opinions sought on speaker cables ... MIT Vs. Nordost

[Jud]

Dielectric absorption in audio cables only affects the signal outside the audio frequencies.

 

The absorption talked about in the article you cite is resistive loss. What I've seen several cable manufacturers comment on (the Omega Mikro and Antipodes Audio principals, George Cardas, some Audioquest product literature IIRC) is absorption (like a capacitor) and then delayed release of the signal energy, causing "smearing" in the time domain. Not sure these are the same thing (I'm just not conversant enough with the electrical principles to know).

 

[Daudio]

Jud,

 

Thanks for reading all those studies, and the summary - so I don't have to wade through them

 

"For comparison - the rise (half-wave) time for a frequency of 20kHz would be 25 microseconds, if my math is right."

 

I think the the 'Rise time' would only be 1/4 of a cycle, and thus about

12 microsec.

 

"when thinking about the possibility of audio differences in digital cables, recognize that time domain effects there are potentially more of a problem, since the frequencies (resolutions) being transmitted are at least 44.1kHz."

 

Initially I would think that all that would be affected in a digital cable would be the latency, since it would affect all the bits traveling across the cable. But I need to finally look into the data protocols to satisfy my curiosity about these things. I'll get back to you...

 

 

[Jud]

Initially I would think that all that would be affected in a digital cable would be the latency, since it would affect all the bits traveling across the cable

 

Not bits but waves representing bits. Do any of these time-domain effects vary at different frequencies, or shift phase so as to change the shape of the analog wave and create zero-crossing timing differences (jitter)?

 

[SteveChicago]

just an observation ... there is no topic more controversial in "audioland" than cables

 

[crisnee]

"I wrote about this in an earlier post in this thread, talking about listening for degrees of difference between different recordings."

 

I know, It's you, Barrows and Scot that finally nudged me into writing what I'd been contemplating and thinking about writing for awhile.

 

Barrows, Unfortunately I was pretty sure that your answer would be the only one forthcoming. But it is very kind of you to spell it out so succinctly, yet in such detail. I would only change one line in your lovely post. "Chris, Do not despair" to "Chris, Do despair."

 

You've perfectly explained one reason why folks buy expensive cables, "hey plunk down $1000 on cables per year," no big deal compared to the countless years and man hours your approach (and the rational one) demands. At $10 an hour (we don't pay ourselves much for this sort of endeavor) say 8 hours a week, that comes to approximately $4000 a year for many years, yikes. Not to mention that many of us live in parts of the world where some of the steps you describe are not even possible.

 

I was hoping someone had a miracle method that I hadn't thought of.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if in several price ranges we had components listed that were guaranteed as close to neutral as one can expect. From cable to power amp to speaker. Okay a pipe dream, plus we probably wouldn't believe the guarantee anyway, even if it was guaranteed by the most respected of the respected, because, well we just don't agree. It's beneath/above us.

 

-Chris

 

 

[crisnee]

"And the wierd thing is, the balance (or synergy) of your equipment changes every time you make a change."

 

Paul, Still haven't gotten that "i before e, except after c, except sometimes when it's not," rule down eh? But maybe you didn't mean weird, but some other word that hasn't yet entered my lexicon, because it doesn't seem weird to me, in fact it seems inevitable.

 

My system's SQ changes even when I don't make changes, which is one reason I have a hard time attributing SQ changes to anything in particular, i.e. equipment, mood, weather, northern lights, my ex-wife's mood....

 

I love Maggies, although I've never owned them. I just don't have a way to put them in my room that makes sense and would bring the best out in them. Have you heard the wall ones? Can they be used off the wall? Have we had this conversation?

 

I've experimented with my speakers etc. in various ways and what I have now is by far the best I've come on to. I use the NHT SuperZeros as surrounds when I use surround, which isn't often, and the Titus as the stereo pair. My sig isn't entirely accurate, I don't think, but it's close.

 

Do you ever use headphones? I ask, because the Fostex headphones ($75) are made with the same type of drivers as are Maggies (I know you love your Maggies). And they are strangely alluring for many kinds of music. If you want to know more, PM me.

