Unexpected speaker cable surprise

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steve_1979

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Jul 14, 2010
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Thompsonuxb said:
You and I Steve?.....I thought it was TrevC I was dealing with!

He hasn't posted anything for a while. I think he's gone. Probably slipped into a bordom induced coma.

Thompsonuxb said:
Thought you were trying to save him.

This always happens when I'm right though.....lol.

Save him? Me? Nooo.

I can see now that Trev's got it totally wrong about this whole cable malarkey. There's no saving him from your superiour technical knowledge.

Thompsonuxb said:
I was done with this thread a few pages ago till Chebby drew me back in.

Ahwell.......

But we still don't know what type of cake is best. And more importantly in a blind test could you tell the difference between a home made Victoria sponge and one bought from Tesco? Some people say they all taste the same once you've removed expectaton bias.
 

Thompsonuxb

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steve_1979 said:

?

Thompsonuxb said:

Save him? Me? Nooo.

I can see now that Trev's got it totally wrong about this whole cable malarkey. There's no saving him from your superiour technical knowledge.

?

Thompsonuxb said:

.

 

Good morning all.......

You did it again, funny thing Steve, you think you're being sarcastic but that's actually the truth.......
 

TrevC

Well-known member
Thompsonuxb said:
steve_1979 said:

Thompsonuxb said:

Save him? Me? Nooo.

I can see now that Trev's got it totally wrong about this whole cable malarkey. There's no saving him from your superiour technical knowledge.

Thompsonuxb said:

.

Good morning all.......

You did it again, funny thing Steve, you think you're being sarcastic but that's actually the truth.......

I bet you're confused by armoured cable.
 

busb

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Have had the shortened Atlas Ascent 2 speaker cable back now for over a week. To my ears, well worth having them shortened & re-crimped (i could obviously shorten them myself but not terminate them without soldering).

The difference was audible going from my re-terninated Exposure cable to the Atlas set. Swapped in the Exposure again this afternoon - the sound became smeared, the bass indistinct & the treble a bit flat" My friend agreed but wasn't at all surprised

I know many of you feel strongly that cables can't possibly make a difference & the only real difference I've noticed between interconnects were between some Chord Crimson Vee MkI's & give-aways.

I'd prefer there to be some scientific explanation but there ain't any which are plausible I know of. I'm neither going to deny my own experience! I am well aware of the pitfalls of audio comparisons & audio memory being unreliable but I've swapped these cables over enough times to be convinced. I've also swapped stuff about before & heard no difference or there's been so little as to be discounted.
 

drummerman

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busb said:
Have had the shortened Atlas Ascent 2 speaker cable back now for over a week. To my ears, well worth having them shortened & re-crimped (i could obviously shorten them myself but not terminate them without soldering).

The difference was audible going from my re-terninated Exposure cable to the Atlas set. Swapped in the Exposure again this afternoon - the sound became smeared, the bass indistinct & the treble a bit flat" My friend agreed but wasn't at all surprised

I know many of you feel strongly that cables can't possibly make a difference & the only real difference I've noticed between interconnects were between some Chord Crimson Vee MkI's & give-aways.

I'd prefer there to be some scientific explanation but there ain't any which are plausible I know of. I'm neither going to deny my own experience! I am well aware of the pitfalls of audio comparisons & audio memory being unreliable but I've swapped these cables over enough times to be convinced. I've also swapped stuff about before & heard no difference or there's been so little as to be discounted.

Good on you and I'm with you but it won't convince the VanDamned croud :)
 
Me too! I've not bothered to tinker like this for some years, but when I did it was quite obvious. And these weren't cables with excessive resistance or capacitance that might give rise to obvious electrical differences.

A mystery along with why a Mac mini source sounds different to a nas drive!
 

busb

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nopiano said:
Me too! I've not bothered to tinker like this for some years, but when I did it was quite obvious. And these weren't cables with excessive resistance or capacitance that might give rise to obvious electrical differences.

