Mains Cable & Block Upgrade advise

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
Probably the fact that he says

[quote user="nokz"]to great effect[/quote]

gives a clear indication why he bought them.
[/quote]

I bought some new speakers and I'm very pleased with them. Does that tell you why I bought new speakers?

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]I bought some new speakers and I'm very pleased with them. Does that tell you why I bought new speakers?[/quote]

If presumably you auditioned them and liked them, or tried them at home and haven't returned them, then yes, I think it does.

Or am I missing some twisted logic involving the terms 'snake oil', 'placebo effect', 'audiophool' and 'pseudoscience' here?

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]
[quote user="JohnDuncan"]

Mains leads act as radio aerials. Expensive ones are designed not to feed Radio Frequency Interference (inter alia) into your amplifier which, well, amplifies it.

Any opinion on anything else is pure speculation on my part and can be ignored

[/quote]

Consider yourself ignored.

[/quote]Touch‚. I should add my Tacima mains block and Merlin mains cables into my sig.

But professorhat is right, it's all Garibalderdash.

 

[JoelSim]

If it makes a cleaner signal (through reducing interference or whatever) by just 1%, then when that signal is amplified then it will make a far more significant differennce

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]I bought some new speakers and I'm very pleased with them. Does that tell you why I bought new speakers?[/quote]

If presumably you auditioned them and liked them, or tried them at home and haven't returned them, then yes, I think it does.
[/quote]

There could be any number of reasons why I changed my speakers. The old ones could have become faulty, I got bored with them and fancied a change, they no longer fitted with my decor, I had moved to a different sized house with different sized rooms etc etc.

Or.... as I believe happened in the case of the mains leads, someone that I trusted could have suggested that replacing them would make an improvement.

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]'snake oil', 'placebo effect', 'audiophool' and 'pseudoscience'[/quote]

Exactly.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]There could be any number of reasons why I changed my speakers. [/quote]

Who cares why you bought them - you said you were pleased with them. So if someone else came on the forum and said your new speakers couldn't possibly sound better than your old ones (even though, when asked, he would admit he hadn't heard either of them) - would you listen to them? Or would you ignore him and enjoy your new speakers, happy in the knowledge you can hear the difference (and also the knowledge that you've actually heard both of them)...

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="professorhat"]Who cares why you bought them - you said you were pleased with them.[/quote]

I asked the guy why he changed his mains leads. Being happy with the ones he now has says nothing at all about the reason why he changed them in the first place.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JoelSim"]If it makes a cleaner signal (through reducing interference or whatever) by just 1%, then when that signal is amplified then it will make a far more significant differennce[/quote]

Wouldn't you still have the other 99% being amplified too?

 

[JoelSim]

This is exactly the point. Yes you would have the other 99%, but it would sound better as the interference would be less.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"][quote user="professorhat"]Who cares why you bought them - you said you were pleased with them.[/quote]

I asked the guy why he changed his mains leads. Being happy with the ones he now has says nothing at all about the reason why he changed them in the first place.[/quote]

Brave Mr Proctor, picking a fight with a 22-stone bodybuilder...

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JoelSim"]This is exactly the point. Yes you would have the other 99%, but it would sound better as the interference would be less.[/quote]

Things that make you go hmmmm.....

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]Things that make you go hmmmm.....[/quote]

Ah but if they went hmmmm then they clearly wouldn't be worth the money. If however, they stopped something previously going hmmmm from going hmmmm, perhaps through better shielding, then they might be worth a punt.

 

[JoelSim]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]Things that make you go hmmmm.....[/quote]

Ah but if they went hmmmm then they clearly wouldn't be worth the money. If however, they stopped something previously going hmmmm from going hmmmm, perhaps through better shielding, then they might be worth a punt.
[/quote]

Exactly right Andrew, although articulated better than my post

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"] if they went hmmmm then they clearly wouldn't be worth the money. If however, they stopped something previously going hmmmm from going hmmmm, perhaps through better shielding, then they might be worth a punt. [/quote]

What if you listen hard and you don't have a hmmmm problem? You would then be trying to eliminate a problem that you don't have. Wouldn't that be a waste of time and money?

Have any of these products been tested by What Hi*fi for their effectiveness at removing hmmmm?

