Who's hedge are you trimming?
If SY weren't so cheap he'd step up to the deluxe 12 ga. yellow stuff (for even warmer sound) and be able to use the leftover LED power indicator in one of his amps.
If SY weren't so cheap he'd step up to the deluxe 12 ga. yellow stuff (for even warmer sound) and be able to use the leftover LED power indicator in one of his amps.
Well all I was saying, using wine as an analogy is that if you think you are getting better bang for your buck then you are, but personally I don't believe that after a certain price point no matter what you spend you are just succumbing to the ad-men, word of mouth, grape vine or whatever.
Back to the wine analogy, I have had better tasting miniscule euro whites from the South of France than maxi euro's of a particular vintage........to my palate that is.
So back to silver, to my ears it does sound, and I am not going to use the term brighter here because it come straight from some sales literature, just that bit harder at the top-end. To my ears. On a like-for-like swap basis, playing exactly the same source material at exactly ther same volume setting etc etc etc, to me it sounds the way it does. I prefer copper and carbon. I, too, do understand (if not type it in in a totally scientifically correct manor) how the electromagnetic field works on a cable. We are taught the right hand and left-hand rule afterall, with the field force and motion.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that it is purely subjective to the listener, surely. If he/she thinks that their 10p or £10,000 pure unobtanium cable is the dogs nuts then it is. Simple as that. I agree that some sources sound better than others, but now we are probably back to the implementation of electrical theory as to why, at differing price points. Or is it that they just sound different ? Undeniably.
Gareth
Back to the wine analogy, I have had better tasting miniscule euro whites from the South of France than maxi euro's of a particular vintage........to my palate that is.
So back to silver, to my ears it does sound, and I am not going to use the term brighter here because it come straight from some sales literature, just that bit harder at the top-end. To my ears. On a like-for-like swap basis, playing exactly the same source material at exactly ther same volume setting etc etc etc, to me it sounds the way it does. I prefer copper and carbon. I, too, do understand (if not type it in in a totally scientifically correct manor) how the electromagnetic field works on a cable. We are taught the right hand and left-hand rule afterall, with the field force and motion.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that it is purely subjective to the listener, surely. If he/she thinks that their 10p or £10,000 pure unobtanium cable is the dogs nuts then it is. Simple as that. I agree that some sources sound better than others, but now we are probably back to the implementation of electrical theory as to why, at differing price points. Or is it that they just sound different ? Undeniably.
Gareth
There is a twisted, infantile logic that pervades this thread and just about every other cable thread I have seen.
A guy/gal merely states that he/she finds cables / wires can sound similar (except where there are good reasons why not) - ergo he/she is a poor deluded engineer who spends megabucks on expensive exotic test equipment made by unscrupulous exploitative manufacturers, obviously having been hoodwinked by slick education into believing that sound quality is related to science.
The ‘subjectivists’ then pile on to have a great backslapping / smirking session while subjecting the poor miscreant to group ridicule.
(With thanks to mach1 for providing a rant template)
Friend buys a new fancy car. You ask him what he thinks of it. "It's rubbish", he says, "the salesman ripped me off. It keeps breaking down, and it looks naff." Doesn't happen, does it?
A guy/gal merely states that he/she finds cables / wires can sound similar (except where there are good reasons why not) - ergo he/she is a poor deluded engineer who spends megabucks on expensive exotic test equipment made by unscrupulous exploitative manufacturers, obviously having been hoodwinked by slick education into believing that sound quality is related to science.
The ‘subjectivists’ then pile on to have a great backslapping / smirking session while subjecting the poor miscreant to group ridicule.
(With thanks to mach1 for providing a rant template)
There is an alternative explanation for this phenomenon.Esperado said:
Friend buys a new fancy car. You ask him what he thinks of it. "It's rubbish", he says, "the salesman ripped me off. It keeps breaking down, and it looks naff." Doesn't happen, does it?
And the electron movement is taken from the INM's Nuclear, Bio., Chem. Warfare book. An amazing read.
Can I suggest an experiment? Find a group of audiophiles who have never heard a silver cable, and never read an advert or article about them. Ideally, people who don't even know that silver is a slightly better conductor and a bit more expensive than copper. Tell them that silver may have mechanical/chemical advantages but we just want to check whether it damages the sound. Don't let them see the cables. See how they describe the sound of silver.
Find another similar group, and tell them that silver adds harshness and distortion (make up some mumbo-jumbo to 'authenticate' this claim). See how they describe the sound of silver.
Find another similar group, and tell them that silver adds harshness and distortion (make up some mumbo-jumbo to 'authenticate' this claim). See how they describe the sound of silver.
Excellent suggestion. I wonder what the outcome would be and would even guess that group two (mumbo-jumbofied) would provide with the answers expected.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Do you mean that every audio device adds some kind of artifacts to the sound?
And that you can notice these artifacts?
The first one I can agree with, the last one not.
If a device has no audible artifacts, it has no sonic signature. And if a recording and reproduction system has no audible artifacts, it has no sonic signature. This is the holy grail of hifi audio. (I don´t think were there jet though).
Nice work Cal. Just noticed the driveway's on your photo site. Guess the ladders are for connecting the cable ??? Nice Mission 760's too. Used to have the SE version and are pretty nice for a small room, fed with ARCAM 10 pre/power and 63 ki sig. I used to like them til I swapped to AE's AE1. Real nice mini's - my fave.
