Microphonics in speaker cables??? - what a big load of horse-s**t! I cannot believe that people are so gullible when it comes to what I have always termed "bull**** hi-fi'.
First off: any such induction (cough!) is being terminated into a very low dc resistance (mainly the bass speakers voice coil) and thus effectively shorted out. Also consider the souce impedance of a typical transistor amp - fractions of an ohm - the equivalent reistance of a nail! And relevant to the voltage levels reached during music reproduction (s-n ratio), any such miniscule 'induction' (noise) would be inaudible anyway. 'Grain' my arse!
I have to extend my cynical reaction further while I tap away on my keyboard and include some other hairy old chestnuts in my list of 'BS' things that have been touted over the years. And these are only a few:
1) gold-plated audio connectors and 'quality' cables: what sense is there in purchasing, for hundreds of dollars in some cases, metres of especially-made 'performance' cable with gold-plated (RCA) connectors at each end when the manufacturers of the connected equipment don't start or end with the signal travelling over similarly constructed paths INSIDE the coupled equipment??? LOL!
2) just after CD's appeared in the early 80's, special and expensive 'green' rings were made available by one enterprising sole that were designed to snap over a cd to stop the outer edges of the disc from 'reasonating' and therefore affecting sound quality. My opinion: LOL! numbers are not affected by such subtle vibration. This was the whole reason to go digital - numbers are impervious to mechanical influence. But there were those who believed what they read on the packet. The same goes for CD transports.
3) in the days of vinyl, a straight tone arm sounded better than an 'S' shaped one.
4) 'monster' speaker cable - the best and biggest con continuing to this day. A speaker cable can affect sonic purity??? Sorry, LOL! Get some good quality multi-strand mains (power) cable between your amp and speakers and enjoy the same performance.
5) super-tweeters (the one above the normal one) - why for heavens sake? they'll never do anything of musical consequence - except perhaps to reproduce harmonic out-of-band distortions that are better left unheard.
I will always be extremely cynical over such abstracts - this fool and his money have never been separated on the above.
And today's 'format' wars and cons. And this is just the audio ones.
SACD, DVD-A, et-al. CRAP! Same old story. The original 44.1 K sampling rate has adequate frequency response for all music. Brick-wall filtered beyond 22kHz as it is is fine to me as my ears have no subjective response above 14Khz these days (I'm now 50+). How high can you hear?
These fancy new formats won't stay around for long because the public is confused over the many different formats offering in players. You just can't be sure that what you buy will have a life of more than a few years. My new CD player has HDCD capability but its HDCD led is yet to light up. There's just no product around. I looked all the new formats over and decided to spend my money on a good quality CD 2-ch player over units offering sacd etc etc -I think extended formats are a waste of time and money - you cannot hear a significant difference in audio purity in these 'super' formats over a well recorded production in 44.1K in my view. Not unless you WANT to that is.
44.1 CD is now so commonplace and mass produced that it will be hard to replace it with anything else for a long long time. The public won't buy another format if they cannot hear a justifiable difference.
I know I have shifted the discussion further away from the original topic of speaker cables being influenced by floor vibrations sufficient to color sound reproduction, but I nearly swallowed my teeth when I read that one - what next in this mad mad audio world will we hear of?? I was so moved to reply to and critique this suggestion that I registered and signed in on this forum specially to do so.
I have been in electonics, sound systems and record engineering for over 30 years (starting near the end of the valve era). I spent over 6 years in recording studios engineering soundtracks for prominent artists in my home country. I then worked for state television, engineering sound for tv music shows from the smallest to the largest, pre-recorded and live-to-air. I am currently involved in cinemas and sound reproduction therein.
In all my time I have maintained that the 'reproduction' side of the sound industry has been hijacked by unscrupulouse businessmen intent on picking up extra dollars by making hideously false claims (just like many other industries). This includes almost every major hi-fi manufacturer then and today. The whole business is full of false claims as to the sonic benefits of extended hi-fi.
I will bend in one area only: valve (or 'tube' if your an American) amps DO sound better than solid-state. But that's generally agreed on anyway. And for justifiable and hearable reasons.
But gold-plating a connector, sending the signal over an oxygen-free wire and suspending speaker cables above the floor seems to be all very futile when you consider that the recorded work that you are about to listen to will somehow sound better - realise that the work has possibly been recorded on a crappy home computer system with less than quality components involved in many stages, as well as being a multiple digital copy of itself as it works it's way thru a myriad of electronic systems before it finds itself stamped for ever inside a cd disc. But regardless of whether a home or a professional production, by this stage it will contain many per-cents of various distortions and impurities - mostly all of which are thankfully masked by our hearing system when we listen to the music. Why strive to 'eke' out all these subtle impurities then when God obviously was compensating for the degradations in the recording process when he built 'masking' into our hearing perception systems. Thanks God.
I have barely skimmed the surface of the subject of the wide-ranging and on-going hi-fi scam and know this post will stir many to defend their expensive purchases in such frilly accessories as mentioned and their high-end equipment. Go ahead, but I also know a guy who insists that by routing all his audio cables and interconnects in straight lines and having them arranged to terminate at perfect right-angles into his equipment that makes his system sound better - to him.
There's a common saying around today that is applicable to 'bull****' hi-fi - and that is ... Get Real guys!
Gary P.
(NZ)
