Jim, MRupp and Joachim, thanks for the tips.
I am keen to keep detachable head-shell as I'm still DJ-ing and want to be able to easily swap between listening and DJ cartridges (especially if a group of drunk friends end up back at my house late after a night out
). Similar considerations fuel a need to have shielding and a slightly longer than 20 cm run from the TT to the pre-amp. I may need to take the decks out to a party some times and sturdy construction coupled with some extra slack helps in such situations.
Cardas make a shielded 4x AWG33 litz construction, so I'm planning to get 2-3 ft (ca 1 metre) of that, lose the shielding for the part of it that will go in the arm and run it from the head-shell socket to the male RCAs (I may even get cardas stuff for these - just in case my common sense is wrong and they make a difference) that go into the pre amp (mixer in my case). Gratuitous use of heat-shrink at the pre-amp end and maybe some extra shielding will hide and protect the flimsy litz wires from view.
Of course, first stage will be trying this outside the wire with cardas clips connected straight onto the cart. If I can hear the difference, I'll do the surgery. If not, I'll sell the cable and RCAs on ebay and stick to the stock set-up.
I am keen to keep detachable head-shell as I'm still DJ-ing and want to be able to easily swap between listening and DJ cartridges (especially if a group of drunk friends end up back at my house late after a night out
). Similar considerations fuel a need to have shielding and a slightly longer than 20 cm run from the TT to the pre-amp. I may need to take the decks out to a party some times and sturdy construction coupled with some extra slack helps in such situations.Cardas make a shielded 4x AWG33 litz construction, so I'm planning to get 2-3 ft (ca 1 metre) of that, lose the shielding for the part of it that will go in the arm and run it from the head-shell socket to the male RCAs (I may even get cardas stuff for these - just in case my common sense is wrong and they make a difference) that go into the pre amp (mixer in my case). Gratuitous use of heat-shrink at the pre-amp end and maybe some extra shielding will hide and protect the flimsy litz wires from view.
Of course, first stage will be trying this outside the wire with cardas clips connected straight onto the cart. If I can hear the difference, I'll do the surgery. If not, I'll sell the cable and RCAs on ebay and stick to the stock set-up.
3 ft of shielded 4XAWG33, set of cartridge clips and pair of RCAs, all made by cardas, ordered at a painful £55 off ebay...I think this is more than I've spent on cables all my life combined...bloody hope it makes a difference...
Should all be here early next week and I'll do the experiment the weekend after. Will report back with results then.
Should all be here early next week and I'll do the experiment the weekend after. Will report back with results then.
Hi,
I admire your endeavour but do you honestly think those subtle cable differences are going to be audible or of any benefit to your audience?
Cheers,
I admire your endeavour but do you honestly think those subtle cable differences are going to be audible or of any benefit to your audience?
Cheers,
Hi,
I admire your endeavour but do you honestly think those subtle cable differences are going to be audible or of any benefit to your audience?
Cheers,
If you read my earlier posts you will see that, no, I actually don't honestly think they will make any difference whatsoever. This for the same reasons I honestly think the DIY interconnects I make with solid core bell-wire and decent but reasonably priced gold-plated-brass RCAs are as good as $100 kimber kable, but let's try to not get into another boring million post thread about that.
The point is that, despite my scepticism I am trying to keep an open mind and actually try before I decide to dismiss what I suspect will prove to be mythology.
As regards to the differences being "subtle", the cable and set-up I am going for is that which is most commonly suggested/offered by the analogue audiophile industry. If the industry is honest, not only would a difference be audible, but I really should expect a far more detailed, clear, dynamic, expressive and so on sound, to borrow some of the words used by various reviews. If no audible difference is heard using the recommended upgrade, well, I'm afraid I'll have to conclude the whole thing is yet another well marketed scam.
Sounds good to me! I've got my popcorn!
