Inter Connects - What I know and don't know

Hi,

I took a look at your system from your profile and I'm thinking before you do anything pull those speakers out a bit from the wall and you'll notice immediately a change in the spacial imaging soundstage etc aspects. Ie. It should sound better.

Cables are highly dependent on a system. Better systems appreciate better cables. Yes all cables sound differently to the extent your system can distinguish them.

I'm not a big fan of the blue sound Device as the dac is not the greatest, but it can be bypassed so that's good

@69zoso69

My assumptions:

- You get what you pay for ($300 Brand X will produce more detail than say $60 Mogami Gold).

The cable companies can charge any price they want to. Doesn’t mean it’s going to be better. Reading too much of their marketing material may result in too much wishful thinking.

- The larger the gauge the better.

That depends on the length of the interconnects. Long interconnects should be lower AWG to avoid slight losses in gain, therefore preserving overall performance.

- Crimped and soldered connectors are better than screw tightened.

Yes. They are also more reliable.

- Two or more large braided strands are better than several smaller gauge braided strands (all things being equal).

That’s true.

- Silver conductors are better sounding and measuring than Copper conductors.

True. Silver is the best conductor of electricity. Why isn’t it widely used? Well because of how much it costs vs copper. If silver were the same price as copper, your home would be wired with silver wire rather than copper.

- Rhodium, Gold, Silver, Copper, & Brass, connectors objectively sound different. (as opposed to in your system).

True to an extent. When rhodium and silver plating are combined for example, it results in slightly better gain and lower noise. inexpensive/light 6.3mm adapters that are gold-plated can sound a bit warmer. Higher conductivity with silver is the gold standard.

@jumia Thanks but those photos are out of date. The presentation was slightly bass heavy, so I pulled them out so the front baffle is now about 40 inches from the rear wall. The frequency response is much more balanced now. I've never heard the DAC on the Node 2i, it's bypassed into my Pontus DAC.  

I also went from an equilateral triangle to the much improved Jim Smith rule. (X/Y = 83%: Where the listener to left/right tweeter = X and the distance between tweeters = Y) But that's a whole other thread/topic. 

After hearing all the great feedback here I've decided to get the hardware sorted out first before cable matching. There's just no way of knowing what's going to sound best (to me) unless I make the effort to listen to several typologies. 

So step one is to hold a shootout between my Atma Sphere Class D mono blocks and the Decware Zen amp (25th anniversary) on order. I'm also adding a Burson 3X preamp to the mix, taking the pressure off the DAC to drive the load to the amps. I'm really hoping the Atma Sphere's win out since I'm less enamored with tubes these days, just too many variables and fuss. And the Atma Sphere mono-blocks would allow me to keep all the interconnects balanced. The Decware is single ended only. 

I tried Mogami Gold XLR balanced ICs because they are cheap ($125) and so many postings indicating that balanced ICs don't make a difference if well constructed.  Baloney!!!  After breaking in 100 hours, they sounded like crap in my high end system (let them play without me in the room).  Flat, tonally thin, lacking dynamic contrast, totally uninteresting for domestic home use.  They are touted as the best studio recording cable.  I grant them their neutral tonal balance, clean and noise free qualities.  Maybe that's what is needed in a recording studio.  For listening pleasure (lack of), they are awful!  Monster 300s sound superior (light in the highs, very rich bottom, dynamic, not neutral but very listenable for a $15 cable).

My ICs cost $700 and have patented air core suspended wires (Grover Huffman) with a very elaborate construction.  I've heard other moderate and high end cables (I'm a cable beta tester).   Some are awful (High Fidelity-dead company) and some are quite good with wide range of price. 

I think the comments on XLR's not affecting the sound is tied to gear that is AES48 compliant. Most consumer audio gear is not.

My Benchmark gear is AES48 compliant and XLR's from Benchmark XLR level and up, such as Audience AU24 SE do not make a difference between the Benchmark components, DAC3B, LA4, and AHB2. With my other sources connect to the LA4 preamp the XLR matter, so I use Audience and WyWire with those.