Any audiophile here? Question on some topics.

[yungman]

There are a lot of so called black magic in this. Some seems to pan out, some I don't understand.

1) I know from personal experience that large cable like monster cable for speakers work. Me and my wife did an experiment. I used some Monster Cable like cables and listen to the sound with different of pairs in parallel. We could here the difference with the openess of the sound ( seem to have a bigger sound stage and better separation ) every time I parallel one extra pair of the big cable. We end up having 4 pairs of big cables in parallel to get the better sound on each side! Two pairs for the woofer and two pairs for the mid and tweeter.

2) I use Monster cable to interconnect from DVD player to Amp, From sattlite reciever to different players, it does make a difference compare with the cheap RCA jets that come with every VCR or DVD players. Why? I can see the speaker cable has to drive low impedance load, any small parasitic will hurt. But the line or AUX input is in 10K+ ohm range, why does it make a difference. The fact the little RG58 can pass hundreds of MHz. How can this make a difference?...AND it really does! I end up spending hundreds of dollars buying just cables!

I am sure there are more other "superspicious" stuffs...like what cap to use! Other than the ESR issue that can be overcome by parallel diferent value caps. For example if you need a 470uF, you put something like a 10uF in parallel with the 470uF ( well increase the capacitance a little). Maybe using 3 of the 3.3uF in parallel or 4 of the 2.2uF to make up approx. 10uF. This will further lower the ESR for high frequency response.

There just a lot of this kind of stuffs floating around in the audiophile and guitar amp arena. Feel free to join in your opinions.

Merry Christmas

Alan

 

[Averagesupernova]

All I can say is WOW! Don't expect much cooperation from this group.

 

[yungman]

All I can say is WOW! Don't expect much cooperation from this group.

So nobody here into audiophile here?

 

[Averagesupernova]

I won't say there is no one here that doesn't appreciate high fidelity. However, if you expect an explanation of why paralleling a certain brand of speaker wire (already plenty oversized) makes it sound better you will be disappointed, since it doesn't. I suspect you have some misconceptions of impedance based on this comment:

I can see the speaker cable has to drive low impedance load, any small parasitic will hurt.

 

[MikeeMiracle]

What you are referring to is known as bi-wiring speakers and is very common in audiophile circles. This is the way it was explained to me.

The speaker generates noise by passing a current through a coil which is placed in magnet, this makes the coil move, which is attached to the cone, producing the sound. This can also work the other way, when the cone moves is generates a current in the opposite direction and back down the wire to the amp. With the size of the magnet is most woofer's, this "back current" generated is sufficient to "interfere" with the high frequency signals. Now if you bi-wire a set of speakers and your amp supports this configuration, that "back current" only passes back to the wire connected to the woofer, thus the high frequency can reach the tweeter undisturbed to produce a much cleaner sound.

If you have three cones in your speaker you will also find that surprisingly it's the woofer and mid which are wired together with the tweeter being wired completely idenpendantly.

 

[vk6kro]

There is just a little bit of truth in this.

If you have a weight suspended on springs and you hit the weight, it will oscillate around its rest point and gradually come to rest.

A speaker cone is a little like that. One drum beat should sound like one drum beat, but on cheap speakers and small amplifiers, it gets a sound that depends on the speaker cone, due to the extra oscillation that occurs.
You can tell something got hit, but that is about all.

What can force it to quit oscillating is the damping effect of putting a low resistance across the coil. This comes from the output impedance of the amplifier which should be a lot less than the impedance of the speaker.

Unfortunately, the speaker leads are in series with this very low impedance damping. So, having very low impedance wires does have an effect on the resulting sound.

To be fair, I have had this effect demonstrated and I really couldn't tell the difference, but the theory supports it.

 

[MikeeMiracle]

And in response to your second question, the cables you get provided with any system will always be cheap and nasty, buying or even making your own pair from components bought at any electrical resaler will provide you with much better sound. Getting deep into technical specs like you are might separate out top quality interconnects, but the main difference here over the ones supplied is simply a case of the supplied cabled always being cheap built with low quality components and cables.

Additionaly you have the purity of the cables themselves, as you get into higher priced cables you find the actual cables inside are manufactured to higher standards with far less imperfections in the strands of metal material itself. The "size" of the wire is not really revelant. If it was a just a question of producing a cable with a certain capacitance like you are suggested, then that could easily be massed produced bundled with any Audio Visual equipment by the manufacturer's for next to nothing yet it is not.

