Honestly, do you think Interconnects and Cables make a difference?

[Anonymous]

maxheadroom:hammill:maxheadroom:dim_span:maxheadroom:

Question......Is there more evidence for cables improving sound quality without technical proof than there is for the existance of any god?..

If so can I be left alone to practice my cable religion without all this cable persicution........thankyou

use your car battery jumper cables (or borrow a pair) ... use them as an interconnect between your amp and your cdp ... test them, and see if you hear a difference ... then post on here and tell us your findings

Is that what you use? are the results good?, any particular make you suggest?, any particular plugs I should use? any particular length?.....

I have already posted on here that I could easily hear the difference between my old cables and my new ones and they were worth the £600 investment so are you saying I've wasted my money and my ears have lied(and my wife's).

If I'm happy why would you want to detract from that? or try and prove there is no god?.......I'm affraid your post comes across as really sad.

If your belief in cables or in God make you happy, why do you care what anyone else thinks?

I don't.... and I think my post on page 7 says that...my point is whatever you believe in ....either with with cables or god ..knocking them when people have spent money or have faith achieves little in a positive way. Say what you believe in and your findings but be careful what and how you try to prove others wrong....

exactly my point ... dont bring religion into hifi ....

 

[Anonymous]

this thread has been going around in circles ... and now religion is being touted ... next we will have politics ... then economics and geography

 

[kevinJ]

In my opinion, interconnects realy make a difference.

For example, I had my dacmagic connected to my denon avr1909 with a Chord Cobra3, and always liked the sound. But since the Cobra3 was just 50cm long, I had some placement issues. So I bought an Atlas Equator mkII this week, and fitted it instead of the Cobra3. The Atlas is alot brighter, has bigger bass and music is now more open and the soundstage wider, but with a little less midrange.

I expected a slight difference, but not that much. I'm still thinking that the Atlas Equator MKII might be too bright for my liking, but maybe it's also possible that the Chord Cobra3 was too warm for my current setup (Denon avr1909, Wharfedale Diamond10.1, Dacmagic, Denon dvd1740, old remote controlled HP laptop, Chord Carnival Silverscreen) and I got used to it sounding that way.

I know Chord says the Cobra3 is ideal for slightly bright equipment and is easy to listen to (being the same as laid back?). And Atlas states the Equator MKII has a huge soundstage and smooth delivery, though avoiding overly bright and irritating sound.

And actually, both are spot on.

 

[idc]

I have made my own IC with parts that cost £3.35, using Neutrik Rean phonos and Proel cable. I switched from SHB Synergy 2is and the most noticeable difference is that at the same setting on the volume the music now sounds louder. So, I presume my ICs have a lower resistance than the SHBs. My cable is all copper. The SHB are silver and copper, which apparently makes for a brighter sound. But mine seem very bright to me.

I have pulled a few ICs apart to see how they are made. One thing that is clear is that the soldering at the joint between the cable and phono is important. If that is to a good standard, everything else falls into place. It is also worth noting that as I make my own cables and they are not for sale I can use lead based solder, but if it was commercial I would have to use lead free. Lead free risks tin whiskers which is small fault lines in the solder which can increase resistance and cause premature failure.

A lot of ICs also use prettier phonos with say brushed metal cases and cable with polyester sheathing. That cannot make a difference at all.

It is early days yet, but so far my conclusion is that a lot of ICs have a sound subscribed to them, and so it tends to follow people listen for that sound and more often than not find it.

 

[Anonymous]

Hopefully one day all this tired debate will be a thing of the past as we'll all be using wifi or similar between components. Only then I suppose the now redundant cable marketers will move onto the "my wifi packets are better than your wifi packets" market.

 

[jc.com]

JohnDuncan:visionary:A piece of wire is a piece of wire. No it's not.

Celui n'est pas Ren‚ Magritte.

 

[Anonymous]

I often wonder if people who think all cables and leads sound the same are tone deaf. I don't mean that as an insult, but in the literal sense.It is the only explanation i can think of as to why they can't hear a difference between cables. I have demo'd dozens of cables and some are so different sounding to others it's like chalk and cheese. We have done blind tests and in some cases it was easy to tell which cable was which. Some people just can't hear the difference through no fault of their own. Just like Simon Cowell comments on a singer being flat and hitting bum notes and someone else didnt hear it it all and thought they were good. Cowell, love him or loathe him, has a good ear for pitch and tone,many others don't.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes there can be a change to the sound ie taming of the treble,improved mids and bass.

 

[Anonymous]

Fraz1:I often wonder if people who think all cables and leads sound the same are tone deaf. I don't mean that as an insult, but in the literal sense.It is the only explanation i can think of as to why they can't hear a difference between cables. I have demo'd dozens of cables and some are so different sounding to others it's like chalk and cheese. We have done blind tests and in some cases it was easy to tell which cable was which. Some people just can't hear the difference through no fault of their own. Just like Simon Cowell comments on a singer being flat and hitting bum notes and someone else didnt hear it it all and thought they were good. Cowell, love him or loathe him, has a good ear for pitch and tone,many others don't.Are you sure you mean tone deaf?

