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


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An appropriate response, IMO, to a cynical skeptic and his rhetoric of ridicule. :)

 

Perhaps I was expecting something a little more original...

 

I like the alliteration in your response back to me though. :)

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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Thanks again.

 

From the link you provided.

 

"Our cables are handmade from the finest cable and connectors available. We feature Neutrik connectors and Canare cable. Our cables are designed to provide optimum performance and extreme durability. Many of our cables feature additional reinforcement near the connectors to eliminate failures in these high-stress areas. We use these same cables on a daily basis in all of our product testing where they are plugged and unplugged many times a day. Under this extreme use, our cables provide years of service, while delivering the performance required for precise product performance measurements."

 

It looks like Benchmark make well constructed cables. USB is not listed on their cables page. However, if a similarly designed USB cable is included with their DACs I can understand why they feel there would be not benefit in changing the USB cable they included with their DAC. Perhaps, they are not an afterthought but designed to bring out the best in their DAC.

I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums.  I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past.

 

I still love music.

 

Teresa

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It may be to you because you can't hear a difference. Please accept my sincere sympathies for what is lacking in either your hearing or your equipment.

 

Love it! (;-) I'm saving your post in my "Forums > Computer Audiophile comments" TextEdit document, which is a tool I use to find out what I discussed in the past as I can't rely on what little memory I have left.

I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums.  I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past.

 

I still love music.

 

Teresa

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It's the emperor's new clothes.

 

Too simplistic, I'm afraid. I've heard more expensive and better looking cables sound better, but also have experienced the reverse. The cable I'm now using immediately sounded much better than the cable it replaced, to a very surprising degree. The new cable cost half what the old one did, and looks it. So how, if this is the emperor's new clothes (the power of expectations and suggestion) does the experience run so counter to one's expectations, in the absence of any suggestions (I was the first person I'm aware of to try the cable)?

 

I'm not claiming to have golden ears, the best system, or to be immune to placebo effects. I'm just not sure attributing everything to such effects succeeds as a satisfactory explanation.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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I whole heartily agree...

Too simplistic, I'm afraid. I've heard more expensive and better looking cables sound better, but also have experienced the reverse. The cable I'm now using immediately sounded much better than the cable it replaced, to a very surprising degree. The new cable cost half what the old one did, and looks it. So how, if this is the emperor's new clothes (the power of expectations and suggestion) does the experience run so counter to one's expectations, in the absence of any suggestions (I was the first person I'm aware of to try the cable)?

 

I'm not claiming to have golden ears, the best system, or to be immune to placebo effects. I'm just not sure attributing everything to such effects succeeds as a satisfactory explanation.

Forrest:

Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA

DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP>

Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz

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Too simplistic, I'm afraid. I've heard more expensive and better looking cables sound better, but also have experienced the reverse. The cable I'm now using immediately sounded much better than the cable it replaced, to a very surprising degree. The new cable cost half what the old one did, and looks it. So how, if this is the emperor's new clothes (the power of expectations and suggestion) does the experience run so counter to one's expectations, in the absence of any suggestions (I was the first person I'm aware of to try the cable)?

 

I'm not claiming to have golden ears, the best system, or to be immune to placebo effects. I'm just not sure attributing everything to such effects succeeds as a satisfactory explanation.

 

This is one of the reasons why I refuse to play "the cable game". Assuming that there is a difference in cable sound (and I repeat here, just to be clear: I've never heard these differences in a DBT, and I've never investigated the phenomenon any further than the several DBTs to which I have been privy), from all I have read here and elsewhere, there seems to be no correlation between price, brand or design and sound quality. How can one make an intelligent choice when every choice can be a crapshoot? What a wonderful thing it would be to replace a $10 pair of interconnects with a pair costing several hundred dollars only to find that the new cable doesn't sound as good as the old one? I think this is a trap that is best avoided by me, especially since even the best and most expensive cables seem to provide provide only small, seemingly ephemeral "improvements" at best.

George

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I think this is a trap that is best avoided by me, especially since even the best and most expensive cables seem to provide provide only small, seemingly ephemeral "improvements" at best.
If that is what you have concluded, George, based on your own experience, that is the route you should follow. OTOH, my own experience and that of others is that better cables can provide an appreciable improvement in SQ that is anything but ephemeral. More expensive may or may not result in "better" but, IMO, the cheapest rarely if ever are comparable.

