2. cables
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Opening a can of worms

Here is the can filled with opinions. It's been hashed and rehashed to infinity and beyond with no clear result. Since I am a seeker of truth I'll post my thoughts here for the yea and naysayers to debate over. Question is: Are expensive speaker or any other cable in a system worth the exorbitant cost over a reasonably priced cable loom? I thought I'd  experiment myself to find out. My comparison is between Transparent Ultra cable loom and Blue Jeans cable loom on a pure stereo system comprised of Proceed PAV,  Proceed PDSD,  Krell Kav 250, Musical Fidelity A3cd, Sony Ps4300 TT and B&W 803D2 speakers. All sources were used by this experiment using identical playback material. Cables had in excess of 200 hrs burn time and all were identical in lenght. The only variation were the connector manufacturers.
One change that occurred during this 4 week long endeavor was that I'm firmly seated on the sharpest picket on the fence.
My result is that I'm now a believer that there are audible differences in cables. I also believe that these differences are minute and one has to really listen carefully and for a long time to discern these differences.
Now to the crutch of the matter, $$$$$, As we all know Transparent Cables would reside in the upper tier of Audio Cable expense.  Blue Jeans Cable on the other hand falls into the lowest tier of expense (well maybe not lowest but low nontheless )
One would think then that the Transparent would be far superior to the BJs. Not really! Yes the highs were a little cleaner, mids a little tighter and lows a tad more pronounced but not by as much as one would expect. Soundstage was somewhat more open and airy and depth was somewhat more defined with the higher priced cable but again less than one would expect. 

Now for my personal opinion regarding the cable debate: expensive cable looms are slightly better than reasonable priced looms, if a dollar equals a penny to you then by all means opt for the higher priced loom, if a penny equals a penny don't be ashamed for opting for the best you can do. The differences are so minute that it's not worth going into debt over. BOTH looms sounded superb on my test system and I would be happy with either loom.

Now let the debate begin, just know I'm a fence sitter and not in one camp or the other
128x128gillatgh
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,901 posts
 
@greg22lz The more I read and hear about the Tekton speakers, the more they remind me of my old Tonian Labs TL-D1s. They were so revealing of anything upstream that what would be considered small changes here and there amounted to significant differences in the resulting sound. 

Fuses and cable swap outs resulted in obvious changes in tone, timbre, ambiance and depth, or see through, as I call it. Even footers made a noticeable difference. I used to love Herbie's tenderfeet but with the Tonians, I had to take them out and just perch the gear directly on the maple shelves. It was just a bit too foggy with them. 

Anyhow, keep on keeping on and tweak away as long as you can hear the difference. 

All the best,
Nonoise
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geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 

greg22lz
@kosst_amojan well, no, a scientist would actually take information, such as here about cables, and see an opportunity for new reasearch instead of pigeonhole everyone who hears differences as deluded, so no you are more of a pseudo scientist, with an attitude. That’s really the difference!

in krosst’s defense, he is not the only pseudo scientist with an attitude. That is pretty much the trademark of pseudo scientists. Think of Lee J Cobb, Juror #2 in 12 Angry Men. "But you can’t prove it!" 😀 Having had the benefit of many years of stalking by angry pseudo scientists on a mission, I think I can safely say the only one who didn’t have an attitude was The Amazing Randi. He let his vigilantes do all the ranting and attacking. Randi himself was always a gentleman. 😬

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica
advanced audio concepts
we do artificial atoms right!
itzhak1969
515 posts
 
Sceientifics can not make valid tests with cables because there is no valid tests to check the human hearing ! how can they measure things like seperation between instruments, soundstage, details, brightness, refinement, transparency ... so on ???
These who don’t hear difference between cables are semi-deaf and not audiophiles, they will probably not hear difference between good recording to a bad one neither berween good hi fi components to lousy ones.
So all the ones claim there is no difference between cables will never admit their hearing is not sensitive/ skilled enough it’s more easy for them to jump to a false conclusion that there is no difference. Maybe all of us that do hear differences between cables are making things from our imagination and should be lock up in an institute and receive aggresive treatment to cure us from this psychotic probem ...
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