Moving cables around killed dynamics for days anyone else experience this?

Getting a small room right can be very difficult, and depending on the speakers, can be near impossible, and to top things off, you have a square room. This is not a cable issue, it is an acoustics issue. Panel placement and usage will need to be careful, you may need base traps, and your sweet spot is going to be smaller. That bass suck-out you experienced sounds like a listening position/speaker issue.


You will have to navigate your acoustics path a bit on your own. There are those out there who promote "live" rooms, equating music playback to music generation (it is not), but they are also right that the other camp can go overboard on dampening, though it is a much safer path. "Live" rooms tend to be inconsistent and create a sound of their own. Problem with that is it may sound great with some recordings, and awful with others. It won't be what is on the recording. A more balanced implementation with controlled reflections allows you to get all the timing information required for accurate placement (soundstage) as intended on the recording, while recreating the illusion of being in a space where the music is being played.

Audiozen I just moved to a new house main system went in a big room and set up was easy and have been very pleased. This system has gone in 12x12x9 room, I've never had a room this small so it has been a challenge. I did add GIK panels.

paulcreed,

In my experience, people who feel that way about their systems usually have fundamental issues, and usually means bad room acoustics. Every time you move your speakers, you are changing the room frequency response as it relates to your listening position, quite possibly by a large amount, especially if you have limited or no room treatment.

Your brain becomes "accustomed" to your system, essentially trying to, at some level, correct the frequency response to what feels right. Technical term is neural adaptation. It is real, and you ignore it at your peril.  You will frequently hear real acoustics experts discuss this.  It is a learning process so it does not happen instantly.   (There are other processes that occur more "real time" as well). You can both "learn" and forget ... hence when you come back to your "new" system after not listening for a week, things are magically better .... bass response is back, soundstage seems more "normal", dynamics are right.  It is probably still not "perfect", but listen more and things fall into place (to a point).


Moving cables, if it makes any difference at all, is going to make difference at only the finest details, and things like dynamics, perceived bass response, soundstage, are not fine details, they are macro properties. If you continue believing that simply moving cables (with the exception of significant electrical interference) is going to significantly impact your system to the level you describe, then you are going to have a hard time ever being really happy.

Since you keep moving your speakers, let's get back to that fundamental problem. Your brain attempts to adapt, but can only do so much. Do you have a properly treated listening environment? If not, then that is something you need to address.  There are great tools out there and cheap microphones, and a ton of information on how to setup a room. Once you get the hang of it, it is a heck of a lot more interesting and fun than swapping cables, and for the most part you won't be "guessing" ... was that better ... the results are often dramatic.

I cant believe the esoteric nonsense contained in this thread, voodoo science at best. I think ill go watch another episode of "Ancient aliens" for a little grounding.

I just moved this system in a new room couple months ago and have also been moving speakers around a lot over this 2 month period. I could not figure out why things would not sound right. I know the speaker cables are moving because crossover is external and I have to pull it around in conjunction with speaker cabinet. This is now making sense why every time I try to change things up to improve sound I get discouraged and can't enjoy listening to this system. I told my son yesterday I'm thinking of selling off this system or throughing it in closet that I just can get it to work right and don't even want to look at it anymore. I get mad at it and leave it alone ( I still leave it on 24/7) for 4 or 5 days come back and it sounds great. Then I screw with it again. I'm just going to leave it alone and if I change anything expect problems and knowingly allow a few days before I can expect to listen to it.

This is all very interesting - and timely!

As I've been making adjustments to my wiring, just redirecting them, the sound is "off", then the next day, it sounds better again. 

So bizarre some something so minor can have an effect, but I have experienced this very recently.

No that cables have been tidied up, I'm just going to leave well enough alone and stop changing up my speaker position so often as I am chasing a better sound.

Some days, like now, it sounds wonderful!

P

OP: I’m glad to hear some people tend to experience this problem, I believe and respect others do not hear it. The issue is I know personally I experience total loss of bloom, bass, spl or energizing of the room or what ever you would like to call it. All cables are many years old and fully broken in, ranging from JPS, Acoustic Zen, XLO Sig. and Harmonic Technology, so solid core, silver and copper.

millercarbon:

Yes handling cables ruins sound quality. Usually very short term, minutes to hours, but it all depends on the handling and the time.

