"This alleged audio reviewer doesn't even know that audio is AC! Since I know audio signals are AC, I don't believe in directional cables. But that's beside the point."
I bought some elcheapo mic cable from the local rat shack, it's directional, because there's an arrow on it that say's so
Cables can only become directional once you terminate them. That is to say shield open at one end (whichever you prefer, usually the source) and mismatched connectors. Lot's of ignorance out there in the audio industry though.
I bought some elcheapo mic cable from the local rat shack, it's directional, because there's an arrow on it that say's so
Cables can only become directional once you terminate them. That is to say shield open at one end (whichever you prefer, usually the source) and mismatched connectors. Lot's of ignorance out there in the audio industry though.
rdf said:
I don't have the competence to say anything in that regard. I'm just saying that you increase the capacitance when you twist the leads and many report improved sound with tightly braided (often DIY) interconnects. I do not doubt them. I'm only saying you will get the same result by cranking up the treble, if your amp does have a treble control.
I'm not saying more treble means better sound. But we tend to hear it as such. Covering the tweeter with your hand is an easy way of illustrating it.
Judging from my quote, there are audio writers that are even more clueless than I. That cannot be a good thing.
classd4sure said:"This alleged audio reviewer doesn't even know that audio is AC! Since I know audio signals are AC, I don't believe in directional cables. But that's beside the point."
I bought some elcheapo mic cable from the local rat shack, it's directional, because there's an arrow on it that say's so
Cables can only become directional once you terminate them. That is to say shield open at one end (whichever you prefer, usually the source) and mismatched connectors. Lot's of ignorance out there in the audio industry though.
Directional cables that I use are directional due to shielding techniques where the shield is grounded at the receiving end only. There is a difference when installed the other way round.
There was a time when we would go out there and actually have cable contests. At that time my MIT shotguns were always the preferred cables.
phn said:
Don't you mean the other way around, that a considerable increase of capacitance may give a reduction in treble, thus corresponding to turning down the treble control. That is what would reasonably happen, if having any effect at all, and your analog of covering the tweeter seems to confirm that is what you meant.
Of course, for a badly designed amp, the increased capacitance may also cause the amp to oscillate, giving unpredictable sonic behaviour.
Re: Stereo Equipment Reviewers
Normally there will be a difference. But may not be improvement every time. If the design is based on good engineering practice, then there wil improvement.
I have replaced the power cord of two of my DVD players, and they to have much improvement in base. Other improvements are not so obvious. These are cheap DVD players though. Not having done more investigation on the onternal ciruits, my guess would be that it is due to the quality of the power supply design.
Camera One said:
Normally there will be a difference. But may not be improvement every time. If the design is based on good engineering practice, then there wil improvement.
I have replaced the power cord of two of my DVD players, and they to have much improvement in base. Other improvements are not so obvious. These are cheap DVD players though. Not having done more investigation on the onternal ciruits, my guess would be that it is due to the quality of the power supply design.
soongsc said:
Sure, which agrees with what I said. The joke here is that of course when I bought the cable from rat shack it was from a 200' roll, bulk junk, not only are there arrows on the jacket itself, but it even said "directional" on the sticker of the roll.
Hell, it's even worse than that. This is what the sleeve looks like:
"Nexxtech HIGH PERFORMANCE DIRECTIONAL BALANCED CABLE ---------------------------------------> SIGNAL PATH ----------------------------------------->"
Ahaha.......... siigh, goofs.
classd4sure said:
Well, maybe they provide it as instructions for people that want someone to make a decision for them?
I remember one power amp manufacturer actually used some Mission speaker cables, rip the leads apart and reverse the polarity saying that thay sounded better. I have never tried it though.
Christer said:
The interactions can be completely counterintuitive. At one stage playing around with an amp circuit, tightly twisted, pure silver, unshielded interconnects had plenty of audible RF while ~ 1/2" spaced, mostly air dielectric, Litz tape-type interconnects were dead silent. I can only guess the RF impedance of the silver cables interacted with the tube's grid and created a resonant tank in a radio/TV band.
poobah said:
Stooping low was when of their salesmen once told me that IR detectors are obsolete and so they weren't stocking them anymore. Should have popped the zits off his face.
Actually what we have here now is The Suck, by Shircuit citty. They're no different.
I had a high-end shop manager/owner tell me once that he foundhe had a choice:
A- Spout what ever the current audiophile manrta is even if he didn't believe it.
B- Drive away customers, go broke and return to working in an office.
He consoled himself by deciding that no one would actually buy useless junk from him, but they may very well over pay for excellent products purchased for silly reasons. He was able to keep shop and is concience.
Curmudgeon said:
You misunderstand the nature of 'expectation bias' . Psychological biases need not be consciously acknowledged, to exist. The simple fact that *two apparently different things* are being compared, is enough to allow for expectation bias, whether the listener claims to 'expect difference' or not. People tend to 'hear' difference whenever they're presented two 'different' things and asked to determine if they sound different. (They can even be presented the *same thing* twice, and if they are led to believe it's two different things, they'll hear 'difference'.)
Again, these annoyingly human traits are the reason why experimental controls are mandatory in any of the sciences that test perception..or scientific product evaluation.
krabapple said:
I am the friend of which Curmudgeon spoke. Yes there is perceptual bias in human affairs. In our case we had made several different cables in an attempt to understand the mechanisms (if any) of a cable sound signature (for lack of a better term). So we expected that maybe the various cables would be different , but had no preconceived expectations as to which home made cable would be best.
Now when we listen to cables all made by us, we certainly have no favoritism of manufacturer nor of constructor, one can reasonbly expect these biases to cancel leaving only a sound of one cable over another that we may preffer.
To us, some techniques of constuction had a far cleaner presentation, using the strenghts we perceived of one method of construction over another we continued to optimize the partcicular technique and continued to hear improved clarity mostly due to removal of noise or dirt obscuring the signal.
So yes, we are merely human, but we heard improvements absent of the kind of bias you propose since we ourselves made all the cables. Additionally the same basic concept continued to provide improvements as each cable became more optimized to build on previous strengths. Since each technique now yielded an improvement we had some supporting evidence that we were on to something. (Not at all unique, an effort to read on the internet other's peoples results with simlar experimnents leads to the same exact conclusion).
And the big secret? Minimize capacitance! (Good quality wire and connectors also matter, but we used the same and the best we could find in each test)
A little math says that the cable capacitance itself is too small to be a real issue. Presumably it is dielectric absorbtion that is the culprit. All capacitors that use a dielectric (basically any insulator) exhibit dieletric absorbtion. All cables made with any kind of plastic insulator will have dielectric absorbtion. If you buy insulators with low dielectric constants, each reduction in this value seems to result in cleaner sound for the finished cable.
Hi hermanv,
I would personally agree with what you are saying. This from my observations over the years.
-Chris
I would personally agree with what you are saying. This from my observations over the years.
-Chris
SY said:
There were two of us, and it is possible our unconscious biases might have matched. Not that likely, at he begining of our tests we each championed a somewhat different technique as to how to make better cables.
When we listened and discussed the end result, we used only that information where what we think we heard matched, to proceed to the next step. Again and again we find independent agreement as to what sounds good when tests are done by other testers.
A fairly large number of sucessful DBT test have been perfomed by cable manufacturers, by recording studios, by end users over the last 15 years. The doubters can always find a flaw, because they have already reached a conclusion long before participating in any of the tests or reading the test results.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.