TrevC
Well-known member
plastic penguin said:
Yawn. Any cable will do, you don't need recommendations.
The WHF review of the Batman cable was only poor because some in the Wigwam crowd imagined it sounded better and WHF looked down on them. It sounded exactly the same as their 5 star ones and the red and blacks of course.
OK TrevC If you say so. You do it your way and me and others who can notice differences can do it our way. I'm getting bored now and there must be other things to talk about. What do you fancy talking about? You start a new topic and hopefully this fruitless exchange can be killed off.
I am an advacate of the Graphic Equalizer and the use of the demon device (regarded as such by audiophiles) and yes I conceed if the tonal balance of a cable is too bright or too dull it can be easily adjusted by sound manipulation hardware but it is still better to have the sound right to begin with rather than embark on audio surgery. You may also like to conceed that some cables will have much better hum and noise screening than others and that surely the absence of unwanted rubbish in the signal must make a diffence to the eventual end result. Anyway as I've said to TrevC this fruitless exchange is achieving nothing so better to start another topic and you never know there may be some common agreement unless of course you just enjoy argueing. In which case I can argue along with the best of them. See you around!!
TrevC
Well-known member
ColinLovesMusic said:
You can't change tonal balance with an interconnect that only consists of wire. A piece of wire will allow the entire audio band to pass through.
TrevC
Well-known member
ColinLovesMusic said:
I'm waiting for your reply.
ColinLovesMusic wrote:
I have a fair grasp of electronics
Great, then perhaps you can explain how an interconnect of normal construction, ie. just copper wire and plugs, used at line levels can change the sound. I can't see how on earth that is possible, but I'm happy to be educated on the subject.
Reply to what and where? Direct me to you new topic if there is one and it might interest me sufficiently for me to have some worthy input.
You can't see (or hear either it seems) how copper cable and plugs can sound different. The explanation of the reason is easy. The reasons are 1. There is copper and there is copper. There is good copper and no so good copper. Cables can add nothing to a signal, they can only take away and that is how cables sound different. Lets say a cable makes a system more trebly. It is not boosting treble but taking mid and low away by losing some info in the cable. In whatever way soundwaves are recorded and then transported there will be some corruption of that original soundwave in the form of losses and alterations. Even digital recording has to be converted back. Some hifi enthusiasts embark on the impossible by trying to achieve reproduction as accurate and as pure as the original sound by spending fortunes. Say a massive orchestra is playing some classics in a theatre and being recorded for release on CD, FLAC or whatever. If anyone thinks that very same sound can be achieved in their own living room through what is after all boxes with cones screwed into them are deluding themselves. However expensive those boxes are and the equipment feeding them is it will never happen. So don't even try I say. The approach should be to have a system that sounds the way the listener likes it to sound and enjoys what they hear. Don't get into the obsession with accuracy because it can't be achieved and no-one knows what was ever accurate in the first place.
I don't believe in spending lots of money on cables or any other hifi equipment because nowadays there is no need to. I wouldn't go above £30mtr for interconnects or above £5mtr for speaker cable because there is no need to. Those people like yourself who can't hear a difference between freebie interconnects and interconnects produced to exacting audio standards will carry on using freebies and save themselves some money which can't be a bad thing. As you were asking I replied and that is the best explanation I know of why cables influence sound. Now I really do not think you want to be convinced anyway so what subject next?
You can't see (or hear either it seems) how copper cable and plugs can sound different. The explanation of the reason is easy. The reasons are 1. There is copper and there is copper. There is good copper and no so good copper. Cables can add nothing to a signal, they can only take away and that is how cables sound different. Lets say a cable makes a system more trebly. It is not boosting treble but taking mid and low away by losing some info in the cable. In whatever way soundwaves are recorded and then transported there will be some corruption of that original soundwave in the form of losses and alterations. Even digital recording has to be converted back. Some hifi enthusiasts embark on the impossible by trying to achieve reproduction as accurate and as pure as the original sound by spending fortunes. Say a massive orchestra is playing some classics in a theatre and being recorded for release on CD, FLAC or whatever. If anyone thinks that very same sound can be achieved in their own living room through what is after all boxes with cones screwed into them are deluding themselves. However expensive those boxes are and the equipment feeding them is it will never happen. So don't even try I say. The approach should be to have a system that sounds the way the listener likes it to sound and enjoys what they hear. Don't get into the obsession with accuracy because it can't be achieved and no-one knows what was ever accurate in the first place.