Again any serious audiophile when budgeting for any system will always dedicate 10% of his budget to cabling. There's no point having top quality separates if what you are connecting them up with is below par. This is the single biggest mistake most people make :)

 

[yungman]

There is just a little bit of truth in this.

If you have a weight suspended on springs and you hit the weight, it will oscillate around its rest point and gradually come to rest.

A speaker cone is a little like that. One drum beat should sound like one drum beat, but on cheap speakers and small amplifiers, it gets a sound that depends on the speaker cone, due to the extra oscillation that occurs.
You can tell something got hit, but that is about all.

What can force it to quit oscillating is the damping effect of putting a low resistance across the coil. This comes from the output impedance of the amplifier which should be a lot less than the impedance of the speaker.

Unfortunately, the speaker leads are in series with this very low impedance damping. So, having very low impedance wires does have an effect on the resulting sound.

To be fair, I have had this effect demonstrated and I really couldn't tell the difference, but the theory supports it.

The audio quality is not about having more highs, or clearer. Actually when you sit back, and listen, you feel the sound is more open and each instrument have more separation ( you feel more like listening in a concert where you can hear the separation between instrument ). That is the best way I can described, it has nothing to do with the treble sound nicer, or the human voice sounded prettier etc. Both me and my wife listen together and feel the same way.

I am an analog engineer for over 25 years, I know that this is totally nonsense in signal theories. I was very into guitar amplifiers and I am very strong in pcb layout for signal integrity and EM emmition. I actually build a guitar amplifier with all the low noise and low cross talk knowledge and treat it like RF ciruitries that I put all the attention on grounding, shielding and all. Guess what happened? The amp sound good, but not great. The only words I can use to describe the sound is "clinical"! It just did not have the color or life of a great amplifier. The clean sound did not jump out like the old VOX AC30, the distortion sound just don't quite measured up to the old cranked Marshall of the 60s. It sound like two dimensions.

But if you look at some of the great amplifiers and check their layout, you might be stunned how bad the layouts are according to crosstalk and signal ingrity point of view! It is almost like it's the flauds that make a great amplifier!

I know I know, I felt I sound stupid as I type this, but I can hear it.

 

[vk6kro]

If the speaker position follows the voltage from the amplifier, then the sound will be clearer and this will be truer if the cables have low resistance.

I know I know, I felt I sound stupid as I type this, but I can hear it.

If you just paid $200 for some speaker cables, of course you are going to hear a difference, whether it is there or not. If you admit there is no difference, then you admit you just wasted your money and your brain will fight that to the point where you can see sense in insanity.

There is no possible point in using large diameter cable on line inputs. These are high impedance compared with speaker cables. The wire doesn't matter, but it must be well shielded.
If you can hear a difference with these, then this may be the power of wanting it to sound better.

Speaker cable makers don't make their own wire. They buy it from wire makers who make lots of wire for different purposes, but they make it all from the same high quality copper.
There is no special wire with special crystal structures or incredible purity.

Cheap RCA plugs have "press-fit" joints in them where connections are made just by bending two bits of metal together. These will give you no end of trouble as the joins start to corrode.
I solder across these joins if I find them, but I won't buy these plugs.

So, as long as you avoid these rubbish plugs, and buy reasonable diameter wire, you can make cables that are at least as good as the so-called monster cables.

 

[yungman]

If the speaker position follows the voltage from the amplifier, then the sound will be clearer and this will be truer if the cables have low resistance.

I know I know, I felt I sound stupid as I type this, but I can hear it.

If you just paid $200 for some speaker cables, of course you are going to hear a difference, whether it is there or not. If you admit there is no difference, then you admit you just wasted your money and your brain will fight that to the point where you can see sense in insanity.

There is no possible point in using large diameter cable on line inputs. These are high impedance compared with speaker cables. The wire doesn't matter, but it must be well shielded.
If you can hear a difference with these, then this may be the power of wanting it to sound better.

Speaker cable makers don't make their own wire. They buy it from wire makers who make lots of wire for different purposes, but they make it all from the same high quality copper.
There is no special wire with special crystal structures or incredible purity.