 

I am so tempted by Nordost speaker cables, but I'm so poor....

 

-Chris

 

[Jud]

I was hoping someone had a miracle method that I hadn't thought of.

 

Once again I've only got a phone so details will have to wait. There's a simple practical way to apply the principles that barrows et al have talked about. I'll give you the names of a few CDs and what to listen for.

 

[crisnee]

Jud,

 

Cool, I'm waiting with bated breath--wherever that comes from.

 

It literally means with moderately restrained breath. Let's see, I'm waiting with moderately restrained breath. Yeah I see, wow am I eager, I can't hardly wait.

 

Maybe it's just the polite and civil way to say: I'm holding my breath until I'm blue in the face or until I get those cds. But I digress.

 

-Chris

 

[ringenesherre]

You asked for further education on the topic of propagation speed and the influence of the dielectric constant. I decided to summarize things in a Blog post:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/Velocity-Propagation-Audio-Frequencies

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

[Jud]

Peter, thanks for the blog post. It wasn't propagation speed I was concerned with, though, since I realize EM waves move really, really fast. (In spite of some witticisms I can think of to the contrary. American baseball was segregated for a long time, so African American ballplayers had their own "Negro Leagues." Cool Papa Bell was reputed to be the fastest runner in all of the Negro Leagues, so fast that it was said of him, "He can turn off the light switch and be in bed before the room gets dark.")

 

Rather, the phenomenon I was thinking of, discussed as I mentioned by several cable manufacturers, involves storage of signal energy by the dielectric or at the interface between dielectric and conductor, almost like a capacitor, and its delayed release back into the signal. Apparently this "dielectric pumping" effect in certain popular plastic dielectrics can be significant enough to result in audible effects on transients.

 

[Paul R]

Paul, Still haven't gotten that "i before e, except after c, except sometimes when it's not," rule down eh?

 

Nope, but I did get the "capital letters at the start of a sentence, not after commas" down though...

 

The MGMW's and higher sound great on or off the wall, though you have to come up with a way to mount them. Not all that hard, but they do really need a sub or two, since they only go down to around 100hz.

 

MMG's can be stand mounted at a very low cost, with a bit of ingenuity. A couple of bicycle racks can be made to work wonders!

 

http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/shrumple/

 

http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/BrianBennett/

 

I rarely use headphones, but I will try out a pair of the Fostex jobs, since they are both cheap and if you say they sound like Maggies, it has caught my interest. Any particular model I should look for?

 

-Paul

 

 

[rlnt500]

I normaly don't get involved in these types of discussions because they usually end up making everyone angry and seldom go anywhere. I have something to add from an experiance that I had that may help people with wide difference of opinions, kind of understand the opposing view. Not a lot, buy maybe just a little. For me, at least, it was a genuine suprise.

 

I set up a system in a house I rented in CO so I could go skiing. I was going to be there for a while so I wanted something decent to listen to. I have a pair of Vandersteen 1's that I wasn't using, as well as an Arcam 33 CD player. I didn't want to bring anything big and expensive, so I bought a Naim Nait 5i integrated. I never had anything from Naim so I was looking forward to using it. I threw some cables & other stuff I thought I may need, and that was my system.

 

When setting up a system, I usually use Audioquest cables; they go with just about anything. Also, with new equipment, I try both silver and coper interconnects and pick the best sounding of the two.

 

Here's the interresting part, at least for me. I couldn't tell the difference between the silver and the copper cables. I can always tell a difference and its usually a big one. I know for a fact that I can here the difference with the Arcam and the Vandersteen, so the only conclusion that I can come up with is that the Naim just didn't have the resolution to bring out the differences in the 2 cables. (Just to note, I am very picky about judging things good or bad, so when I got home, I tested each piece individually in my main system and was able to confirm that it was the Naim and none of the other equipment was defective.

 

Here's where I'm going with all this. Lets say that this system wasn't mine but someone elses, and they are in a forum like this saying that there's no difference between silver and copper cables. Likely someone like me will get into an argument (sorry, debate) about how thats not true and we'll be going back and forth. Am I right? Yes. Are they right? Yes. But not for the reason I thought. I would assume something like: just reading and not testing, just wont admit the difference, don't have the listening skills ect.

