Top Ten Signs of Cable Vendor Snake Oil

[Guest]

Rip Van Woofer : There are plans for a clever and easy to build ABX box on the well known Elliot Sound site from Australia (link below).
ABX tester project

Hi Rip,

Rod Elliot (ESP) also helps out Gene (Audioholics) from time to time. The Web has made the world a lot smaller.

Have you seen Rod's discussion group?

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

Guest : Have you seen Rod's discussion group?

Yes, I have, and posted a few times too, but it's mostly DIY oriented. I am beginning to dabble a bit in DIY too. Right now I'm building a pair of Linkwitz-designed small dipoles -- his PMT1's on his "prototypes" page. Just the thing for my new cables!

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Hey, this is a good web site.

I am not an audio guru atleast in the sense of hi-fi equipment. &nbsp;However I am a musician and produce sound gigs weekly for small gatherings in a church youth program with live music. &nbsp;I also posses a good understanding of physics and electronics but again I am no guru.

Recently i bought a home entertainment system and the sales person talked me into buying &quot;superior&quot; cables and convinced me that the supplied cables &quot;would not Cut it&quot;. &nbsp;So I did. &nbsp;

I also forgot . . &nbsp;. I am a sceptical person and usually need good technical &quot;backup&quot; for claims of superiority of one system (or idea) over another. &nbsp;So researched the electro-physical properties of cables (not just for audio), on many, many websites and read numerous tech articles. &nbsp;Some of which have nothing to do with this debate. &nbsp;To my (not-so-much) surprise, the overwhelming majority of technical (and I really mean technical!) authorities using scientific tests and double blind un-biased tests C O N C L U D E &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; there is no scientific proof neither audiably nor physically that cables produce such a drastic difference in sound or video quality. (within reasonable quality cable)

maybe some one can answer this for me. . . .

In music we use balanced cables from our instruments to the mixer or preamp inputs because of the long runs these cables sometimes have to make. &nbsp;The way they work - or atleast I understand- is that the mono signal is split into two parts ran in &nbsp;isolated wire. &nbsp;One of those signals is 180 degrees out of phase and polarly inverted, thus any interference incurred through the long run will spike each cable identically (positive or negative in each. &nbsp;On the other end of the run the signals are processed and one signal is polarized to match the wave pattern of the other original signal. &nbsp;This causes the interference spikes on the overlayed wave forms to cancell each other out, eliminating extraneous noise. &nbsp;this is how &quot;balanced&quot; cables work. . .So I understand.

The big question is ----How does Monster Cables' claim that their cables are balanced. &nbsp;There is only a center conductor and a ground. &nbsp;Any balanced cable I've seen is three wires. Two signal carrying and a ground. &nbsp;Please explain !!

Thanks!

&nbsp;

</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Got here from the article on cable resonance and although I don't believe cables make any significant difference, I was wondering if these cable vendors were referring to mechanical resonance, not electrical resonance. &nbsp;The &quot;theory&quot; would be that the changing magnetic field around the cable would cause the cable to vibrate and at the resonance, the vibrations would be large enough to affect the RLC parameters of the cable enough to be audible either by changing the physical spacing of the conductors or by compressing the dielectric or by causing the stands of a multi-stranded wire to move relative to each other.
I very much doubt that any such effect would turn out to be signficant but I wonder if that's where they are headed.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>hmmm, just checked out the cable vendor referred to in the article. &nbsp;They are definitely talking about electrical resonance... &nbsp;I think they would have had a better &quot;story&quot; with the mechanical resonance approach

.</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Endymoin;

Excellent feedback. &nbsp;I too initially thought they were referring to mechanical resonance and when I realized they weren't I was appauled and thus created the resonance article. &nbsp;Mechanical resonance on terminated speaker cables is not a significant issue. &nbsp;What you are referring to is the microphoney effect which can cause deleterious effects for low level signals transmitted into high impedance loads. &nbsp;Eventually I may publish a paper on this to demonstrate the real world affect this has for applications such as microphone transmission and the non effect it has on speaker cables.</font>

 

[abob]

gene : Matt;

I suspect that the snake oil vendors tout &quot;break-in&quot; so that the consumer will keep the product for longer than the return policy. Also, statistically if a consumer doesn't return a product within a weeks time, they are less likely to do so thereafter.

As for Monster products, they are well built and usually measure well. The only problem I have had with many of their RCA type cables is the barrel is to narrow causing me to almost break the RCA plugs off of my electronics when putting them on or off. And yes, I do twist while doing this procedure, but it still can be too challenging. I really love the WBT locking RCA plugs that Kimber uses on his cables, but they are very expensive

why not say it's probably &quot;break in&quot; their ears and their minds.
I think that's the reason!