Cheap RCA plugs have "press-fit" joints in them where connections are made just by bending two bits of metal together. These will give you no end of trouble as the joins start to corrode.
I solder across these joins if I find them, but I won't buy these plugs.

So, as long as you avoid these rubbish plugs, and buy reasonable diameter wire, you can make cables that are at least as good as the so-called monster cables.

Actually if you know me, I am not the type that buy into anything, commercial never work for me and I am always very skeptical.

Acutally, I never really get the true Monster speaker cable, I am just to cheap. I experiment with the Monster like cable that I bought in OSH and play with it. I looked at the Monster cable, the strangs are very fine. I check out the cable I bought, it was very fine also. I just kept pairing it up and listen to it. I stop at 4 pairs because the fifth pair did not help anymore. As for interconnect RCA cable, I notice big difference from cheap stuffs that comes with the VCR to the first Monster cable. I went all out and got a pair that was like $100 12 years ago and I have to say it is no better than the normal Monster cable. There is another thing that they even make the cable directional...Now that I don't even buy and I cannot hear any difference. I checked the skin depth of coper at 20KHz, I am surprised it is only about 0.4mm. I guess the finer the strands, you have more surface area on the surface on the top layer close to the insulation.

As for amps, I am not familiar with the circuits of the audiophile amps. But I am very very familiar with a lot of the tube amps like Fender, Marshall, Mesa etc. Basically there is only two different type that is the most popular, one is Fender, the other is Marshall. The major difference is Marshall has a cathode follower to drive the tone control circuits. Other than that, they are very similiar. Most others are just copy and minor changes. They do sound different. And I can tell you, after over 30 years, nobody can manage to make a solid state amp sound like a tube guitar amp yet...even with the latest DSP technology and modelling. It is just not even close. A lot of audiophile amps are still tube amps. Brands like Conrad Johnson, Cary etc.

Another very distince thing about an audiophile system. They sound good even at low volume where the normal stereo only sound better if you crank it up.

 

[MikeeMiracle]

Speaker cable makers don't make their own wire. They buy it from wire makers who make lots of wire for different purposes, but they make it all from the same high quality copper.
There is no special wire with special crystal structures or incredible purity.

Generally true upto a certain point but when you start spending big money on cables then they are not made of "normal" general purpose cable.

Silver is supposed to be the best conductor of music in audiophile circles and the higher quality cables are made from this, similarly if you are spending upwards £10,000 for an amp then it's likely the wiring inside will be pure silver. Gold comes in at second place for quality but the reaon explained to me why we do not see silver inconnects is thart it's relatively easily to "gold plate" an item like a interconnector where as I was told it is not possible to "silver plate" an item.

To put thing into perspective though you have to be using high end separates to hear the difference the cable makes. The higher the quality of the components the higher quality the cables you need to tell the difference. if you whole system costs £500 then you will not hear any diference between cables (assuming we are not using the supplied ones.) If like myself your amplifier and speakers alone cost £2500 then the difference in what you hear between cables is night and day.

The main point which really struck me when I purchased my setup was the separation between the instruments that was described here, each instrument sounds independant of the other unlike cheap hifi when all you get is what I describe as a "wall of noise." This is expecially true when you turn up the volume on a cheap amp, it just noise getting louder. A proper setup will retain the clarity and separation even when you crack the volume up.

I find the problem with posting a question like this on here is that in my opinion 99.9% of people use or have only experienced those cheap (read under £1000) hi fi systems so it's seems dfficult for them to understand what you are referring to and in their minds can easily dismiss this effect as psychological.

 

[jasonRF]

This topic has a long history of controversy - the placebo effect can be strong at times! An interesting article is here:

http://sound.westhost.com/cables.htm

If you follow the link to the ABX data page is interesting. In double blind tests, folks usually cannot tell the difference between expensive cable and generic zip cord.

This is kind of like how expensive wine tastes better as long as you know it is more expensive:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.c...ensive-wines-taste-better/?src=me&ref=general

Audio can be a hobby, so doesn't have to follow logic, but just realize that when you know how much something costs or what the reviews are, it will effect how you think it sounds.

Enjoy!

jason

 

[schip666!]