I don't believe in spending lots of money on cables or any other hifi equipment because nowadays there is no need to. I wouldn't go above £30mtr for interconnects or above £5mtr for speaker cable because there is no need to. Those people like yourself who can't hear a difference between freebie interconnects and interconnects produced to exacting audio standards will carry on using freebies and save themselves some money which can't be a bad thing. As you were asking I replied and that is the best explanation I know of why cables influence sound. Now I really do not think you want to be convinced anyway so what subject next?
Done to death on the what hifi forum by those who populated it at the time yes. But that doesn't mean done to death by anyone who wasn't around at the time. I didn't know that the interconnect of my choice was or had been so controversial in this forum. I don't know how the belief came about and is still held by some that the cables are home made. They certainly are not. It is true there is not an official UK importer who distributes in our UK domestic hifi market. There are companies who buy in from switziland and sell online though, as you know. Buying hifi online is not such a strange thing. Personally I have not set foot in a hifi dealers shop for 13 years now. I decide what I want to buy and then I search out the best price online and a few days later the courier turns up with a box. Online only sellers are fine with me. Costs are lower all round. It's a win for them and a win for us the buyer. Highest quality-lowest price and that is what I got and why I posted them as my best hifi bargain. I could have said that my 15 year old KEF Cresta 1 loudspeakers were the best ever hifi bargain purchase but they were discontinued so many years ago now I thought perhaps nobody would remember or even have heard of them. Little babes they are and never shall me and those crestas be parted.
TrevC
Well-known member
ColinLovesMusic said:
1. You claim to have electronics knowledge. Explain how an interconnect made of ordinary wire can allow some frequencies through and not others.
2. Nobody has been able to hear it once visual clues are removed. The reason? Because differences are imagined.
For fear of being converted you probably haven't digested what I wrote earlier. The reason some cables let through frequencies differently be it falling treble output or falling bass or a mid dip etc but not flat is the different load charactoristics of that cable. Examples for GAC-1 Capacitance <57nF/km (twinned stereo GAC-1) 146nF/km (single cable GAC-1) those figures are low which means the cable will transport high frequency information even with long cable runs without rolling off before 20kHz. A different cable with say a 400nF/km capacitance would have an early roll off which would make for a dull sound on a full range hifi system but would be an ideal vocal mic cable. Conductor resistance <140ohms/km. Charactoristic impedence 75ohm. Those are a few examples of why not all cables are the same and why cables produce different charactaristics of sound. These charactistics change with the equipment they are partnered with. Also everybodys hearing is different some very acute others very limited. Differences between cables are not huge but subtle. You have to be able to listen with full attention and focus on the music. Differences between cables may only be apparant when doing a direct A-B comparison. In isolation it probably would not be obvious as other things come in like the partnering equipment. The difference in sound does not have to be huge to make it worthwhile upgrading to some good quality and same time good value cables. I'm talking about cables costing £17mtr not £170mtr. Blind listening without visual clues and prejudice does still reveil differences without knowing which cable is which. Not always and not to everyone. I can't really say anymore than that. That is the extent of what I understand beyond just using my ears.
plastic penguin
Well-known member
Colin. The problem is that cables (RCAs, speakers) polarise opinion on here, as it did back in 2008.
Unlike Trevor I'm NOT a total disbeliever in cables, they can make a difference. However, I've owned budget end wires for most of my hi-fi life (circa 1978) and heard many around the same price bracket. The only difference I could detect was - perhaps - a slight tonal difference. Moving up the price bracket considerably, with the right speakers and amp, that could be a different proposition.
Nearly a decade on from the original reviews, I don't see how the Gotham cables can be classed as 'Hot Deals'. They are a spent entity.
Unlike Trevor I'm NOT a total disbeliever in cables, they can make a difference. However, I've owned budget end wires for most of my hi-fi life (circa 1978) and heard many around the same price bracket. The only difference I could detect was - perhaps - a slight tonal difference. Moving up the price bracket considerably, with the right speakers and amp, that could be a different proposition.
