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

[mansr]

Once again: The previous hum problem with that connection in my system occurred with a *shielded* phono cable.

 

Maybe the shielding was bad or damaged. Wouldn't be the first time.

[jabbr]

 

When I was trying to decide on a layout for my DAC, some of the people I spoke with advised shielding the chassis to keep radiated EMI fields from the rest of the system. Others said this would reflect EMI fields internally and cause interference within the DAC itself.

 

.

 

There are many different kinds of shielding designed for different frequency ranges of EMI. Think of shielding as mostly like grey->black paint rather than a mirror. Sometimes different layers have different topologies to get different bands.

I often use mu-metal internally -- you can use it over certain chips or parts of a board and between different sections of the DAC.

You can also use different patterns of grounding eg star as well as bypass caps.

A lot of electronics just slap a 0.1uF ceramic bypass cap and be done w it, but more sophisticated designs use ladders of higher Q caps and specialized cap geometries.

 

I think these problems are best solved with heavy iron rather than flimsy cables:) i.e. Transformers/chokes/power design/isolation

 

 

Room treatments for headphone users

[jabbr]

If you think about it, we don't hear about specialized metals for PCB traces (so much) and there are only a few types of PCB material. Go thicker & pay careful attention to grounding & bypass!

 

 

Room treatments for headphone users

[Paul R]

That makes no sense. Ground potential is the voltage difference between the "ground" of a device and actual earth. It's not a property of cables.

 

You know quite well that different shielding, drains, and connections affect ground.

[mansr]

You know quite well that different shielding, drains, and connections affect ground.

 

Yes. Cables might affect ground potential, they don't have it. The term (ground) potential is only meaningful in the context of a connected system. It is a relative measure that isn't defined for a component (especially not a wire) in isolation.

[PopPop]

I think we both understand the same point

 

If the brain of some one who doesn't understand electrical theory creates an enhanced musical image via "snake oil" interconnects, the wires have done their job virtually if not actually. To that particular listener the difference is moot. We each create our own reality, some more or less consistent with the norm than others.

[semente]

While interference is a possible culprit, it would also mean that cables would behave very differently in different systems and in some systems, even the most expensive cables would have no sound at all (because there are no sources of interference). Has anyone reported this to be the case? Secondly, the best shielded cables would sound best, and balanced interconnects would have no sound because interference is common-mode and balanced cancels common-mode. Yet, I've never heard anyone say that true, balanced interconnects are immune to "cable sound". Again, has anyone reported this phenomenon?

 

I think it unlikely. We need to keep looking for a cause.

 

Could there be any relation between high capacitance (for instance in amplifier circuits ) and inability to listen to differences between cables?

[jabbr]

Yes. Cables might affect ground potential, they don't have it. The term (ground) potential is only meaningful in the context of a connected system. It is a relative measure that isn't defined for a component (especially not a wire) in isolation.

 

There are cases where something "shouldn't" make a difference in a perfect world but does because there may be unrecognized issues. I share your distaste for snake oil, and wouldn't ever recommend that anyone need to spend $$$thousands on cables to "solve" actually only mitigate ground/noise issues.

 

What sort of power supply isolation is being used in these situations where cables are changing hum?

[Sal1950]

The idea came from DNM.

Can't get any simpler...too simple?

 

R

 

Interesting design, I used a similar solid core speaker cable design many years ago that were all the rage at the time (late 80s), even internally wired my LaScala's with it. Senior moment trying to remember their name. LOL. Later changed out the external cables for another high end cable of conventional multi strand design, just found the solid core design too inconvenient.

My only concern is the unshielded design on a interconnect, as discussed before it has proven to me to be troublesome in some installations and you can never be sure how much induced interference might be affecting the sound?

il saluto

[semente]

Interesting design, I used a similar solid core speaker cable design many years ago that were all the rage at the time (late 80s), even internally wired my LaScala's with it. Senior moment trying to remember their name. LOL. Later changed out the external cables for another high end cable of conventional multi strand design, just found the solid core design too inconvenient.

My only concern is the unshielded design on a interconnect, as discussed before it has proven to me to be troublesome in some installations and you can never be sure how much induced interference might be affecting the sound?

il saluto

 

If you have some spare Cat5 it's easy to make a similar topology... Just solder one live and one ground to a couple of plugs, one live conductor to the other pair of plugs and make use of the solid core stiffness to draw an arc where the three wires are parallel and distanced about 10mm,with the ground between both live wires.

It won't take more than 20 minutes and the cost of 4 RCAs.

 

R

[mansr]

There are cases where something "shouldn't" make a difference in a perfect world but does because there may be unrecognized issues.

 

That's beside the point. The point is that "potential" is a relative measure that has no meaning for a cable on its own.

[Sal1950]

If you think about it, we don't hear about specialized metals for PCB traces (so much) and there are only a few types of PCB material. Go thicker & pay careful attention to grounding & bypass!