 

Looking at the system listed, I would have never thought that they were not at fault and the system was. Its not like its a bunch of cheap, mass market products. Arcam, Naim, Vandersteen, and Audioquest are all very well respected names and had I not heard it for myself, I would have never considered otherwise.

 

The only other remark I want to make is about this post and others like it. When ever I read a comment, I now look at the system just as much as the comment. The one, clear trend I see, regarding cable discussion, is that the people that hear differences in cables tend to have much more resolving systems than people who don't. I don't mean this in a mean way like "my stuff is better than yours", but I am much more careful about "attacking" people because they may be making honest statements based on real experiance. Personally, I can't fault anyone for that. And in defense of the other side of the argument, you guys need to come up with some better answers than psyco acoustics, advertising, price and specs.

 

 

 

[Jud]

With apologies to Ray Davies.

 

Chris, sorry to make you wait. This promises to be a bit lengthy (though I'll see if I can make it as concise as possible), so I wanted to have time to do it.

 

barrows, Barry, and others have said one good way to tell whether equipment (including cables) is giving you what's put into it and thus is accurate is to see whether recordings sound different from each other. If everything sounds the same, you know recordings aren't identical, so it must be the component/cable imposing a sound of its own, and thus not being true to the source. OK, great in theory, but how to put this into practice?

 

Simply send $29.95 - oh wait, wrong presentation.

 

But it really is almost that down-to-earth and simple. Consider the following 5 recordings and their producers:

 

- Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, produced by T-Bone Burnett

 

- Seeing Things, Jakob Dylan, produced by Rick Rubin

 

- Women and Country, Jakob Dylan, produced by T-Bone Burnett

 

- Mescalito, Ryan Bingham, produced by Marc Ford

 

- Junky Star, Ryan Bingham, produced by T-Bone Burnett

 

If you don't have one or more of these and are motivated to buy them to listen to what I'll be describing below, they are all (at least to my taste) excellent music that you'd be very happy owning.

 

Listening to "The Letter" from Raising Sand first, you hear a couple of things that turn out to be characteristic of T-Bone Burnett's work: A good amount of reverb on Robert Plant's lead vocals; drums and bass fairly out front in the mix, both sounding "taut" rather than "muddy." Plant's vocals sound quite good with the reverb, possibly because we're used to hearing him that way on a lot of Led Zeppelin tracks.

 

OK, now let's go to "Will it Grow" from Seeing Things. Although Rick Rubin's been (rightly) criticized for overly loud and compressed work with groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he's also capable of very plain and unadorned production, such as on his Johnny Cash recordings. This is the plain and unadorned Rubin. Dylan's vocals sound like he's standing in the room with you; there's really no obvious "production" on them. The bass is in the background, sounding a lot like an upright bass, almost "muddy."

 

Now to the same artist with T-Bone Burnett producing: "Nothing But the Whole Wide World," from Women and Country. Same guy singing, but listen to the vocals. Not nearly as unadorned and clear. Sounds like they were recorded in a small room or even a booth and reverb was added later to "sweeten." And the bass is definitely more out front and more "taut" than on Seeing Things.

 

On to Ryan Bingham and "Don't Wait for Me" from Mescalito. It's a ballad, and Bingham's whiskey-and-cigarette desert-baked voice is out front, plain and definitely unadorned. "Yesterday's Blues" from Junky Star is also a ballad with Bingham's voice out front, but holy cow! Burnett's put the vocalist in a booth or small room again, and slapped a bunch of reverb on it, I guess so it wouldn't sound like he was keeping poor Bingham prisoner or something. After hearing Bingham plain and straight on "Don't Wait for Me," this sounds *very* different.

 

Let's now go through these songs and talk about evaluating cables or other equipment.

 

If you don't hear the lighter reverb on the vocals on "Nothing but the Whole Wide World" versus the plain Rubin production on the other album, and especially if you don't hear the very evident reverb on "Yesterday's Blues" versus the plain Marc Ford production on Mescalito, but instead the two Dylan tracks and even the two Bingham tracks sound pretty similar to each other, then it's very possible either your DAC, your digital cable, or both aren't capturing the low-level detail that would let you hear that reverb.

