The Great Cable and Interconnect Swindle: An Etiology

[gmgraves]

 

55 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, I'd like to hear your setup, George - because you spent a lot of time fine tuning all your ideas, both in recording and playback, I'm sure that your own recordings would come across extremely well ... where I differ is that I want any recording that happens to be playing to deliver a satisfying experience; that's a different "challenge", and one I enjoy working at.

Good luck with that. Personally I think that goal is as impossible as perfect reproduction! Don’t blame you for wanting to try, though.😉

 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

I suspect it had more to do with the dealer than the manufacturer as Nordost is not know to sell direct. The time to be assured that a dealer will take back cables if you are not satisfied is before you buy them. George will disagree, but most people who believe cables make a difference also believe that cables must be burned in for at least 100 hrs or more to reveal how they sound. Making a judgment on how a new cable sounds fresh out of the box is not recommended. Ironically, a used cable in very good condition actually provides the advantage of already having gone through the process.

The guy I’m talking about is too EE savvy to buy The preposterous idea of “burning-in“ wire. 
“...Gone through the process”! Think about that for a while. What “process”, passing an AC signal of roughly 2 volts PP? What could it possibly change except that the owner gets used to the differences between that portion of the spectrum that his new cables attenuates when compared to the portion of the spectrum his old cables surppressed. The only thing “burning-in” is the owner/listener!

[gmgraves]

21 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

Thank you.  I like those speakers.  

 

Just curious:  do you tend to listen more to the speakers than the headphones (everyday use)?  Any room treatments in the main system?  

I find myself listening more to headphones these days because I have been reviewing a lot of headphones and headphone amps lately. In the last six months, I’ve had the following through my system: Stax SRM-700T headphone amp, Stax SR-009S phones, Stax SRT-L300 phones, Dan Clark ‘Voce‘ phones, Abyss-1260 phones, HeadAmp GSX mkII amplifier, the LTA z10e  headphone/speaker amp, the Schiit Asgard 3 headphone amp, and the Audeze LCD4x phones.

I prefer speakers though and listen to my MLs every chance I get!

My room’s pretty good, aside from my overstuffed chair and my couch, no room treatment.

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

I never have had the concept of "burning in" figure as part of my thinking - the whatever has to do the job within a reasonable time frame, from a cold start, is my attitude.

 

However, what does figure, I believe, is that materials have parasitic electrical behaviours, which vary depending upon the stress on them. Over time, the parts of the whole 'relax' into the shape that they were arranged or organised in - similar to a piece of wood yielding to a deliberate bending of it - and so these parasitic aspects stabilise. I have no interest in having to deal with this, so I aim to use parts and materials that don't show this sort of behaviour.

... And how would you know what are “parts and materials that don't show this sort of behaviour“? I don’t believe that I’ve ever encountered a manufacturers’ spec for that particular property.

I absolutely reject the notion that cables need or are even susceptible to “burning-in”, “running-in” or any other term that infers a process of electrically stabilizing over time. And I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck here, either. As I have mentioned before, I once worked as the lead engineer in an aerospace company’s “Cable Lab” where intricate cable assemblies were designed, tested and assembled for missiles, advanced aircraft and satellites. Cable assemblies were tested in every kind of environment that could be imagined, including high-tension stress tests, vibration tests, tests where the cables were exposed to high pressure chambers, vacuum chambers, high temperatures, low temperatures, and often for as much as six months at a time, while carry every kind of signals imaginable, and never, never once did any of them exhibit even the most minute unexpected change in characteristics over all of those tests. So you will forgive me if I put the notion of cable “burn-in” down to some  neurotic audiophiles’ imagination!

[gmgraves]

20 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

Just curious:  do you believe there is running-in for mechanical devices, like speakers?  How about tubes used in audio?  

Cars need running-in. The pistons and the bores have to wear together. If you don’t, the piston bores get scored and rings don’t seat properly. Result? The car starts to burn oil almost immediately, and gets steadily worse. I’ve seen it said that modern cars don’t need running in, but my eyes tell me that’s nonsense. I have known several people who have bought late model ex-rental cars, and they already burning a little oil, and it quickly accelerated to a lot of oil. Rental cars are driven by people who don’t care that the car is brand new, and can’t be bothered to baby it (“it’s not my car!”).

Turntables, tape recorders, CD players, etc, do not benefit from any form of run-in. Some speakers benefit from running-in. The bass on Magnepans, for instance improves by getting more prominent, more robust, and cone headphones seem to get more “bassy” over the first 100 hours or so, but planar dynamics and electrostatic ‘phones, in my experience,  don’t really seem to. 
Electronics don’t “burn-in per se, but all can benefit from thermally stabilizing by leaving it on all the time (if practical) or warmed up for an hour before a listening session since leaving a power amp all the time is not practical.

