Interconnects

markym3

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Am looking for balanced XLR interconnects to use in my headphone system (Benchmark DAC2--Sennheiser HDVA600--HD800 with balanced cable). Currently have a Van Den Hul First Ultimate, which is OK, but doesn't exploit the balanced connection available between DAC and amp.

I've been reading about silver cables and it sounds interesting . Was wondering if anyone had tried Achtung Audio or Artisan cables? The latter seem to carry a solid reputation, the former seem to have very similar construction but are a lot cheaper. Can't find any comparisons out there. Both can be bought on a sale or return basis so that's an option.

Other recommendations up to £200 for 0.5m would also be welcome!

Cheers....
 

andyjm

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Marky, I don't know what you are reading, but I would suggest you put it in the bin.

XLR to XLR balanced connections are the workhorse of the professional music business. Well made, high quality connectors are widely available at very reasonable prices. If the cable was good enough for the guy who recorded the music in the first place, surely it is good enough for you?

You should aim for gold plated Neutrik connectors and a low capacitance, well shielded cable. Microphone cables are ideal. You might struggle a little to find a cable as short as you require, but 1M cables are readily available - £20 should get you an excellent cable. Google 'XLR mic cable' for the many pro audio shops who sell this stuff.

As for silver, I am afraid that you have been mislead. Silver is a better conductor than copper by volume, but a worse conductor than aluminium by weight. Overhead power cables are steel reinforced aluminium for this reason. Don't see many aluminium interconnects on the fancy audio websites? - aluminium doesn't sound very sexy, does it?

If you were constrained by cable size, then silver might make sense, if you were constrained by weight then use aluminium. When I last looked down the back of my amp, cable weight and size didn't seem to be a significant problem. A very slightly thicker copper cable will conduct every bit as well as a silver cable, in the same way as a very slightly heavier copper cable will conduct every bit as well as an aluminium cable.

Silver audio cables (most are not even solid silver but have a very thin silver plating over copper) are all about marketing, and not about audio quality. Don't be fooled.
 
Exactly wahat andyjm says, do not believe everything you read..... read a lot by all means but suggest using common sense as well, and this forum of course :)

Can you expand on your current Van den Hul, is this terminated as XLR or not? Surely this can be found terminated with balanced XLR connections? How do you mean it doesn't exploit the balanced connection amp / dac??
 

MajorFubar

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All these guys are talking sense. Go to your nearest pro-audio shop or keyboard/guitar place and ask to look at their selection of XLR mic cables. If you've got £200 to throw at a 50cm cable you are fortunately very much richer than I am and absolutely prime target for snake-oil salesmen and voodoo preachers. The HiFi industry is absolutely littered with it, including sad to say as are many reviews in this magazine.
 
matthewpiano said:
Just buy Van Damme cables with Neutrik connectors on. Nothing else needed.

He already has a good cable from what he says just wondering what he finds wrong with it. If it's not XLR connected (ie phono plugs) then it can easily be re-terminated in XLR. No need at all to buy another cable, or am I reading him wrong here. He has not replied to my post yet so we will see.
 

drummerman

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Being in the camp of 'different cables can make a difference', why not try and source your XLR silver plated cable from a supplier which has a return policy?

That way you don't have to take anyones word for it but can try for yourself.
 

TrevC

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drummerman said:
Being in the camp of 'different cables can make a difference', why not try and source your XLR silver plated cable from a supplier which has a return policy?

That way you don't have to take anyones word for it but can try for yourself.

Of course cables can make a difference, just not in this particular case.
 

FennerMachine

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Trying cables for yourself might be a good idea.
At least then you will know from first hand experience that all you need is a well made inexpensive cable.
You will never have doubts again and can just enjoy the music!
 

Gazzip

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andyjm said:
You should aim for gold plated Neutrik connectors and a low capacitance, well shielded cable.

