Those who own Audioquest cable...what do you think?

[esldude]

FYI, "begging the question" is a philosophy concept, i.e. a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

 

The logical fallacy in your argument is the a priori assumption that every possible measurable characteristic is currently known, to the exclusion of any potential discoveries in the future. You are saying, unequivocally, that cables that measure the same must sound the same, and that any differences heard between such cables cannot be real.

 

 

 

With an approach like you display here, there is no question possible that would not be judged as begging. Which means there is a problem with your line of thought in this. Part of which is a misrepresentation of jabbr's views on this matter.

[esldude]

I really didn't want to disclose this. I don't want to be considered a shill.

 

I just wanted to qualify my experience with the placebo effect. I believe it to be real, but I also believe as with many other things in life that the more you do something the better control you have over it.

 

I've asked the administrator to remove the links that have been posted to the website.

 

Yes, in some ways the more you do something the better you become at it and maybe the better control you have. I don't extend that all that far with sighted listening or placebo effects. You are simply repeated a common argument that in essence all that bias stuff applies to regular people, but not to someone like me.

 

If the effects are real then why not compare in a manner that eliminates the chance of sighted info effecting what you hear?

[esldude]

be specific. none of your approaches leads to a "sounds better" development path for cables, etc., nor one where optimizing LCR leads to improved flatness of frequency response. could you tell me what the ideal values of LCR are for flat frequency response?

 

You already have one answer from gmgraves.

 

Take flatness of response. In analog interconnects you have already flat response to several hundred kilohertz. Often higher. Can you push that to some higher flatness? I suppose you could, but it won't sound different. Same for any possible distortion on cable at audio frequencies. Etc. etc. The reason there is no sounds better path for development is the result is already for audio purposes pretty much perfect. There is no where left to go with improvement.

[esldude]

Yeah, but where is the data that tells you how it sounds? LOL

 

 

 

There can be a lot of data available:

 

Belden RG6 (1694a):

 

Nom. Characteristic Impedance:

Impedance (Ohm)

75

 

Nom. Inductance:

Inductance (μH/ft)

0.106

 

Nom. Capacitance Conductor to Shield:

Capacitance (pF/ft)

16.2

 

Nominal Velocity of Propagation:

VP (%)

82

 

Nominal Delay:

Delay (ns/ft)

1.24

 

Nom. Conductor DC Resistance:

DCR @ 20°C (Ohm/1000 ft)

6.4

 

Nominal Outer Shield DC Resistance:

DCR @ 20°C (Ohm/1000 ft)

2.8

 

Nom. Attenuation:

Freq. (MHz) Attenuation (dB/100 ft.)

1.000 0.240

3.580 0.440

5.000 0.520

6.000 0.570

7.000 0.610

10.000 0.710

12.000 0.780

25.000 1.080

67.500 1.650

71.500 1.690

88.500 1.860

100.000 1.950

135.000 2.240

143.000 2.300

180.000 2.570

270.000 3.170

360.000 3.690

540.000 4.600

720.000 5.380

750.000 5.500

1000.000 6.420

1500.000 7.990

2000.000 9.370

2250.000 10.010

3000.000 11.780

4500.000 14.920

 

Max. Operating Voltage - UL:

Voltage

300 V RMS

 

Start Freq. (MHz) Stop Freq. (MHz) Min. RL (dB)

5.000 1600.000 23.000

1600.000 4500.000 21.000

 

Sweep Test

Sweep Testing: 100% Sweep tested 5 MHz to 4.5 GHz.

[esldude]

The quoted data tells you that it has no discernible effect on audio frequencies.

 

Yes I know. Was just preemptively offering up the question.

[esldude]

If we assume that some interconnect or USB cables do, in fact, sound different, then there would appear to be two possibilities. Either the very small measurable differences do have an effect on the brain's auditory function or, if they don't, then some other characteristic - currently unknown or misunderstood - must account for these differences.

 

And if we assume they don't sound different there is no conflict with theory or measurement in how cables carry a signal.

[esldude]

Which of the comments are you saying are incorrect?