Nearly a decade on from the original reviews, I don't see how the Gotham cables can be classed as 'Hot Deals'. They are a spent entity.
TrevC
Well-known member
TrevC
Well-known member
ColinLovesMusic said:
If I require an interconnect to carry RF or one that is several miles long I will bear your twaddle in mind. Characteristic impedance is only important at RF, for normal copper series resistance isn't important and nether are inductance or capacitance because the values are too low . Let's say the capacitance of the cable is 500pf. Never found one that high, normally they are around 100-200pf. 500pf has a reactance of 16kohms, insignificant for an average source impedance of 1k.
Of course! as does everything else in the audio chain. Nothing can be without influence to some degree. The world is full of people like trev who trust technical data to the point of not trusting their own ears or eyes just because someone in a technical lab coat says so. Just as some people have trusted their satnav over their own eyes and driven into a lake. By all means I would say be cynical towards the audiophile/esoteric hifi manufacterers and their products who owe their existance to big bank balances over common sense, but a sound engineer working on stage with a famous orchestra, band or whatever would not have available or use such a vast range of different cables all with specific purposes and technical specs if it was not essential to use the right cable for the right task. Load capacitance does not only effect lengths over a kilometer, the influence comes in after about 2 to 3 metres and the longer the length thereafter so the more influence capatacance has. Just as the load resistance of amp and loudspeaker and cable matters to the sound produced. And to quote a previous comment this has been done to death.
TrevC
Well-known member
ColinLovesMusic said:
Who says I don't trust my ears or eyes? I just know what does make a difference and what doesn't. I don't waste my time listening to bits of wire, that's all. I have more time listening to stuff that does make a difference. If you use inadequate speaker wire that's too resistive you will have poor sound, but interconnects are entirely non-critical, as is anything on the mains side.
TrevC
Well-known member
lolTrevC said:
is that humour tev? -1! Made me laugh mate..had a crap day, cheered me up! Whose the bearded bloke on your avatar? Looks like my uncle Keith? Do you know my uncle Keith? He has never mentioned a trev? When I can prise him out of his lotus position? And when he has finished waxing his twenty Bentleys...ill ask him if he knows a trev! I may even ask for a description? I'm imagining a Gollum type with tiny ears and carrying about a freebie interconnect called "precious" is this you trev? Sometimes your Gollum but sometimes your Smeagol! I prefer Smeagol to Gollum...that Gollum just hates everything..but Smeagol? Just wants to be liked! Desperate to be popular..trev? Be more Smeagol...stop being Gollum...go the Smeagol way! It's the best way!No No No No No Not so TrevC. You can't say so and that hundreds of thousands or millions globally are wrong. Of course millions will be happy listening to hifi or audio of some type with freebies but then I have to endure working with people who think they are delighting all around them by switching on their smartphones so we can all enjoy listening to kissfm through a smartphone speaker. Enough to drive me from the room or resort to earplugs. If some people think music through a device with a frequency response from 1khz to 1khz is ok then of course same people will think freebie interconnects sound good. Due to gotham talk being the topic of the week that has been enough inspiration to get me to aquire a new 2mtr length of GAC-1 for my recently out of the closet turntable to replace its aging vevanco prowire interconnects. Not surprisingly gac-1s lived up to their charactoristics and sound took on a greatly more solid bass, a more extended treble, dynamics became more forceful and music became more captivating and involving - grabs my attention and holds it - a quality which I don't understand how or what causes it. And as in previous cases the annoying hum has gone. So now the signal is clean clear and without restraint. OK I admit I do not do subtle. My music tastes are not subtle and neither is the sound I want to hear. These cables let it through and squash nothing. If the master recording isn't subtle and has loads of ott crash bang wallop then the sound will come out of the gotham cables that way too. The fainthearted and lovers of the classics may well prefer a cable that damps things down. Are gotham gac 1s the best cable for tinkly nuanses deep in the soundstage of the classics? - I doubt it very much! but I never posted a topic saying it was the cable for everyone and every system. I simply stated it was my best bargain purchase for me. For me personally that is.
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