Mains Cable confusion?

[Anonymous]

but my instinct tells me that 99% of people who buy exotic after market mains cables
never do, so it becomes a leap of faith.

I think in the analysis we concure...I guess most people don't have the specific training or the mind set to analysis this stuff (Diagnostic technician is the phrase for sad gits like me) . After all - I am not a lawyer, or a gas fitter, or a doctor - I listen to what these experts tell me, and make my own jusdgments, but I couldn't do their analytial stuff becuase I dont have the training.

I guess the answer to the question 'Can you hear cable' is 'that it depends what
you're listening to and listening with'.

The thing with power cable is whether the threshold of any induced and/or RF noise in your system is below the threshold of any that
a mains cable can help with.

 

[hammill]

professorhat:

There's always an understanding in these things that opinions differ (well, there is for most ordinary folk with common sense anyway).
I think professor that most ordinary folk with common sense do not participate in these forums and would think most of us strange for the amount of time we argue about mains cables and such like. If you then told them some of us were willing to spend several hundred pounds on mains cables, then they would be calling in the men in white coats.

 

[Anonymous]

Hammill - I know someone who just spent £1800 on a fishing rod, and another chap who spent £5k on a bike....Perhaps if aliens landed here they would lock us all up.

 

[hammill]

candycable:Hammill - I know someone who just spent £1800 on a fishing rod, and another chap who spent £5k on a bike....Perhaps if aliens landed here they would lock us all up.
If we are lucky......

 

[professorhat]

hammill:professorhat: There's always an understanding in these things that opinions differ (well, there is for most ordinary folk with common sense anyway).

I think professor that most ordinary folk with common sense do not participate in these forums and would think most of us strange for the amount of time we argue about mains cables and such like. If you then told them some of us were willing to spend several hundred pounds on mains cables, then they would be calling in the men in white coats.

 

[jase fox]

Clare Newsome:that enables people to make up their own minds as to what does/doesn't work for them in their system.
Unfortunately Clare to the sceptics if we do make up our own minds to what we see and hear we get told it's just a case of placebo.

 

[idc]

I have read through the blind tests that I have compiled and the reason why WHF's blind tests appear as passes is because they are not actually blind tests. They are blind listening where people are asked about any difference and if there is any. The others are ABX where there is a test part, namely is X, A or B?

Candycables posts show how cables can cause differences in industrial applications. I still do not think that such differences are audible in domestic applications. The best example I can think of is length. At a football ground you would want the cables to the speakers to be the same length or else announcements arrive at slightly different times at each speaker and as such will be audible. A couple of meters in a domestic hifi and the difference, all be it will still be there, is no longer audible.

 

[chebby]

idc:At a football ground you would want the cables to the speakers to be the same length or else announcements arrive at slightly different times at each speaker and as such will be audible.

I'm not sure it works like that. The signal doesn't travel the whole 200 metres and back (given that it's AC). More like a hydraulic pipe full of fluid where you put positive (or negative) pressure on at one end and - almost instantaneously - there is an 'impulse' at the other end. The fluid in the pipe remains more or less where it is. You don't wait for a particular bit of the fluid to travel the whole distance.

Anyway the 'speed' is a large proportion of the speed of light so any differences in 'arrival time' are totally outweighed by the differences caused by standing at different distances from speakers in the stadium. Soundwaves only 'crawl' along at a kilometre every 3 seconds rather than 300,000 kilometers per second (or a large percentage of it).

 

[Anonymous]

The signals dont travel up at the speed of light- a cable is effectively a big capacitor- two parrallel conductors and a deielctric- and its an even bigger capacitor when it has a screen wrapped around it. The signal is delayed by the time constant of the LCR of the cables, the LCR of the amplifier (or other source output impedance) and the LCR of the receiving end- or sink.

In the case of staium line array speakers I mentions, that was by way of showing an example of phase delay caused by cable- and it is of a much greater order that in hi-fi- but even then the phase delays are more or less equal on each speaker in the array as they all have the same rough length of cable, and the differential is usually only about a half a metre between each speaker in the array - still it only performs correctly if you are a little obsessive withthe cable. In a line array if you are unwise enough to use diffent lenghts of cable, the system sound rubbish.

In a large scale event the intention would be to produce a faithfull, flat, wide band and low distortion sound field. There is very little chance of reproducing the timing information that gives precise sound stage information. That would be lost within,say, 10 metres of cable anyway (back to the LCR thing at the top).

In Domestic situations its a piece of cake these days to deliver something fairly linear and low distorition. However, if you don't take care of the timings to within the realms that the brain works then, guess what - you will loose the timing info that your brain uses to construct image- you will loose your imagary. Its that simple and logical.

A way of thinking about cable impedance is using this somewhat exagerated situation as an example- imagine controlling the position of a speaker driver using a stick. You pull the stick, the driver moves back - no time delay, no colouration. Good control. OK - now add a weight to the stick and put some springs in line with it. That's your capacitance and inductance. Shall we add reistance? OK sqeeze the bit of the stick that comes after the first in-line spring through a bath of treacle. Now when you push one end of the stick the other end will very slowly, and inaccuratly emulate the movement of your hand. Now jiggle the stick quickly and you'd be very lucky to get any controlover the other end. Thats just what happens with speaker drivers - they flap around given half a chance with back emf's all over the place. If you introduce capacitance, resistance and inductance, you simply reduce the control the amplifier has over the speaker. The more LC and R you add, the less the control. The longer the cable and more LC and R - the less the control of the timing of the speaker movement.