Do you know a way to measure and characterize "soundstage", etc.? Do you disagree that it would useful to have a predictive tool that could be used to see how SQ varies with LCR, etc.?

You seem not to have really read my post.

 

Do you base your opinion about cables on experiments (e.g. proper DBT on similar and dissimilar cables) ?

 

If what goes into one end of the cable isn't different than what comes out the other end, the cable has no effect on SQ or soundstage. Because the signal hasn't been altered. If two different cables both manage to pass the signal without altering it again neither will alter sound quality.

[esldude]

snip.........

 

This is the second time you've stated this, and the second time I will disagree. The previous time it took me about two seconds to think of two often-recited descriptions of claimed improvement: (1) Being able to hear more detail; and (2) improvement in microdynamics. This time around, I can think in another couple of seconds of two more descriptions: (3) The music came from a "blacker background;" and (4) so common as to be a cliché and the subject of amusement, "A veil was lifted." All of these descriptions are often used to describe improvements in SQ due to cables, and all, I would submit, are consonant with reduction of low-level noise.

 

snip

 

With all respect Jud, the above description of improvements mirrors what has been said about virtually every single thing ever proposed to help with sound. A cliche indeed.

[esldude]

This is clearly true but answers none of my questions.

 

You asked about measuring soudstage. You asked about LCR and how it varies with sound quality. Simple answer, if LCR in conventional use of cables doesn't change the signal it doesn't change the sound quality. Such is the case.

 

What L, C, or R would effect sound quality? One that could change the signal, typically in terms of frequency response. Those have to be so large as to be intentional or incompetent. If intentional we are now down to a haphazard EQ effect which varies with which gear it is connected to. Simple method, don't do EQ this way. Connect transparently and if you want EQ do actual controllable EQ. We could go through the process of giving you numbers, but it is a waste of time.

 

As for soundstage, it can only vary if the signal varies. With stereo there are only 2 signals. You can effect it with proper EQ bumps and dips. You can effect it by blending the two channels. You could extract how much stereo info is there by deriving a difference signal between the two channels. Soundstage is a result of differing channel info, FR effects and interactions with speakers and room. There may not be a single number we can put on it. Doesn't make it some mystery that falls between the cracks.

[esldude]

Quite true. My only points are that anyone who contends descriptions of sonic improvements are inconsistent with reduction of low level noise as a *potential* explanation is quite wrong; and that this would require no new or exotic physics of cables at all.

 

This doesn't mean such descriptions couldn't be wrong, the result of placebo, etc.; only that quite prosaic everyday physics would potentially cause such effects.

 

Conventional cables will not contribute noise at any level that can matter from their use as a signal carrier.

 

Conventional cables in some environments could allow noise to leak in to a level that matters. That normally is not a big issue in the home environment. It is one that many worry about as possible. You might recall I put up once how an SE unshielded cable wrapped 3 times around a PC power supply had audible and measurable artefacts. Unwrapping the cable dropped the obviously audible part out though the cable ran right next to the PS. You could still measure the noise was there. Moving it 6 inches from the PS dropped it below the noise floor of the equipment (if I remember right that was around -105 db for the 0-24khz band). A shielded SE cable lowered noise some though I forget how much. A balanced cable wrapped 5 times around the same PC PS picked up nothing I could hear or measure (and the noise floor dropped 3 or 4 db with the balanced connection).

 

It is easy to add noise to a file and see what it causes when you listen to music. People seem to worry about very low levels causing issues and corroborate it with sighted listening. Yet there is the file the guy at Liberty instruments made of a nice recording. At -60 db he mixed in a raucous marching band recording. I don't know of anyone who can tell the band is playing at that level.

[esldude]

It might be implicit in your description, but I'd add phase as an explicit factor.

 

Yes it is implicit.

[esldude]

You seem to be missing the larger question (alluded to earlier by jabbr). How can one define metrics and make measurements on components or systems of components, be it cables, USB thingees, preamps, etc., that allow for the characterization of their effects on sound quality? What do you measure and characterize in order to have a quantitative approach to optimize these components and their interactions in order to improve sound quality? How does one compare X vs. Y through measurement and characterization in a way that evaluates their effects on SQ?

