Kimber Kable?

[tmurnin]

Disappointed to see Audioholics promoting the snake oil of expensive power cables on Facebook today. I realize that you have advertisers and you want to support those companies, but it's really disappointing when a site that cites it's mission as "pursuing the truth in audio" starts embracing crap that it's founders KNOW is bs. You can and should do better.

 

[Ponzio]

While I agree with your sentiments, they're not Vestal Virgins here. You have to pay the bills, right? Or do you recommend they go the paid subscription route? Just saying.

 

[gene]

Disappointed to see Audioholics promoting the snake oil of expensive power cables on Facebook today. I realize that you have advertisers and you want to support those companies, but it's really disappointing when a site that cites it's mission as "pursuing the truth in audio" starts embracing crap that it's founders KNOW is bs. You can and should do better.

What exactly are you disappointed in? The fact that Kimber sells attractive cable or that it's expensive? I don't see any wild claims on their site about magic in their cables. I use their cables and I enjoy how their audio jewelry dresses up my system. Our facebook readers are more audiophile centric than this forum which tends to me more budget minded and DIY. Different markets to appeal to the different audiences.

 

[Adam]

I think the concern may be a FB recommendation to check out power cords with descriptions on their website such as: "Palladian PowerKords represent the finest power cable available. The critics have been unanimous in their praise of the cable's transparency, detail, articulate bass, dynamic contrasts, musical ease and flow and freedom from grain," and "The PK14 Gold offers the additional advantages of the Wattgate Audio Grade connectors. Each of these connectors offer a high performance three layer plating process which adds increased speed in the bass and improved smoothness in the treble."

I can't say if those descriptions are inaccurate, but Gene - do you truly think that they represent the truth in audio? That's not a challenge, it's a question. Am I going to get increased speed in my bass and improved smoothness in my treble if I swap out my stock power cord for a $1200+ power cord?

 

[JerryLove]

What exactly are you disappointed in? The fact that Kimber sells attractive cable or that it's expensive? I don't see any wild claims on their site about magic in their cables.

"To his great satisfaction the finalized version of his braided wire concept not only rejected the (RF) noise, but allowed the system to sound different, better, musical."

This fixed a situation where "The speaker cable was acting as an antenna array and bringing noise from the lights into the sound system."

"He would first show that there was a testable difference in cables and then would do a simple "before and after" test, replacing regular speaker cables with Kimber Kable. For these tests Ray would choose the most modest system in the dealer showroom. The result was very obvious - it made a significant difference."

I don't mind the ads: fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat, and whatnot; but Audioholics was, I've been told, founded specifically on debunking cable claims like the ones Kimber makes. [edit] Which I feel I should clarify to "I don't care if you keep the ads, but don't try to defend the claims of the manufacturer[/edit]

 

[tmurnin]

I have been a member of this forum for several years, and have learned an absolute ton - both from the forum contributors, but especially from the contributors and owners of Audioholics, who once mocked expensive cables and power conditioners and taught me to put my extra money into better speakers instead of accessories that make huge margins for the retailer but do nothing for the listener. You used to embrace and promote BlueJeanCable regularly - as makers of products that do exactly what they're supposed to do at a fair price. Now I see you promoting power cables that range in price from $300-1200+ as "audio jewelry"! Who exactly sees a power cable? Why would you buy jewelry that runs BEHIND the system? That's why I'm disappointed. If you want to spend money on $300 power cables, fine, but for a site that uses "Pursuing the truth in audio and video" as its mission, promoting these as being anything other than a complete waste of money is dishonest. I'm sure that, using your blind measurement techniques, you would find zero difference in "bass speed" and "treble smoothness" between this and a $5 cord from Radio Shack.

 

[gene]

I think the concern may be a FB recommendation to check out power cords with descriptions on their website such as: "Palladian PowerKords represent the finest power cable available. The critics have been unanimous in their praise of the cable's transparency, detail, articulate bass, dynamic contrasts, musical ease and flow and freedom from grain," and "The PK14 Gold offers the additional advantages of the Wattgate Audio Grade connectors. Each of these connectors offer a high performance three layer plating process which adds increased speed in the bass and improved smoothness in the treble."

