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Got some posh cables with a second-hand hi-fi.
Each of the interconnect cables have a 'ground-end' sticker on one end of them. The website suggests they should be plugged in with that sticker at the source end of the CD-Pre-Power link.
Are they for real?
Posh hifi cables are snake oil. If the manufacturers were confident in their claims, they would conduct double-blind tests to prove the difference. They don't becuase there isn't one.
as above nonsese i tried with my £50 ones (a gift) and the cheapest I could find you cannot tell the difference IMHO.
Speaker wire is different up to apoint.
Can you tell if you use a deore mech or an XTR though?
Quite possible that they fitted some kind of filter to it which reduces the reflected signal, therefore making the cable directional.
Or it could just be the direction they rubbed the "special crystals" on it.
Are they taking the piss?
Yes...
Next!
With cheap ones it's less important, as you're only going to be pushing 3-minute pop songs down them. A more expensive set-up gets to have an entire Ring Cycle forced through it at very high volume. That's pretty much like the difference between a penis and a baby, and you wouldn't try to get the baby to go the other way. 😉
Some cables are sort of directional in so much that the earth shield is only attached at one end, for sound electronic reasons. But the ones that claim that their actual wire is directional, probably also claim that sticking them in a homeopathic solution will naturally improve the sound quality.
I don't know about expensive HiFi cables, but....
If there is proper shielding on the cable then this should eb grounded, but only in one place. This is to prevent the creation of a ground loop where small currents (noise) could cause problems.
It seemd very overkill for a HiFi and will only make a difference if everything else is also setup to prevent ground loops.
Earth shield? On a speaker cable?
Speaker wire is different up to apoint.
[b]must[/b] be run along a ley line for true realism 🙁
Its all utter pish, they came up with the "aligned electrons in the copper" bull years ago to rip people off for £300 a meter cables
Just do a search on Kimber cables for a laugh !!
And sheilding ?
He is talking about interconnects, they dont have shielding on them.
Wasn't this directional cable a running joke on STW a couple of years back? I remember it popping up in a lot of post for several weeks, a bit like the generic answer 'Conti Vert Pro's' 🙂
Doh... just assumed it was another speaker cable thing, they usually are!
Anyway, how would interconnects only being grounded at one end work then? Where is the signal return path?
Blurb, and only £604....for 8ft !!!!
[url= http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?src=google&lookup=1®ion=UK¤cy=GBP&pf_id=3221&customer_id=PAA1224103809677HRNJELLBVGNPHBFN ]Speaker Cable[/url]
If you cannot tell the difference yourself then why worry? Either wire them up the way it says and forget about it, or do it wrong and make a lot of noise on internet forums about how you think it's daft and you know which end of a soldering iron to hold so you're an expert.
However, cables have directionality. It's a known phenomenon and measurable.
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
Music is an AC signal.
It goes both ways anyway!
p.s. traildog, please provide me with a physical explanation of how an speaker cable can be directional. 😈
LOL.
Any of you tried listening to proper cables in a good system in a well set up room?
Nordost Valhalla interconnects sound nice!
Kimber? Pah, get serious! you need some [url= http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20ODIN%20interconnect.htm ]Nordost Odins...[/url] Yes, £12,000 might seem like a lot for a cable but wait 'til you hear them!
Any of you tried listening to proper cables in a go system in a well set up room?
Have you tried a blind test of cheap vs expensive cables in that situation? Thought not.
You would think cynic-al might be a bit more, well... cynical? 🙂
Directionality of cables? You've having a giraffe!!!
Do you think anyone has told the National Grid? Just think of the power they could be wasting!!!
[i]It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...[/i]
As pointed out by glenh the signal is AC, so how would this work?
And does any of this actually matter when you're just going to be playing FM radio, poorly sampled mp3s or 44.1 kHz CDs?
Obviously it does GrahamS, otherwise why would people spend soooo much money on it...
;o)
Riiiight. So it's not going to explode if I get it wrong then. Good.
Must say they do look nice. Fat and yellow.
Probably worth it buying a decent quality cable but if there is an improvement in using high end cables its way beyond my law of diminishing returns.
I reckon the improvement people hear from upgrading cables is due to the removal of corrosion on the speaker terminals brought about by the act of changing the cables which results in a better contact for the new speaker cable.
Good cables do make a difference. BUT.....Only if the kit they're used with is worthy of them. The difference in Naim std interconnect & Naim Highline is totally breathtaking!!! I.M.O.
