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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.