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>As far as teh .44, .38, uzi and so on goes, check this out http://www.powerlabs.org/railguncurrent.htm

Railguns &gt; all &nbsp;

As far as cables go, might as well roll your own. &nbsp;That way you'll have something made to your spec (length any aethetics, flexibility of cable, etc), and the price will most likely be far lower than even monster cable. &nbsp;You can get interconnect cable that even has teflon dielectrics and foil shielding for about 75 cents a foot. &nbsp;RCA connectors can easily be $2 each.

Sadly, when I hear someone talk about how they met this cable and suddenly their system's sound has changed, I think of the following. &nbsp;Replace &quot;cable&quot; with deity of choice, and &quot;system's sound&quot; with &quot;life&quot; and it's basically a religious testimony with slightly different subject matter.

Sure we buy whatever sounds best to us, but that doesn't mean it's any more or less accurate than another component. &nbsp;At least to me, accuracy is the goal. &nbsp;Sure an accurate system will make some recordings sound bad, but that's because that recording IS bad. &nbsp;

My gear may or may &nbsp;not be even close to accurate, but I'm just playing with what budget I have. &nbsp;With that budget, exploring anything that has no evidence backing it up is not going to happen. &nbsp;Everything for my music system has to have plenty of specs, and anyhting that isn't speced (like calbes), I choose to make myself. &nbsp;The end result, at least to me, seems to be very good for a sub-$900 system. &nbsp;Would I call my system perfect? &nbsp;Heck no, I have no proof backing it up. &nbsp;I do knowf some weaknesses in the speakers especially.

Sound quality and What sounds good to a person often does not go had in hand, mostly due to pyschological reasons. &nbsp;We all like things we are familiar with. &nbsp;Example, if you grew up in some asian countries, fishheads are delicacies. &nbsp;Here, we think of fishehads as disgusting. &nbsp;If a person who grew up here goes to a country where fishehads are delicacies, they will still not like them, just because they are not comfortable with the idea yet. &nbsp; Maybe in a year or two that person will love fishheads, who knows?

Sound is much like the fishhead, in that we get comfortable with certain sound characteristics, and consider everything else bad, when in truth the sound may have been far more accurate, and the listener was just uncomfortable with the new experience that they just became part of.

So we have the balance of what we have become accustomed to, and sound quality. &nbsp;We all strive for quality, but some do fall into the hole of loving certain sound characteristics. &nbsp;So long as they chose to fall in that hole, good for them, but if they are being guided down it by someone merely trying to make a commission, that's all bad.</font>

 

[Chuck]

mustang_steve : As far as cables go, might as well roll your own. That way you'll have something made to your spec (length any aethetics, flexibility of cable, etc), and the price will most likely be far lower than even monster cable. You can get interconnect cable that even has teflon dielectrics and foil shielding for about 75 cents a foot. RCA connectors can easily be $2 each.

If you want to try some really nice RCA connectors, check out the Vampire C4X connectors. They're a little more expensive, but they're cheaper if you buy them by the dozen, and they're worth the extra expense. Most connectors are either too loose or too tight, but these puppies are tight enough to stay connected while still being easy to connect and disconnect. The difference is not subtle. A well designed and well constructed connector that may well be the best available.

The DIY rail-gun is pretty cool, but in general, they lack portability.

Anyone working on a DIY OET particle beam weapon?

 

[Dan Banquer]

<font color='#000000'>For anyone interested in rolling their own, I have two articles on this very web site. Bulletproofing Your System From Interference gives a lot of good cable suggestions and the DIY speaker cable article for the beginners. Have fun.
              d.b.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Now for my confession:

I've got one of those super-expensive audiophile systems. &nbsp;Sometimes I think I'm more interested in the sound than the music. &nbsp;Yup, I'll avoid some classic jazz music because of its horrible sound and listen to a crisp recording of junk instead.

I'm delighted with the debate about cables. &nbsp;In medicine, we use double blind randomized controlled trials to sort the wheat from the chaff. &nbsp;Many times, a drug's mechanism of action is unknown and only found years after the drug has been seen to be safe and effective. &nbsp;(Modafinil is a great example.)

I never thought much of Stereophile and its ilk because they NEVER test blind. &nbsp;(Wine Spectator does and is invaluable as a result.)

I did my own double blind study. &nbsp;It came about when my Levinson dealer was willing to put his money where his mouth was. &nbsp;He bought the cables and gave them to me. &nbsp;They were Straightwires and cost about $2000. &nbsp;I would have to pay him only if I saw a $2k difference.

