I am heading more towards the 3 camp. If cables made that much difference then we would all hear the differences and this debate would not be necessary.
So far its all been polite - won't last...locked by midnight!
So far its all been polite - won't last...locked by midnight!
Im going for '2'
Its dependant on many factors, but assuming all those factors are green for go, I come up with 2
Its dependant on many factors, but assuming all those factors are green for go, I come up with 2
CnoEvil said:
Were they both fully 'run in'? Ive found silver (especially solid silver) takes months to settle
aliEnRIK said:
I would assume so, as it was a cable demo evening at a dealer, by John Carrick from Atlas.
The silver cable was remarkable with its speed, clarity and detail, but for my taste it didn't work with the Triangle speakers it was used with. In the right system, it's probably as good as it gets; right up there with Cardas Clear Beyond.
Ravey Gravey Davy
Well-known member
- Apr 28, 2008
- 225
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Ravey Gravey Davy said:
Glad to see this is still running.I said "at the moment" because I have been meaning to do a test since the Bristol show.
So I have had my Kef subwoofer(2005.2 surround) set up for years with a HiQ cheap stereo RCA cable (using one connection obviously)
and have had a Chord crimson plus subwoofer cable in the cupboard since Bristol.Tonight I stuck Queens "Another one bites the dust " on ,and to make things obvious quickly, whacked all the settings up on the sub and blasted out.The distortion was extreme.Swopped out for the Chord and the amount of control and distortion reduction was quite blatent.I toned it down with the HiQ and then swopped again and it was night and day still .Tight,controlled and undistorted in comparison.So yes I am now between 2/ and 3/ (for certain cables because, after all, this is one test with only 2 cables.)
That and my Galaxy upgrading to gingerbread at the same time was all a bit too much.Wine!
analog interconnects, speaker and power cables - no sq/iq difference as long as electrically adequate. once adequate, any electrical differences are minute and impact on sq/iq undetectable. by listener/viewer.
digital cables - no sq/iq difference as long as built to spec.
digital cables - no sq/iq difference as long as built to spec.
AlmaataKZ said:
+1. i've heard differences before in speaker cable and ic's, but, when i finally managed my other half to blind test me the differences disappeared. i think the sighted difference was accounted for by me not wanting to admit the £30/m and £4/m speaker cable sounded the same. it was the same for the interconnects.
I think I am a 2. I could tell the difference between QED micro and a loan pair of Chord Rumors, so I went out and bought my own. I couldn't tell the difference between a £3 HDMI, a QED classic and a Chord, but I accept that may be the limitations of my kit.
it looks like your attempt to derail the thread has been parriedaliEnRIK said:
As for the poll:
1) every cable has a distinct optical signature. How else would you tell them apart?
3) there can be perceptible differences between analog cables (interconnect and loudspeaker wire), but I've yet to come across a cable over 10 pounds that's worth its money.
3 for me.
Copper vs. Silver, single copper core vs. multistranded. The latter however is so minimal, life's too short to lose the minutes over it.
Not one brand v. other brand and all other considerations remain the same.
Copper vs. Silver, single copper core vs. multistranded. The latter however is so minimal, life's too short to lose the minutes over it.
Not one brand v. other brand and all other considerations remain the same.
From personal experience i would have to say a bit of 2) & 3)
I've mainly found a small difference between HDMI in Audio quality, not so much with the picture quality ( except with the 1st 3 HDMI's i got with a PS3 from Blockbusters which didnt work as claimed ), if at all perceptable with my dodgey eyes.
However I did find the picture quality improved substantially on my TV for SD programmes with a mains conditioner, even my OH commented on it without knowing what i had done. I cant comment on the HD programmes side, as since the introduction of the conditioners, i now have a V HD box plugged in & not tested to see if i, or the OH can tell the difference.
A mains conditioner did'nt make a scrap of difference to the audio quality in my case, either on my current ( excuse the pun ) or last amp, a Denon 1910, it did however strangle the Pioneer 1017 i had.
Speaker cable, never tested it, but i think it makes a bit of difference.
So as far as i am concerned a bit of a mixed bag.
I've mainly found a small difference between HDMI in Audio quality, not so much with the picture quality ( except with the 1st 3 HDMI's i got with a PS3 from Blockbusters which didnt work as claimed ), if at all perceptable with my dodgey eyes.