[gmgraves]

8 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 There is definitely running in for Speakers, Headphones and large value Electrolytic capacitors, especially the Audio types with their different electrolyte formulations.

I doubt that there is any running in time for Vacuum tubes, which unlike transistors have slowly reduced emission and gain as they age.

While I agree about many speakers, and some headphones, that electrolytics need run-in, is myth. The dielectric in large electrolytic capacitors forms in just seconds, after the application of voltage, so burning-in is unnecessary, but stabilization through warm-up is a real thing. An hour or so of warm up stabilizes the operation of all active electronics. So do that before any critical listening.

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Trial and error. Over time one develops a toolbag of tricks, that are called on in a situation, because previous experiences have shown that some things just work

OK that at least makes sense.

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

 

It's all about signal to noise ... many of the industrial uses don't need extreme levels of this; general reliability is far more important. The irksome thing about general audio systems is that noise intrudes right at the edge of listeners' abilities to perceive it - the fussy audio enthusiast picks it up easily, and so starts their adventures ...

Why would a cable’s susceptibility to noise change over use? I’ll answer that. It doesn’t! That was one of the things we tested for. Not just susceptibility to noise, but the cable’s ability to self generate thermal noise; something that is not an issue in a small signal cable in a domestic setting. When a satellite is measuring tiny amounts of gas or a particular, minute type of radiation, signal to noise performance is orders of magnitude more important than in someone’s stereo system!

[gmgraves]

17 minutes ago, sandyk said:

NO ! It definitely is NOT !!!

  Virtually all NOS large value electros for example , benefit from further forming, and many DIY Audio members even use a " Cap Rack" to help quickly stabilise larger value electrolytic capacitors.

 Many hundreds of DIY Audio and other forum members  who have constructed the John Linsley Hood designed PSU Add-on  from the >800 PCBs made available for this project have found that the resulting SQ varies dramatically in SQ for around 72 hours as the large value Capacitance Multiplier electros reach stabilisation with the typically low 600mV across them. When using 2 parallel 4,700uF in that area some constructors found that the Current Limiter transistor often became quite warm initially.

Alex, that is warm-up, not “burn-in”. Burn-in infers a situation where a characteristic is permanently changed over time through use. Warm-up, OTOH,  infers a temporary change in characteristics brought on by use. If you let an electrolytic capacitor, especially a large one sit without being used for a long time, and assuming no damage has occurred during that dormant period, when pressed into service again, you would have to re-initiate that “72 hour” burn-in in order for that cap to get back to it’s optimum and stable operating condition. IOW, the change wasn’t permanent, and therefore it’s warm-up not burn-in.

[gmgraves]

38 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 George

 You are playing with words.

 According to you, this phenomenon did not exist. The same applies to brand new and fresh stock large value Audiophile capacitors from different manufacturers. Some Audiophile large value electros take WEEKS, not hours to fully stabilise.

 

Alex

But it’s not permanent, Alex, so it’s not a burn-in.

 

[gmgraves]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Well!! ... Talk about timing!!!

 

... Just did a test of how the new active speakers could handle Adele's 21 ... an album quite notorious for being "badly recorded" , 🤪.

 

OMG, it was a fail ...Big Time!!! Sounding awful, living up to all what audiophiles were saying about it ... Jeezus, was there really something so out of kilter with the internals of the speakers, that was clashing with the style of this recording! Mad scramble to try all sorts of things, including shutting down the whole house electrically; playing with volume, all the way down; resetting both the player and speakers by power cycling - slight gain here, but still pretty bad ... looking, looking, looking - how's the cable connecting the right speaker to the left sitting ... Ah hah!!!

 

These speakers work by the right hand unit being the master; the left is fully passive - an umbilical cable with separate conductors for the treble and mid/bass units connects the amps in the right hand unit with the drivers in the left - works fine. But, the damping I had inserted to stabilise the path of this cable had creeped - the hard surface of the umbilical outer cover was now resting, lightly, on another hard surface - a big no-no!

 

OK, just reset the damping - and the transformation happened ... SQ fully restored - Adele was singing her lungs out ... and it all sounded good ...

 

So, what happened? Well, those bloody parastics!! The fact of the cable not being correctly stabilised was enough to throw the internal electronics completely out of whack, subjectively ... QED.

 

Yes, cables matter ...

You have quite an imagination, Frank. But you’re lucky in one respect. You can actually talk yourself into believing that a lousy sounding recording can be made into a good sounding recording by you just “fiddling” around.