I can't say if those descriptions are inaccurate, but Gene - do you truly think that they represent the truth in audio? That's not a challenge, it's a question. Am I going to get increased speed in my bass and improved smoothness in my treble if I swap out my stock power cord for a $1200+ power cord?

Nope but those are subjective claims similar to an amplifier company claiming their amp is more transparent than their competition. If I scrutinize every company in the industry for every claim they make, then we will be left working with nobody. Kimber is one of the few esoteric cable companies that don't dive into psuedo-science or slap batteries on their cables. Plus their stuff is built with very high quality and durability. Their expensive, the stuff I tested measures well, they are pretty, and they dress a system nicely. That is as FAR as I ever take it in my reviews. I have no problems recommending their products to someone who budgets more $$$ for nice cables that won't do harm to their system.

 

[gene]

I have been a member of this forum for several years, and have learned an absolute ton - both from the forum contributors, but especially from the contributors and owners of Audioholics, who once mocked expensive cables and power conditioners and taught me to put my extra money into better speakers instead of accessories that make huge margins for the retailer but do nothing for the listener. You used to embrace and promote BlueJeanCable regularly - as makers of products that do exactly what they're supposed to do at a fair price. Now I see you promoting power cables that range in price from $300-1200+ as "audio jewelry"! Who exactly sees a power cable? Why would you buy jewelry that runs BEHIND the system? That's why I'm disappointed. If you want to spend money on $300 power cables, fine, but for a site that uses "Pursuing the truth in audio and video" as its mission, promoting these as being anything other than a complete waste of money is dishonest. I'm sure that, using your blind measurement techniques, you would find zero difference in "bass speed" and "treble smoothness" between this and a $5 cord from Radio Shack.

You seem like an overly sensitive person and if posting a picture of an expensive exotic cable on facebook causes you that much stress, than I suggest to you take a little break from facebook.

Nobody is telling you to buy anything. Stick with your OEM chords and Bluejeans cable. I am a big proponent and user of Bluejeans. Love their stuff.

The speed of the bass on my speakers is unchanged going from Bluejeans to Kimber

 

[gene]

"To his great satisfaction the finalized version of his braided wire concept not only rejected the (RF) noise, but allowed the system to sound different, better, musical."

This fixed a situation where "The speaker cable was acting as an antenna array and bringing noise from the lights into the sound system."

"He would first show that there was a testable difference in cables and then would do a simple "before and after" test, replacing regular speaker cables with Kimber Kable. For these tests Ray would choose the most modest system in the dealer showroom. The result was very obvious - it made a significant difference."

I don't mind the ads: fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat, and whatnot; but Audioholics was, I've been told, founded specifically on debunking cable claims like the ones Kimber makes. [edit] Which I feel I should clarify to "I don't care if you keep the ads, but don't try to defend the claims of the manufacturer[/edit]

LOL the only way a speaker cable can act as an antenna is if its unterminated. My wife actually heard music from our bedroom speakers when I was listening to music in my upstairs home theater system when I first was installing everything. It turned out that I didn't yet connect the speaker cables to the amplifier and they were running parallel with the speaker wires from my upstairs theater system. The pick up from mutual inductance coupling was significant enough to be audible. Lesson learned to terminate all speaker leads, especially if multiple leads are run in parallel for long enough distances to create significant coupling.

 

[Speedskater]

LOL the only way a speaker cable can act as an antenna is if its unterminated.
............................................

This is not correct. If you read Bob Cordell's book "Designing Audio Power Amplifiers" or Jim Brown's interference white papers, they explain how RFI can sneak in through the speaker wires, then through the negative feedback circuit to the input and cause major problems.

This is the kind of problem that can be hard to AB test or to measure because just setting up for the test can change the situation enough to stop (or start) the interference.

 

[cpp]

Disappointed to see Audioholics promoting the snake oil of expensive power cables on Facebook today. I realize that you have advertisers and you want to support those companies, but it's really disappointing when a site that cites it's mission as "pursuing the truth in audio" starts embracing crap that it's founders KNOW is bs. You can and should do better.

I think this Audioholics article pretty much addresses their stance on power cables Audio Power Cables & Cords - Do they really make a difference? | Audioholics


But, fancy power cords costing $100 plus doesn't fix the crappy power coming into your a home. Sure pretty cables dress up a system, but that's about it, pretty cables moving crappy power into your audio equipment.