However I did find the picture quality improved substantially on my TV for SD programmes with a mains conditioner, even my OH commented on it without knowing what i had done. I cant comment on the HD programmes side, as since the introduction of the conditioners, i now have a V HD box plugged in & not tested to see if i, or the OH can tell the difference.
A mains conditioner did'nt make a scrap of difference to the audio quality in my case, either on my current ( excuse the pun ) or last amp, a Denon 1910, it did however strangle the Pioneer 1017 i had.
Speaker cable, never tested it, but i think it makes a bit of difference.
So as far as i am concerned a bit of a mixed bag.
In my (albeit limited) experience, freebie cable _> decent cable = big difference, decent cable -> expensive cable = small difference and only worth it if you have loads money to burn.
tremon said:it looks like your attempt to derail the thread has been parriedaliEnRIK said:
I dont know where some of you guys think im coming from but I have 'NEVER' posted on a thread in the WHF forums in an attempt to derail it. In this case, it was a genuine question as I know someone who has what I would consider very expensive kit whos looking into the best cables to buy for it.
Interesting so far, so thank you.
I had expected there to be more 4s, from what I'd seen. As suggested by a previous poster, the law of diminishing returns is likely to play a part I'd have thought, if for no reason that the further up the ladder you move, the smaller the prospective population that would consider buying them; the smaller your market, the less the benefit from economies of scale, the greater the need for an expensive retailer etc etc.
I had expected there to be more 4s, from what I'd seen. As suggested by a previous poster, the law of diminishing returns is likely to play a part I'd have thought, if for no reason that the further up the ladder you move, the smaller the prospective population that would consider buying them; the smaller your market, the less the benefit from economies of scale, the greater the need for an expensive retailer etc etc.
1) Almost! We used to toy between Chord, QED, Cable Talk, etc and they all had distinct characters (I won't mention the ones we could not tolerate!!). We now mostly sell Tellurium Q if it's in the customers budget and they are willing to listen to something not heavily advertised/reviewed.
I'm between a 3 and a 4, where digital cables either work well or don't. Analogue cabling can be a bit more varied but not really noticeable. However that could change to a 2 or perhaps even a 1 seeing active cables are coming into play.
MMAudioYeovil,
Could you please add a signature to your account in order to comply with House Rules, thanks
Could you please add a signature to your account in order to comply with House Rules, thanks
I'm going to go for 2.5, averaged out over different types of cables.
At the risk of being ridiculed (sceptics - sorry for what I am about to say; please try to restrain yourselves) I'm going to go out on a limb and share my experience this week of first noticing a difference between mains cables. This week I have been auditioning an Isotek GII Orion mains conditioner at home. I foolishly popped in to my local dealer last weekend to avoid a trip round Laura Ashley and ended up walking out with this second-hand Orion on demo (I still don't quite know how). Anyway the dealer, in keeping with Naim's own advice and the opinion of Naim 'purists' (for want of a better term), advised me that most aftermarket mains cables don't make a beneficial improvement on Naim gear* and that he would lend me a standard Naim mains cable to hook the Isotek up to the wall. I didn't think much of it - mild skepticism perhaps, but I wasn't too bothered because I figured if he was trying to sell me something else he would have tried to lend me a more expensive mains cable (of which they had plenty) rather than a spare Naim one that was knocking about from one of his shop floor display models.
*It should be noted that mains conditioners are not also recommended by Naim but I 1) have a particular issue with a scarcity of wall sockets near my hifi and 2) know from experience that Naim amps sound better when plugged directly into a wall socket which unfortunately isn't possible for me right now - so the dealer suggested trying the Isotek as the filtering should benefit my other gear and the high-current sockets should be the next best thing to a wall socket for my naim amp.
So I hooked all this up at home and I have to say the Isotek made a very obvious and beneficial difference - good value for money at the £300 second hand price - definitely going to keep it. Anyway that's not the main point. After a couple of days I decided to look to see if had a spare cable of my own to hook the Isotek up to the wall and I had a spare Russ Andrews 'Powermax', which is about £40 worth of basic aftermarket cable. I swapped them over and gave it a day or so for the Naims to warm through before making any judgements. Now I must say I didn't really expect there to be a blind bit of difference or if there was, I would have expected it to be in favour of the RA cable as it looked much chunkier (more copper = lower resistance right?) and generally more impressive, but no....with the RA the background detail sounded less clear, and the bass somehow sounded a bit 'thicker'. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I repeated the swap in reverse and everything went back to how it had been. So I can't explain it and I certainly can't prove anything, but I'm certain that with the Naim mains cable feeding the Isotek it sounded better (although definitely in the '3' category) so I'm going to see if the dealer will throw it in when i go back to pay for the Isotek.