Let me expand on that. There’s a sort of sound quality performance curve that as far as I can tell pretty much everything goes through. But its cyclical and fractal nature combined with not everyone being that great listeners, and more often than not psychologically disinclined as well, its not a thing a lot have picked up on. So let me explain.

You got one very long term cycle, which is performance from new to anywhere from a month or more of steady use. This cycle is big and obvious and bad enough many manufacturers spend time and money burning in before shipping. Even so, everyone knows to expect some time in use before full performance. Once burned in this cycle hits almost a plateau. Almost because long enough out of use and it restarts all over again. But it was a long time peaking, and its a long time going back. Cyclical, see?

Then there’s a much shorter term cycle, the one that happens every night if you turn your stuff off- or even if you don’t. If you do then you get the warm-up phase which can be minutes to hours or even days depending on your particular component. This is why so many SS components should just be left on all the time.

But even left on all the time there’s still the nightly cycle of sounding better and better as the night goes along, until dawn, and it starts to get crappy again, the whole cycle starting all over again that night.

Sorry if people think this is bunk. Or that its just more of the usual mindless repetition of blather heard or read or whatever. Its none of that. This is all stuff I noticed all by myself, same as the OP with his cables. Only I've had a lot more time to think about it. Like 30 years more time.

The one cycle that’s different is cables. Because unlike everything else they can be put off by just wiggling them around. If you could get inside your amp and wiggle all the wires around bet it would do just the same. Wires is wires.

Anyway, same as above. Slight brief wiggling, slight brief cycle reset. If you even are able to notice. Major moving around, coiling and storing and wriggling back into position, expect a major cycle reset.

One thing mentioned is cleaning connections is something I haven’t done in a year or so.

Yeah well you are way overdue then. Mine must have been cleaned fifty times and at least a dozen different ways over the years which is how I know you are overdue. You could at this point wipe with ordinary alcohol and cloth and hear a big improvement. In fact you should try something just like that just to see for yourself.

Right now I am working on doing a thorough review and evaluation of Perfect Path Solutions Total Contact. TC has been around for a while but its gone through different editions and it seems no one yet has given this anywhere near the quality level review it deserves. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

If some believe removing cables need time to recover sonicly how can you judge adding or subtracting cables to improve things when the benefits or down falls take a few days to hear.

Well its true, and it isn’t. Its true because, well one time Definitive let me audition a Linn phono stage, but only overnight. So I get home and of course its cold and sounds like crap. Even after a couple hours, pure crap. They wanted it back by 9AM and I almost boxed it right up but decided to leave it on overnight. Next day, it was like a completely different animal. Not for me, but at least now I could understand how it might be, for someone.

But it isn’t true, because a) that’s rare and b) its hours not months and c) its a known known. I know it happens. Even better, I know the fundamental character of the component always comes through even right out of the box.

Its natural to be asking questions because this is all mind-blowing and new right now. I can still recall, though back when I went through it there wasn’t even an internet to find anyone to share it with. There was like, one guy, literally one guy. Why there are still all these years later people wandering around pretending these things aren’t happening, playing their own little part in preventing what should be common knowledge from becoming common, that to me is the real question.

Do you live in Illinois? 

Cardas also says things like this below from their website. Note that any standing voltage is DC (music is AC). However, if I take a fairly inexpensive 2 meter interconnect I have lying around that has not been connected up to anything in months, load it with 100K ohms (higher than most inputs), and hook that up to a 6.5 digit Agilent 34465 meter, I measure <10uV, or at least 100db on a 1V signal, and lower than the offset of any practical amplifier. Of course, the source is likely around 2K, so that 10uV, would be much less.

There are many factors that make cable break-in necessary and many reasons why the results vary. If you measure a new cable with a voltmeter you will see a standing voltage because good dielectrics make poor conductors. They hold a charge much like a rubbed cat’s fur on a dry day. It takes a while for this charge to equalize in the cable. Better cables often take longer to break-in. The best "air dielectric" techniques, such as PFA tube construction, have large non-conductive surfaces to hold charge, much like the cat on a dry day.

Also said this, yet I can put an unused interconnect in front of a speaker playing loud, load one end with 2K (mainly to shunt RF via AC), plug the other end to the AP, and not measure anything above -120db except a spike at 60Hz if the cable is not routed properly?

