I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

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tinitus said:
I have said before that I believe that the psycho aspect doesnt last long and only works on short terms

But like fredex I have made many improvements through crossover adjustments, genuine improvements which are exciting fore a while, but slowly things seems to turn into "normal" where sound is just sound, flawless boring sound

The new sound only become your reference after a while, your new standard.

Try going back to an old cable or old 'favourite' amplifier and listen if it is still as good as you have thought it to be.
 
Andre Visser said:


The new sound only become your reference after a while, your new standard.

Try going back to an old cable or old 'favourite' amplifier and listen if it is still as good as you have thought it to be.


Absolutely right, theres no going back

I have tried sometimes if I have changed something that seems to be better and in the right direction, but doesnt work completely right
But going back doesnt work either, as the "before" situation doesnt seem to work at all, so only option is to try and make "the new situation" work as intended, which means finding another adjustment to make it work

At times it seems kind of weird that what seemed good before suddenly doesnt work at all...one of those strange things
 
tinitus said:
Theres a saying I both like and fear..."it only sounds good until you have heard something better"...kind of wicked :bawling:

That is so true, before I bought my first hi-fi, I've listened for many months to everything I could find, then I refused to go and listen to other systems for many years.

It worked well untill I decided to look for a CD player, I ended up with a new system and is still busy searching for more. :bawling:

At least searching is part of the fun.
 
Hi everybody
I moved systems once and put in 15 ft runs of new 12 ga basic hook-up wire for the speakers. Played the first CD,- nothing but garbled staticky noise, totally unintelligible. Nothing else had been changed. It wasnt a cdp problem. All audio sources, same noise. Had a witness there too. I am not exaggerating, it could not be discerned as music. He looked at me like he thought he had fried something !

Let the system play for a couple hours, came back, sounded 'great'!

It would be hard to convince me cables dont make a difference. I have upgraded all my cables since, with significant benefits imho
 
2.5e30 said:
Hi everybody
I moved systems once and put in 15 ft runs of new 12 ga basic hook-up wire for the speakers. Played the first CD,- nothing but garbled staticky noise, totally unintelligible. Nothing else had been changed. It wasnt a cdp problem. All audio sources, same noise. Had a witness there too. I am not exaggerating, it could not be discerned as music. He looked at me like he thought he had fried something !

Let the system play for a couple hours, came back, sounded 'great'!

It would be hard to convince me cables dont make a difference. I have upgraded all my cables since, with significant benefits imho

Allowing for some artistic license in your painful initial listening experience....

Did you re-locate the speakers even a few inches or major pieces of furniture or your listening chair? If so, your hearing had to re-create a room image before you could hear accurately in that room. Been my experience repeatedly. Also, almost worthless to pay a visit somewhere and do an instant listening test; you need maybe an hour of snippets of music before your head understands the room well enough to judge much.

That's my own theory, but I seem to recall seeing some recent support for it published by psychologists (that's my own affiliation, BTW). There are various phenomena of hearing that demonstrate your brain is pretty active in the process of even the plainest of listening. The "ear" is no more like a mic than the "eye" works like a camera or the foot works like a car wheel. Can anybody cite relevant research fore or agin, please?

Footnote: talk about hallucinations, my BMW R1100S motorcycle group, Pelican Parts, have been having a debate (only three people on the contrary side, dozens of fantastic claims on the favorable side) about the incredible benefits of strengthening a certain steering part one of the members has manufactured and sells for $700. I've been citing this thread to them to illustrate how "influenced" people can get in their perceptions. Now: vice versa. Thank goodness the debate here is pretty evenly matched... at least in numbers of posters.
 
Andre Visser said:
Even I am a bit sceptical whether it was the cables that caused that. 😀

"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

Actually, I could think of a few things that could cause this, but the nature of the cable is indeed an unlikely one. Tightness of connections, temporary amplifier problems cleared up by switching on and off... one could nail it down by swapping the cables back and forth a few times and seeing if the problem was repeatable and actually a function of the cable. If so, I'd be looking at a very marginally stable amp.
 
I have moved 5 times till I had my own house.Everytime I had the same observations,even if I didn't have to change any cables.I don't have any doubt that when equipment sit for a while,and connected again,they need some time to perform like the last time they were in use.In your case there was a new cable involved,and dispite engineering oposition,cables(metal,insulations etc...)need to work for sometime till they reach their final performance.When everything is settled,then it is the time to realize the effects of the new room.You left the room and heard the improvements when you came back,so,comments like your brain needed some time to get used to the new room,is not at all right.What you've heard is a real phenomenon only engineers cannot accept.They might accept though that there was a temporary problem with the amp or something.In the end,it is your opinion against all others.If you enjoy your cable upgrades,then you are the one who's right.
 
Hi Andre,yes such a bad sound indicates something "suspect".If the system was disconnected for long this could be caused IMO by reservoir capacitors in the amp,that is why I said that temporary amp problem is possible and accepted.Something perhaps similar,happened with the CD player I wrote in a previous post.
By the way,a little something is flying towards your place tomorrow🙂
 
2.5e30 said:
Hi everybody
.................Let the system play for a couple hours, came back, sounded 'great'!.............................

Well I agree with others it wasn't cable burn in. As SY suggests it could have been an amp oscillation caused by those cables. If the amp had been un used for a while the electros could need a little time to be effective, and that could be a warning sign that the amp has marginal stability and you could have more troubles with it.
 
fredex said:
Andre, how are you on 'cable burn in' ?

Do you really want to know? 😀

I prefer 'play in' nothing get burned hopefully. :clown:

My experience is that cable do play in. With the cables that I've used and tested, it seems like settling time vary depending on conductor quality, maybe dielectric also, I'm not sure. The better quality cables took longer, some more than two weeks.
 
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