Hmmmm....it appears not yet.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]What if you listen hard and you don't have a hmmmm problem? You would then be trying to eliminate a problem that you don't have. Wouldn't that be a waste of time and money?[/quote]

But then most cable companies, including the ones mentioned in Nokz's original post, have a 'money back if not satisfied' deal, so I guess you could actually try the products if you were sufficiently open-minded enough to do so, then return them if you felt they did nothing for the sound of your system.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
so I guess you could actually try the products if you were sufficiently open-minded enough to do so, then return them if you felt they did nothing for the sound of your system.
[/quote]

Ridiculous idea, Andrew! Surely better to dismiss them out of hand as "silly" without listening to them and then berate everyone on a Hi-Fi forum who's heard a difference...

 

[JoelSim]

How on earth can cleaning an electrical signal and reducing interference possibly have a positive effect on the electrical signal that causes the speakers to move air?

Ridiculous idea.

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="JoelSim"]How on earth can cleaning an electrical signal and reducing interference possibly have a positive effect on the electrical signal that causes the speakers to move air?

Ridiculous idea.[/quote]
Though to be fair, playing 78s in mono, he probably has a point that mains cables and interconnects won't make a difference.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="professorhat"]Surely better to dismiss them out of hand as "silly" without listening to them and then berate everyone on a Hi-Fi forum who's heard a difference...

[/quote]

This forum is rigorously monitored by Mr E for any hint of an insult in my posts. I can assure you that only insults directed at me are allowed to remain.

" I have taken the opportunity to study some of the beliefs, habits and practices of the so-called audiophile community and I have to say that I now feel that the term "audiophile" (literally, one who loves audio) has become little more than a laughing stock. Twenty years ago I would happily have described myself as an audiophile but it appears that those who now subscribe to the term have been seduced by the total hogwash that the best brains in the marketing profession wish to purvey. The most dangerous of all these beliefs is the most simple - that the higher the spend, the closer you will get to audiophile heaven. This is in spite of the fact that some of the most expensive stuff is based on the oldest technology. While there is nothing wrong with old technology per se, when combined with a paranoia that new technology is bad, there are an awful lot of seriously deluded individuals out there wallowing in their own prejudice.

Whenever an individual who appears to contradict the perceived wisdom espoused on these forums sticks his head above the parapet he is greeted, not with reasoned argument but derision, insults, accusations of hearing problems and that most common of all audiophile cop-outs, "your system isn't of sufficient resolution". The criteria by which these folks evaluate equipment and things beggars belief. Any kind of real-time comparison is eschewed in favour of long term 'evaluation' which completely ignores that fact that, given time, the human ear will get used, more or less, to anything (which is the basis of the great burn-in lie).

It saddens me that this science, whose purpose is to maximise the enjoyment of music and the spoken word in people's homes, has become corrupted by a return to the values and prejudices of the age of darkness"

I obtained permission to use this. Thanks Pluto.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]This forum is rigorously monitored by Mr E for any hint of an insult in my posts. I can assure you that only insults directed at me are allowed to remain.[/quote]

Now that begins to smack of paranoia.

But thanks, Mickey.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JoelSim"]How on earth can cleaning an electrical signal and reducing interference possibly have a positive effect on the electrical signal that causes the speakers to move air?

Ridiculous idea.
[/quote]

If they actually work then, OK, fine. If your neighbour does a lot of arc welding next to your listening room and you hear pops and clicks all the time then yes, they might be worth trying. But to suggest that the bass is tighter and the treble sweeter as a result of fitting one where no interference problems exist is quite frankly absurd.The problem is that there have been no tests performed by anyone to establish whether they work or not.

I don't have an interference problem, if I did I would hear it.

 

[John Duncan]

I'd just like to clarify that my statement "Though to be fair, playing 78s in mono, he probably has a point that mains cables and interconnects won't make a difference." contained no irony or sarcasm, I actually meant that, with no offence intended.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]This forum is rigorously monitored by Mr E for any hint of an insult in my posts. I can assure you that only insults directed at me are allowed to remain.[/quote]

Sorry if you feel I'm insulting you - that's really not my intention. My intention is to show other people who read your posts that you claim to know changing power leads / interconnects etc. will make no difference to sound output when you have openly admitted that you have never actually listened to the difference (here if you need reminding).

It just seems to me, I would actually want to put my theory to the test before making such bold claims!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]I'd just like to clarify that my statement "Though to be fair, playing 78s in mono, he probably has a point that mains cables and interconnects won't make a difference." contained no irony or sarcasm, I actually meant that, with no offence intended.[/quote]

No worries, no offence taken John. Believe it or not I also have a CD player. Woo hoo!

 

[JoelSim]

Do you use bell wire then Keith?