The wikipedia explanation is: Tone deafness is the lack of relative pitch, or the inability to discriminate between musical notes. Being tone deaf is the difficulty of being unable to correctly hear relative differences between notes that is not due to the lack of musical training or education.

That's a bit different from imagining the differences between cables, surely, and shoots your enterprising explanation right in the foot.

 

[SonofSun]

There is a difference between high gauge copper speaker cable and these expensive esoteric silver cables. I have use QEQ revelation which I upgraded to a much cheaper copper cable (Van Damme) and it is much better.

Firstly, if expensive cables are so much better then why does a company like PMC not recommend them, in fact they recommend cheap copper cable?

Secondly, digital cables cannot make a difference in sound, by the definition of being digital.

I for one would not trust any publication that claims that they do, and this also throws into doubt any reviews published by that publication.

If you want to throw your money away on expensive looking cable that is your perogative, but if you are in any doubt, just type "do interconnects make a difference" into google and have a read.

You may change your mind.

I think there is a difference between silver and copper and that is about it.

 

[Alec]

Andrew Everard:Don't take this thread down the usual religions route. For the love of god, please no...

Seconded, in the strongest possible way.

 

[Alec]

chebby:

I can sense Andrew coming down from the mountain with his tablets (and a padlock)...

Not if i have owt to do with it. I'll end up taking his tablets.

 

[Anonymous]

Tarquinh:

Fraz1:I often wonder if people who think all cables and leads sound the same are tone deaf. I don't mean that as an insult, but in the literal sense.It is the only explanation i can think of as to why they can't hear a difference between cables. I have demo'd dozens of cables and some are so different sounding to others it's like chalk and cheese. We have done blind tests and in some cases it was easy to tell which cable was which. Some people just can't hear the difference through no fault of their own. Just like Simon Cowell comments on a singer being flat and hitting bum notes and someone else didnt hear it it all and thought they were good. Cowell, love him or loathe him, has a good ear for pitch and tone,many others don't.Are you sure you mean tone deaf?

The wikipedia explanation is: Tone deafness is the lack of relative pitch, or the inability to discriminate between musical notes. Being tone deaf is the difficulty of being unable to correctly hear relative differences between notes that is not due to the lack of musical training or education.

That's a bit different from imagining the differences between cables, surely, and shoots your enterprising explanation right in the foot.

Maybe, but its just a theory.I could argue that cables subtly alter the way notes sound and alter tone slightly thus bringing the ability to discern the difference right into tone deaf territory! But as i said just an idea. For the life of me i cant think of any other explanation as to how someone cant hear what is often a blindingly obvious difference between speaker cables and interconnects. To my ear anyway.

 

[idc]

SonofSun:
.........Secondly, digital cables cannot make a difference in sound, by the definition of being digital.

I for one would not trust any publication that claims that they do, and this also throws into doubt any reviews published by that publication......

There is a case that jitter or the mis timing of the digital signal can account for sound differences.

SonofSun:
........If you want to throw your money away on expensive looking cable that is your perogative, but if you are in any doubt, just type "do interconnects make a difference" into google and have a read.

You may change your mind.....

Or you may not change your mind. I did google it and all I found was claims of the truth and loads of forum debates like this one.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh dear, idc, think you're overdoing the jitter thing. As you no doubt know, the threshold of jitter audibility is way above what most domestic audio devices produce.

Excellent riposte re cats, by the way, and put me firmly in my place.

 

[idc]

The audibility of jitter is unconfirmed. There are even reports of more jitter making for a better sound. I think that the 1s and 0s argument is totally overdone, not jitter.

My interconnects do make a difference. It is as if the music has been breathed on by angels, the signal flows perfectly and makes all genres sound perfect. They will take a poor system and make it 12% better. They are the work of a genius using only the finest parts from around the world*

*They may be some unfounded claims and downright lies in that statement.

 

[jimdonnelly]

idc:

The audibility of jitter is unconfirmed. There are even reports of more jitter making for a better sound. I think that the 1s and 0s argument is totally overdone, not jitter.

My interconnects do make a difference. It is as if the music has been breathed on by angels, the signal flows perfectly and makes all genres sound perfect. They will take a poor system and make it 12% better. They are the work of a genius using only the finest parts from around the world*

*They may be some unfounded claims and downright lies in that statement.

LOL. Angels?????

 

[Alec]

idc:

The audibility of jitter is unconfirmed. There are even reports of more jitter making for a better sound. I think that the 1s and 0s argument is totally overdone, not jitter.