Cable that has a standing charge is measurably more microphonic and an uneven distribution of the charge causes something akin to structural return loss in a rising impedance system

Cardas makes a lot of other claims, and like the ones above, while there is truth in them, it is the old "lie and statistics" thing. Let’s take that standing voltage thing. I measured <10uV. Cardas says in their marketing blurb, MV (millivolt range, or 100 times more). Who is telling the truth??? We both are. The difference is, I loaded the cable with a rather unrealistic 100K load. I should have loaded it with say 10K to represent a worst case source impedance. That would have brought it down to say 1uV or 1000 times less than Cardas’ marketing number. What did Cardas use? ... likely the input impedance of their meter, perhaps 10 meg (million) ohms. A completely unrealistic number for an interconnect, and a ridiculous number for a speaker cable to power cable.

For a microphone cable with low signal levels and high impedance, micro-phonics is an issue. Teflon being stiffer than say foamed PP/PE (or an air dielectric) is potentially much less susceptible to microphonics as you have less moving of the conductors, which causes pumping of the voltage as with any capacitor if you keep the charge constant. Of course in microphones you often have microphones with a high DC bias which forms a way higher charge on the cable than any "standing charge" ... many orders of magnitude.

You never really get all the way there, you sort of keep halving the distance to zero. Some charge is always retained. It is generally in the MV range in a well settled cable.

To be fair, it is a valid concern for MM cables.

10db would be more a concert hall / outdoor venue figure, but completely possible

.

The venue was about 15 mil cu ft....a large warehouse space converted to studio use. It was right beside Lake Ontario (like about 40 ft away). We did the tech survey in February and shot in August. And we had recordings of the before and after, and tape don’t lie ( read ..tape provides a fairly objective view of the event unencumbered by the ear brain editing functions...).

George Cardas of Cardas Audio has stated many times that simply moving cables will degrade the sound and it will take several days for the sound to recover. 

It is always educational to hear the difference of an audio system at an audio show on day one as compared to the final day.

David Pritchard

It was just my imagination
Running away with me
It was just my imagination
Running away with me

It was just my imagination, once again
Running away with me
It was just my imagination
Running away with me

Depends on how many times you have heard Ted Denney tell you that if you move the cables, you have to wait days for them to settle ... as his excuse for never doing double blind tests, even though he has claimed he would, but then backed out.

I have synergistic research sx speaker cables, stealth audio v16 interconnects,and synergistic research atmosphere x level 3 power cables to all my equipment. I have experienced that if I just barely move any of the cables I can expect at least a 2day delay for the cables to finally sound better. Is this normal?

Uh, the claim was 10dB. Who cares about 1 dB? Answer at 11.

^^^^^^

A normal response would be "Oh sorry, did not realize humidity could impact the attenuation that much.".

Who cares? Most systems are too bright anyway.

Who cares? Most systems are too bright anyway.

Over typical listening temperatures, it does not make much differences, but w.r.t. humidity it can. Depending on the reference quoted, at 5 meters attenuation of 1db at 10KHz  at the right humidity level will happen. When you consider directed sound is only part of the total energy, the path lengths will average longer so higher than 1db at 10KHz is possible. That right humidity being ~20-25%.

With the exception of phono cables and interconnects specifically designed to filter, I guarantee you no interconnect is going to make a 1db change at 10Khz, and keep in mind this causes a change in direct/reflected energy.

Look, this is pretty simple ... you have not yet readjusted to your original set up. That can take time, so don't sweat it.

Humidity effects (Attenuation of high frequencies) on the sound in a room are very minimal. Just like temperature effects. Over very long distances they add up, though. Now, electric static charge is certainly an audiophile issue and related to humidity. I can’t help notice nobody’s answered by question why bowls of very cold water placed out in front of the speakers improve the sound.

>>>>>Yeah, right. Maybe if you live in the Okefenokee Swamp.

No, but if you live in say Arizona, or you don't humidify you house in a cool climate, then yes humidity can dip into the 10-30% range where frequencies can be attenuate in a large room, especially if you have a "lively" room total energy at higher frequencies is more dependent on bounces extending path length.  10db would be more a concert hall / outdoor venue figure, but completely possible.

