may i know your favore audio cable to connect your dac to you amply? avoid please copper 99.9 cables

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, bigbob said:

I would love to agree, that these Nordost Valhalla speaker ribbons sound the same as the Monster Cable speaker wire that looked like lamp cord.

 

I appreciate the expertise of @gmgraves and his astute observations about the physics of wire, cable and interconnects.

 

I do not suffer from "I just spent$7800 on speaker cables, they better damn sound better"-syndrome because they were a gift. I have zero financial interest. I am using a Denon AVR-2805 and a pair of Large Advent Loudspeakers (particle board with vinyl wood covering). I also received the XOT crossover transducers. All three came as a unit, I just provided an electrical outlet and the Advents.

 

Call it psychometric imaging or some other meaningless buzz word, but I have never heard music with such clarity from these speakers. I can hear a difference.

 

There is no wizardry from Audiophile reviews to cause bias because before I heard these speaker ribbons on my Advents, I would have agreed--that wire is a conductor, and nothing more. I can not say that any longer without a degree of mendacity.

Well, since I have never asserted that speaker cables can't make a difference, we don't have a beef. Speakers are complex, often very reactive loads and how they interact with the amplifier driving them can make a difference. It all depends on the load the combination of various speakers with various speaker cables can present to the amp. Unfortunately, There's no way to know beforehand how well a certain combination will perform until you actually try it and then there are some speakers (like Magnepans) that are such a simple load that speaker cables from the cheapest Monster (as you noted) to the most expensive Nordost won't make much, if any difference. My cable comments apply to interconnects where the drive voltage and currents are low and where the low output impedance of one component is generally driving the high input impedance of another and the pathway between them is relatively short. 

 

[gaia]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Well, since I have never asserted that speaker cables can't make a difference, we don't have a beef. Speakers are complex, often very reactive loads and how they interact with the amplifier driving them can make a difference. It all depends on the load the combination of various speakers with various speaker cables can present to the amp. Unfortunately, There's no way to know beforehand how well a certain combination will perform until you actually try it and then there are some speakers (like Magnepans) that are such a simple load that speaker cables from the cheapest Monster (as you noted) to the most expensive Nordost won't make much, if any difference. My cable comments apply to interconnects where the drive voltage and currents are low and where the low output impedance of one component is generally driving the high input impedance of another and the pathway between them is relatively short. 

 

Hi

cables make a big difference

when i bought them for my amp ,cd player and speakers in 99.9 copper well , they did and do a big difference

 

now i  don't know about cable like ugreen or belkin , they are cheap , well with their copper without oxygen and douple shield they sound different for me

thanks

[bigbob]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Well, since I have never asserted that speaker cables can't make a difference, we don't have a beef. Speakers are complex, often very reactive loads and how they interact with the amplifier driving them can make a difference. It all depends on the load the combination of various speakers with various speaker cables can present to the amp. Unfortunately, There's no way to know beforehand how well a certain combination will perform until you actually try it and then there are some speakers (like Magnepans) that are such a simple load that speaker cables from the cheapest Monster (as you noted) to the most expensive Nordost won't make much, if any difference. My cable comments apply to interconnects where the drive voltage and currents are low and where the low output impedance of one component is generally driving the high input impedance of another and the pathway between them is relatively short. 

 

 

 

Mr. Graves @gmgraves I can now agree with you without reservation. If anything, I have found using the shortest possible run of interconnects between my DAC and my inputs to the amplifier made as much difference as cost or complexity. In this case, they are about 6 inches in length, made by Straightwire for Schiit, for $20.

 

And "audiophile-grade" USB cables make no sense to me at all.

One-and-Zeros is what a USB cable transmits from the source to the destination, and digital 'is' or it  'is not' -- that is sort of the definition of digital, binary, data.

 

I have found improvement with use of the iFi iPurifier2, with active noise cancellation, and I am not an engineer--so I attribute the difference to "magic".

 

I can attest to the theory that "too much of a good thing" can make a negative impact on Sound Quality. I plugged the iPurifier with ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) into the iFi iOne DAC, and initially, it sounded better than ever. Until I pulled the iPurifier2 out of the USB port, and just plugged in the USB connector. Suddenly, less was more.

Then I read that the iFi nano iOne incorporates the ANC feature. So I moved the iPurifier2 back to the second system, on the Schiit Modi 2 DAC, and happiness returned for both systems. Any input about "too much of anything" would be appreciated.

 

Since 'magic' isn't a quantifiable parameter in hi-fi stereo, could it be that having two ANCs was too much "active noise cancellation" or is that even possible?

[mfin]

24 minutes ago, bigbob said:

 

 

Mr. Graves @gmgraves I can now agree with you without reservation. If anything, I have found using the shortest possible run of interconnects between my DAC and my inputs to the amplifier made as much difference as cost or complexity. In this case, they are about 6 inches in length, made by Straightwire for Schiit, for $20.

 

And "audiophile-grade" USB cables make no sense to me at all.

One-and-Zeros is what a USB cable transmits from the source to the destination, and digital 'is' or it  'is not' -- that is sort of the definition of digital, binary, data.

 

I have found improvement with use of the iFi iPurifier2, with active noise cancellation, and I am not an engineer--so I attribute the difference to "magic".

 

I can attest to the theory that "too much of a good thing" can make a negative impact on Sound Quality. I plugged the iPurifier with ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) into the iFi iOne DAC, and initially, it sounded better than ever. Until I pulled the iPurifier2 out of the USB port, and just plugged in the USB connector. Suddenly, less was more.

