If you have endless budget then hey ho but partically for budget systems there money could be much better spent on speakers than cables in my opinion. If fact i don't buy into the 30% source 30% amp 30% speaker and 10% cables advice i hear so often. At the budget end, pushing the boat out on the speakers make a bigger impact.
cheeseboy said:
I agree on your comment - rare one for us to agree first time ever I think
However I respect a company willing to say here come and listen for yourself and let us show you because its big potential to be shot down. Its an extremely difficult siutaiton to get right for multiple people as well so its ballsy.
I am sure they were doing it at Bristol this year - but I am also sure I saw an invitaiton type advert to go to a delaer for something similar.
Has anyone been and what were your thoughts?
rjbell said:
Thats whole other debate lets not even touch that!!! world war three will break out... But i do agree though not about speakers mind you.
I love naim and everythig thing but there the biggest offenders for cable in my opinion.... how people can say nac a5 is budget cable is beyound me.... £30 per meter and then they recomend 3.5m of that min, so 200 or there about for 6 meters of cable. Its simple stiff as Sh$% copper cable don't care where they extruded it from. Ill be seeing what happens with my qed original for the time being i think. but again thats a whole different debate.
bigboss
Moderator
ellisdj said:
I visited the Chord demo twice (on different occasions at the Bristol show). I think they had 4 headphones with different cables. I tried really hard, but could not appreciate any difference. I made sure to match the volume.
MickyBlue
Well-known member
i had fallen into the usb trap and bought a tellurium black usb, i also had a chord usb silver plus lying about so did some comparisons, there was absolutely no difference appart from a serious lack of tenners in my wallet.
matt49
Well-known member
steve_1979
Well-known member
bigboss said:
I'm using a cheap thin replacement headphone cable which is ment for one of Sennheiser's budget headphone models on my HD700's because I wanted a cable with a 3.5mm plug instead of the standard 1/4". It sounds identical to the thicker more expensive audiophile one that comes as standard with the HD700.
steve_1979 said:
That's an interesting one (no, seriously). I use ATM50X headphones in my home studio. They come with three different cables but none of them is an 'iOS' cable with built-in controls and a mike. So even though tbh I couldn't see me really going out-and-about with some M50X headphones on my head at my age because I'd look like a fat ageing cyberman, I bought a cheap aftermarket cable from China with a built-in mike and controls. You know what? It sounds bloody rubbish. You have to turn up the volume on the iPhone 5S by at two notches to get the same level of volume and the clarity is diminished. Yeah I know, it surprised me too. Not because I don't believe there are differences between analogue cables but because I didn't really expect to notice anything on a six foot headphone lead. Just goes to show! :-D
Experience? bought Wireworld Starlight USB cable for £150.. tested with all kind of boxes I had in last 2 years from Marantz and Arcam to Electrocompaniet and Benchmark, listening the results on budget Dali and Kef speakers as well as on £2000 ATC speakers and Audeze headphones... no difference to my ears and no difference to my regular USB cable anyone have at home.
steve_1979
Well-known member
MajorFubar said:
I went with the Sennehiser cable because you know that with a reputable company like that even the basic cables are going to be up to spec.
With a cheap Chinese no name cable there's always the risk that you could be getting practically anything and as we all know only cables that are only guaranteed to be audibly transparent if they're of suitable spec for the job.
steve_1979
Well-known member
bigboss said:
Was that their foyer stool BB or their demo room? I didn't go to either?
I thought I saw they were doing proper demos where you had to book a place maybe I got it wrong.
Frank Harvey
Well-known member
David@FrankHarvey said:
Cheers for confirming David - I am sure they were demoing their network cables which is glorified Cat 5 / 6 at the end of the day. This could be wrong but I am sure it was the Tuned Array Network cable demo or something like that
bigboss
Moderator
ellisdj said:
I visited the foyer. Didn't have time for demo room when I wasn't interested in their products.
spooks1982
Well-known member
Oddly I had basically the same discussion/argument with the guys over on the naim forum but it was related to network cables. My argument was that, so long as the cable is made properly there will be no difference between a regular network cable and a special audio network cable.
