Cable fetishists..now face the truth!

[V-bro]

Ahhhh sigh.. I sometimes get sick and tired about people asking for cable advise and spending a fortune on some brand blabla cable. I think I made a thread on this before, but I just feel like making one a sticky!

Alright some theory:

The one and only things (let's say obstackles) a signal can encounter on getting from A to B is:

L R and C

NOTHING, no not even a little... NOTHING else will influence the signal! EVERYTHING ELSE YOU CAN IMAGINE WILL ULTIMATELY STILL COME DOWN TO THESE THREE PROPERTIES!!

They stand for:

L: Inductance
R: Resistance
C: Capacitance

Now let's first establish a few things. For starters our audio godfathers from the previous century already knew this and made a few precautions to make sure these don't influence our precious audio signal.

Let's pull a little metaphore out of the high hat. We have the signal, which can be a mouse, a dog, a hiker, a Ferrari race car or even a space rocket! Now let's take our cable, which can be a dirt track, a sidewalk, a smooth asphalt motorway or even (in case of a space rocket) the universe!!

Then we have the dreaded dreads the signal can encounter along the way. Which can be induced magnetic fields from humming transformers or other cables with high current signal (mains cables!) bad contact or a broken conductor, just to name a few. Look upon these as a bad road, or an earthquake, a storm or even blazing heat!

Now our source usually has a certain output impedance and our designers have made that as low as possible, why? Well let's just say they sent the Ferrari race car on the road instead of the hiker!

Now how far does the signal have to travel, in some occasions (pro audio) it has to travel several hundred meters. That still pretty much equals a drive from Amsterdam to Brussels, no big deal, even the Ferrari would probably not even have to stop for a fill up at the petrol station.

In our living rooms our audio usually travels only a few meters. That pretty much equals the hiker having just a visit to the neighbours! Maybe even just a walk from the living room to the kitchen!

All this is just to put it all in an understandable perspective....

If you are in posession of an LCR measurement device you can simply make the measurement yourself to put reality to the test. You will notice that you need a pretty good one, even if you take the lowest grade audio cable on a 100 meter spool. The socalled parasitic properties are then still rather insignificant.

So this lowest grade of cable (the little dirt trail) would that do to make your domestic audio equipment signal (the hiker) reach your amp and speakers?? (grab a beer in the fridge)???

The answer is YES

Now the guys asking:"But what if I have a smooth asphalt road paved in my living room? Or would it be even better to have a Star Trek teleporter unit?? Oh and by the way can you build me that delicious Godly villa (41hz amplifier) for 10 bucks?" Are we surprised that makes me a little bit angry, disappointed to say the least?

Usually the discussions are more on about whether it matters to have wood or cotton lining on the walls on the path to the kitchen. Or whether it should be painted red or yellow. Or whether there is a need to have carpet on the floor or wood? Petty and totally uninteresting bullcrap!

Just one piece of advise, keep your money either in your pocket or buy something sensible to enhance your audio experience!! I know exactly how the industry works when it comes down to cables, having worked in a hifi shop and knowing what margins are earned on cables I know it is one big scam! It is making people rich undeserved! People that really don't want to take the trouble to create something beautiful, just let the machines poo out a conductor with a very shiny coat on, something they can barely go wrong with, that can barely be criticised because simple good is good enough, great is still no better than good!

My advise for cable manufacturers, go and do something challenging for a change, like designing an amplifier!

Cheers all!

[V-bro]

Example:

Canare cable company presents some graphs to support the properties of their cables, the page first starts with an overdose of specs that make it look like they know their stuff. Only what is missing with the graphs there are the test conditions. In this case this makes the graphs completely useless.

Here:

From:http://www.canare.com/ProductItemDis...oductItemID=65
Oh yes, that looks scientific doesn't it!? Doesn't it?? (grinning behind laptop)

In the top graphs, where is the cable length?? In the bottom graph, where is the test frequency?? Without these it is just a useless piece of information. I can sell a turd as a cupcake that way by telling it tastes great and all my customers eat it with delight, without mentioning they are dogs.

I know from experience with doing these kinds of measurements that they have forged the graphs in their advantage. Audio cables that start to attenuate just over 20Khz, don't make me laugh!! They really should give their own cables more credit, but a worrying customer in this case is more beneficial. Then the bottom graph, a cable that loses 0.5 decibels over a 10 meter length....hmmmm..... That is probably not at 1Khz.....