Then I read that the iFi nano iOne incorporates the ANC feature. So I moved the iPurifier2 back to the second system, on the Schiit Modi 2 DAC, and happiness returned for both systems. Any input about "too much of anything" would be appreciated.

 

Since 'magic' isn't a quantifiable parameter in hi-fi stereo, could it be that having two ANCs was too much "active noise cancellation" or is that even possible?

 

I see you found speaker cables made a difference you were wary of but now take as fact (I completely agree).

 

Digital Cables do make a difference, wait until you witness it, but it is great to be completely skeptical it really is.

 

XLRs are interesting too, I made them out of several Mogami and Klotz cables off the reel, so I had about 5 sets on the go, I still have them all here, made with Neutriks, a mixture of silver plated ones and not. Then I made one particular set and I did hear a clear discernable difference. So, at that point I got hold of some commerical ones to try, no question the ones I tried were better, they were Audience OHNO by the way. I didn't buy them though, I set about auditioning a good few until I worked out what to buy and finally made a purchase.

[Speedskater]

In most set-ups, speaker cable differences come down to:

• Total end-to-end resistance of the cable with respect to the loudspeaker impedance curve.

There are a few situations where total cable inductance or capacitance matters. But those owners are aware of their challenges.

[semente]

On 30/12/2017 at 10:10 PM, gmgraves said:

 

I wouldn't use coax for speaker cable. First of all, there's no advantage to using shielded cable in such an application, and secondly speaker cable needs fairly heavy conductors (usually 14 gauge of bigger) and coax, even balanced coax just isn't big enough. There was a time when using coax for speaker cable could have made the transistor power amps unstable enough to go into ultra-sonic oscillation causing them to self-destruct due to thermal runaway. I don't think that there are any modern amps with that problem. 

 

I got this table from Roger Russell's website but I've seen similar information in many other places. Apparently 20 gauge is enough for most applications. Is this wrong?

 

Maximum Wire Lengths For TWO CONDUCTOR Copper Wire

Wire Size	2 ohm load	4 ohm load	6 ohm load	8 ohm load
22 AWG	3 feet max	6 feet max	9 feet max	12 feet max
20 AWG	5 feet max	10 feet max	15 feet max	20 feet max
18 AWG	8 feet max	16 feet max	24 feet max	32 feet max
16 AWG	12 feet max	24 feet max	36 feet max	48 feet max
14 AWG	20 feet max	40 feet max	60 feet**	80 feet**
12 AWG	30 feet max	60 feet**	90 feet**	120  feet**
10 AWG	50 feet max	100 feet**	150 feet**	200 feet**

[bigbob]

4 hours ago, mfin said:

 

 

 

XLRs are interesting too, I made them out of several Mogami and Klotz cables off the reel, so I had about 5 sets on the go, I still have them all here, made with Neutriks, a mixture of silver plated ones and not. Then I made one particular set and I did hear a clearly discernable difference. So, at that point I got hold of some commercial ones to try, no question the ones I tried were better, they were Audience OHNO by the way. I didn't buy them though, I set about auditioning a good few until I worked out what to buy and finally made a purchase.

 

 

 

I have never used XLR, for no other reason than as the Computer Audiophile on the Cheap--nothing I could afford used XLR connectors.

RCA interconnects are best as short as possible, I have realized --with a 6in pair connecting my DAC to the CD inputs of the Denon.

The speaker wire is just utterly amazing.

[Speedskater]

Excellent XLR connectors are less expensive than mid-line RCA connectors. But XLR connectors use up a lot of back panel space.

 

And we have to look at it as a system. It's a balanced interconnect system not just XLR connectors.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, semente said:

 

I got this table from Roger Russell's website but I've seen similar information in many other places. Apparently 20 gauge is enough for most applications. Is this wrong?

 

Maximum Wire Lengths For TWO CONDUCTOR Copper Wire

Wire Size	2 ohm load	4 ohm load	6 ohm load	8 ohm load
22 AWG	3 feet max	6 feet max	9 feet max	12 feet max
20 AWG	5 feet max	10 feet max	15 feet max	20 feet max
18 AWG	8 feet max	16 feet max	24 feet max	32 feet max
16 AWG	12 feet max	24 feet max	36 feet max	48 feet max
14 AWG	20 feet max	40 feet max	60 feet**	80 feet**
12 AWG	30 feet max	60 feet**	90 feet**	120  feet**
10 AWG	50 feet max	100 feet**	150 feet**	200 feet**

 

That chart, seems to me, represents "conventional wisdom". IOW, the maths works out. However, my gut feeling is that powering a pair of expensive, high-end speakers with a 150 WPC (or greater) amplifier over 22 Gauge wire is just not that simple* in this day and age, especially when you can get 12 Gauge, OFC, 259 strand speaker wire terminated with really high-quality banana plugs on both ends from SewellDirect.com for $15 for a 10 ft cable (and slightly cheaper (!) from Amazon - look for Silverback speaker cable). The stuff is ready to go out of the package, the bananas fit so tightly that you could pick up most desktop speakers by the cable and the plugs wouldn't pull out! At these prices, why fool with bulk cable at all when this cable is available so cheaply, is made in USA (Sewell is in Utah)and is such good quality. 

 

*Remember, highly reactive speakers can be cable sensitive.