>>>>>Yeah, right. Maybe if you live in the Okefenokee Swamp. 🐊

Gee, never realized that Toronto was in the Okefenonkee Swamp category of humidity swings ( Toronto being the location where we experienced this sort of phenomenon during a very script heavy shoot...the effect was not subtle and some scenes were re-shot as a result...).

I think if this happens, after turning off gear you've had on for months you should wait 2-3 days first.

I'm glad to hear some people tend to experience this problem, I  believe and respect others do not hear it. The issue is I know personally I experience total loss of bloom, bass, spl or energizing of the room or what ever you would like to call it.  All cables are many years old and fully broken in, ranging from JPS, Acoustic Zen, XLO Sig. and Harmonic Technology, so solid core, silver and copper. One thing mentioned is cleaning connections is something I haven't done in a year or so. If some believe removing cables need time to recover sonicly how can you judge adding or subtracting cables to improve things when the benefits or down falls take a few days to hear. My main system I rarely change things. Maybe it's best to set things up best you can and leave it alone and listen to music, it sounds good now

This wasn't moving cables. This was turning your amps off.


My class D amps take at least 2 days to come back.

taras22
Yup, humidity changes can produce 10 db swings in sound level. That being said the body does adjust somewhat so most of the time its not that obvious.

>>>>>Yeah, right. Maybe if you live in the Okefenokee Swamp. 🐊

delkal76 posts01-05-2020 11:58am

geoffkait- Another “audiophile oddity” is that unused cables in the listening room hurt the sound. Take them out of the room ASAP. Unused electronics in the room and musical instruments in the room also hurt the sound. No, I’m not hot doggin’ ya!

I would say that if someone thought having an unplugged cable sitting on a table would change the sound of their system it would be more than "odd". Same with unplugged components as long as they are not stacked high. But there is some truth to this statement when it comes to unused speakers. The cones can start moving "sucking up" some of the sound. While I don’t think this matters if it is just a small speaker or two in the back of the room........But people that have a "wall of speakers" set up and only listen to one at a time might be compromising their system.

>>>>>While those may be pretty thoughts they don’t happen to be true. Speakers are with certain rare exceptions too insensitive to respond to acoustic waves in the room. The reason having unused speakers in the room can be explained by the same theory why musical instruments or spare cables in the room degrade the sound. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “Are you out of mind?” The same for having cellphones in the room.
People proposed a long time ago that the tiny speaker in telephones was responsible for degrading the sound. But that can be easily disproven by removing the tiny speaker. You will find that the sound is still degraded by the speaker less phone. Cellphones degrade the sound too. Check it out. As for electronics sitting around unused, it’s easy enough to take them out of the room, no? 

The other thing that often happens when switching cables around is that cables that were, perhaps accidentally, in the right direction find themselves quite by accident in the wrong direction. What are the odds? Gotta be 50%. Or even just one cable of the pair. 

I've been experimenting with different cables between components. Nothing sounds right since trying to improve sound with new mix of cables. There is no bass and boring, highs are okay but life is gone from system. So I flipped everything back the way it was still sound horrible. Ran everything 24/7 for a couple days still no go. Let it run a couple more days dynamics are back and bass is full big and has tone again and enjoyable to listen to. Can someone tell me why this happens. I've also moved just speaker cables around without unhooking them and seen this happen, I don't get it.

Yes handling cables ruins sound quality. Usually very short term, minutes to hours, but it all depends on the handling and the time. Always try and disturb them as little as possible. Just jostling a cable a bit reaching around it is probably not something you'll ever notice. Removing it, rolling it up, stuffing it in a drawer, pulling it out a week later, that is more like what you heard and it can be awful and take a while to burn in again.

This is not BS. The time Caelin (Shunyata) came over he got grief from some audiophiles for handling his cables so carefully. They assumed he was being pretentious. He was just being careful. At a listening party with 20 people and only a few minutes per thing the last thing you want is all they hear is crap because you ruined it with your clumsy handling. Which evidently a lot of audiophiles routinely do.

This like everything else is something everyone can test very simply so there is no reason to go making a fool of yourself on the inter web, just go and listen. Its easy but its not simple. It does require thinking. Mostly you need to think and break it down into all the little things that are going on. Well maybe not all but at least the ones we know about.