This is how it is supposed to look, a graph with test conditions:


Many companies thrive on the fact that most people will believe anything as long as it is put in writing or in an image.

[krilli]

LMAO Very good, thank you. So much nonsense out there, hard not to get caught up in it.

[V-bro]

Cheers Krilli! Just noticed there it says 'Responce' above one of the graphs! LOL If they can't spell, how on earth will they ever produce a good cable and be all scientific about it?? Hahah!

[xrayspex]

I couldn't agree more.
Here in Sweden we actually have a audio-company claiming that You can hear difference in USB-cables

[V-bro]

Sure they do! These guys thrive on the fact that people buy it based upon emotion instead of common sense, so they throw a pile of specs at your feet so high you'll start sweating trying to understand it (the average person that is) and start thinking oh well, they probably know what they are on about, I'm buying all this expensive equipment it probably deserves a better cable as well.

These guys sell you 1,5mtr mains cable to improve the sound with, as if that matters after having 25 meters (that's just in your house!) of crap solid core installation cable.... (which is fine)

Alright, a cable needs to meet certain demands and it is always a good idea to take in to account what voltage and current the signal is and what frequency. Then once you have met the demands there is no better choice possible cable that will improve it further.... Just good is good enough.....

[Haggis Basher]

A couple of months or so ago, I was feeling in an experimental mood, and gathered together a collection of so called "inter-connects": The cable and plugs between a source and an attenuator/ amplifier. I then plugged them in, one of each type at the same time into different channels and listened to the results, double blind testing.

After noticing some differences in sound level combined with quality, I then proceeded to examine these "poorer" cables. They could be improved up to the level of all the "best" cables by either simple manipulation of the plugs in and on the sockets or by re-tensioning the outer clips of the plugs or by re-tensioning the sockets on the amplifier for the plug tips or by re-soldering the cables to the plugs.

Once these mechanical matters had been resolved, I was unable to tell in any of the double blind testing which cables were which; all the results summed exactly to 50%!

Cables ranged from basic prices up to nearly £100. The most worrying outcome was that one of the dearest sets of cables had the poorest plugs. Having seen cables advertised for thousands of pounds, I would now suspect that their claims are all nonsense.

These tests were all undertaken using the very best equipment available, as per my Tristan review, with the exception of the amplifier being a TP.

Ken.

[86Ivar]

I had my speaker cables connected to the speakers directly, the copper strains had no tin plating (pure copper surface).
I cut off the end one day and soldered the end and connected them to the speakers just for the test.
The mids and highs was more detailed. I think the copper corrosion had something to say, ive read a while ago that corrosion can act as a semiconductor.
The cables i use is some industrial purpose screened cable made by chainflex i got from work. We used it as a signal cable, but it has 4*0.5mm^2 wires. I connect them so i got 1mm^2.

[V-bro]

Corrosion can only cause resistance, which in a speaker cable can cause unwanted raised speaker damping. Even a few milliohms can cause audible effects. Mind you the things written above ONLY count for cables that are in GOOD condition. The above written by Ken underlines that as well. You will still notice that even the pretty cheap 'liquorice lace' cables ('dropveters' they are called in Dutch) will give perfect results, off course this only counts for a home situation. Off course the limitations will earlier (at a shorter length that is...) cause the performance to deteriorate when compared to a 'high quality' cable.

All I am saying is that the remarkable thing is that beneath the point where the limitations are met there will be NO percieved differences. Not even tiny differences..... Which from a scientific point of view is very logical. The performance curve ends so steep, it's like the cliffs of Moher. There will be max performance for miles, then perhaps a few inches of limbo and then no performance at all. It's almost digital....

[86Ivar]

I once read abaout a van den hul coax digital cable at hifiklubben, that had a maximum bandwidth of 25 Ghz. In the text they directly compared the digital cable signal to the audible range 20Hz - 20kHz.
"This cable has a bandwidth that is so much higher than the audible range that it will not loose anything of the signal"
It would probably make more sense if it was a analog cable.
But it does not beat the optical cables with gold plating araound the tip of the plug. Bet that makes the photons happier and more willing to do their daily work.


Anyway, regarding the skin effect, and assuming we got a good soldered connection in both ends. Do you think corrosion on the surface (along the cable) will affect the sound?