 

Simple, trivial, dismissive answers are not beneficial.

 

The car turns the corner to come up my street. Even from here several hundred feet away I hear the bass. Passing in front of my house each low note serves up a wallop that rattles the windows in my front door. Ask the owner of the car and he will confirm he has great bass, just great. The music he listens to is even recorded, mixed and processed to sound right in a system with bass like his. Me? I think his bass is wildly overblown and underdamped.

 

Some people prefer wall to wall imaging and then some. Yet imaging very much outside your speakers is a result of some phase anomaly in the system or the recording.

 

Many like front to back sound stage depth. Not cardboard cutout soundstaging. Yet in a system with the appropriate depth you can increase it with a properly placed minor dip in response. A small bit of compression can enhance it as well. Even order distortion that varies considerably with signal level contributes a bit more. Is more always better? Each person will stop at some point where these other mechanisms interfere in other ways unwelcome.

 

All of these can be measured. What the listener will make of them will vary from person to person. Background, experience, type of music most enjoyed all will interact to give a variable subjective assessment of SQ for any given system. That is why measurements can be a good guide to fidelity. Everyone thinks fidelity is what they want, and probably most prefer some artificial enhancement. So one can't get an overall SQ rating for some component for this reason. This isn't being dismissive. Or trivial.

 

Improved sound quality isn't directly transferable past very low minimum levels between people.

 

Now Harman has done research on speakers (and headphones) showing in general on average there are certain characteristics judged to be of best quality by almost all people. Despite that I have heard way too many high end systems where someone pursued their favorite quality of sound. The result is often entertaining, and also often obviously skewed though the owner doesn't think so.

 

Now I don't believe fidelity should be a straight jacket. It is a good base from which to work. I like a very slightly enhanced bass myself. I also like depth rather than a flat 2D portrayal of sound. I like enough power to have a relaxed presentation of music unless of course the music is not meant to be smooth, calm and relaxing. So find fidelity and you can flavor to your taste.

[esldude]

Even when one's goal is "transparency" (or accuracy) it makes sense to look for specific equipment, or if you're a designer for specific components.

But if the best cables can affect the signal it would be interesting to have access to a set of measurements that could characterize their performance.

 

A turntable designer once compared his design approach to the fine tuning of a formula 1 where a very small adjustment can chop a few 1/100 second off a lap's time and be enough for pole position.

 

The chain is only as strong as it's weakest link and even the least significant links play a part in the overall performance.

 

R

 

The weakest link is by far, by a huge margin, by at least a couple orders of magnitude the speakers and room. Stop looking for cables that can alter the sound. Other than speaker cables and phono cables from a cartridge they don't have an effect on sound. And the effect those exceptions have are.......yes................LCR effects and nothing exotic. If they somehow have an effect unaccounted for it will be of such supremely minor size as to be beyond trivial compared to anything else you can do like move yourself or your speaker a 1/4 inch.

[esldude]

So does this include being able to stop a honkin' big ground hum by switching one pair of a particular manufacturer's cables for a different pair of cables from the same manufacturer? (Same length, same general design philosophy, different implementation.) Yes, they were from my turntable, though the connection at the 'table was RCA rather than DIN.

 

Sounds like a defective cable to me. What were the differences in the cable construction?

[esldude]

 

But since so many people say that cables affect sound quality, I believe that some effort should be made to create measurements that might help determine what differences in performance are responsible for those effects.

 

R

 

There are none. Those differences are humans with brains which can be and are effected by other things. The same signal sounds different. You can't measure what isn't there in the cable itself.

[esldude]

I agree with all that.

I've bought 3 interconnects and 5 speaker cables of different topology in 25 years, and none of them cost more than a couple of CDs.

If anything I could be looking for cables that can't alter sound.

For now I am only interested in understanding why according to many people competent cables affect sound but none of the existing measurements is able to describe why...