Does the gold plating really make any difference? I only ask because I currently run a pair of 10 metre long Van Damme Tour Grade balanced cables with standard (silver coloured) Neutrik connectors between my big Brystons and my pre-amp. (£50 for the pair of cables from Maplin).

If anybody is looking for custom lengths and custom colour Van Damme XLR balanced cables then there are a couple of eBay traders who will terminate cables to an individual's specification.

If you fancy a laugh then check out the link below. Bryston recommend the use of Van Damme Tour Grade XLR's for their equipment. They will manufacture you a 9m pair for the bargain price of $750.00 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. One born every minute.

https://store.bryston.com/single_xlr.html
 

wilro15

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I recently picked up some XLR balanced cables from Amazon from a manufacturer called DesignACable. You can choose any length and from several different colours. Fuss free and good value.
 

EvPa

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On short cables such as the ones you are looking for the plugs will end up being the most expensive part (i.e. 1m cables cost approximately the same); some Neutrik XLR connectors will cost nearly GBP 30 for two pairs at retail (obviously less to big cable manufacturers).

For microphone XLR cables (remember, you are sending line-level stuff here), I would honestly never spend more, and usually much less, than what Sommer Cables ask for theirs; here's an (expensive) example:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/sommer_cable_epilogue_mikrokabel_05.htm

But here you are mostly paying for the assembly/quality control/looks (check those etched plugs!), in "audible" terms these will likely be just as good for your purpose:

http://www.thomann.de/intl/sommer_cable_galileo_238_05.htm

http://www.thomann.de/intl/cordial_ccm_05_fm.htm

http://www.thomann.de/intl/pro_snake_tpm_05.htm

(all of those feature Neutrik-made connectors, either the "real" Made in Liechtenstein ones or those made by its subsidiaries, REAN and Yongsheng)
 

MajorFubar

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Gazzip said:
Does the gold plating really make any difference? I only ask because I currently run a pair of 10 metre long Van Damme Tour Grade balanced cables with standard (silver coloured) Neutrik connectors between my big Brystons and my pre-amp. (£50 for the pair of cables from Maplin).

Only in so far as it stops oxidation

Gazzip said:
If you fancy a laugh then check out the link below. Bryston recommend the use of Van Damme Tour Grade XLR's for their equipment. They will manufacture you a 9m pair for the bargain price of $750.00 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. One born every minute.

https://store.bryston.com/single_xlr.html

My view is if you can afford to throw $750 at a 9m pair of cables you're fair game if you're too stupid to realise that there's nothing in a cable that can make $750 worth of difference to your HiFi. Half of me says fair play to them and I'm just jealous I didn't come up with the ruse first.
 

Gazzip

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MajorFubar said:
Gazzip said:
If you fancy a laugh then check out the link below. Bryston recommend the use of Van Damme Tour Grade XLR's for their equipment. They will manufacture you a 9m pair for the bargain price of $750.00 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. One born every minute.

https://store.bryston.com/single_xlr.html

My view is if you can afford to throw $750 at a 9m pair of cables you're fair game if you're too stupid to realise that there's nothing in a cable that can make $750 worth of difference to your HiFi. Half of me says fair play to them and I'm just jealous I didn't come up with the ruse first.

It does throw a fair bit of snake oil on the proverbial fire. If a large and well reputed HiFi manufacturer like Bryston is prepared to wantonly and quite openly charge £500 for a pair of cables worth less than £50 then god only knows what the other cable manufacturers are up to.
 

EvPa

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Gazzip said:
It does throw a fair bit of snake oil on the proverbial fire. If a large and well reputed HiFi manufacturer like Bryston is prepared to wantonly and quite openly charge £500 for a pair of cables worth less than £50 then god only knows what the other cable manufacturers are up to.

ADAM Audio offers special speakON cables for use with thier EA-SX amplifier (for people soffit-mounting SX-series monitors) but I have never found how much they sell them for.
 

Gazzip

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markym3 said:
Hi All

Thanks for the replies.