My interconnects do make a difference. It is as if the music has been breathed on by angels, the signal flows perfectly and makes all genres sound perfect. They will take a poor system and make it 12% better. They are the work of a genius using only the finest parts from around the world*

*They may be some unfounded claims and downright lies in that statement.

Um...would the 12% thing be one of them?

 

[Anonymous]

idc:
The audibility of jitter is unconfirmed. There are even reports of more jitter making for a better sound. I think that the 1s and 0s argument is totally overdone, not jitter.

My interconnects do make a difference. It is as if the music has been breathed on by angels, the signal flows perfectly and makes all genres sound perfect. They will take a poor system and make it 12% better. They are the work of a genius using only the finest parts from around the world*

*They may be some unfounded claims and downright lies in that statement.
looks like youve got the marketing covered , breathed on by angels , perfect

 

[seasiders rock]

YES..Cables do make a difference.

I have just changed my Pre Power combo. Audio Analogue Bellini, Donizetti Power to Parasound Halo P3, A23.

I got the P3 last week and was using it with the Donizetti Power, amazing is the word. The Bellini is good but the P3 is on another planet, detail, soundstage. bass. Collected the A 23 this afternoon, and very disappointed, lumpy bass, no imaging, sounded rubbish. Oh dear, what have i done, the P3 with the Donizetti sounded great.

One hour later, A23 warmed up,and it does run hot, changed the £5 Hitachi lead between Paganini and P3 to the original Silver Hi Breed and now were cooking, i paused the Super Tramp CD playing while changing leads, other half in kitchen commented " what have you done " vocals clearer,massive sound stage and bass rattling the double glazing, the dog hiding under the bed upstairs.

The P3, A23 is running balanced with XLR cables hand made by a guy in Washington, State Side and for £35 delivered there supurb.

If you cant hear any difference with cables your system is pants,straight to the bottom of the page .

 

[Anonymous]

seasiders (apparently) rock, back in the real world, did the cables make a difference??

 

[seasiders rock]

Tarquinh:seasiders (apparently) rock, back in the real world, did the cables make a difference??

YES.

 

[shooter]

I've been a Hi fi enthusiast for 30 years. In that time i've owed both budget and hi end equipment from Akai amplifier and 1970's Pye valves to state of the art Chord Integrated amps and all sorts in between.
Cables have played a part in all the systems but the only time i've really heard any major difference is with hi end equipment. Don't get me wrong they make difference in all the systems i've had. The budget systems faired the worse with cable's as the audible differences were marginal and very subtle indeed if at all when using different cable's QED and Merlin. The mid priced systems faired a little better but again the difference were marginal i've used VDH, Chord and Kimber and i found Kimber to be the best. Finally Hi end. There are more than subtle differences using cable in this bracket in fact cables will make an impact and the systems can be tweaked to how you want the system to sound. I've used Kimber and Acoustic Zen in hi-end equipment to very good affect. Over the years i've probably owned equal amounts of copper and silver cable but found silver to work best in hi end equipment but i'm not sure why this is because there is very fine copper out there especially from Cardas probably just my personnel choice.
Away from my personnel experiences cable is cable and you have a choice either copper or silver but there are things to take into consideration with both of them. Which ever metal you choice in your system they wont be pure. There are trace metals in both copper and silver which can have an effect on sound quality. Most cables are 99.999% you can get .9999% and .99999% but these are much rarer and would be extremely expensive cable due to the refining. Also a lot of these metals come from existing stock and are not newly mined and poor refining of recycled metals will leave a larger amount of impurities. Lastly the gauge of the cable will make a difference each brand will has its preferences and use it.
If all cable was identical there would be no difference. It would be down to other materials used from foil, paper, teflon or earthing.

 

[ID.]

From m limited experience they do, but that has mainly been a switch from the thin free connectors, etc. that come with the equipment to more serious stuff. I haven't experimented between different brands of similarly priced or higher priced stuff.

Even on a 10 yr old Onkyo mini system I noticed a slight difference when I gave it some better shielded copper cable than the stuff it came with. I bought some interconnects to give to someone and decided to try them out between my Onkyo iPod dock and the mini system and it made a huge difference (interconnects cost more than the dock. I could probably get as much of an improvement or more if I'd spent that much more on a dock).

Although sexy plugs don't make a difference to the sound, being shallow, I like em so why not waste my money on them too? Kind of like putting clothes on a dog, not necessary, but hey, some people derive pleasure from it.

 

[David-L]

I was just flicking through some of these forums, yes I know it is an old forum, and a Friday night I should be out on the beer. I am sat in listening to music, and just had to put my two peneth in. At one time Ollie I would have agreed with you, not now though my interconnects, are Atlas hyper, speaker cable is Audio Note litz, there is a difference between what was being used before and what is in place now. It may sound cliched but there is more space around the instruments, what comes out of the speakers is more musical, less fatiguing on a long listen, 12 hours now.