 

On the other hand, if you hear reverb and a gynormous soundstage on *everything* (even when it's not on the recordings, as with Seeing Things and Mescalito), then something in your chain is providing it. I've heard this (rarely) as a characteristic of a couple of tube amps I've listened to. (By the way, this is one reason I believe some non-"experts" should participate in double-blind tests. Audiophiles are taught by reviews to listen for things like a big soundstage that sometimes aren't present in the recording.)

 

If the bass on "Nothing..." sounds almost as "muddy" as the bass on "Will It Grow," then your speaker cable may not be giving you the best transient response or your amp may not be controlling your low-frequency drivers all that well.

 

So - those are some of the types of differences in sound that will be evident on different recordings, even different recordings of the same artist, and some descriptions of how various failings in components or cables will tend to mask those differences, making all recordings sound similar. The 5 recordings I've used as examples are nice because they allow you to compare some characteristics of T-Bone Burnett's production against the way other producers have captured the same artists. Also, a lot of the differences are in the vocals, which makes them pretty easy to hear. I'm sure you can come up with tracks of your own that will allow you to do much the same as I did with these.

 

I don't think this sort of thing is too difficult, given the right recorded material to compare. What's your impression?

 

[rlnt500]

This in comment to the above listening test in Juds post. I find it to be a very interresting test but I can think of a few things that may throw the results off. First, the test, from what I can see, is intended to produce some very specific results that can then be used to evaluate how transparent your equipment is using the given results. When I use the word transparent, I am refering to how much of the system you are listening to as opposed to the recording. More transparent, more recording, less transparent, more system.

 

It makes sense, at first glance, but I feel that there will be significant changes between recordings made by the same artist and same recording engineer. Lets say you make 3 different recordings at 3 seperate times by the same artist, engineer and in the same studio. Also, it would be reasonable to assume a certain amount of time between the recording sessions. Most artists seem to release and album every 2-3 years or so.

 

Using the above example as what would be fixed info, I will now list a few things that I feel you can't control. Because of this, it will have to make the results of the initial test less valid.

-The artist ages between recording sessions and so does their voice.

-Equipment in recording studios gets changed and updated all the time.

-Musicians are usually under contract to use certain brands of instruments. Brands and models change all the time.

-Associated musicians may change

-Different mastering technique and/or person

-Music style can change

-Time of day the recording is made can effect the quality of AC

-Errors during mass manufacturing

 

I can list many more examples, but from what I can see, there is so little control over so many different variables, I don't see how you can sort all that out and be left with any usuable results to base the initial experiment on. Please understand that I don't mean to offend anyone; I'm just giving an honest answer to the question.

 

[bdiament]

My initial suggestion was to listen to different recordings. Perhaps I should have been more clear and say a lot of different recordings.

 

There will be, due to techniques, favored venues, etc. less difference between album A recorded by artist B with sound by engineer C and the next album done by all the same folks, than there will be between that album and album E recorded by artist F with sound by engineer G.

 

There will always be differences but for the sake of making it easiest to determine which gear is getting out of the way the best, I think a wide variety is going to help. This will be especially true for folks who are not used to doing this.

 

Rather than pick two or three albums by the same artist, I suggest picking six or ten albums, all by different artists/engineers, etc.

It is the width of variety we're testing for, so why not start by making it as easy to determine as possible.

 

When enough experience is gained, it will be a lot easier to hear changes in the work of the same artist/engineer, etc. Even within the same album.

 

Assuming true transparency (as opposed to a favored color) is sought, I would also suggest a good number of those recordings be known, high quality recordings with little to no processing involved. In my experience, these really help separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[wdw]

...and here I thought we were supposed to be talking about Nordost vs. MIT. Original query was to relative merits.

 

Not to the premise of cabling in general and merits but to this specific cabling and merit...

 

Rob McCance can make as many homemade cables as he'd like and his buddy, Jeff, can +1 him as much as he'd care to but that isn't the subject at hand.