Yup, worth every penny of the 10 dollars I paid for them. Gathering dust right now though as it pains me to use a commercial speaker when there are enough of the diy type in the fold. 🙂
Good man, couple of nice looking designs there too...keep it up. Seeing those 760's though...dust them off, not half as much fun though
Well, just organize a test with several different people on a VERY good set: constant impedance speakers if you can, and very stable amplifier.
Use 4 cables (one used two times like a 5th one). Chose cables with the same resistance.
Make loops of 5sec or 10sec of dynamic records to compare.
10 relays to switch between the cables on the both sides .
Prepare paper sheets for People can note fast from 1 to 10 their result ( cold/warm, soft/dynamic, natural/aggressive, whatever the poetry ...)
Explain for each cable, you will show a sample, what is his supposed advantages. For the 5th, take a fake very impressive looking sample to show.
Round 0: Announce each number while you shows a sample of the corresponding cable, but do not swap any cable, just switch from one to the same. Ask people to note the differences and to note their impressions for each of the 5 (same) cables.
Round 1 : Change the musical sample. Make listen each cable, while you announce the number and show the sample. and the two sets of the same cable next each other in the test. Ask people to note their impressions for each of the 5 cables.
Round 2: Change the musical sample again, and you announce again the numbers, but you have mixed-up in an order you knows (ex: 1->3, 2-->4, 3->5 , 4->1, 5->2). Ask people to note their impressions for each of the 5 cables and to remember their sounding color.
Round 3 : Ask people to recognize each cable with a blind test, without any announced number.
Enjoy the results.
I had made this kind of test in my studio, on big and very precise monitors (derived from Maison Du Haut Parleur AERIA system), 20/25 years ago, when happened this "cable sounding" discovery.
7 people participate. (two sound engineer, 2 movie editors, 1 secretary, 1 cable seller and 1 friend).
If i remember, one cable was silver plated, an other this Litz argument, one with a big number of very thin coper elements, one was an ordinary electric cable, and different isolators and spaces between the 2 wires.... But all in the same range of diameters except a huge one.
Very surprised to see the differences of color between the same cable ;-)
And nothing coherent in the answers.
The only thing coherent, was NO ONE had wrote the sound was the same, never, even when listening to the same cable... And people where very influenced by the look of the cables and the speech about. Adding the notes, the fake cable was much better than his twin.
Bu i hope some honest reviews (?) had published this kind of tests ? It talks a lot about our subjectivity, the blind test stuff and our memory etc...
Now, i'm definitively in the camp of those who believe in the Ohm law and buy the less expensive cable i can find according this law (Low R, thick isolator, not too bad looking in my living room if not hidden). And, if i want to change the sound of my systems, i work on parts where i can modify-it 1000 times more (multiplying by 0 ?) in the direction i want, filters, electronic slew rates and bandwitchs, loudspeakers, damping factors etc...
Who can talk seriously about cables sound ?
Use 4 cables (one used two times like a 5th one). Chose cables with the same resistance.
Make loops of 5sec or 10sec of dynamic records to compare.
10 relays to switch between the cables on the both sides .
Prepare paper sheets for People can note fast from 1 to 10 their result ( cold/warm, soft/dynamic, natural/aggressive, whatever the poetry ...)
Explain for each cable, you will show a sample, what is his supposed advantages. For the 5th, take a fake very impressive looking sample to show.
Round 0: Announce each number while you shows a sample of the corresponding cable, but do not swap any cable, just switch from one to the same. Ask people to note the differences and to note their impressions for each of the 5 (same) cables.
Round 1 : Change the musical sample. Make listen each cable, while you announce the number and show the sample. and the two sets of the same cable next each other in the test. Ask people to note their impressions for each of the 5 cables.
Round 2: Change the musical sample again, and you announce again the numbers, but you have mixed-up in an order you knows (ex: 1->3, 2-->4, 3->5 , 4->1, 5->2). Ask people to note their impressions for each of the 5 cables and to remember their sounding color.
Round 3 : Ask people to recognize each cable with a blind test, without any announced number.
Enjoy the results.
I had made this kind of test in my studio, on big and very precise monitors (derived from Maison Du Haut Parleur AERIA system), 20/25 years ago, when happened this "cable sounding" discovery.
7 people participate. (two sound engineer, 2 movie editors, 1 secretary, 1 cable seller and 1 friend).
If i remember, one cable was silver plated, an other this Litz argument, one with a big number of very thin coper elements, one was an ordinary electric cable, and different isolators and spaces between the 2 wires.... But all in the same range of diameters except a huge one.
Very surprised to see the differences of color between the same cable ;-)
And nothing coherent in the answers.
The only thing coherent, was NO ONE had wrote the sound was the same, never, even when listening to the same cable... And people where very influenced by the look of the cables and the speech about. Adding the notes, the fake cable was much better than his twin.
Bu i hope some honest reviews (?) had published this kind of tests ? It talks a lot about our subjectivity, the blind test stuff and our memory etc...
Now, i'm definitively in the camp of those who believe in the Ohm law and buy the less expensive cable i can find according this law (Low R, thick isolator, not too bad looking in my living room if not hidden). And, if i want to change the sound of my systems, i work on parts where i can modify-it 1000 times more (multiplying by 0 ?) in the direction i want, filters, electronic slew rates and bandwitchs, loudspeakers, damping factors etc...
Who can talk seriously about cables sound ?
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