Of course, what adds to the party is that the speaker crossover parts can also become reactive with the cable and speaker drivers. That's why bi-wiring can help some speakers, becuase it removes that part of the equation. (The exception is when the drivers are designed to work with a particular crossover impedance).

 

[JohnnyV111]

 

[Anonymous]

I truly appreciate all of the insight candycable is putting into his posts. Very well done indeed. I would however like to pose one question to you, although I apologise if you don't want to answer it.

For those of us in domestic situations, what would you do, if we asked you to give us the perfect zero noise ground? I have been sitting racking over it for a while now and I can't think how to get a perfect ground on every component equally. I'm allready replacing my screened cables with carbon screens (one of four cables left to replace). I cannot agree more on the philosophy though, as my father set up a Musical Fidelity system a number of years ago, which was running a very clean power system with an alternate ground to the cable he used for the mains, it was incredible how good the instrumental seperation was.

 

[ROTH AV]

Ok - so not mains cables, but some of these reviews made me laugh.......

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000J36XR2?ie=UTF8&tag=waveformless-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000J36XR2

Candycable......you'll like this !

 

[Anonymous]

the relationship between copper and electricity has existed for an infinite amount of time, it cannot be altered, it cannot be enhanced, it's just there, i'm sick of the bull that is spun on this forum, the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money, and the way that they try to discredit those that are trying to spread the truth disgusts me, ban me if you want i don't care, i'm sick of this forum, i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of others, it's pathetic it really is

 

[professorhat]

maxflinn:the relationship between copper and electricity has existed for an infinite amount of time

If you can give a scientific, credible source that's even comes close to claiming that, Max, I'll become a born again Christian (and I already did that once and it got me nowhere...).

 

[kena]

1 x Bottle of wine or six pack of beer = 1 x Russ Andrews top of the range cable..(2K or whatever).

Buy the £30 one and lots of booze and "Tonight listen to the music" ... Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo

 

[aliEnRIK]

maxflinn:the relationship between copper and electricity has existed for an infinite amount of time, it cannot be altered, it cannot be enhanced, it's just there, i'm sick of the bull that is spun on this forum, the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money, and the way that they try to discredit those that are trying to spread the truth disgusts me, ban me if you want i don't care, i'm sick of this forum, i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of others, it's pathetic it really is

And yet 'quantum tunneling' has only really started to show actual differences in the way electrons behave over time

You can call it pathetic if you wish max (though I find that rather amusing from someone who doesnt really understand what hes talking about)

 

[Andrew Everard]

maxflinn:the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money

Posture of the week, max? Whatever, please stand up or retract the very serious allegation you have just made.

maxflinn:ban me if you want i don't care

Oh no, not that one again. No intention of banning you – where would this forum be without its comedy elements? And anyway, you'll only come back under another name, as you have in the past.

maxflinn:i'm sick of this forum,
i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of
others, it's pathetic it really is

Please do not attack other members.

 

[bigboss]

maxflinn:the relationship between copper and electricity has existed for an infinite amount of time, it cannot be altered, it cannot be enhanced, it's just there, i'm sick of the bull that is spun on this forum, the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money, and the way that they try to discredit those that are trying to spread the truth disgusts me, ban me if you want i don't care, i'm sick of this forum, i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of others, it's pathetic it really is

Drank too much on Friday night max?

If there was a definitive answer on this issue, then all the fun from the forum will go.

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:
maxflinn:the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money

Posture of the week, max? Whatever, please stand up or retract the very serious allegation you have just made.

maxflinn:ban me if you want i don't care

Oh no, not that one again. No intention of banning you – where would this forum be without its comedy elements? And anyway, you'll only come back under another name, as you have in the past.

maxflinn:i'm sick of this forum,
i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of
others, it's pathetic it really is

Please do not attack other members.

retracted

sorry

 

[Anonymous]

bigboss:
maxflinn:the relationship between copper and electricity has existed for an infinite amount of time, it cannot be altered, it cannot be enhanced, it's just there, i'm sick of the bull that is spun on this forum, the mods and all those at whfi know full well that they are party to mass deception in return for money, and the way that they try to discredit those that are trying to spread the truth disgusts me, ban me if you want i don't care, i'm sick of this forum, i'm sick of reading posts from sad people that seek the affirmation of others, it's pathetic it really is

Drank too much on Friday night max?

If there was a definitive answer on this issue, then all the fun from the forum will go.

 

[Andrew Everard]

maxflinn:

retracted

sorry

Exactly as expected. Probably best not to post after an evening on the shoe-polish...

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:maxflinn:

retracted

sorry

Exactly as expected. Probably best not to post after an evening on the shoe-polish...

 

[bigboss]

Hmmm.....need something like this for max. Any chance of incorporating this on the new site, & call it "max special"??

 

[Andrew Everard]

Sounds like a plan, doc...

 

[shooter]

Andrew Everard:
Probably best not to post after an evening on the shoe-polish...

Hmm yes, i must hold my hands up to this of late also

See you soon maxflinn..