Speaker Wire Snake Oil - need some help

[mtrycrafts]

... One thing that I like about them is that the connectors are actually fused to the wire rather than crimped,

The connection certainly will not come apart from playing with the cable all the time

 

[j_garcia]

The connection certainly will not come apart from playing with the cable all the time

That's what I thought, but one of them actually DID fail when I was reconnecting everything after my move. Took it back to the shop and the replaced them free of charge. So, I guess it isn't a perfect solution.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Don't forget the Myrtlewood blocks and the Gingko Audio Cloud system.

Also when you place beaks on them: http://www.affordableaudio.org/TotemBeaks.pdf

 

[highfigh]

Wow! Frank is still around. I haven't seen or heard that name in close to 20 years.

 

[markw]

One thing I learned about this hobby, and other things in life.

Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money to learn that you don't always have to spend a lot of money to get what you are searching for.

 

[highfigh]

Don't forget the Myrtlewood blocks and the Gingko Audio Cloud system.

I heard some made of Bubinga and they blew the Myrtlewood ones out of the water.

I find that my system sounds best after I have stopped breathing fro at least a half hour.

One thing I find interesting about so many people here and other forums is that we all want the best sound quality possible, some with obvious budgetary constraints and some not, for the best price, whether esoteric or not and do listening tests for everything from speaker wires, through acoustical treatments and power conditioning, but many still add four connecting points by using banana plugs or spade lugs.

Am I to believe that we're all willing to go the extra mile for the rest of the system, but then opt for the easy way when we make and change connections?

For shame.

Oh, yeah-

 

[j_garcia]

Maybe we need a DBT about bananas vs bare wire

 

[mtrycrafts]

That's what I thought, but one of them actually DID fail when I was reconnecting everything after my move. Took it back to the shop and the replaced them free of charge. So, I guess it isn't a perfect solution.

Must have been a cold fusion event

 

[Swerd]

Wow! Frank is still around. I haven't seen or heard that name in close to 20 years.

I don't know if you found his web site from the quote, but Frank Van Alstine is manufacturing amps, preamps, DACs, etc. that are first rate quality and sell for reasonablly high prices, as opposed to insanely high prices.

 

[highfigh]

I don't know if you found his web site from the quote, but Frank Van Alstine is manufacturing amps, preamps, DACs, etc. that are first rate quality and sell for reasonablly high prices, as opposed to insanely high prices.

Back in the '70s, he was widely known for being THE GUY for Dynaco mods.

 

[Swerd]

Back in the '70s, he was widely known for being THE GUY for Dynaco mods.

Apparently he still rebuilds Dynaco and Hafler stuff today.

http://www.avahifi.com/root/equipment/preamplifier/dyna_preamps.htm
http://www.avahifi.com/root/equipment/amplifier/dyna_amp_rebuild.htm
http://www.avahifi.com/root/equipment/amplifier/hafler_amp_rebuild.htm

I know someone who has an old Hafler DH-220 that Frank rebuilt to be the equivalent of one of his modern SS amps. Its powerfull and stable and outperforms a Marsh 200 wpc amp he also has.

 

[markw]

The connection certainly will not come apart from playing with the cable all the time

No, but he may go blind.

 

[duckpond49]

Charming the Snake Oilers

Bejeweled connections?

I used to sell high-end audio and eventually had to come up with a rationale to be able to explain what you get for your money. It goes something like this.

For about 100 bucks you can buy a system--source, amplification and speakers that will allow you to hear about 85% of the sound quality. Things sound real enough.

If you move up to about $500 you can improve the quality to about 90% of what's "possible". Things sound pretty good.

When you shell out up to $5000 you start to close in on 95% of possible sound quality. Things start to sound truly impressive. But now you really have to start scrutinizing all sorts of variables.
The differences aren't readily apparent to someone who just walks into the room--it will sound awesome. But if you take the time, you will find that there are a multitude of subtleties. This will mean a lot of A/B testing under as close to ideal conditions as you can create. Your room acoustics need to be optimized to prevent degrading the quality of your experience--a quest unto itself. At this point you can also begin to really distinguish the effect of the quality of your source and find that improvement here will have a profound effect. If you test one amplifier against another you will hear subtle differences. Speakers will be all over the map and are highly subjective. You will have to decide what appeals to you most.

Above $10,000 and beyond that, you will be getting into the 97-98% of sound quality. You will hear the difference between speaker wires and connecting cables and will find reasons to try all sorts of 4-figure solutions to create an incrementally more satisfying experience. Precious few people will know what the hell you are talking about, much less care.