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
or indeed to see the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud...
Naim std interconnect & Naim Highline is totally breathtaking
Well the price no doubt is. LOL.
p.s. traildog, please provide me with a physical explanation of how an speaker cable can be direction
No, I am not arrogant enough to think I know everything. There are many things in this world I do not understand.
Directionality of cables?
Do you think anyone has told the National Grid
Or the telecoms industry? Oh wait, they already know about it and worry about it.
Have you tried a blind test of cheap vs expensive cables in that situation
How else would you buy such a thing? You'd always get the cheapest if you knew prices and there was no difference. The difference is often very noticeable.
by the act of changing the cables which results in a better contact for the new speaker cable.
This is very true and a good point. Just remaking your contacts every few months is well worth it.
or indeed to see the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud...
Whether or not its the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud or not, has nothing to do with cable science.
If a tree fell in a forest and you didn't hear or see it. Did it ever fall? Perhaps it's still standing?
The telecoms industry? Care to let us know where within the telecoms industry they use this property? Lemme guess though... long distance transmission cables maybe?
If that's the case, and it's a noticable phenomena over an 8ft run of cable, it must be massive over long distance cables.
Oh, any why doesn't the IEEE have any papers on it? You'd think they might...
How else would you buy such a thing? You'd always get the cheapest if you knew prices and there was no difference. The difference is often very noticeable.
What really? A blind test where you didn't know which cable was which? Pretty easy to convince yourself you can hear a difference when you know which is which.
funkynick
Shhhh, he's just annoyed that people think he is silly for spending hundreds of quid per meter for cables on his hi-fi !!!
traildog
You really need to point us in the direction of this research\evidence that a directional cable has any merits in the Hi-Fi world to make anybody believe a word, after all thats what we were talking about, not the telecomms industry ?
Clubber - unfortunately - the price is quite breathtaking - although nowhere near as breathtaking as some 🙂
[i]If a tree fell in a forest and you didn't hear or see it. Did it ever fall? Perhaps it's still standing?[/i]
Show me the science!
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
Course you can.
See also [url= http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427285.700-think-yourself-a-sharper-tv-picture.html ]Think yourself a sharper TV picture (NewScientist, Sep 2009)[/url] 😉
hifi bears the same relationship to electronics as astrology does to astonomy :o)
🙂
I was never convinced about directional-cables for hi-fi, but a decent quality cable is a must IMO if using with a good system.
I upgraded from a freebie CD interconnect & cheap speaker wire, and was amazed at the improvements it made.
The soundstage was wider, the bass punchier & I heard extra musical detail in tracks that i hadn't heard in them before.
Interconecting cables are shielded from one end, what effect this has on sound quality I have no idea. I always presumed it was to avoid earth loops in PA equipment, and then that only realy becomes an issue if you've pluged into two different electrical sources, which you'd know about because of the humming noise it causes. But then again, you only have one phase electrics in a house so that cant realy be it.
Snake oil of the highest order IMO.
Just to tidy this up slightly form a scientific point of view, speaker cables can and do make a difference. However, this is entirely (assuminng sensible current carrying capability) due to the relative impedances (specifically inductance) of your amplifier output, cable and speaker combination.
It has zero to do with fancy materials, directionality are any other industry/manufacturer BS (although cable geometry does have some effect).
However, expensive does not mean better. The 'best' cable for you system my be bell wire. It might also be some expensive cable, but that cable won't necessarily be better for any other system.
One more point - psychological effects are probably larger. 😉
traildog - Member
If you cannot tell the difference yourself then why worry? Either wire them up the way it says and forget about it, or do it wrong and make a lot of noise on internet forums about how you think it's daft and you know which end of a soldering iron to hold so you're an expert.
Although I can use a soldering iron, I wouldn't say I was in anyway and expert. I have however studied analogue electronics, AC theory + electro-magnitism, electronic communications and the psychology of human perception. 😯
It's mostly b*llocks* at audio frequencies - you'll probably get away with a pretty scummy shielded cable for a short run so long as you don't move* it and the connections don't oxidise. If it's a long cable (lots of metres) then in theory the cable impedance should correspond to the output impedance of the driving end...but you still need the receiving end to be the correct impedance anyway so as not to reflect back to the source. That's called impedance matching.
Which is why it's pretty academic for a short cable, and reflections happen in a v. short space of time compared to the wavelength of the highest audio you're likely to hear.