As expected, lots of sceptics :) That's fair enough but a different debate I don't really want to get into. All I'll say is that I won't buy anything without a trial period first so if it's snake oil it will go back.

The VDH First Ultimate is a fine cable but cannot be used as a balanced interconnect due to the cable design. It is also very hard to re-terminate in any case. I want to use a fully balanced headphone setup, as per my post - the HDVA600 is optimised for balanced drive - hence looking for a balanced cable to try. VDH The Second is the nearest equivalent to First Ultimate.

No problem to get either of those cables I mentioned on 30 days' trial. Just was hoping someone may have had experience with them but no problemo.

Cheers.

Respect to your views. Do make sure you try a Van Damme cable as you may like it and they are after all the industry standard.

I personally use Tellurium Q Black balanced cables from my DAC to my pre-amp, basic Van Damme cable from my pre-amp to my power amps, and Tellurium Q Black speaker cables. I don't really know why but it just sounded better that way! Strange hobby this.
 

markym3

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Hi All

Thanks for the replies.

As expected, lots of sceptics and some of those comments I tend to agree with :) That's fair enough but a different debate I don't really want to get into. All I'll say is that I won't buy anything without a trial period first so if it's snake oil it will go back.

The VDH First Ultimate is a fine cable but cannot be used as a balanced interconnect due to the cable design. It is also very hard to re-terminate in any case - the cable is not supplied off-reel for that reason. I want to use a fully balanced headphone setup, as per my post - the Senn HDVA600 is optimised for balanced drive - hence looking for a balanced interconnect to try. VDH The Second is the nearest equivalent to First Ultimate.

No problem to get either of those cables I mentioned on 30 days' trial. I'm aware of the fact a number of these solid silver cables are in fact silver plated copper or similar but the ones I mentioned do not appear to be. If the sound doesn't match expectation, will look elsewhere. There is plenty of BS in cables, I definitely agree, but am keeping an open mind.

BTW, the cheaper silver cable (Achtung Audio) is £75 for 0.5m pair XLR Neutrik silver plated, Artisan ones are £200 pair. Both are cottage industry products by the looks of it.

Cheers.
 

markym3

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Hi Gazztip

Thanks for the advice, I haven't really heard anything about the Van Damme cables before...

I've now ordered a 0.5m pair of Van Damme Starquad with Neutrik gold XLR's along with a 0.5m pair of silver XLR's cables to try out in my system.

The silver cables are nearly 6x more expensive so will be an interesting comparison. I'll pitch both of these against my VDH First Ultimate (although ideally I would have liked a VDH Second as reference since that's the balanced XLR version of the First).

Cheers...
 

andyjm

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Marky,

Should have mentioned this earlier, but there is an assumption that balanced has better sound quality because professionals use it. This is not so. Professionals use balanced because it has greater noise rejection and the higher levels allow longer cable runs. Great if you have a mic cable snaking over a studio floor, pointless for 50cm of cable.

There is a downside. Most electronics devices are single ended internally. So the signal path is unbalanced -> (through balancing circuitry) -> balanced cable run -> (through unbalancing circuitry) -> unbalanced. This puts two additional steps in the signal path. If you are of the 'less is more' school of hifi, then those extra two steps are questionable at best.

Now it is possible that whoever designed your electronics made a pig's ear of the unbalanced circuitry, and a fantastic job of the balanced electronics so balanced sounds better, but as a general rule, for short cable runs in relatively noise free environments, unbalanced will outperform balanced.
 

MajorFubar

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markym3 said:
As expected, lots of sceptics and some of those comments I tend to agree with :) That's fair enough but a different debate I don't really want to get into. All I'll say is that I won't buy anything without a trial period first so if it's snake oil it will go back.
A very wise mental attitude if I may say so but also bear in mind that we're all subject to expectation bias so at least ask a third party at home to swap between your cables a few times while you listen to the same eg 30sec snippet of music, so you don't know which is in use. See if you can consistently identify the difference.
 

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