I will say this:
if there is a piece of wire in the entire hi-fi rig that will show the most change, I believe it is the tonearm wire due to the extremely low level signals and high gain soon thereafter. So whatever you pick up (good and bad) will be amplified.I also think construction methods (termination etc) is also paramount to good signal transfer in these low level cables. Avoid using plumbers solder might be a good start!
But seriously, I am watching and interested to see these results...
DIY tonearm cable:
on the picture you can see 4 cables. Each of them consists of 9 thin wires coming from relay coil. No need any insulation because every one is enameled. Tightly twisted.
Similar sound quallity presents VdH MCS - 150 M - copper version.
One thing is very important: the less connections the better.
K
on the picture you can see 4 cables. Each of them consists of 9 thin wires coming from relay coil. No need any insulation because every one is enameled. Tightly twisted.
Similar sound quallity presents VdH MCS - 150 M - copper version.
One thing is very important: the less connections the better.
K
Attachments
Hi, Newbie here (to forum, not HiFi) I read John Lynsley-Hood's opinion on cable years ago. He was/is an amplifier designer of some repute. His opinion was that there was no measurable difference between cables, assuming they were adequately sized, and if differences were not measurable, they didn't exist. He referred to "our golden eared brethren" who imagined they could discern these imagined differences. personally, I'm afflicted by tinnitus, so no longer benefit from good kit, save for its reliability, usability, and repairability.
Bob
Bob
Preliminary results are out
Damn, these hair-thin wires are so hard to work with!
Anyway, after spending a good few hours of my weekend working on this, I did a couple of tests today.
Unfortunately I have not been able to do a proper DB as I the only record I have twice is one that I had originally found in a charity shop, which proved to be in a bit of a sorry state, and then bough again later. Although I did try doing a DB with that, the dramatic difference in condition between the two records renders it imperfect, strictly speaking.
In addition to the faux DB, I tried playing a few records I know very well on both decks, one after the other.
The results so far are rather disappointing. Although there in the faux-DB I could definitely hear a difference, I suspect it related to the different examples. More importantly, I cannot say that one sounded better than the other, just somewhat different.
When playing the other records in turn, I could not really hear any difference (neither could my brother, nor my girlfriend).
I will try a proper DB test tomorrow, but must admit that I'm not holding my breath. One thing is for sure - the claims made by the industry of marked improvement do not seem to hold true!
Damn, these hair-thin wires are so hard to work with!
Anyway, after spending a good few hours of my weekend working on this, I did a couple of tests today.
Unfortunately I have not been able to do a proper DB as I the only record I have twice is one that I had originally found in a charity shop, which proved to be in a bit of a sorry state, and then bough again later. Although I did try doing a DB with that, the dramatic difference in condition between the two records renders it imperfect, strictly speaking.
In addition to the faux DB, I tried playing a few records I know very well on both decks, one after the other.
The results so far are rather disappointing. Although there in the faux-DB I could definitely hear a difference, I suspect it related to the different examples. More importantly, I cannot say that one sounded better than the other, just somewhat different.
When playing the other records in turn, I could not really hear any difference (neither could my brother, nor my girlfriend).
I will try a proper DB test tomorrow, but must admit that I'm not holding my breath. One thing is for sure - the claims made by the industry of marked improvement do not seem to hold true!
Hi,
Yep, it is all their fault.
Can I say, told you so now?
Cheers,
fdegrove, you can say what you want, but I set out to empirically test if cardas cables make a difference, so whether you, common sense or anyone else "told me so" I still wanted to go through the test. Also, I'm not sure I get the "yep, it's all their fault" comment - who's fault is it?
More generally, I am a little confused by your comments throughout this thread. Earlier on you insisted that using different types of tone-arm cable should make an audible difference, similarly to different types of water or beer having different taste. You later essentially dismissed the experiment as a waste of time. Could you please elaborate on what you think will and will not affect sound?
Hi,
I agree with you on that the industry should not make claims such as "marked improvement" without provided the proper conditions under which such a claim "could" be true.
OTOH, you wanted to go through with the test against my warning so you should not blame them.