By comparision, in the electric transmission industry it *is* important, because the distances between source and destination points are so great that they can lead to what's called 'standing waves' as a result of reflecting energy from the receiving end back to the source. You can get the same thing with a radio transmitter, except now the cable lengths are very short, the result of the reflected energy can be to overheat the output stage.
In baseband (ie voice) telecoms (frequency range is only above 300Hz - 3.4Khz) similarly due to the distance involved, you want impedance matched cables - not necessarily just to reduce reflections, but to maximise the amount of power received. Years ago there used to be something called 'lump loading' - basically a filter in the line at periodic distances to equalise for the characteristics of the line, which itself was less than ideal.
Re ground loops - I find that a little difficult to believe, if the (pair of) cables are only grounded at one end then there's no reference ground at the other end and you're relying in whatever scummy ground there is via the mains (if there is one). At each end the grounds of the connector will be physically (=electrically) close so I can't see why there should be a ground loop issue, at least for hifi.
I can imagine there be an issue if you fed through several levels of equipment and back into the first, mebbe that's what TINAS is referring to - but when chaining stuff end-to-end I'd expect they'd be grounded both ends. (AdamT - you heard anything like that when you were at Harman ?)
*you can get microphonic/movement noise on cables - eg guitar leads are made from 'Low noise' stuff - it's actually mechanically generated noise due to moving the cable.
My system is a mostly "NAIM" collection of seperates at about £11k.
NAIM cable is directional and like everything else they manufacture, is done that way for a good reason. Without going into the technical parameters, the practical upshot is that it sounds better.
I suspect that if a person is installing expensive directional cable into a cheap system they are 1: not going to hear any difference whichever way round they install the cable and most certainly 2: anybody who actually does this is operating under a complete missapprehension of how a Hifi system works and is wasting their money.
I suggest those who have made unhelpfull suggestion re: "pish", "snakeoil" "astrology/astronomy" etc. investigate the subject a little further either on the web or via their pockets before they resume talking b0ll0cks.
😀
Have you investigated it via studying electronics and physics?
If so, please reveal the science.
Mr Woppit, can I suggest that you contact the JREF and apply for their million dollar prize? Once you demonstrate your ability to tell the difference between cables, you'll be able to keep yourself in expensive HiFi equipment for life.
Mr Woppit's right. I'm ashamed to say I've never bought an astrology book (expensive, or otherwise). I feel humiliated by my ignorance.
[i]Without going into the technical parameters, the practical upshot is that it sounds better[/i]
Feel free to go into the technical parameters. My uni job involves performing a fairly wide range of electronics consultancies for external companies, so I reckon I can muddle through providing you don't use too many big words 🙂
No. I investigated it with my ears, although I daresay NAIM would let you know the physics behind their designs if you are really interested.
http://www.naim-audio.com/contacts.html
Demonstrating differences between cables is simple.
Seat the reviewer.
Play a CD using set of cables 1.
Change cables.
Play the same CD with set of cables 2.
Voila.
My system is a mostly "NAIM" collection of seperates at about £11k.NAIM cable is directional and like everything else they manufacture, is done that way for a good reason. Without going into the technical parameters, the practical upshot is that it sounds better.
[img] 
[/img]
😆
Que?
Demonstrating differences between cables is simple.Seat the reviewer.
Play a CD using set of cables 1.
Change cables.
Play the same CD with set of cables 2.
Voila.
Oh dear, never heard of the placebo effect have we ?
As already stated, unless documented evidence can be produced its Hi-Fi 0, Physics 1
[url=
scientific fact[/url]
i have no real interest in HiFi, i'm only reading this so i can rip the pi$$ out of a mate that does. anyway, just read this from one of the links posted earlier and thought it was funny
Interestingly, the New Scientists recently commented on the London Heathrow Hi Fi Show, saying that among the cables selling for up to £30,000 for 6 metres, they found Quad demonstrating their latest speakers to great enthusiasm. The orange cable to the speakers looked oddly familiar. When asked about it, Tony Faulkner, the recording engineer demonstrating them (who'd used the speakers as monitors while recording Saint-Saen's complete works for piano & orchestra, Gramophone's Record of the Year), said of the cables:"Yes, they would look familiar if you have a garden. Before the show opened we went over the road to the DIY superstore and bought one of those £20 extension leads that Black & Decker sells for electric hedge-cutters. They are made from good, thick copper wire, look nice and sound good to me. The show's been running for three days and no one in the audience has noticed..." - New Scientist Magazine
I don't understand why you think that it would be a "placebo" effect. Are you suggesting that cabling with Hifi cable and then with say, telephone wire would sound the same or that all Hifi equipment sounds the same (to extend the analogy)? How peculiar.