A mystery along with why a Mac mini source sounds different to a nas drive!

I wasn't intending to tinker at all! I disconnected my 2x 5m Atlas cable to have it shortened (2 ferrules had also come off) so I got my old Exposure cable out & cut it down to 2x 2m myself & stripped down the ends that fitted into Z plugs that have 2 grub screws per plug. Thes cable's strands are thick enought to not require ferrules but the Atlas's are far to fine to be screwed down onto without mashing the strands,

I'm as skeptical as anyone but I'm not going to ignore the evidence of my own hearing! Anyhow, I'm going back to the Guildford Hi Fi/Absolute Sounds Show at The Mill House in Sindlesham where the speaker cable is capable to taking the National Grid & to cut down on corona discharge, are on spacers! The friend I went with yesterday was creaming himself over the Airforce III turntable. The large Martin Logans sounded quite good though!

As an aside, my 1st visit to WHF by the Thames involved comparing the differences in NAS drives. I personally went from slight to zero. It was good fun with 2 pubs within spitting distance!
 

busb

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Jun 14, 2011
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nopiano said:
Me too! I've not bothered to tinker like this for some years, but when I did it was quite obvious. And these weren't cables with excessive resistance or capacitance that might give rise to obvious electrical differences.

A mystery along with why a Mac mini source sounds different to a nas drive!

I wasn't intending to tinker at all! I disconnected my 2x 5m Atlas cable to have it shortened (2 ferrules had also come off) so I got my old Exposure cable out & cut it down to 2x 2m myself & stripped down the ends that fitted into Z plugs that have 2 grub screws per plug. Thes cable's strands are thick enought to not require ferrules but the Atlas's are far to fine to be screwed down onto without mashing the strands,

I'm as skeptical as anyone but I'm not going to ignore the evidence of my own hearing! Anyhow, I'm going back to the Guildford Hi Fi/Absolute Sounds Show at The Mill House in Sindlesham where the speaker cable is capable to taking the National Grid & to cut down on corona discharge, are on spacers! The friend I went with yesterday was creaming himself over the Airforce III turntable. The large Martin Logans sounded quite good though!

As an aside, my 1st visit to WHF by the Thames involved comparing the differences in NAS drives. I personally went from slight to zero. It was good fun with 2 pubs within spitting distance!
 

busb

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Jun 14, 2011
84
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Visit site
nopiano said:
Me too! I've not bothered to tinker like this for some years, but when I did it was quite obvious. And these weren't cables with excessive resistance or capacitance that might give rise to obvious electrical differences.

A mystery along with why a Mac mini source sounds different to a nas drive!

I wasn't intending to tinker at all! I disconnected my 2x 5m Atlas cable to have it shortened (2 ferrules had also come off) so I got my old Exposure cable out & cut it down to 2x 2m myself & stripped down the ends that fitted into Z plugs that have 2 grub screws per plug. Thes cable's strands are thick enought to not require ferrules but the Atlas's are far to fine to be screwed down onto without mashing the strands,

I'm as skeptical as anyone but I'm not going to ignore the evidence of my own hearing! Anyhow, I'm going back to the Guildford Hi Fi/Absolute Sounds Show at The Mill House in Sindlesham where the speaker cable is capable to taking the National Grid & to cut down on corona discharge, are on spacers! The friend I went with yesterday was creaming himself over the Airforce III turntable. The large Martin Logans sounded quite good though!

As an aside, my 1st visit to WHF by the Thames involved comparing the differences in NAS drives. I personally went from slight to zero. It was good fun with 2 pubs within spitting distance!
 

TrevC

Well-known member
drummerman said:
busb said:
Have had the shortened Atlas Ascent 2 speaker cable back now for over a week. To my ears, well worth having them shortened & re-crimped (i could obviously shorten them myself but not terminate them without soldering).