I did not want you to stop from carrying out the experiment because I am convinced there is no audible difference.
Rather because I am convinced that within the context of the equipment you're testing it in chances of detecting such differences are pretty thin.
Cheers,
I agree with you on that the industry should not make claims such as "marked improvement" without provided the proper conditions under which such a claim "could" be true.
OTOH, you wanted to go through with the test against my warning so you should not blame them.
I did not want you to stop from carrying out the experiment because I am convinced there is no audible difference.
Rather because I am convinced that within the context of the equipment you're testing it in chances of detecting such differences are pretty thin.
Cheers,
Hi,
I agree with you on that the industry should not make claims such as "marked improvement" without provided the proper conditions under which such a claim "could" be true.
OTOH, you wanted to go through with the test against my warning so you should not blame them.
I did not want you to stop from carrying out the experiment because I am convinced there is no audible difference.
Rather because I am convinced that within the context of the equipment you're testing it in chances of detecting such differences are pretty thin.
Cheers,
I don't really follow why your warning means I cannot blame them. I didn't blame them for or moan about the time I spent building the wire and doing the test - I thoroughly enjoyed all but a couple of frustrating moments of that and continue to look forward to the rest of it this evening and the next few days. What I may blame them for are the lies and exaggerations, which you seem to agree are being used to market this stuff.
As for the context of the equipment I am testing it in, could you please elaborate? What sort of set-up is required to reveal the alleged differences?
My 2 cents.
30 years ago I owned a great system. At that time most wiring was still basic interconnects, thicker lamp cord type speaker cables (20 foot runs), and connectors that today would be laughed at.
Boy did that system sing. Most of my listening was done late at night, when the power coming into the house was untainted, and on weekends.
I was in audiophile heaven.
I then started on the upgrade path. New Cardas interconnects and speaker cables, Audio Research SP9 preamp, etc,,,,,,,,, and the music was gone.
My personal list of priorities now sit: 1) musical components, 2) clean power going into these components, 3) room treatments, 4) everything else, with the cables being last on the list.
30 years ago I owned a great system. At that time most wiring was still basic interconnects, thicker lamp cord type speaker cables (20 foot runs), and connectors that today would be laughed at.
Boy did that system sing. Most of my listening was done late at night, when the power coming into the house was untainted, and on weekends.
I was in audiophile heaven.
I then started on the upgrade path. New Cardas interconnects and speaker cables, Audio Research SP9 preamp, etc,,,,,,,,, and the music was gone.
My personal list of priorities now sit: 1) musical components, 2) clean power going into these components, 3) room treatments, 4) everything else, with the cables being last on the list.
Hi,
I do not have a list of what you have as a system but when I read "detachable headshell" I know from past experience that is already one possible reason why subtle difference in tonearm cable could just disappear.
Not saying it is the case, just that it is plausible.
Cheers,
Should note that I bypassed the detachable component of the headshell for the experiment.
Anyway, here goes the set-up. Please do advise on what you think ought to be changed and I will try it out if I can, or at least I will know what may be "wrong":
Denon DL-110 -->
single run of cardas wire from the cart all the way to RCA's, first 30-40 cms "naked", remaining 50-60 still in shield and outer jacket (at the moment this is taped on the outside of the tone arm) -->
DJ mixer, ECLER SMAC 32 -->
DIY cable made with three solid core copper conductors braided (one is only used for shielding and neutrik RCA plugs -->
"radio" input of Rogers Cadet 3 integrated valve amp (i.e. signal goes through both the pre-amp and power amp section of the rogers) -->
5 meter long copper stranded wire (cannot remember the thickness but was well above minimum requirement for the 5 meter length) -->
Lowther DX4s in Acousta enclosures
The set-up of the second turntable (the one I am comparing with) is exactly the same, with the exception being the use of the headshell leads and stock wire from the DL-110 to the mixer.
Also, for your information, the turntables are technics SL-1210 direct drive.
Thanks,
Nikos
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