The guys on the naim forum, some of whom were quite learned went to extreme lengths to explain about RFI and EMI to prove that these audio network cables transmit less interference into the DAC and thus provide a better sound once converted into Analogue. I still thing its hogwash but here is the link to the thread - makes interesting reading.
Interested to know what people think!
http://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/gs108-switch-ports-1?page=1
The guys on the naim forum, some of whom were quite learned went to extreme lengths to explain about RFI and EMI to prove that these audio network cables transmit less interference into the DAC and thus provide a better sound once converted into Analogue. I still thing its hogwash but here is the link to the thread - makes interesting reading.
Interested to know what people think!
http://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/gs108-switch-ports-1?page=1
spooks1982 said:
There is so called sicence/theory behind it and the numbers do say there is a difference but it's in-audable there for no difference. Thats how i look at it. The only thing i would worry about is the shielding of the cable so nothing interfers with it same goes for USB cables. The naim forum are finactical about cable Nac a5 for example no other speaker cable in there eyes exists with the same compacitance there very stuck in there ways.
Till its disproven on watch dog or something like HDMI cables! people will argue till there blue in the face. Extruded copper is extruded copper. But shielding is different story and is all that really matters. i dont subscribe to buy really expsensive cables
Some of the best interconnects ever made are not screened at all - so its not ALL about the screen.
In fact some companies say metal anywhere near the main conductors is counter productice to SQ.
In fact some companies say metal anywhere near the main conductors is counter productice to SQ.
spooks1982 said:
yeh, it's hogwash to a certain degree. RFI won't make things sound worse as such, if there is an issue with things like that, it's going to audiable all the time, like a white noise kind of thing. It's not going to suddenly magically change the charactaristics of some data. In order for the data to be changed (this goes for any digital cable) the cable would have to be active and basically include some form of computer, as it would have to be able to look at the data, work out what the data was (is it a picture, a document, a sound file etc) and then have some form of software to be able to manipulate that data to change it. Otherwise it really is just a cable passing down data.
The best example I can give, and ones which people seem to forget, even though it was not long ago is that data transmission is pretty robust, and you can degrade the signal to quite a degree before it stops working. How do we know this? Well how many people here used to own Spectrums, C64's etc and plugged in a crappy tape recorder then played that data over a very bad analogue signal, that was then converted back in to digital, and low and behold, it either worked or it didn't. Moving sideways, what about oldschool analogue modems. We all used to access the internet by converting data in to analogue sound and lobbing it down very dodgy copper wire, but we were still able to access the same things we are now and you still can (yes, dial up isp's still exist).
ellisdj said:
So would be a magnet of some degree but hey! Shielding never normaly comes in contact with the copper or what ever it is inside Bad design if dose! so wouldn't interfer at all. Its a simple foil sheet under the main (outside) insultaling layer then the there's a another plastic tube or rubber round the wires inside so would never touch. And the connectors at either end should be decoupled (like a tv arial). So again no harm in putting it in really. Probable don't need it so much in this day and age but old habbits die hard.
If im wrong im wrong this thread is long enough
Covenanter
Well-known member
There is an interesting series of ads by LIDL right now which I guess some of you have seen. In these they present the public with two products, their own brand and the market leader, one example is their lager and Stella. Guess what, everybody (well everybody they show!) prefers the market leader but the catch is that they have swapped the products.
Their story is of course that their products are better than the market leaders, which they may be. However, it's not a fair test because we can't tell how many people are being influenced by the labelling, that is the perception bias.
I wonder if they would be willing to redo the tests and rerun the ads without the labelling.
Chris
Their story is of course that their products are better than the market leaders, which they may be. However, it's not a fair test because we can't tell how many people are being influenced by the labelling, that is the perception bias.
I wonder if they would be willing to redo the tests and rerun the ads without the labelling.
Chris
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