As a former audio engineer, whose ears are now mostly useless, and former wine enthusiast, whose nose has pretty much gone south as well -- at least I can now enjoy cheap wine while listening to mp3s on a bad stereo -- I have always wondered about the Monster Cable - Gold patch cable thing.

A friend recently insisted that his new Gold cables were much better and we did a comparison listen. Unfortunately it was sequential and not side-by-side and I couldn't hear any difference (but, you know, my ears are shot). He is also totally convinced by his Monster Cables...

So two things in this discussion make sense to me:

1) Double cabling. In systems that are not bi-amped, running a separate cable to the tweeters could help isolate "kick-back" from the woofer. But don't all you audiophilists bi-, if not tri-, amp your systems?

2) Using good patch cables where the connection between wire and connector is better-than-crimped should help. That bit never occurred to me. It's probably a contributing factor with el-cheapo RCA cables, along with gold making a better contact surface.

I still can't see why doubling up the speaker cables in parallel would make any difference, presuming that the single cable is large enough to handle the power. Seems like the interconnects would be more of an issue. Do you silver-solder all your speaker connections?

And on the subject of Gold/Silver... Yes silver conducts the best so one might use it for high-power wiring, but it corrodes quite easily and doesn't make a good contact surface. Gold is "noble" -- doesn't oxidize easily -- but conducts worse than copper if you want to start arguing about small amounts of resistance in higher impedance circuits...

 

[yungman]

Generally true upto a certain point but when you start spending big money on cables then they are not made of "normal" general purpose cable.

Silver is supposed to be the best conductor of music in audiophile circles and the higher quality cables are made from this, similarly if you are spending upwards £10,000 for an amp then it's likely the wiring inside will be pure silver. Gold comes in at second place for quality but the reaon explained to me why we do not see silver inconnects is thart it's relatively easily to "gold plate" an item like a interconnector where as I was told it is not possible to "silver plate" an item.

To put thing into perspective though you have to be using high end separates to hear the difference the cable makes. The higher the quality of the components the higher quality the cables you need to tell the difference. if you whole system costs £500 then you will not hear any diference between cables (assuming we are not using the supplied ones.) If like myself your amplifier and speakers alone cost £2500 then the difference in what you hear between cables is night and day.

The main point which really struck me when I purchased my setup was the separation between the instruments that was described here, each instrument sounds independant of the other unlike cheap hifi when all you get is what I describe as a "wall of noise." This is expecially true when you turn up the volume on a cheap amp, it just noise getting louder. A proper setup will retain the clarity and separation even when you crack the volume up.

I find the problem with posting a question like this on here is that in my opinion 99.9% of people use or have only experienced those cheap (read under £1000) hi fi systems so it's seems dfficult for them to understand what you are referring to and in their minds can easily dismiss this effect as psychological.

I am glad to hear someone else agree. As an engineer my whole career, it is actually very hard to swallow. But if you close your eyes, it is almost like you can hear the instrument in each position of the stage. It is like 3D. Maybe their is truth about the quality balance of the whole system. I found using the 5th pair of speaker cable in parallel do not help. That might be the limit of my system.

I found a link about this topic:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spkcbl_e.html

Read this and follow the link inside the article. On first pass, I cannot find anything I can disagree with. It talked about what to look out and why. I am surprised the author consider single strand better! The best is thin foil!

Also, the interconnect is part of it. Then there are the capacitors! THey insist on certain caps!

 

[yungman]

As a former audio engineer, whose ears are now mostly useless, and former wine enthusiast, whose nose has pretty much gone south as well -- at least I can now enjoy cheap wine while listening to mp3s on a bad stereo -- I have always wondered about the Monster Cable - Gold patch cable thing.

A friend recently insisted that his new Gold cables were much better and we did a comparison listen. Unfortunately it was sequential and not side-by-side and I couldn't hear any difference (but, you know, my ears are shot). He is also totally convinced by his Monster Cables...

So two things in this discussion make sense to me:

1) Double cabling. In systems that are not bi-amped, running a separate cable to the tweeters could help isolate "kick-back" from the woofer. But don't all you audiophilists bi-, if not tri-, amp your systems?

2) Using good patch cables where the connection between wire and connector is better-than-crimped should help. That bit never occurred to me. It's probably a contributing factor with el-cheapo RCA cables, along with gold making a better contact surface.