[gmgraves]

Just now, sandyk said:

Again, you are playing with words.

The change will normally remain as long as the equipment is used occasionally, however after several years in storage it may take a little while, but not as long as originally, to fully stabilise again

 

Ok, have it your own way, Alex, my friend. But we’re going to have agree to disagree about this. 

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 Frank

 I don't doubt that you heard a change for the better, but where can I buy one of those magic magnification devices ?

If Frank actually believes that he can make poor recordings sound like good recordings just by “messing around”, then he is actually ahead of the rest of us because he’s able to hear around lousy source material. I certainly can’t do that!

[gmgraves]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 

 George

•  When was the last time you were deeply involved in the DIY area ? 30 years ago perhaps ?

 Many members here can tell you similar things

It has been a while, but actually this has nothing to do with DIY. This has to do with electronics knowledge and the physics behind it. You think that burn-in and temporary thermal stabilization of parameters are the same thing. And that to insist that they are very different is just “semantics”. That’s OK. It’s also OK that I disagree. We’re still friends as far as I’m concerned.😇

[gmgraves]

19 hours ago, sandyk said:

 George

 Did you also read the reply by Gary ?  One and a half

 I suspect you also have some fondness for Frank too .

 

Kind Regards

Alex

Yep! The dielectric has to be reformed. It’s not permanent.

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I agree with the sentiments, because very intelligent and well educated people have been trying to 'fix' recordings at least back to the time of the Radiotron Designers Handbook, and even before.  IMO, it is best, if one is going to try to 'fix' a recording, to try to fix the impairments one at a time.  Each impairment has very specific characteristics -- spectrum of a tick or pop, tape hiss is different than its vinyl brethren of various kinds of 'rumble' or 'vinyl surface noise'.  Each one has different characteristics, and even an adaptive general purpose FFT spectral technique misses the mark for most specific impairments.  (perhaps the FFT technique might be a last finishing polish to a recording, but must be used very carefully.)  Admittedly, the general techniques are getting better and better, but they become tricky when considering the side effects of the 'repairs' create worse problems.   All of this doesn't even consider stereo imaging issues (time distortions)...

Tape hiss never bothered me, still doesn’t. What I consider bad recordings are those which are recorded using a score of microphones and have no real soundstage. Or recordings with no dynamic range, or recordings that are dull and lifeless, with no deep bass, no clear treble, high distortion, veiled midrange, etc.  Any of those characteristics will make a recording unlistenable to my ears. Some have more than one of these shortcomings, and some, unfortunately, have all of them!

 

[gmgraves]

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You weren't there, George 😉 ... Bev was saying that is sounded 'orrible, because that's exactly how it was coming across - no matter how much you turned the volume down, the SQ was locked into this mediocre, midfi quality - the voice was flat, like an AM radio, and you just wanted to hit the Stop button, to give one's ears a break. But I kept it running, to try and track down where the issue was - I have had these sort of SQ 'dives' many times, over the years ... due to cable dressing issues.

 

Last word from Bev ... "It's absolutely BullShit that one has to worry about this sort of stuff! Why is there this much of a problem!!" ... ummm, err, yes, hmmm ...

Frank, that’s total nonsense and I’m sure that you MUST know it too. Either you’re putting us on, or, you tend to greatly exaggerate the results of your little experiments. There is no real third choice. Surely you must realize that if dressing cables made the sort of difference that you are reporting, others would have found it too. But instead of just ridiculing you, I tried to replicate your results. I have a pair of TUK brand powered speakers in my office similar in concept to yours. I.E. one speaker has the electronics and the other doesn’t. The main speaker (right channel)  connects to the left channel with just a cable. I moved that cable every way it was possible; draped it over the back of the desk, even laid the cable on inverted ceramic demitasse cups, to get it up off the desk. Nothing made the slightest perceivable difference in the sound. Even if it had, it would have only affected the left channel, the channel connected with the cable, because the right channel doesn’t have a cable!

[gmgraves]

10 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Hmmm. I wonder why ? Could it be age related perhaps ? 😉

 

I can still hear tape hiss, but it never bothered me even as a kid (but the 15,750 Hz TV “fly back” frequency produced by the horizontal oscillator in an NTSC television, used to drive me crazy!). Since it was constant and unchanging, I can/could ignore it.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 I had the same problem with our PAL System 15,625HZ when a younger adult.

Pretty standard stuff. We had a RCA Victor B&W TV in the early ‘50’s, and I never heard/noticed the fly-back on that, but when we got our first color set (also RCA circa 1956), that was the first time I heard it. After that just about every NTSC TV I had to put up with it until I was 35 or so, after which I couldn’t hear it so easily any more (of course If I stuck my head inside the TV I could still hear it until very recently. I can’t hear 15,750 Hz any more But I can still hear 15 KHz (sorta)!