You'll then go and buy a $50 ticket to an intimate jazz or classical performance and realize that your pursuit of the last 3% may be futile.

Will $2000 cables help your $1000 setup? Probably not that you'd notice.
Will they help your $30,000 set-up? You'll hear a difference, but it will then expose another deficiency.

What you get for big bucks are these things-- imaging: you are convinced you can close you eyes and walk precisely over and put your finger on a sound source; presence: blindfolded, you could be convinced that there was an actual performer in the room; dynamics: fabric shuffle up to nose bloodying transients with an amazing degree of perception between seemingly similar events.

Not for everyone. Done right, it will make the 5.1 down at your favorite cineplex sound like dumpsters being emptied. But then some people might think dumpsters getting banged around is way cool.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Will $2000 cables help your $1000 setup? Probably not that you'd notice.
Will they help your $30,000 set-up? You'll hear a difference, but it will then expose another deficiency.
.

There is no credible evidence for that difference with such systems.
One guy at AVS has a system in the 6 figures, with 5 figure cables. He swore up and down about those cables until he relented and attempted to do a bias controlled listening against ordinary speaker cables, costing perhaps $.50 ft.
He gave up, couldn't differentiate to win. But, that is just an anecdote.

 

[jamie2112]

People who sell the hi end crap need to believe in their crap ...right?

 

[highfigh]

So, I have this friend/work acquantance who is some what of an audiophile. I think most of his gear is around 10 years old, but he has some experience in higher end audio stuff, and has some decent gear. Every once in a while we will get into a conversation about something audio related, like some new jazz or rock artist we like... speaker selections.. or whatever.

Anyway, yesterday we started talking about speaker wire, HDMI cables, etc... and I figured out that this guy is drowning in Snake Oil. He won't really say the specifics, but he has definitly invested some cash into some really expensive speaker cables. So when I tried to educate him on cable selections, and of course speaker wire snake oil, he fought back like a cornered cat. He just refuses to believe that he might of wasted money on really expensive cables. Unfortunately for me, I am not super articulate when it comes to laying out the facts for him... so I tried to find some articles on the web for him to read. I found a couple decent ones, but he of course shot those down as well. He literally told me that doing a blind test between two sets of speaker wires would be a flawed way to test speaker cables. He says that when he changes them out on his own, he can always hear the better cables. I told HIM, that knowing which cable you have just hooked up, automatically introduces some pre-existing bias into your listening, and he just brushes me off as an idiot.

So my question for help is, can you guys point me to some REALLY good articles about this subject? Perhaps an artical from a critical listener, with a REALLY good blind test? something I can really smack him with? I need some REAL and SOLID results.

Thanks

It's going to be hard to show this friend any conflicting information without him either being PO'd at you for not sgreeing or at himself if he decides that he wasted a lot of money due to believing that conflicting info.

Why do you want to smack him with this- for one-upsmanship? That's not something I would do to a friend. Kind of like him showing off his new car and people telling him it's a POS.

 

[highfigh]

People lost sight of the fact that audio systems are for listening to the music, not the equipment, long ago. Some people think it's possible to hear the music with the same sound as when it was played, which can't happen because of the many variables. If it does sound exactly the same, it's accidental. Period.

However, it is possible for a system to sound really, really good. One bad thing about this is that it reveals details in the recordings that aren't always great. I'm constantly amazed by the high quality of some older recordings and the low quality of many newer recordings. Some that were originally intended for LP sound much better than many that were intended for CD. The remastered versions sometimes sound amazingly good and may not have been recorded by a major artist, on a big label but they paid a lot of attention to details when they were making the music.

Bragging about how much a system costs doesn't make it sound better and with careful listening, planning and design, it's possible for a system to reveal a lot of detail without breaking the bank.

 

[highfigh]

People who sell the hi end crap need to believe in their crap ...right?

The people who buy the high end crap need to believe, too.

I sell and install, too. It's a lot easier to sell low-mid range equipment than high end. Many high end customers are a PITA because they want perfection, which is absolutely impossible. Even Lombardi said, "Perfection is impossible. Strive for excellence.".

 

[mtrycrafts]

People who sell the hi end crap need to believe in their crap ...right?

I found my link to that AVS DBT of that expensive setup

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=941184

 

[Livin]

not all cable is created equal... but nothing costing $100/ft is any better than anything $10/ft