 

[Adam]

...those are subjective claims...

"Improved smoothness," maybe...but "increased speed" isn't subjective - it's a claim that can either be verified or refuted. You said that the bass on your speakers was unchanged, and then added a wink, as if you know it's bull.

You've got a business to run and employees to support. I've got no problem with the line between BS and subjectivity getting blurry as money flows in from companies that help you keep that business open and those employees fed. However, you've got to realize that has caused your slogan to have lost some of its luster, if only to those that you might consider overly sensitive. To some, that slogan is a joke - like the truth in audio and video is that just about everyone has a price. To me, it's a catch phrase that I don't even notice anymore until someone points it out. To others, though, it's still an important line to hold in the industry.

You cultivated a following of folks that saw this site and you as a breath of fresh air and honesty in a world of subjective or downright false claims and reviews. Instead of attacking or belittling folks that express concern over a perceived deviation from that course, you might take from their concern that there are still people that genuinely like what you stood for and care that you hold that line. My guess is that the number of folks that express a concern is a small percentage of those that have/had it. Others may have just walked away without ever saying anything.

Btw, none of that is intended as an attack against you or your business. If not for you, I wouldn't have this forum to come and engage with people that I consider friends, as well as have an avenue to try and help out other folks - and for that, I thank you. I just think that you could respond to these concerns with a different tact that wouldn't further alienate those who express them.

 

[gene]

This is not correct. If you read Bob Cordell's book "Designing Audio Power Amplifiers" or Jim Brown's interference white papers, they explain how RFI can sneak in through the speaker wires, then through the negative feedback circuit to the input and cause major problems.

This is the kind of problem that can be hard to AB test or to measure because just setting up for the test can change the situation enough to stop (or start) the interference.

I don't know who Bob Cordell is but what I said is correct. A low impedance termination will nuke the RFI pickup at audio frequencies through a speaker cable. I've never seen RF ingress into an output stage of an amplifier happen in real life nor is it even something I've read about in classic EE textbooks.

 

[gene]

"Improved smoothness," maybe...but "increased speed" isn't subjective - it's a claim that can either be verified or refuted. You said that the bass on your speakers was unchanged, and then added a wink, as if you know it's bull.

You've got a business to run and employees to support. I've got no problem with the line between BS and subjectivity getting blurry as money flows in from companies that help you keep that business open and those employees fed. However, you've got to realize that has caused your slogan to have lost some of its luster, if only to those that you might consider overly sensitive. To some, that slogan is a joke - like the truth in audio and video is that just about everyone has a price. To me, it's a catch phrase that I don't even notice anymore until someone points it out. To others, though, it's still an important line to hold in the industry.

You cultivated a following of folks that saw this site and you as a breath of fresh air and honesty in a world of subjective or downright false claims and reviews. Instead of attacking or belittling folks that express concern over a perceived deviation from that course, you might take from their concern that there are still people that genuinely like what you stood for and care that you hold that line. My guess is that the number of folks that express a concern is a small percentage of those that have/had it. Others may have just walked away without ever saying anything.

Btw, none of that is intended as an attack against you or your business. If not for you, I wouldn't have this forum to come and engage with people that I consider friends, as well as have an avenue to try and help out other folks - and for that, I thank you. I just think that you could respond to these concerns with a different tact that wouldn't further alienate those who express them.

It's the very same people that are quick to criticize that would NEVER offer any support for this site let alone spend the money on the very product they criticize. I honestly don't give a rats a55 about their opinion. They come here for FREE and get some of the most detailed tech articles and reviews. If they don't like the fact that we placed an image of a power chord on our facebook page asking consumers if they want one, then they don't have to come to that page or this site.

I like the folks at Kimber. They make a nice product. Yes some of their claims are questionable. My articles debunk the nonsense around cables very clearly. It's up to the reader to decide if a particular product is or is NOT for them. There is a lot of abuse in science in the audio industry, especially by some loudspeaker companies that claim to cherish science. But people love to jump on the cable vendors b/c it's a much easier target. Personally I cut them some slack if they don't violate basic EE principles to sell their products and their products actually measure well.