 

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Other than a repairman, why on earth would anyone stick their head inside the TV for any reason, let alone to hear a 15,750 Hz tone? Must be an old TV because I don't see how you could stick your head inside a flat screen?

You’re being too literal. If I got to close to the back of a CRT-based NTSC TV I could still hear it. Of course, we, here in the USA don’t use NTSC any more, nor do we use CRT TVs any more. Today’s LCD/OLED screens don’t have a high-voltage raster, so there is no audible high frequency sound.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

 

You guys take things far too seriously. It was a joke. I guess my humour is just too subtle for both of you.

Subtlety doesn’t really play very well on Internet forums, it seems. My comment on sticking one’s head in the TV was meant facetiously as well, I meant that the older one gets, the closer one needs to get to the source of the raster sound to still hear it, hence the joking reference to having to stick ones head IN the TV.

[gmgraves]

On 5/24/2020 at 4:53 PM, fas42 said:

 

There can be a variety of reasons for why this happened in mine, and you're not noticing anything varying in yours, George.

Frank. I’m not noticing anything varying because nothing is! Dressing a (The?)

speaker cable on a powered speaker based system does nothing, and can’t do anything. 
What I have come to believe, when reading your posts about the “miracles” that your ”method” hath wrought, is several things. First, your sense of scale is vastly different from that of the rest of us. What you consider a night and day difference, for instance, to the rest of us would equate to “barely perceptible”. Secondly, you enhance your results with a huge amount of imagination. Again, I’ve been a serious audiophile since the mid 1950’s when I was just a pre-teen kid. I have experience with every type of equipment and probably every tweak that has come down the pike. None of them, either alone or in concert with others has ever created anywhere even close to the sweeping changes in SQ that you so routinely report. The sciences of electronics and acoustics are simply not that magical. Neither are alchemy or sorcery nor are they religious experiences. There are logical reasons for everything, and none of those reasons will yield the results you report on almost a daily basis. I think it is fine for you when you do something that to your mind seems like an audio epiphany. But you shouldn’t get so defensive when others don’t see it as one. 
You should also keep in mind (some others here too), that not all changes in the sound of a system are positive. Just because a tweak yields a difference doesn’t necessarily mean that said difference is better than what the system sounded like before!

 

[gmgraves]

18 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

I had asked whether this warm up was measurable.  No one responded, but I did notice this post that has comparable measurements.  

 

 

I don’t know if “burn-in” with electronics is measurable or not. I can’t think of any measurement off-hand. But mechanical “runnng-in” can be measured sometimes. For instance a woofer might yield a flatter measuring frequency response, After a hundred hours or so of use. Or, perhaps exhibit a change in transient response or an impedance difference that would show up on an oscillograph of some type.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, PYP said:

 

This is interesting, at least to me.  Everyone hears the difference, yet no one (?) measures it?   Would anyone tell you to keep your toaster on so that you could get the best toast (or perfect toast forever)?  Of course, if audiophiles got hold of that toaster, they would demand the manufacturer lose the captive cord, would add a weight on top and put the thing on footers -- only then would it yield the best toast    I'm not sure what objectivists would do.  Perhaps you can tell me. 

It’s not that things can’t be measured, it’s more that what can be measured really can’t be correlated with the differences heard because nobody’s really made that kind of connection. IOW, we know that components age as they are used, but the aging is cumulative and they all work together to give an unpredictable result. Generally, as components heat up, they stabilize, and most think that they reach their “best“ under those circumstances. If they do, it’s a result of many hours of listening by those responsible for the component’s sound. They pick and choose components that will sound a certain way when optimally warmed up.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

All wrong, George... Which is why you find so many recordings unpleasant to listen to... 

 

Until you can comprehend that niggly little things in a rig can subjectively damage the SQ, badly... little will be achieved by you doing any fiddling. - 

 

I can never comprehend what’s all in your mind Frank. Nobody can. I find many  recordings unpleasant to listen to, because they ARE. They were recorded incompetently either because the recording engineers, themselves are incompetent, or they were following the wishes of producers and/or “artists“ that wouldn’t know a good sounding recording if they heard one. These recordings are distorted, improperly miked, have too much EQ, the wrong EQ, have been compressed, limited, poorly mixed, indifferently processed for production, or have had a hundred more indignities visited upon them. And here’s the thing. Once a recording has been ruined like that, there is NOTHiNG that a listener can do with or to their systems to correct it, or even make it listenable, in spite of your nonsense assertions to the contrary.