I still can't see why doubling up the speaker cables in parallel would make any difference, presuming that the single cable is large enough to handle the power. Seems like the interconnects would be more of an issue. Do you silver-solder all your speaker connections?

And on the subject of Gold/Silver... Yes silver conducts the best so one might use it for high-power wiring, but it corrodes quite easily and doesn't make a good contact surface. Gold is "noble" -- doesn't oxidize easily -- but conducts worse than copper if you want to start arguing about small amounts of resistance in higher impedance circuits...

About the double cabling for speaker, my theory is 14 gauge wire like Monster Cable or clowns are the most common. YOu don't exactly want to get a 10 gauge electrical wire that is stiff like a rod for speaker cable. So the next best is to pair up. Those cable because of the fine strands, they are very soft.

Also another issue that is even more important. In order to get mimimal attenuation and phase shift at 20KHz, you need to design to 100KHz. At that freq, skin depth is less the 0.2mm. You cannot exactly using a 10 gauge and think that would equal to multiple of 14 gauge wires in parallel. Ideally, 24 gauge is the most efficient if you account for the skin effect. So a good cable should be paralleling many pairs of isolated 24 gauge wires together...like th transformer insulated wire.

 

[yungman]

As a former audio engineer, whose ears are now mostly useless, and former wine enthusiast, whose nose has pretty much gone south as well -- at least I can now enjoy cheap wine while listening to mp3s on a bad stereo -- I have always wondered about the Monster Cable - Gold patch cable thing.

A friend recently insisted that his new Gold cables were much better and we did a comparison listen. Unfortunately it was sequential and not side-by-side and I couldn't hear any difference (but, you know, my ears are shot). He is also totally convinced by his Monster Cables...

So two things in this discussion make sense to me:

1) Double cabling. In systems that are not bi-amped, running a separate cable to the tweeters could help isolate "kick-back" from the woofer. But don't all you audiophilists bi-, if not tri-, amp your systems?

2) Using good patch cables where the connection between wire and connector is better-than-crimped should help. That bit never occurred to me. It's probably a contributing factor with el-cheapo RCA cables, along with gold making a better contact surface.

I still can't see why doubling up the speaker cables in parallel would make any difference, presuming that the single cable is large enough to handle the power. Seems like the interconnects would be more of an issue. Do you silver-solder all your speaker connections?

And on the subject of Gold/Silver... Yes silver conducts the best so one might use it for high-power wiring, but it corrodes quite easily and doesn't make a good contact surface. Gold is "noble" -- doesn't oxidize easily -- but conducts worse than copper if you want to start arguing about small amounts of resistance in higher impedance circuits...

I went to the topic on caps. I do think there is some truth about caps in the sense that very large value caps must have limited high frequence response due to the parasitic inductance and conductance. That I think parallel small value cap might extend the frequence response. eg. 10uF parallel with the 470uF. Better yet, 4 of the 2.2uF. For low impedance crossover network, you are dealing with high current, you want to mimimize the parasitic. This is just my thinking.

The thing that bugs me the most is why don't they use regulated power supply in the high end system, instead, they use toroidal transformer and all. I can tell you in guitar amplifier, we actually don't want a stiff power supply, we want the power supply to sag! Just like some of the highest end guitar amp still you tube rectifiers to get the voltage sag instead of even diodes! The biggest mystery is the human ears...what is consider good sounding. As I mentioned before, I designed a guitar amp, layout out according to the straightest cross talk and interference theory that I use in my career of low noise high dynamic range design. It sounded "good", nothing great. Best describe the sound is "clinical"!

 

[OmCheeto]

This topic has a long history of controversy - the placebo effect can be strong at times! An interesting article is here:

http://sound.westhost.com/cables.htm

If you follow the link to the ABX data page is interesting. In double blind tests, folks usually cannot tell the difference between expensive cable and generic zip cord.

This is kind of like how expensive wine tastes better as long as you know it is more expensive:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.c...ensive-wines-taste-better/?src=me&ref=general

Audio can be a hobby, so doesn't have to follow logic, but just realize that when you know how much something costs or what the reviews are, it will effect how you think it sounds.

Enjoy!

jason

Holy Moses!

Jason,

I used to be an audiophile, and with ears of cloth now, I ran across the same links yesterday, trying to figure out the reason I spent crazy amounts of money on music in my youth.