Just thought I'd share.
Cheers
At the risk of being ridiculed (sceptics - sorry for what I am about to say; please try to restrain yourselves) I'm going to go out on a limb and share my experience this week of first noticing a difference between mains cables. This week I have been auditioning an Isotek GII Orion mains conditioner at home. I foolishly popped in to my local dealer last weekend to avoid a trip round Laura Ashley and ended up walking out with this second-hand Orion on demo (I still don't quite know how). Anyway the dealer, in keeping with Naim's own advice and the opinion of Naim 'purists' (for want of a better term), advised me that most aftermarket mains cables don't make a beneficial improvement on Naim gear* and that he would lend me a standard Naim mains cable to hook the Isotek up to the wall. I didn't think much of it - mild skepticism perhaps, but I wasn't too bothered because I figured if he was trying to sell me something else he would have tried to lend me a more expensive mains cable (of which they had plenty) rather than a spare Naim one that was knocking about from one of his shop floor display models.
*It should be noted that mains conditioners are not also recommended by Naim but I 1) have a particular issue with a scarcity of wall sockets near my hifi and 2) know from experience that Naim amps sound better when plugged directly into a wall socket which unfortunately isn't possible for me right now - so the dealer suggested trying the Isotek as the filtering should benefit my other gear and the high-current sockets should be the next best thing to a wall socket for my naim amp.
So I hooked all this up at home and I have to say the Isotek made a very obvious and beneficial difference - good value for money at the £300 second hand price - definitely going to keep it. Anyway that's not the main point. After a couple of days I decided to look to see if had a spare cable of my own to hook the Isotek up to the wall and I had a spare Russ Andrews 'Powermax', which is about £40 worth of basic aftermarket cable. I swapped them over and gave it a day or so for the Naims to warm through before making any judgements. Now I must say I didn't really expect there to be a blind bit of difference or if there was, I would have expected it to be in favour of the RA cable as it looked much chunkier (more copper = lower resistance right?) and generally more impressive, but no....with the RA the background detail sounded less clear, and the bass somehow sounded a bit 'thicker'. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I repeated the swap in reverse and everything went back to how it had been. So I can't explain it and I certainly can't prove anything, but I'm certain that with the Naim mains cable feeding the Isotek it sounded better (although definitely in the '3' category) so I'm going to see if the dealer will throw it in when i go back to pay for the Isotek.
Just thought I'd share.
Cheers
Dan
Welome to the weird world of mains products. The rule is, there are no rules. Trial and error, with a mind that's open to the possibility of a change (for better/worse), is key.
Cno
Welome to the weird world of mains products. The rule is, there are no rules. Trial and error, with a mind that's open to the possibility of a change (for better/worse), is key.
Cno
nopiano
Well-known member
- Feb 15, 2009
- 4,146
- 3,724
- 33,570
I'm a 2 too, based on the original question, adding only that I mean analogue signals, typically CD to amp and amp to speaker.
Never had time to compare HDMI but have been persuaded by recent Which? magazine and other reports that these have only digital data and differences are non-existent in normal lengths. I bought my one and only HDMI based on recommendations in this magazine and to get the best (as I thought) from my new Sonys last year. One day I must test -v- a basic lead.
Similarly, I have never experimented at length with mains cables, but I did install dedicated mains spurs about 20 years ago when having that house partially re-wired. Have had two new houses since then, and have used what they came with. This makes sense to me because I have had household appliances (like a coffee machine) make mains transformers buzz on old amps, so 'dirty' mains is a reality. Always tried to have a dedicated socket for each item, rather than multi-way extensions though they are very handy.
Never had time to compare HDMI but have been persuaded by recent Which? magazine and other reports that these have only digital data and differences are non-existent in normal lengths. I bought my one and only HDMI based on recommendations in this magazine and to get the best (as I thought) from my new Sonys last year. One day I must test -v- a basic lead.
Similarly, I have never experimented at length with mains cables, but I did install dedicated mains spurs about 20 years ago when having that house partially re-wired. Have had two new houses since then, and have used what they came with. This makes sense to me because I have had household appliances (like a coffee machine) make mains transformers buzz on old amps, so 'dirty' mains is a reality. Always tried to have a dedicated socket for each item, rather than multi-way extensions though they are very handy.
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