 

If you can't hear the qualitative increase in sound quality that well made, well engineered, cabling can offer so be it. You've saved yourself some money but, please, post it elsewhere.

 

Start your own thread...here's the opening query:

 

I'm an electrical engineer, make my own cables which are as good or better than yours and you're just plain stupid if you think otherwise.

 

Or perhaps you remember the recent poster who was a digital/electrical engineer and was, he claimed, rebuilding a set of Linn Isobarik speakers by outfitting them with new active amplifiers... but when describing this interesting project he claimed that Linn had stolen the Isobaric design from a competitor and, he further maintained, they hadn't the technical competence to make them work properly; a wrong he was going to right!

So in this one statement, he impugns the moral integrity and technical competence of a major electronics company, one we all likely admire, all the while blatantly ignore the thirty years of speaker design and development that has occurred since that time...the egoism is monummental.

A tad grouchy, my apologies,

WDW

 

[Jud]

Rather than pick two or three albums by the same artist, I suggest picking six or ten albums, all by different artists/engineers, etc.

 

It is the width of variety we're testing for, so why not start by making it as easy to determine as possible.

 

I agree, the more the better. I wasn't advocating restricting your listening tests to a few albums by a couple of different artists. But Chris was talking about all this discussion of everything causing differences being so overwhelming he didn't know if it was even possible to do what you, barrows, I and others have talked about. So I wanted to take things from a general discussion of principles to a very specific listing of a few recordings I own and in effect say "See? Easy peasy, you can do it too."

 

 

 

[Jud]

It makes sense, at first glance, but I feel that there will be significant changes between recordings made by the same artist and same recording engineer.

 

Absolutely, which is exactly why Barry, barrows, I and others have said it is easy to tell which components and cables are more faithful to the music - just see which ones give you more of a variety of sound with different recordings.

 

As to why I mentioned very specific aspects of just a few specific recordings, see my response to Barry.

 

[Kimo]

system: Audioquest Type 4, Audioquest CV4, Auditorium 23, Alpha Core Goertz Copper, Audience Au 24, BPT 7.5SC, Cardas Neutral Reference, DNM, Mapleshade, Nordost Red Dawn, Analysis Plus Oval and Black Oval 9, Kimber Cable 4 and 8tc, Crimson, Walmart White Lightning, QED 79, Dynaudio Ocos, and Vandenhul Revelation. I am forgetting a few others.

 

I could live perfectly contently with 14 gauge stranded copper at this point, though I would acknowledge it might not sound identical to any of the above. Certainly, there are differences, but I am not sure that I could call them all qualitative. I would prefer the basic cable to a few of these.

 

I would always advise to start with your basic stranded cable and audition more expensive offerings along the way to hear if you value the differences enough to make the investment.

 

 

 

[Daphne]

“What I've seen several cable manufacturers comment on (the Omega Mikro and Antipodes Audio principals, George Cardas, some Audioquest product literature IIRC) is absorption (like a capacitor) and then delayed release of the signal energy, causing "smearing" in the time domain.”

 

Well Jud, an interesting point and I have just as many questions.

 

From what I have read, the delayed release of signal energy absorbed by some (not all) dielectric materials will produce a phase shift which causes smearing in the time domain. This absorption is most prevalent in PVC and Vinyl, and far less in materials such as Teflon and Polypropylene. Speaker cable is the least affected because the dielectric absorption takes place in the MHz region, but becomes more prevalent with longer cables.

 

What I don’t know is what length of a speaker cable does this effect start to occur? When and how often is the stored energy discharged? Does the delayed release affect the audio frequencies? If so, how much smearing in the time domain actually occurs and can we hear it within the audio frequency? Or, is the effect so insignificant it is merely a moot point?

 

Cable brands make the general claim this effect can soften dynamics, blur nuances, subdue texture, and minimize depth. It will also cause dynamic transients to sound slow, greatly detracting from your entire system's ability to reproduce music realistically, in other words producing a long list of distortions. Wow, that is a bold enough statement causing any audiophile to worry about their cables, or just another common method of promoting fear and selling hope. On one hand cable brands will claim the only way to correct the gaping holes in your system is to use their cables, on the other hand they will say their cables are so good it will show up glaring deficiencies in your equipment. A statement which borders on the truth thus adding more confusion. Then everyone wonders why we vigorously debate the subject so often.