But I believe yungman and his wife may be in that 99.95% category of people who can discern the subtle sonic phase imbalance that generates that; "This isn't quite right" feeling.



Om

ps. I had fairly cheap high end equipment, and never went beyond 10 gauge zip cord. You were correct to stop at 4 pairs yungman.

 

[yungman]

Holy Moses!

Jason,

I used to be an audiophile, and with ears of cloth now, I ran across the same links yesterday, trying to figure out the reason I spent crazy amounts of money on music in my youth.

But I believe yungman and his wife may be in that 99.95% category of people who can discern the subtle sonic phase imbalance that generates that; "This isn't quite right" feeling.



Om

ps. I had fairly cheap high end equipment, and never went beyond 10 gauge zip cord. You were correct to stop at 4 pairs yungman.

I used to be very skeptical about the wiring when I first heard of the Monster cable. I actually came from the other side. I don't have the best, more like the cheapest of the high ends stuff. I remember when I upgraded to my first pair of Kef floor speakers, I was disappointed that it was not much better than my Radio Shak special! So I start asking around and people told me about increase the speaker cable size. It did magic. And at the time, still it was not as good as those Monster stuff. Then I up graded to a pair of JM Lab one model down from Utopia. At the time, I was disappointed of that too. At the time, I still thought better means the high is sweeter, the singer's voice should be a little more real and the bass should be a little deeper. I had none of that. I was switching despirately back and fore between the Kef and the JM Lab and I was frustrated, that was 4 or 5 times the price of the Kef! I was so discussed that I took a break and just sat there with the JM Lab on. Then I start noticing how come the sound is much "bigger". Then I stop and actually pay attention and switch back to the Kef. Then I really notice the difference. That was the first time I ever notice this kind of difference between different quality speakers. Nobody tell me what to listen for, I was wrong all these years thinking about the highs, the middle and the lows but in fact it is a totally different world when come to audiophile. At certain point, all the highs and lows coming out of the speakers are all good already, if not, the set don't even belong to this category.

I am still skeptical on the different kind of caps...that is until I am being convinced. I am not the kind with psychosymetic, all the commercial never work on me. All the food subpriments never really work on me. People can talk until their face turn blue and won't move me until I experience it. In fact I have a mind set that it is false until it is proven true!

 

[OmCheeto]

I used to be very skeptical about the wiring when I first heard of the Monster cable. I actually came from the other side. I don't have the best, more like the cheapest of the high ends stuff. I remember when I upgraded to my first pair of Kef floor speakers, I was disappointed that it was not much better than my Radio Shak special! So I start asking around and people told me about increase the speaker cable size. It did magic. And at the time, still it was not as good as those Monster stuff. Then I up graded to a pair of JM Lab one model down from Utopia. At the time, I was disappointed of that too. At the time, I still thought better means the high is sweeter, the singer's voice should be a little more real and the bass should be a little deeper. I had none of that. I was switching despirately back and fore between the Kef and the JM Lab and I was frustrated, that was 4 or 5 times the price of the Kef! I was so discussed that I took a break and just sat there with the JM Lab on. Then I start noticing how come the sound is much "bigger". Then I stop and actually pay attention and switch back to the Kef. Then I really notice the difference. That was the first time I ever notice this kind of difference between different quality speakers. Nobody tell me what to listen for, I was wrong all these years thinking about the highs, the middle and the lows but in fact it is a totally different world when come to audiophile. At certain point, all the highs and lows coming out of the speakers are all good already, if not, the set don't even belong to this category.

I am still skeptical on the different kind of caps...that is until I am being convinced. I am not the kind with psychosymetic, all the commercial never work on me. All the food subpriments never really work on me. People can talk until their face turn blue and won't move me until I experience it. In fact I have a mind set that it is false until it is proven true!

I was also skeptical about the things they said 30 years ago. You are correct to surmise that it is only your ear that matters.

On a side note, we were discussing something similar on chat yesterday. What is the source of your music? MP3? CD? Vinyl? Radio?

 

[yungman]

I was also skeptical about the things they said 30 years ago. You are correct to surmise that it is only your ear that matters.

On a side note, we were discussing something similar on chat yesterday. What is the source of your music? MP3? CD? Vinyl? Radio?