 

R

 

Because of human susceptibility to expectation bias. A human tendency for our brains to pattern match for change. Leading us to hear a difference when there isn't one. You aren't going to get anywhere looking for what isn't in the cable. Obviously I am one who does not believe competent cables sound different.

[esldude]

I don't think this was the case. They performed with no problem at all (and continue to do so) everywhere else I've had them in my system; it was on that basis I decided to try them with my newly purchased turntable.

 

 

 

The ones with which I experienced a ground hum are an older version of these:

 

Clearview Ultrathin Digital Ribbon Interconnect with PLUS Upgrade-shop.mapleshadestore.com

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24445[/ATTACH]

 

The ones I replaced those with are much older (~25 years), from Omega Mikro, the higher end cable side of Mapleshade. Their construction uses a hair thin center conductor inside a thin metal tube shield. From an old review:

 

 

 

Here's a photo showing them in a system (not mine) - sorry the photo is rather small:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24446[/ATTACH]

 

That all fits with my previous description. The cable will not effect the signal. The cable may be effected by noise or other interference. Shielding is apparently what was lacking in a place where you needed it. When you earlier said you replaced it with a cable with similar design ideas I assumed it was similar. Now one cable you show isn't twisted and had no shielding. If you ask me that is defective design. The other is a grounded tube with a center conductor. Nothing really similar about those.

 

Once went to a friend's house where he had gotten new interconnect for his amps. I think he was using 15 ft IC's as his amps were mono. He was dealing with a hum problem. I think it was Nordost though it could have been something else. It was $2k or more. I looked at it, a ribbon design. Asked about his AV system. Took some long regular IC's that looked to be RG6. Popped them in and quiet as can be with no hum. He had a look on his face I won't forget. Several times that afternoon he kept trying to find a solution that let him use his 'good' cables rather than the ones I plugged in.

[esldude]

You have a friend that owns a blue car and is on their way over to your house. He didn't tell you that he bought a red car. When he pulls in your driveway, expectation bias would imply that you would see a blue car, and not a red one. If he tells you that his car is actually red, do you believe him? Or do you need scientific proof and compare the cars paint to a color wheel? (I'm assuming that color blindness isn't a factor)

 

You really need to up your game there CR250. What a wretched example. In fact, your friend might pull up in the new color car and you would only know who it was when you see and recognize your friend rather than his car. You would not at that point see the wrong color, you would ask about his new car. And for a moment before seeing your friend is in the car, yes your expectation bias would prevent you from realizing it was your friend.

[esldude]

You haven't read carefully if you think "everything" points to the hum being interference. I have cables with that identical design all through that same system, running past component transformers, power strips full of SMPSs, power cables, etc., and no hum. OTOH, I've had ground hum problems in my system previously with the connection to the turntable, which in that case was a shielded phono cable.

 

So what is your point in the end about the cable that hums? You were using it with phono which has another 40-50 db gain vs the rest of your system. The cable might be picking up some hum used elsewhere, but without the extra gain of a phono stage the hum is too low in level to hear. Taking into account the RIAA curve the 60 hz area might be more like 65 db gain. You could have quite loud hum at the phono input and drop out the 65 db gain elsewhere and hear none of it.

[esldude]

Points for persistence, anyway. OK, let's just describe both events in detail and put this to bed, shall we?

 

First time there was a hum problem:

 

- Shielded phono cable.

 

- Hum was reduced but did not go away when connecting turntable chassis ground to ground screw on pre-amp.

 

- Took it to a dealer, who looked at the back of my cartridge and showed me a thin copper strap from the cartridge ground lead to the metal cartridge body. He cut the strap. I took it home. No more ground hum.

 

Second time there was a hum problem:

 

- After buying a new turntable, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to tidy up power cabling. So I moved the turntable all the way to the left side of my system and put the DAC on the right side. Hooked up the new turntable with the ribbon cables and heard the hum.

 

- The hum was reduced but did not go away when connecting the turntable ground to the pre-amp ground screw.