 

I have a friend who uses Silversmith Audio Group cables which claims to resolve all the problems associated with audio cables. He has over $50,000 invested into these cables which exceeds the cost of his components. For a unique solution “Silversmith” uses thin strips of Silver or Palladium suspended in a Teflon tube and air is the dielectric. http://www.silversmithaudio.com/

 

I recalled Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio has several articles about speaker and interconnect cables on his website, and he addresses Dielectric Absorption and how it is easily measured, but falls short by omitting any effects we can actually hear within the audio frequencies. http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/technical-papers/dielectric-absorption-dissipation-factor-and-q

 

 

[Jud]

What I don’t know is what length of a speaker cable does this effect start to occur? When and how often is the stored energy discharged? Does the delayed release affect the audio frequencies? If so, how much smearing in the time domain actually occurs and can we hear it within the audio frequency? Or, is the effect so insignificant it is merely a moot point?

 

Don't know either. The folks who make the best sounding cables I've heard say it affects what we can hear.

 

Cable brands make the general claim this effect can soften dynamics, blur nuances, subdue texture, and minimize depth. It will also cause dynamic transients to sound slow, greatly detracting from your entire system's ability to reproduce music realistically, in other words producing a long list of distortions. Wow, that is a bold enough statement causing any audiophile to worry about their cables, or just another common method of promoting fear and selling hope. On one hand cable brands will claim the only way to correct the gaping holes in your system is to use their cables, on the other hand they will say their cables are so good it will show up glaring deficiencies in your equipment.

 

This feels exaggerated to me, based on what I've seen at cable manufacturers' sites. Not that they're all that shy about saying that their cables are accurate, particularly in the time domain. But I don't recall reading anything to the effect of either correcting gaping holes in systems or showing glaring deficiencies. (This is at the sites I've read - don't know what other manufacturers do.)

 

I'm a real sucker for cables, so I recently changed speaker cables after owning the previous set for an all-too-fleeting 20 years. And the venal snake oil merchant I bought the new pair from persuaded me to change my mind and buy a different set of cables than I originally told him I wanted. He spent paragraphs in a series of emails and probably 20 minutes on the phone persuading me to buy *half* as much as I originally intended (thought I needed to bi-wire, he persuaded me it wasn't necessary) of a used, *half* price cable when I had originally asked for a biwired set of new, full-price cables. These nasty, cynical guys, taking advantage of people's fears like that.

 

And of course they were a complete waste, not making a greater audible difference to my system than my Spectral pre-amp. The fact that I think they've made a bigger difference than any other component or cable change I've ever done is almost certainly just placebo effect, though oddly the placebo effect apparently forgot to manifest itself so forcefully with those other system changes. But what can I say, I'm a hopeless tweak under the sway of these ruthless shysters. Heck, I'll probably make my next speaker cable switch in a head-snapping 18 or 19 years!

 

[Kimo]

cable lifts, maple platforms, silver contact enhancer, and folk jazz cds. I still use the rack, so I am not a total non fan.

 

[wdw]

....but delightful

 

[Kimo]

We are discussing the phase shifting abilities of a speaker cable feeding a signal into a passive crossover or two?

 

[crisnee]

@rlnt500,

 

An interesting test would be to setup the same system you setup in CO, and then swap in the amp that you think is more resolving (the amp that allows you to hear a difference in the cables) and see if you can decide which of the three choices sounds the best.

 

1. Your CO system with either cable.

2. Your CO system with more "resolving" amp and cable 1.

3. Choice 2. with cable 2.

 

Also, just to be absolutely sure, test the original CO system with both cables in your home environment, just in case the grid or something else makes a difference.

 

Although it seems like the test you did at home should have proved that the Naim is at fault, I'm not sure it did. I keep trying to think it through logically but don't quite make it all the way home--so to speak. It seems possible that something else could be at play; besides, what would it mean if you preferred the Naim system to the system with the other amp, even though it didn't allow you to hear a difference between the cables?

 

-Chris