That's still a subjective test, which is exactly what the snake-oil salesmen rely on. I'll settle for a good microphone and an audio spectrum analyser thankyou very much.
As glenp said, lets have some engineering details.
>the subject a little further either on the web or via their pockets before they resume talking b0ll0cks.
Oh excuse me.
5 years apprenticeship/technican at BT; degree in Electronics ; 18 months postgrad at B'ham uni on RF comms; about half of the least 20 yrs as an electronic engineer doing highspeed board design (where pcb trace lengths and ground loops *are* significant, depending what you're doing).
LOL Peachos 😀
Now we just need someone to defend pro level HDMI cables!
Mr. Woppit, we're not talking about telephone wire though are we?
No, i am suggesting that if somebody "WANTS" to hear a difference then they will.
If you are so convinced perhaps you could let us all know what the physical and chemical are between 0.5mm sq telephone wire and 0.5mm sq speaker cable ?
"Yes, they would look familiar if you have a garden. Before the show opened we went over the road to the DIY superstore and bought one of those £20 extension leads that Black & Decker sells for electric hedge-cutters. They are made from good, thick copper wire, look nice and sound good to me. The show's been running for three days and no one in the audience has noticed..." -
Notice what? Without that particular system being set up with another type of cabling to compare the results, why would anyone "notice" anything?
The only real way to determine if different speaker/ interconnect cables sound different is through a proper double-blind study. To the best of my knowledge, no such study has ever shown a statistically significant difference.
And you have to laugh at the thought of hifi obsessives spending thousands on cables...to listen to music recorded using bog-standard copper.
NAIM" collection of seperates at about £11k
That's why they sound better! You paid £11k for them. The link is directly between the amount of cash you handed over and what you perceive you can hear. In the same way it's rare to find anyone who has spent £5k on a bike admit that they don't like it.
For the record.. Directional Cables is bollocks. You've been done good and proper if you bought cables and spent that much based on that argument. I say this based on my experience of completing two degrees, one in IT specialising in electronics and CPU design including a large chunk on Analog/digital conversion and a second degree in physics. Of course I now run a bike mag so I've been away from the whole scientific and IT bleeding edge for a few years. I may have missed some groundbreaking, nobel prize winning scientific discoveries in that time. But I don't think so.
But as all good scientists would say.. I'm happy to have my view of science modified at anytime. In fact I welcome that, so PROVE me wrong. Show us the objective evidence. Your ears are subjective - they don't count as evidence.
"Experts" speaking mumbo-jumbo, much like anyone who tells you it's worth spending more than £75 on a mountain bike. 😯
[i]Notice what? Without that particular system being set up with another type of cabling to compare the results, why would anyone "notice" anything?[/i]
Good point. We've got a sound room at work. I can set up a nice test where I can swap between a bit of mains cable driving the speakers, and whatever pixie dust cable you choose to bring along. I'll swap the wires over 10 times an if you can correctly tell me which is which 10 times, and I'll give you £500 quid, you fail, and you give me £500 quid.
What ya got to loose?
>(to extend the analogy)? How peculiar.
It's not extending the analogy. It's two completely different things. The points is what has a *significant* effect (as demonstrated by the Quad guys). Crap decoupling, poor component choice, or designing an earth loop into the innards of an amp or preamp will probably have far more effect than a short run of *screened* telephone wire between and amp and preamp, for example (depending on crapness, of course). Do you even know what the characteristic impendance of a piece of telephone wire is ? No, thought not. If it wasn't for picking up mains hum or noise you'd probably even be able to do without it being screened.
Test bench results do not determine musical quality. Of course it's a subjective experience; my example of different cabling was extreme to indicate that where there is a physical difference in equipment, there will be a different audio outcome.
"Simples",as the meerkat is fond of saying.
I admire the level of engineering expertise on display and am SO SORRY that I may have hurt your feelings after so much hard work and sacrifice to get to where you are today, but the proof of the musical pudding is in the ears eating it, I'm afraid, no matter what the test bench results indicate.