"Relax, it's only hi-fi. There's never been a hi-fi emergency." - Roy Hall

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron

 

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"OTOH, my own experience and that of others is that better cables can provide an appreciable improvement in SQ that is anything but ephemeral. More expensive may or may not result in "better" but, IMO, the cheapest rarely if ever are comparable."

 

As this thread concerns HDMI cables could you explain in technical terms what constitutes a "better" HDMI cable. And since it's experience that affords you such conviction, what has been your journey of progress with changing HDMI cables?

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they have saying in angling/fly-fishing:

some lures/flies catch fish, others catch anglers ;)

 

still have (too many) ‘pretty’ lures and flies. some have delivered tangible/measureable results = one landed fish(es) or someone nearby caught something.

 

but, one is never really sure. if it is the lure/fly… or perhaps the presentation, water temp, moon phase, fish behaviour. or, just luck.

 

perhaps, cables are to audiophiles like alluring lures/flies are to anglers/fly-fishermen. some days, seemingly irresistible (to a user), looking desirable, beckoning with the promise of an extra edge in a small ‘convenient package’.

 

ime, some cables do deliver differences. but, one is never really sure*.

however, there are no thousand dollar lures/flies (that one knows of). relatively, rods, reels and lines cost significantly more, and one needs to learn how to elicit a bite, fight and land a fish, safely. and, to release the fish (as circumstantially conscionable) to live another day/month/year.

 

* which is kind of okay, if audio is a hobby (and maybe some of us are ‘gear-heads’) and not a life-death proposition or bread-butter livelihood.

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Agreed.

Cables are easy to change and can easily go undetected by wives...

 

As for cables that "do deliver differences", my guess is that most of those will be working like filters and not as conductors; they're intentionally made to change sound.

And their purchase is much more fulfilling (that's what shopping does to your brain) than fiddling with tone controls or graphic equalizers.

 

R

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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Agreed.

Cables are easy to change and can easily go undetected by wives...

 

As for cables that "do deliver differences", my guess is that most of those will be working like filters and not as conductors; they're intentionally made to change sound.

And their purchase is much more fulfilling (that's what shopping does to your brain) than fiddling with tone controls or graphic equalizers.

 

R

 

Which ones work like filters? Most of the cables I see clearly show the type of conductor they use, and its unbroken from connector to connector. Are you sure that you're not talking about shielding?

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Which ones work like filters? Most of the cables I see clearly show the type of conductor they use, and its unbroken from connector to connector. Are you sure that you're not talking about shielding?

 

Transparent, MIT, Monster or cable with network boxes.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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As this thread concerns HDMI cables could you explain in technical terms what constitutes a "better" HDMI cable. And since it's experience that affords you such conviction, what has been your journey of progress with changing HDMI cables?
Perhaps it has gone OT, but this thread includes many posts about audio cables in general. My reply was in response to one. If you are interested in only those posts related to HDMI, you may want to click "Search Thread" at the top of the page and enter "HDMI".

"Relax, it's only hi-fi. There's never been a hi-fi emergency." - Roy Hall

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron

 

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Which ones work like filters? Most of the cables I see clearly show the type of conductor they use, and its unbroken from connector to connector. Are you sure that you're not talking about shielding?

 

Aren't all cables essentially r-l-c circuits?

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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Which ones work like filters? Most of the cables I see clearly show the type of conductor they use, and its unbroken from connector to connector. Are you sure that you're not talking about shielding?

 

An inductor also has an unbroken conductor running end to end. Every cable can be modelled as an equivalent network of perfect resistors, inductors, and capacitors, aka a filter. An ideal cable has zero resistance, inductance, and capacitance. In reality, while resistance is easy to make arbitrarily low (use thicker wire), there will always be some inductance and capacitance although any competently designed cable should have values low enough not to affect the audio band noticeably.

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If that is what you have concluded, George, based on your own experience, that is the route you should follow. OTOH, my own experience and that of others is that better cables can provide an appreciable improvement in SQ that is anything but ephemeral. More expensive may or may not result in "better" but, IMO, the cheapest rarely if ever are comparable.

 

That's all I'm saying. I'm not going to go down (what is, to me) a neurotic path like that. Nobody can prove to me (or anybody else, for that matter) that cable sound is real, rather than imagined, and that being the case, I'd just as soon leave the whole thing be. OTOH, if you want to follow that particular muse, be my guest. I'm certainly not going to say that you don't hear what you think you hear, I respect you and your judgement.