So first there's the connection. Plugging and unplugging. This all by itself makes a difference. But don't take my word for it try it and see for yourself. Unplug and plug back in. One end at a time and move the rest as little as possible. 

Before the electrical contact had been established and burned in. Now it seems to be back in the same place but on a microscopic level its completely different than before. On a microscopic level all kinds of micro-arcs are zapping with the music, only now all different pathways. So there's that.

Then there's the cable itself, a combination of conductors and insulators. For this one use both hands and go end to end bending one section at a time back and forth. Do not unplug, just wiggle it enough to simulate removing and reinstalling only without unplugging. This will mess up the sound much more than the unplugging. Try it and see.

So whatever it is probably is more to do with the conductor/insulator relationship than the contacts. 

This is not me saying why. This is me saying this is something you can learn to figure out for yourself. If the scientific method teaches us anything its that science isn't something scientists do, science is something all of us can do. Its also something we can screw up at, but not it would seem any worse than the scientists themselves. So have at it!

So good job paulcreed, for listening and paying attention. Given that you heard and reported what you heard the way you did there's little doubt you will hear the rest. 

The other thing that may be in play here may be related to the generally microphonic nature of cable assemblies. Changing the position of cables could involve changing the curves the cable take, and this changes the tension across the cable which then changes the microphonics response of the system which then changes the sound.

Yup, humidity changes can produce 10 db swings in sound level. That being said the body does adjust somewhat so most of the time its not that obvious.

douglas_schroeder

+1

Bass doesn't magically disappear / reappear moving cables unless you have some serious issues with corrosion on your speaker contacts or on the AC contacts to your power amps. Some tube gear is overly sensitive to line voltage. Were there reasons you were playing your system quieter perhaps? Even humidity can make a difference in larger rooms depending on the humidity swing.

geoffkait- Another “audiophile oddity” is that unused cables in the listening room hurt the sound. Take them out of the room ASAP. Unused electronics in the room and musical instruments in the room also hurt the sound. No, I’m not hot doggin’ ya!

I would say that if someone thought having an unplugged cable sitting on a table would change the sound of their system it would be more than "odd". Same with unplugged components as long as they are not stacked high. But there is some truth to this statement when it comes to unused speakers. The cones can start moving  "sucking up" some of the sound. While I don’t think this matters if it is just a small speaker or two in the back of the room........But people that have a "wall of speakers" set up and only listen to one at a time might be compromising their system.

Another “audiophile oddity” is that unused cables in the listening room hurt the sound. Take them out of the room ASAP. Unused electronics in the room and musical instruments in the room also hurt the sound. No, I’m not hot doggin’ ya! 🌭

Some cables absolutely don’t like to be moved around and need a little time to settle back into a system. @geoffkait is right on this based on my experience.  This is especially true of power cables.  

Handling or moving cables, plugging and unplugging cables, changing cables can often change the sound. That is why I take cable comparisons and evaluations with a grain of salt. It is best to wait for the cables and the delicate electrical/mechanical connections to “settle in” once the cables are connected, maybe a few days. You have to consider the system as a whole. It is also suggested to clean all electrical contacts and use a contact enhancer of your choice. If the cables are NEW you might have to wait quite a while before they sound their best. Of course, as oft mentioned, for best results cables should undergo some advanced break-in procedure. You’ve also got cryogenics and cable elevators to consider. 

No, your cables did not sound worse; you needed to adjust once again after working with mixes of cables. Nothing unusual here. I build hundreds of systems literally, and what you are describing is common. It is called anchoring, and it's the inability to quickly shift allegiance to a new standard, sort of a hangover effect of the ears/mind. Many times I had the same experience you describe when rolling dozens of different sets of discrete opamps in DACs. Again, this is nothing out of the ordinary, but it is not electronics and cables changing performance. 

It also happens when speakers I have owned for years are put into the system. It used to take a week to get used to the different technology, even though I owned and used them many times back and forth in systems. Now, it still takes about 2 days to recapture the familiarity of the sound. 

Cables do not get magically better or worse with use. If you set them up exactly as they were initially, you got the same result as previously. You may disagree, but I am not going to argue about it.  :)