The *NOT BORING!* Hi-Fi faff chat and sales

[greenstiles]

I just got an interconnect that would most likely change the minds of most who believe they all sound the same .........this one really does sound quite different than any other i have ever heard..... :shock:

 

[apache]

Why does it sound different? Or more to the point, how can it sound different? Does it have massive capacitance - or lack of? Is it very resistive?

Again, not trying to be smart, but if it is none of those things, then at audio frequencies, there are no physical reasons which will allow it to sound different to A N Other cable with the same electrical properties.

I'm happy to listen / test any cables or strange boxes that purport to 'burn in' various things, but I know from (admittedly distant) past experience with this sort of thing, when I've said I can't hear / measure any difference, that opinion is poo-poo'ed by the so called golden eared folk.

One distant past thing was the green CD pens that were popular. A certain dealer in the North West I used to go to (with a mate who was friends with him) sat me down in front of his Isobariks and played a CD. He then painted the edge of the CD with the green pen and popped it back in to immediately start singing its praise as to how much more natural and detailed it sounded. I said that to me it sounded exactly the same, which resulted in a fair bit of rolling of eyes and tutting from him and his 'fanboys' hanging around. I still maintain that it did nothing, and could not do anything.

I think it's better with that sort of thing to say if a listener thinks they can hear a difference, then great, money well spent. It matters not whether there really IS a difference.

I *can* hear a difference between this, and the original player before modification - and I know why, and can measure why. Just fits my engineering sensibilities better

 

[legrandefromage]

Blind A + B + 'X' testing - thats the only way.

When a person cannot see what they are listening to, 'differences' suddenly disappear.

Amps, CDs and speakers are mechanical devices and are susceptible to all manner stuff that can make them sound different. Interconnects have to obey the laws of physics and offer nothing further other than what they are intended for - a method of carrying a signal from one source to another.

Somewhere back in the dim and distant, some twat took it upon himself to suddenly decide that as interconnects are needed in an audio system, they should be sexed up and made to be more important than they should be. Then the original sensible message is lost in the one-upmanship noise of 'my cables are better than yours' and the whole thing is ruined.


CD players, DACs, DVD etc etc - 'Jitter' and 'Digital Artifacts' - look them up, I cant be bothered to explain! These are the bits that engineers scratch their heads over when making a digital source. Suppress these to their lowest levels possible and you have a perfectly good player/ DAC/ DVD/ Blue-Ray etc. Then someone goes and play a badly authored CD/ DVD/ MP3 and whinges that this equipment must be crap - oooh it must be the interconnects!

Zzzz....

 

[greenstiles]

The thing is I agree with most of what your saying........i belive 80% of this stuff is pure snake oil..........and i for one have been sorely dissapointed in the past that this gismo or that has not made any real difference at all.......so i'm a healthy sceptic............BUT also lots of equipment that as you say is mechanical that should sound very different from each other can also sound very much the same with the tinyest of difference at times yet ££££ more..........so it's the whole hi fi world not just interconnects.....people get impressed by the power of and amp or the look of some speakers and also convince themselves that their choice was best..........but what i'm interested in is away from the mass dross, what are the gems that actually offer 'sound for pound' what ever the reason.

After all all if it's the same music, how can it sound that different apart from, volume scale , and leaning high or low ........but it can on some equipment...emotion, timing, drifty, grating.......that can be had too..


So sometimes what we are looking for are fine tweeks to a certain frequency that make it all more enjoyable.

I have recently decided to investigate the interconnect thing again to prove to myself at least..is theresuch a thing as one that actually sounds different enoughand more importantly makes an improvement on most/all recordings.


I came across a cable that was retailing for around £60 that uses DCT treatment on small copper strips with Eichman plastic plugs.

Now to me Eichman plugs are well over priced....so taking into account they are about £40 retail for the cheap versions, a DCT treatment retail would cost you at least £20.........you can see how this cable is already value for money........

 

[greenstiles]

ps apache what the cd player and do those copper screws make all the difference ( i know they were prob already there)

 

[hamster]

Actually the copper screws do make a difference. Corrosion on ordinary steel screws causes a poor earth bond. Earth / grounding loops cause noise problems, especially the radiated noise from switching.

As for noise from things like fridges switching on, surely it's better to solve the problem at source (replace the filtering capacitor on the motor, cost 10p from Maplin) than lash out hundreds on cabling... :?

Snapping on a ferrite cable shield helps loads too.

 

[greenstiles]

Some people would say ferrite cable shields are snake oil in hi fi audio, but useful in computor cabling.........do thet make a difference to hi fi cabling ?

 

[legrandefromage]

Some people would say ferrite cable shields are snake oil in hi fi audio, but useful in computor cabling.........do thet make a difference to hi fi cabling ?

in most cases they are already fitted, just inside the unit by the back panel.

 

[apache]

Actually, having just this last hour sorted out a customer's test equipment so it isn't carrying noise into the EMC chamber via its cables using ferrites, I can say yes they make a difference... however...

At Audio frequencies? No, definitely not. What they *do* do (doo doo?) is reduce the amount of RF hash on cables, and therefore radiating from cables and appearing as pops or crackles.

Even though you hear the pops and crackles, they don't originate as audio. Noise generated by thermostats on fridges and heating system originates as broadband RF noise, and you *may* be able to reduce it by clamping a split core ferrite such as in the link at the bottom of this post onto the mains cable as close as you can to source. If you can get at the 'stat' (or compressor in a fridge) cable as close to its cable entry as possible, and put two or more turns of cable on the ferrite, you WILL stop the noise. If you can tell your customer that it's down to £500 mains cable, you're laughing all the way to the bank, but that would be highly unethical - just like most hifi dealers.

http://katalog.we-online.de/en/pbs/STAR-FIX

PS - the type of ferrite matters greatly - you need to know the characteristics of the noise before selecting the type, but in general, any one will improve things.

<edit> Big Cheese, the ones you might find in hifi are to prevent noise issuing from the unit rather than protecting it from noise. Necessary to obtain a CE mark these days!

 

[greenstiles]

ah, so having those fancy magnets of the expences cable really won't do a thing......just more rip off stuff :?