The difference was audible going from my re-terninated Exposure cable to the Atlas set. Swapped in the Exposure again this afternoon - the sound became smeared, the bass indistinct & the treble a bit flat" My friend agreed but wasn't at all surprised

I know many of you feel strongly that cables can't possibly make a difference & the only real difference I've noticed between interconnects were between some Chord Crimson Vee MkI's & give-aways.

I'd prefer there to be some scientific explanation but there ain't any which are plausible I know of. I'm neither going to deny my own experience! I am well aware of the pitfalls of audio comparisons & audio memory being unreliable but I've swapped these cables over enough times to be convinced. I've also swapped stuff about before & heard no difference or there's been so little as to be discounted.

Good on you and I'm with you but it won't convince the VanDamned croud :)

The only speaker cables that will sound bad are the ones that are too resistive and not really up to the job. If cutting a cable down to a shorter length produces an improvement then that is clearly demonstrated. Of course some people like bad sound, SET amplifier owners for example.
 

Infiniteloop

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Jul 23, 2010
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TrevC said:
drummerman said:
busb said:
Have had the shortened Atlas Ascent 2 speaker cable back now for over a week. To my ears, well worth having them shortened & re-crimped (i could obviously shorten them myself but not terminate them without soldering).

The difference was audible going from my re-terninated Exposure cable to the Atlas set. Swapped in the Exposure again this afternoon - the sound became smeared, the bass indistinct & the treble a bit flat" My friend agreed but wasn't at all surprised

I know many of you feel strongly that cables can't possibly make a difference & the only real difference I've noticed between interconnects were between some Chord Crimson Vee MkI's & give-aways.

I'd prefer there to be some scientific explanation but there ain't any which are plausible I know of. I'm neither going to deny my own experience! I am well aware of the pitfalls of audio comparisons & audio memory being unreliable but I've swapped these cables over enough times to be convinced. I've also swapped stuff about before & heard no difference or there's been so little as to be discounted.

Good on you and I'm with you but it won't convince the VanDamned croud :)

The only speaker cables that will sound bad are the ones that are too resistive and not really up to the job. If cutting a cable down to a shorter length produces an improvement then that is clearly demonstrated. Of course some people like bad sound, SET amplifier owners for example.

What on earth can you possibly have against SET Amplifiers? - Maybe they measure slightly worse than SS Amps, but so what? - They mostly sound sublime.

I doubt you have ever heard one if you think they sound bad.
 

Blacksabbath25

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Today I thought I would have a little experiment using 13 amp electricity cable and satellite cable to see what results it gives comparing it with my atles speaker cable which cost £12 .50 a meter . This test was only setting it up on one channel of the amp with atles cable and the other side with electricity cable and then the satellite cable .

electricty cable worked ok but the atles cable was better here but I think that was done to the fact the cooper in the cable was thin .

satellite cable and the atles cable the satellite cable was better then the atles here the satellite cable is solid core copper which I think makes a good speaker cable there was no distortion from both test cables I found that satellite cable was more open sounding then the atles cable was . But this little test just goes to show that you do not have to spend a lot of money on speaker cables but I do not have any means of testing correctly only with my ears but this was interesting little experiment
 

abacus

Well-known member
Blacksabbath25 said:
Today I thought I would have a little experiment using 13 amp electricity cable and satellite cable to see what results it gives comparing it with my atles speaker cable which cost £12 .50 a meter . This test was only setting it up on one channel of the amp with atles cable and the other side with electricity cable and then the satellite cable .

electricty cable worked ok but the atles cable was better here but I think that was done to the fact the cooper in the cable was thin .

satellite cable and the atles cable the satellite cable was better then the atles here the satellite cable is solid core copper which I think makes a good speaker cable there was no distortion from both test cables I found that satellite cable was more open sounding then the atles cable was . But this little test just goes to show that you do not have to spend a lot of money on speaker cables but I do not have any means of testing correctly only with my ears but this was interesting little experiment

Satellite cable is of 75 ohm impedance, (To better match the receiver and dish) and is not suitable for use with speakers as they require a low impedance cable for best power transfer.

Bill
 

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