Don't laugh, my main thing is TV programs, music DVDs and some CDs .:rofl:!

I tell you, I don't do surround sound, I have all the speakers, I have Kef Reference series center, and cheapy Valodyne sub, and a pair of cheap Infinity back speaker. I never use in surround sound mode because it distorted the quality of sound. I just put it on Stereo mode and only have the sub woofer on only. I don't like any processed sound, I bypass the tone and presence circuits. You'd be surprised how nice the sound for just sattlite reciever programs. Maybe if I spend big money to buy those back speakers to match up the front, I might change my mind. But now that I am not working, I am not going to spend this kind of money to try it out where I am happy with what I have. I don't even watch much movies where all the big sounds are, just common TV programs and some music DVDs and CDs. I don't crank the sound up, which make it more critical to have better sound as the ordinary system don't sound good until you crank it...Too old for loud stuff! I remember when I had the surround sound hooked up, I only cranked it up to show guess for the "ohhs and ahhs", then when they leave, then back to the stereo mode! Since I moved, I never get myself up to hook up the rest of the system.

 

[OmCheeto]

Don't laugh, my main thing is TV programs, music DVDs and some CDs .:rofl:!

I tell you, I don't do surround sound, I have all the speakers, I have Kef Reference series center, and cheapy Valodyne sub, and a pair of cheap Infinity back speaker. I never use in surround sound mode because it distorted the quality of sound. I just put it on Stereo mode and only have the sub woofer on only. I don't like any processed sound, I bypass the tone and presence circuits. You'd be surprised how nice the sound for just sattlite reciever programs. Maybe if I spend big money to buy those back speakers to match up the front, I might change my mind. But now that I am not working, I am not going to spend this kind of money to try it out where I am happy with what I have. I don't even watch much movies where all the big sounds are, just common TV programs and some music DVDs and CDs. I don't crank the sound up, which make it more critical to have better sound as the ordinary system don't sound good until you crank it...Too old for loud stuff! I remember when I had the surround sound hooked up, I only cranked it up to show guess for the "ohhs and ahhs", then when they leave, then back to the stereo mode! Since I moved, I never get myself up to hook up the rest of the system.

After reading this, I cannot laugh. It sounds very much like you already know what is going on. Surround sound is pop fad garbage. Your KEF reference speakers, properly balanced with your little Infinities and subwoofer, should sound like a million dollars. You should not waste your money upgrading the Infinities.

 

[OmCheeto]

Then I stop and actually pay attention and switch back to the Kef. Then I really notice the difference. That was the first time I ever notice this kind of difference between different quality speakers. Nobody tell me what to listen for, I was wrong all these years thinking about the highs, the middle and the lows but in fact it is a totally different world when come to audiophile. At certain point, all the highs and lows coming out of the speakers are all good already, if not, the set don't even belong to this category.

I'm afraid I may have already pulled this thread out of topic, but I'd like to ask one last question; Do you and your wife have musical background? Did either of you learn music at a young age? Perhaps playing in an orchestra or band?

I've never thought about it before, but I'm curious if people who were immersed in live music at a young age might have a subliminal sense in adulthood that there is something "not quite right" about the music that comes out of those little boxes in their living rooms.

My sincerest apologies, but I'm watching PBS at the moment, and they are dwelling on someone named Gustavo Dudamel, a Venezuelan conductor and his music, and you came to mind.

 

[turbo]

I'm a musician, and despite playing rock and blues for 40 years or so, I can still easily hear the "mosquito" ring-tone, so my ears are pretty good. I use finely-stranded copper 10 gauge zip cord to connect my power amp to my speakers, and it works just fine. If you have a really expensive set of speakers, have you ever opened them up to see what the internal wiring looks like? Do you expect to see 10 gauge or larger wiring in there connecting the input terminals to the cross-overs and to the speakers? If so, you will be sadly disappointed because the manufacturer didn't use "audiophile" wiring when building the speakers.

The emperor's new clothes aren't all that spiffy.

 

[yungman]

I'm a musician, and despite playing rock and blues for 40 years or so, I can still easily hear the "mosquito" ring-tone, so my ears are pretty good. I use finely-stranded copper 10 gauge zip cord to connect my power amp to my speakers, and it works just fine. If you have a really expensive set of speakers, have you ever opened them up to see what the internal wiring looks like? Do you expect to see 10 gauge or larger wiring in there connecting the input terminals to the cross-overs and to the speakers? If so, you will be sadly disappointed because the manufacturer didn't use "audiophile" wiring when building the speakers.