I asked my wife to change the cables randomly with two other and lesser pairs. &nbsp;I repeated this for a total of 20 trials, blinded to each change.

I reliably recognized the $2000 cables 100% of the time. &nbsp;The difference was amazing.

I wrote the check.</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Dr. Nick;

Sounds like you found a cable that works well for your system and listening preferences. &nbsp; &nbsp;Good job!</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Straightwires at 2K? &nbsp;holy mackeral.

I made some speaker cable that reads about 10 nanohenries per foot, and my audiophile friend is going to try them as a replacement for some straightwire product..I didn't know they were that expensive...maybe I'm in the wrong business..

Eh..Eh...Hi Gene..

Cheers, John</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>John;

That cable sounds promosing. &nbsp;What is Cp?

Right now I am working on Speaker Cable Face Off II (when time permits which these days seems rarely at best). &nbsp;After this, I will be doing a face off article on DIY cables. &nbsp;Perhaps I can throw your cable into the mix.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>C[sub]p[/sub]?

An interesting question.  The first piece I made, 20 feet long, has 288 pf per foot, with an inductance of 10 nanohenries per foot.

Using the tefzel dielectric, I now have the capability of tailoring both inductance and capacitance, the relation being:

L (nH) * C (pf)  = 2783.7

with air dielectric, the equation is:

L (nH) * C (pf)  = 1031

This is independent of conductor equivalent resistance, and will be skin invarient throughout the audio band.

I'm not sure what will be accomplished by testing it in comparison to any other cable at this time, as I can set the parameters at will, and your measurements of resistance and inductance will be flatline to well outside the audio band.

I'll try to link a graph here...



If you still want, I can make some more.  Right now, I only have one braid size, so resistance per foot is pre-defined to what is on hand..
John</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>Oh well..guess the html code doesn't work..

how does one post a jpeg here?

John</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>Great Scott thats a lot of capacitance! &nbsp;I hope you are terminating that cable with a Zobel.

Why are you trying to get inductance so low?

At frequencies below w= R/L, the resistance exceeds the inductance reactance and the cable behaves like an RC transmission line known as the RC region. &nbsp;Thus resistance should be the dominant metric you are trying to control.</font>

 

[Guest]

gene : <font color='#000000'>Great Scott thats a lot of capacitance! I hope you are terminating that cable with a Zobel.

Why are you trying to get inductance so low?</font>

<font color='#000000'>It was a trial run at minimizing inductance..and it worked quite well. &nbsp;My friend has less than a meter between his amps and speakers.

The capacitance is just a consequence of the equations and the dielectric I used. &nbsp;It is a trivial matter to specify the capacitance as say, 50 pf per foot, and have the inductance as 60 nanohenries per foot..using the tefzel heatshrink.

I'm investigating ways of reducing the DC of the insulation towards 1. &nbsp;Then, if one wants 50 pf per foot, I can produce a 20 nanohenry per foot cable. &nbsp;Or, a 25 pf/ft cable with 40 nanohenries...its quite trivial, actually.

So, measuring my cables would be a good way of testing out your test equipment, but it's really trivial to best any metrics you decide make for a good cable, within the bounds of the equations.

Next, I'll be trying some other interesting geometries, to see if I can violate the double braid L-C relationship.

Cheers, John

 

[Guest]

gene : At frequencies below w= R/L, the resistance exceeds the inductance reactance and the cable behaves like an RC transmission line known as the RC region. Thus resistance should be the dominant metric you are trying to control.

If I were treating the problem as a transmission line...yes, I would agree.

But for the lengths and frequencies we are talking about, RC transmission line theory does not apply, so the actual resistance can be considered as lump sum for the purposes of analysis. It would only be in the high frequency testing range where I would worry about that...you know, the 100 Khz and up region.

The only subset of transmission line theory I need for the double braid is the calculation of inductance and capacitance, I'm not even concerned with the characteristic impedance, although the first cable I made has one in the 4 to 8 ohm range....serendipity at best.

John

 

[Guest]

Guest : <font color='#000000'>The big question is ----How does Monster Cables' claim that their cables are balanced. There is only a center conductor and a ground. Any balanced cable I've seen is three wires. Two signal carrying and a ground. Please explain !!</font>

<font color='#000000'>Hold on to your potatos here. The buzzword is &quot;bandwidth balanced&quot; where they claim to have a bunch of different gauge conductors for high/mid/low frequencies. Apparently it is their belief that different audio frequencies travel at different speeds through the cable, and that conductor geometry can change this. This must be one of the oldest snake oils on the cable market, afaik. So snake oils have another amazing property: They Never Dry Up.