 

 

Room treatments for headphone users

Question on pcb's. I've used Gigabyte boards that brag on the 2oz copper construction, a Ultra Durable design according to their marketing spin. Is that better, the same, or worse than the average pcb construction?

Also I love my Senn HD650 headphones, where can I get those room treatments.

[Sal1950]

Yes, you would definitely want to do that, all else being equal. But what if all else isn't equal?

 

Over decades, I've gravitated toward the use of particular mostly unshielded cable designs in my system. Whether this has to do with the fact that I've lived in semi-rural areas where external sources of EMI might be minimal, I don't know. I don't even know whether I'm right about the cables I tend to like sounding better or different than other cables.

 

I don't know much, but I know I love listening to music on my system; and like the man sings, that may be all I need to know.

 

Sorry, I find the conclusion to be at odds with starting with a properly shielded cable design in a interconnect and the example provided to be an apples-oranges comparison.

 

In any case ain't neither of us going to be swayed, but we'll get back to this in time anyway, it's inevitable. LOL

May the force be with ya

[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.

[Paul R]

Yes. Cables might affect ground potential, they don't have it. The term (ground) potential is only meaningful in the context of a connected system. It is a relative measure that isn't defined for a component (especially not a wire) in isolation.

 

That is being a bit disingenuios - hobbyists would only listen to a "cable" when it is connected to a system. Sorry for short answer, but I trust you get the point. Only have iPhone wih me for th next few days.

[jabbr]

Question on pcb's. I've used Gigabyte boards that brag on the 2oz copper construction, a Ultra Durable design according to their marketing spin. Is that better, the same, or worse than the average pcb construction?

1oz is more typical. Thicker copper traces so less impedance. The copper conducts heat away from chips which probably is the real benefit. Supposedly better caps in the power supply.

Also I love my Senn HD650 headphones, where can I get those room treatments.

 

You could go to a bar and piss someone off. You could fall off your motorcycle but the margin for error is very thin

[mansr]

That is being a bit disingenuios

 

How is using the established meanings of words disingenuous?

[Sal1950]

1oz is more typical. Thicker copper traces so less impedance. The copper conducts heat away from chips which probably is the real benefit. Supposedly better caps in the power supply.

 

 

You could go to a bar and piss someone off. You could fall off your motorcycle but the margin for error is very thin

Thanks for the info, good to know its not just spin. The Gigabyte EP45-UD3P in my main box/server I built in 2008 and has given me flawless operation ever since. With a SSD for the OS its still lightening fast giving me no reason to upgrade till it lets the smoke out. Had the same reliablity from Gigabyte MBs that I've build for others over the years.

 

PS. I've performed both of the above actions, each more times than I want to count, with no increase in the SQ of my headphones????

[Sal1950]

The best news with the outcome of my experience with Kimber PBJ unshielded cables is I purchased two pair of 1 meter cables on 7/15/93 for $118 total and after the issues with hum threw them in a box. I sold them on ebay this October for $103.68

That'll work

[sandyk]

Could there be any relation between high capacitance (for instance in amplifier circuits ) and inability to listen to differences between cables?

 

With a DAC for example, that is a distinct possibility, as some designers have around a 1nF capacitor across the output as part of the DAC's output filtering in order to obtain distortion figure bragging rights, although the DAC may very well sound better with a much lower value of say 100pF and slightly higher measured HF distortion.

[One and a half]

You know quite well that different shielding, drains, and connections affect ground.

 

The sentence cut out...

 

"You know quite well that different shielding, drains, and connections affect ground" currents.

[semente]

With a DAC for example, that is a distinct possibility, as some designers have around a 1nF capacitor across the output as part of the DAC's output filtering in order to obtain distortion figure bragging rights, although the DAC may very well sound better with a much lower value of say 100pF and slightly higher measured HF distortion.

 

That is interesting.

How about transistor capacitance?

Some amplifiers use several units in parallel in their output stages...

 

R

[jabbr]

That is interesting.

How about transistor capacitance?

Some amplifiers use several units in parallel in their output stages...

 

R

http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_beast.pdf

[sandyk]

That is interesting.

How about transistor capacitance?

Some amplifiers use several units in parallel in their output stages...

 

R

 

I don't believe that it should matter, as the parallel output devices would have a very low output impedance. An output stage, or an output buffer stage with a very low output impedance in a DAC or Preamplifier is desirable as it means that the device should not be noticeably affected by interconnect vagaries.Many opamps don't like directly driving high capacitance loads, and may even become unstable unless a series output resistor is used . e.g. 100 ohms.

[semente]

http://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_beast.pdf

 

Interesting read, even if it got a bit complicated at some point.

Did you mean to tell me that the 'sweetness' he mentioned is coming from the high capacitance?

 

By the way, I have been enjoying your posts a lot.

Cheers,

Ricardo