The emperor's new clothes aren't all that spiffy.

Yes, I open every pair of speaker and power amp. The wires are small. On my Kef floor speaker, I actually beef up with parallel wires and add wires parallel to the pcb trace of the crossover network and I sounds better to me! I cannot not do A B comparison for obvious reason that it take a lot of time to reverse it.

But remember one thing, the loss on wires proportion to length. Nothing is too long inside the speaker. That is the reason people talk resistance as square, it is all about length vs width. Same reasoning why the bonding wire inside an IC is thinner than hair and carry a few amps. This is because it is short, no much voltage drop across it and it won't heat up.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Yes, I open every pair of speaker and power amp. The wires are small. On my Kef floor speaker, I actually beef up with parallel wires and add wires parallel to the pcb trace of the crossover network and I sounds better to me! I cannot not do A B comparison for obvious reason that it take a lot of time to reverse it.

But remember one thing, the loss on wires proportion to length. Nothing is too long inside the speaker. That is the reason people talk resistance as square, it is all about length vs width. Same reasoning why the bonding wire inside an IC is thinner than hair and carry a few amps. This is because it is short, no much voltage drop across it and it won't heat up.

How long it is in its entirety makes no difference how much it heats per unit of length. A thin wire 6 inches long will heat up the same amount in the middle carrying X amps as it would heat up if it were a mile long. The reason the leads in ICs can be as thin as they are is because they are made of gold and because when they are only a millimeter or two they are a short enough length to the component lead which forms a heat sink.
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Have you calculated the loss in a wire carrying 100 watts to an 8 ohm load?
From the web-site: http://www.epanorama.net/documents/wiring/wire_resistance.html
This is the resistance of copper wire per foot with the gauge of the wire in the left column and the resistance per foot in the right column.
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4 .000292
6 .000465
8 .000739
10 .00118
12 .00187
14 .00297
16 .00473
18 .00751
20 .0119
22 .0190
24 .0302
26 .0480
28 .0764
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So you are telling me that if there is a wire inside an amplifier or speaker that is about a foot long and you can tell the difference between a foot of 18 gauge wire and a foot of 10 gauge wire? 100 watts continuous into an 8 ohm load is about 3.53 amps. The loss in that foot of 18 gauge wire would be .093 watts at that current and the loss in a foot of 10 gauge wire at that current would be .01475 watts. The small wire will deliver 99.907% of the power to the load and the larger wire will deliver 99.98525% of the power to the load. Now seriously tell me you can hear the difference of .07825%.
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In the car audio community there was a man by the name of Richard Clark who offered $10,000 to anyone that could pass an A/B test between two amplifiers. Naturally the amplifiers are swept and equalized to minimize any frequency response differences. The test was not to determine if one amplifier has a different frequency response than another. The test was to determine whether marketing gimmicks that a lot of high end amplifiers boast could do any better than a cheap amp. Many people claim that they can hear differences that no test equipment is able to prove. This is the point of the test. As far as I know, no one has been able to pass the test.
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My guess is that you would be able to afford to do an A/B test with a spare amplifier had you not wasted a lot of money over the years on cables.

 

[Topher925]

I'm a little bit of an audiophile. My dad bought into the $100 Monster cable BS and told me that he could see and hear the difference. I'm young and have got pretty good hearing and I've tested this theory first hand on a couple mid-range home theater setups ($2000ish) and couldn't tell the difference. As far as I'm concerned, its entirely a placebo effect as there is no evidence to support otherwise.

I've also measured the total resistance and inductance between the regular RCA audio cables and those $100 Monster ones and found them to be just about identical (maybe <1% difference). And as for those $100 HDMI cables that they sell at Best Buy...well I consider those to be an idiot tax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/m7ERMu825m4&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m7ERMu825m4&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>

 

[turbo]

I have owned one Monster cable in my life (still do). It was a free upgrade with the purchase of a high-end Sennheiser mic from Musician's supply. It didn't help my mic sound one bit better, but it was much heavier than the standard mic cable, and it laid out well on the stage without curling, so it was handy in that regard.