George

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they have saying in angling/fly-fishing:

some lures/flies catch fish, others catch anglers ;)

 

still have (too many) ‘pretty’ lures and flies. some have delivered tangible/measureable results = one landed fish(es) or someone nearby caught something.

 

but, one is never really sure. if it is the lure/fly… or perhaps the presentation, water temp, moon phase, fish behaviour. or, just luck.

 

perhaps, cables are to audiophiles like alluring lures/flies are to anglers/fly-fishermen. some days, seemingly irresistible (to a user), looking desirable, beckoning with the promise of an extra edge in a small ‘convenient package’.

 

ime, some cables do deliver differences. but, one is never really sure*.

however, there are no thousand dollar lures/flies (that one knows of). relatively, rods, reels and lines cost significantly more, and one needs to learn how to elicit a bite, fight and land a fish, safely. and, to release the fish (as circumstantially conscionable) to live another day/month/year.

 

* which is kind of okay, if audio is a hobby (and maybe some of us are ‘gear-heads’) and not a life-death proposition or bread-butter livelihood.

 

 

Nice analogy, I especially like the old saying about lures and anglers. I'm sure something like it applies here at least some of time. :)

George

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Agreed.

Cables are easy to change and can easily go undetected by wives...

 

As for cables that "do deliver differences", my guess is that most of those will be working like filters and not as conductors; they're intentionally made to change sound.

And their purchase is much more fulfilling (that's what shopping does to your brain) than fiddling with tone controls or graphic equalizers.

 

R

 

 

I have often voiced that suspicion myself. I'm especially wary of cables that have "boxes" made of wood, plastic or metal along their length somewhere. The reason is because capacitors and inductors large enough in value to affect some part of the audio passband cannot be fashioned from just the cable material or it's design alone. These would have to be physically large external components. Components that would conveniently fit in a box of some kind, external to the cable sheathing itself.

George

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there will always be some inductance and capacitance although any competently designed cable should have values low enough not to affect the audio band noticeably.

 

Maybe it is harder than it would seem given the resolving capabilities of better systems. Reactive losses and capacitive effects could very well explain the smearing and other problems that better cables tend to remediate through better care in construction and material selection.

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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Aren't all cables essentially r-l-c circuits?

 

Yes they are, but what's of importance here, is that there is no way to make a 1-2 meter length of mere cable that will have a large enough L or C to have any effect on the audio passband. Take RG-59U (a common coaxial cable used for audio interconnects), for instance, you'd have to have a cable length of 25 feet for the LRC of that cable to be high enough to attenuate 20 KHz, by even ONE dB! Anything that a 1 or a 2 meter length of interconnect cable could do to change the waveform of a signal passing through it in any measurable way occurs at greater than 10 MHz and audio isn't concerned with what happens to 10 MHz signals or higher. Of course the possibility does exist that there is something about conductor characteristics that we don't know about, haven't yet quantified, and aren't measuring that would account for interconnect sound, but since nobody knows what that could or would be....

George

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Maybe it is harder than it would seem given the resolving capabilities of better systems. Reactive losses and capacitive effects could very well explain the smearing and other problems that better cables tend to remediate through better care in construction and material selection.

 

Except that at audio frequencies, these reactive characteristics of which you speak are negligible. Reactive losses that are huge at frequencies of 100 MHz or higher, are minuscule and have no measurable effect at 20 KHz or below. Perhaps there is something going on that we don't know how to quantify or measure, and that's always a possibility. But until such time as those characteristics come to light, there seems to be nothing in the science of electronics that would, in any way, explain the phenomenon of interconnect cable sound.

George

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Except that at audio frequencies, these reactive characteristics of which you speak are negligible..

 

How can they be when so many people hear them?

 

(I know, I know. The DBT card will be played next.)

 

Capacitance is energy storage. That energy gets injected back. It's possible (some of) our ears and brains are sensitive enough to assess when one cable reduces the harm of this effect relative to another.

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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Except that at audio frequencies, these reactive characteristics of which you speak are negligible. Reactive losses that are huge at frequencies of 100 MHz or higher, are minuscule and have no measurable effect at 20 KHz or below. Perhaps there is something going on that we don't know how to quantify or measure, and that's always a possibility. But until such time as those characteristics come to light, there seems to be nothing in the science of electronics that would, in any way, explain the phenomenon of interconnect cable sound.

 

If such unknown effects exist, one would expect them to manifest in other places than audio cables.

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