It's funny how when we post an image of a McIntosh amplifier on facebook, nobody questions them as being expensive, or snake oil despite the fact it's not such a great idea to use a transformer in an output stage of an amplifier. People are drawn to the look, build quality, and name regardless if the product represents or does not represent a value or state of the art in electronics.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I use Kimber Kable 8PR for my KEF 201/2, B&W 802D2, Revel Salon2, and TAD 2201 speakers.

I buy the non-terminated/stripped bare wire version. I think it was $5 per Ft, so one 8' pair was $80 per pair. It's not like it's $500 per pair.

I've seen speaker cables from Emotiva and Outlaw and others that cost about $70-80 per pair too. And they don't look as pretty to me as Kimber 8PR.

I love the way they look with my pretty speakers.

 

[slipperybidness]

It's funny how when we post an image of a McIntosh amplifier on facebook, nobody questions them as being expensive, or snake oil despite the fact it's not such a great idea to use a transformer in an output stage of an amplifier. People are drawn to the look, build quality, and name regardless if the product represents or does not represent a value or state of the art in electronics.

You make a very valid point with the Mc, good analogy to the great-cable-debate of '013.

We have certainly discussed the Mc and the poor design decision to put a transformer on the output stage of a (SS) amp on AH before! It was just buried down in some other threads and certainly did not get the attention or stir the emotions of the cable debate.

 

[Speedskater]

I don't know who Bob Cordell is but what I said is correct.

You really should read much of his 600 page book.
CordellAudio.com - Home

A low impedance termination will nuke the RFI pickup at audio frequencies through a speaker cable. I've never seen RF ingress into an output stage of an amplifier happen in real life nor is it even something I've read about in classic EE textbooks.

RFI is not at audio frequencies, it's Radio Frequency Interference. The schematic in the back of a manual is the audio frequency schematic, at radio frequencies there are lots of hidden paths that are not on the schematic.

 

[Speedskater]

Jim Brown, Audio Engineering Society past committee chair on EMI/RFI writes:

Output Wiring is Important Too! It is well known, for example, that RF interference is often coupled
into the output stage of audio equipment – for example, the power amplifiers that feed loudspeakers
or headphones. There is always feedback around that output stage, so RF present at the
output will follow the feedback network to the input of a gain stage, where it will be detected and
amplified. This problem is made much worse when parallel wire cable (zip cord) is used to feed
the loudspeakers or headphones, and can usually be solved simply by replacing the zip cord with a
twisted pair of POC (plain ordinary copper). [Pseudo-scientific advertising hype for exotic cables
notwithstanding, it was shown nearly 30 years ago that #12 copper twisted pair (or #10 for very
long runs) is a nearly ideal loudspeaker cable.] As we will discuss later, the twisting of a pair greatly reduces the
level of RF that the wiring couples to circuitry.

This is from (don't let the title fool you, this started a a audio system paper then he added lots of Ham information.

"A Ham's Guide to RFI, Ferrites, Baluns, and Audio Interfacing"

by Jim Brown K9YC
Audio Systems Group, Inc.
Audio Systems Group, Inc. Home Page
Audio Systems Group, Inc. Publications

The basis of this tutorial is a combination of my engineering education, 55 years in ham radio, my
work as vice-chair of the AES Standards Committee working group on EMC, and extensive research
on RFI in the pro audio world where I’ve made my living. That work is documented in technical
papers and tutorials that can be downloaded from the publications section of my website.

more at:
http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/RFI-Ham.pdf

 

[its phillip]

I was curious as to who that guy was, so I looked up the book on amazon. If anybody is interested, here is a little information:

Bob Cordell is an electrical engineer who has been deeply involved in audio for over four decades. He began his career at Bell Laboratories where he designed integrated circuits and fiber optic communications systems. Bob is a prolific designer of amplifiers, audio test equipment, loudspeakers and other audio gear. He was the first to publish and demonstrate a power amplifier design combining vertical power MOSFETs with error correction, achieving unprecedented distortion levels of less than 0.001% at 20 kHz in 1983. He has published articles on power amplifier design in the popular press and in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. Bob is a member of the JAES Review Board and he maintains an audiophile website at CordellAudio.com - Home.

His book has great reviews but I'm guessing it's too advanced for an uneducated guy such as myself

 

[Adam]

His book has great reviews but I'm guessing it's too advanced for an uneducated guy such as myself

I'm waiting for the movie.