Musing following some cable posts...

Dont give up on Zerogain as there are mostly good posters on here. I must admit sideshowbob and also Mosfet are the two (that i have encountered) perpetrators to get peoples backs up. We will always meet these sort of people throughout our lives. Jim.

 

Ian - I agree you havent insulted me - It's the traffic with Effem that I make my judgement on - I think its fair to say this thread has not benn a success. As I say I would like to be proved wrong.

 

You could apologise for your comment. I really don't think it's me who has to prove anything.

When you signed up to this site you agreed to an Acceptable Use Policy, which includes not insulting other members. I don't really care what you think about me, but I'm not going to let you get away with playing the injured party.

-- Ian

 

Could someone please tell me of any cable companies who have tested their cables and published the results? Oh and where will the results be cos I don't know where to look.

 

dont get mugged bob ,

most of the cables make the system types on here dont answer the questions anyway.

i stll have not had a reasonable technical explanation above and beyond the accepted l d r parameters.

never mind.

darry.

 

FWIW I think Ian has been entirely reasonable, courteous and good natured throughout this thread. I do however fail to understand why cable designers / sellers should not wish to enter into a discussion about the very area of their technical expertise.

Tony.

 

Me too.

 

All I've read are the cable gurus feigning hurt to deflect attention away from the fact that they haven't produced an atom of evidence for their claims when repeatedly asked to do so.

Does anyone doubt that if they really had this mythical 'published' data which proves cable efficacy that they would trample the flowers of Eden in their haste to post it.

The fact that it remains unposted says it all.

 

Of course you would think that wouldn't you? He is arrogant, self-absorbed and worst of the lot, incapable of seeing someone else's viewpoint. If he did, there would be no animosity at all I promise you that much.

Look in the mirror, put yourself in their shoes and there is your answer staring right at you.

Slagging cables off is a sport on forums, nothing more, nothing less. It's a vicious circle; the industry hasn't bothered to defend itself because it doesn't see why it should have to and the feeble minded see fit to capitalise on that weakness. The industry can't be arsed spending fortunes to appease the tiny handful of intellectual bankrupts with nothing better to do with their precious life on this planet than whine on forums and they in turn reciprocate by taunting the industry over not publishing any objective data, so the industry ignores them. Round we go again.

Why it should be so I don't know because it's only a component part of a hi-fi system generally used in an isolated environment for one person's listening pleasure. It was their choice and their money. End of story.

It's the proliferation of the internet and the keyboard cowboys who naively believe that their little contribution makes one jot of difference - it doesn't. Less than 0.1% of hi-fi enthusiasts will ever set foot on a forum, because most are insinuated with that handful of negative thinkers that enjoy more the noble art of squabbling, not promoting the joys of the hobby as an entity.

Most of you saw my arrival here as an opportunity to vent your spleens on a totally irrational and pointless hatred, not the open door to learning something new.

I was once told that I should never ever try to teach a pig to sing, because I would be entirely wasting my time and it would serve only to annoy the pig. Yep, just look at yourselves in the cold light of day.

 

I think its all a matter of choice, placebo effect or not I think that if you're prepared to spend 3k on a valve amp, you're hardly going to rummage round in an old Sony box in the attic for a skinny black interconnect with pressed plastic ends and chrome rca's - or maybe you would. If you like the sound of cheap cables, why change though, its one of those arguments where nobody is right, its horses for courses. I personally like good interconnects as I feel I get results - my opinion won't change but I'm hardly going to put someone in the stocks for holding a different opinion to me. At the other extreme I've seen high end with interconnects the thickness of hosepipe and 8k each, ...frankly thats silly.

I know my MA2 Maestro cable sounds great with my amp and better than the brighter cable, the silver siren I use between my phono stage. If they colour the sound, so be it if I like the results, surely thats the main thing. I never buy mine new so I do well. I have to say the "missing Link" Log 2 phono cable was the best I've ever heard and it genuinely trounced a standard SME VDH cable. If your dealing with tiny voltages and conductivity, surely making the path easier to travel pays sonic dividends.

Am I missing something here....

 

All I've done is ask you to substantiate some claims. You have completely failed to do so. You have provided no evidence for any claim you have made, despite being repeatedly asked to. You are a serial evader of this basic point.

This is amusing. Virtually all the audio designers I have ever spoken to (the people who do the real work, designing amplifiers, speakers, etc) have nothing but contempt for the claims of the boutique cable industry.

-- Ian

 

effem,
please could you tell us why cables sound different in normal scientifically accepted ways such as the ldr.

i am not asking the cable industry just people on here who make and sell expensive cables.

darryl.

 

I hope you are not including me in this – I had never even heard of “Krystal Kables” until I looked at your profile an hour ago. I have never once been impolite to you and I held no opinion on yourself, your company or your product whatsoever. Funnily enough I do appear to be forming one…

Not true, most people are on forums such as this to learn. Ask a turntable, amp or speaker designer (I know several of each) why something is the way it is and one invariably gets a coherent, interesting and informative answer. Ask a cable designer and... well just read your own posts.

Tony.

 

I'm getting confused here. One minute the data on cable testing is out there if you look. The next we get this bile.

the industry hasn't bothered to defend itself because it doesn't see why it should have to and the feeble minded see fit to capitalise on that weakness. The industry can't be arsed spending fortunes to appease the tiny handful of intellectual bankrupts with nothing better to do with their precious life on this planet than whine on forums and they in turn reciprocate by taunting the industry over not publishing any objective data, so the industry ignores them

Is it there or not?

 

Well, well a cable thread........

One of the problems here is that this problem is actually quite complex and simple, A-level physics on LCR measurements does not cut it. If you carry out LCR measurements on most cables you find no differences (possible exception of DNM Reson which loses the HF). So one conclusion is that if I do my simple test, find no differences there are none even if people claim to hear them. Another is that I am using too simple a test. It is blinkered to take the first stance and then shut up shop. Fortunately, there are some pushing the boundaries. Noel Keywood has taken a signal measured it by digitising it and then fed it through a cable. He then compared the output from this cable before and after cable 'burn-in'. he found there were measurable differences. Now he does not claim that this accounts for burn-in because he does not know but he believes there is a measurable difference. Martin Colloms has done similar things.

I have little confidence in ABX tests. They are even more inconsistent than subjective listening. For example, they have found no differences in digitisation rates, amps, cables and some speakers. What they are really showing is that a poorly organised ABX is a bad experiment and possibly that the test is too crude to measure the differences.

A specific example, if you measured the frequency response of Transparent Audio cables they would show that they are flat in the audio range. In fact TA do literally hundreds of measurements as they are a measurement based company. BUT listen to them and most audiophiles will tell the they do lose a bit of the top end. They certainly do so for me (but I still prefer their sound to most other cables). Yet the wonderful LCR measurements show a flat response, why? Too crude a measurement? Or a placebo/imaginary effect?

 

Just another thought. Are you Barnie in disguise?

 

No, but if I claim I am do I win prize?

With apologies to Barnie....

 

Not you George. Effem.

 

Sorry Bob, or is that Riley??

 

Your conclusion in no way follows. Just because a test does not give the results you want does not imply the test must be flawed. Those who want to dismiss ABX testing have a lot of counter-evidence to provide, as ABX methodologies are well-understood and known to be effective in a wide variety of fields. It seems we have to make a leap of faith and believe that there must be something different and unmeasurable about audio, just because ABX testing reveals audiophiles can't actually hear a lot of what they think they can. Sorry, Occam's Razor suggests the weakness isn't the testing, but the hearing.

-- Ian