As I say, if you are interested in the physics of how these differences are achieved, you would probably find the NAIM contact a useful source and much better equipped than I to explain it. If you are convinced that you are right, then the only way [b]I[/b] could convince you is to invite you round for a demonstration, bringing a cable of your choice, because obviously nothing I say here will do the job.
Please don't hurt me, I'm only little.
And you have to laugh at the thought of hifi obsessives spending thousands on cables...to listen to music recorded using bog-standard copper.
Not to mention the considerably longer and thiner coils of boring old copper connected to the end of their cables (ie the driver voice coils).
Experts" speaking mumbo-jumbo, much like anyone who tells you it's worth spending more than £75 on a mountain bike.
There are measurable reasons why a more expensive bike is better. Weight, stiffness, strength, durability.
We're too busy laughing at you to have our feelings hurt 🙂
Test bench results do not determine musical quality. Of course it's a subjective experience; my example of different cabling was extreme to indicate that where there is a physical difference in equipment, there will be a different audio outcome.
But there's also evidence that flicking a switch that isn't connected to anything will change your subjective experience - people told that a switch changes between high quality and low quality cable, will be able to hear a significant difference in quality between the two.
If there was a difference that you could hear, you must have better ears than every audio type who has ever done a blind 2 way test, given no-one has ever been able to tell the difference between cables yet in a blind test.
Joe
but the proof of the musical pudding is in the ears eating it, I'm afraid, no matter what the test bench results indicate.
'It's scientific fact, there's no actual evidence for it, but it is a scientific fact'.
but the proof of the musical pudding is in the ears eating it, I'm afraid, no matter what the test bench results indicate.
Absolutely. So long as you can get the results to prove it in a double blind test.
Mr Woppit, I suspect your money could perhaps be a little better spent on something like this:
p.s. Don't think that I'm arguing this just because I have no interest or appreciation of music or hi-fi - I actually have 2 relatively expensive hi-fi systems which I enjoy a lot. However, I also have a degree in physics and electronics, and currently study human perception, so the amount of hi-fi marketing blurb I believe is severely limited!
p.s. if it makes you happy, spend your money on whatever you like 🙂
And you have to laugh at the thought of hifi obsessives spending thousands on cables...to listen to music recorded using bog-standard copper
I think this is a far more relevant point. I used to be into Hi-Fi in the sense that I enjoyed reading about the expensive stuff but couldn't afford it (a bit like MTB mags really!). All the mags wittered on about the Holy Grail of hi-fi making music sound exactly as it was recorded. No thanks. I'd rather not hear the crap that wasn't meant to be picked up by the cheap microphones.
If there was a difference that you could hear, you must have better ears than every audio type who has ever done a blind 2 way test, given no-one has ever been able to tell the difference between cables yet in a blind test.
Well, I suppose I must have magic ears, as you say. Lucky me.
Exit.
Blimey - we seem to be assembling some of the same cast as the Alpha/Atheist thread and nearly as much reasoned discussion.
And again it comes down to objective, scientific evidence vs. how someone feels about something. If you 'upgrade' your speaker cables and you think it sounds better, good for you. It doesn't make it true.
For myself, I believe it is worth spending 'some' money on decent interconnects and cables but this is more to do with consistency of the manufacturing process than having individual copper atoms aligned by a virgin wearing purple. I also believe that the level at which it is not worth spending more on cables etc is quite low. For me to change my view will take randomised double-blind studies which show an effect.
Certainly analogue sensors in sensitive control equipment are generally shielded and that shield is connected to ground at one end only, usually the non-sensor end (to reduce the likelyhood of ground loops) so I suspect this is fairly applicable to hifi seperates. There is also some discussion as to just how the signals flow over/through solid/braided/woven etc cabling, all of which have some measurable effect. However I'm not sure the measurable effect is perceivable to the human ear, I generally think that providing you buy a decent quality, suitably sized cable you will probably not notice any difference at all.
You'd have to run some fairly comprehensive double-blind tests to prove it though. You can show the differences in waveforms fairly easily, but you cannot scientifically link that to what people perceive.
Mr Woppit, presumably you'll be taking this up?
Good point. We've got a sound room at work. I can set up a nice test where I can swap between a bit of mains cable driving the speakers, and whatever pixie dust cable you choose to bring along. I'll swap the wires over 10 times an if you can correctly tell me which is which 10 times, and I'll give you £500 quid, you fail, and you give me £500 quid.
What ya got to loose?
I certainly would be if I had your ability to differentiate interconnects/speaker cable/etc.