 

- For cosmetic reasons and to see if the hum was related to the positioning of the turntable interconnects (though the interconnects were suspended in air a foot or more away from any power cords, other interconnects, and components until they got to the pre-amp), I positioned the turntable all the way over on the right side of my system, and moved the DAC back to the left side. This changed the position of the turntable by about two meters, and meant the interconnects were not running behind any of the same components they had been, except for the pre-amp. (The pre-amp power supply is remotely located from the pre-amp.) Again the turntable interconnects were suspended about 3 feet in the air and not close to any power cords, other interconnects, or components other than the turntable and pre-amp. The situation with the hum was completely unchanged - less when the turntable ground was connected to the pre-amp ground screw, but still plainly audible.

 

- Not wanting to fool around with the cartridge, and remembering past discussions on the forum about ground currents and cable resistance from thin conductors, I tried the cables with the thinnest conductors I had. Bingo, hum gone.

 

[Emphasis added.]

 

Exactly. Some aspects of the behavior of interconnects or components that can be important to sound quality only arise in the context of a connected system.

 

 

 

Yep. In fact (rank speculation on my part here) it might even be low enough in level that you wouldn't notice the hum/noise itself, but it might mask low-level detail or make it less clear.

 

 

So with full detail, the first TT had nothing really to do with it. I have had shielded phono connection and humming TT's as well. Sometimes you added a 3rd pin ground on the power cord which many TT's don't have. Or an additional ground strap leading to elsewhere. Or use a cheater plug to disconnect 3rd pin ground on the pre-amp which many did have or other things. The fact it had hum with shielded cable and removing a connection on cart doesn't have anything to say about the second TT.

 

Now going from the ribbon to a thin cable fixed hum in the second TT. Would going with a conventional shielded phono cable have done so as well? We don't know. Was it fixed due to high resistance of the thin cable? We don't know. The second cable if I understood the description of it was shielded in the way it was constructed. So you can't parse out which was responsible for hum going away.

[esldude]

[/color]High Fidelity has a meaning, and "sounds good" is not a measurement of quality.

 

That is one of the key issues to me. High fidelity or high accuracy has meaning. Sounds good is whatever. It is true with exposure to better gear some people develop a taste for what is better as sounding good. It however is not a guide to accuracy or to a measure of quality that can be relied upon beyond one's preference for how to enjoy music.

[esldude]

Perhaps arbitrary isn't the best word to associate with accuracy, but consider this. Given my listening room, my Maggie's do a much better job of accurately reproducing the intimacy and sound stage of a string quartet than, say, my B&W CM8s. The CM8s on the other hand do a much better job of conveying all the sound energy of a rock concert.

 

So, is one more "accurate" than the other?

 

Two different types of music have different parameters. Rock has a need for loudness and overall energy that a string quartet does not. A better speaker might serve both types of music better than what you have. So you have speakers with different limitations which serve different types of music. You could say they are more accurate for each respective kind of music. A single better speaker might encompass all the parameters of both genres with the intimate soundstage when called for and able to rock out when no such quality is in the music itself.

[esldude]

Oh never mind. Removed upon further reflection.

[esldude]

If people are reporting differences in cable performance this means that (either they're delusional or) that distinct cable architecture is responsible for changes to the signal which in turn affects accuracy/fidelity, for both ICs and speaker wire.

 

The thing that would interest me is an investigation to the possible causes for those differences.

From the development of this topic I seems like most people agree that it's not a simple matter of LCR.

 

Could it be the construction (solid vs strands, wire thickness, coating, insulation material), the geometry (parallel, twisted, braided, coaxial, conductor spacing), the shielding or it's absence, something else?

 

Some years ago I compared freebie, braided, coaxial and parallel-distant IC topologies and my preference went for the latter as it seem to produce the "clearest", most "grain-free" sound - it's not a frequency response thing.

 

R

 

What is your method of comparison?

[esldude]

Dennis (esldude) has an excellent system, has given long and hard thought to topics concerning subjective assessment of audio performance, and has done a *lot* of testing. I'm not saying that you should replace your thinking with his at all, just that you ought to give what he says quite serious consideration, and see how it fits in with your own views.

 

Thank you Jud for the kind and respectful comments.