science that things are often not what they seem.

Your advice heeded.
 
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