2. cables
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a great take on big$ cables

i was talkin to a friend about cables & wire's & no matter how hard i try to tell him its not needed he wont budge because he has heard that big buck wires are the way to go,i even showed him this web page & after reading it his response was this "if they didnt work then why would they sell them" after talking for hours i gave up & gave him a demo,he heard no difference & neither did i but he still believe's.

there isnt alot of info published on wires except by manufacturer's so i thought i'd post this so every body could enjoy it.

this is a link to roger russell's web site where he gives his thought's on wire's & cable's & reports on blind testing that was done,if your not familuar with him he was a audio engineer for many years & from some of the gear i own that he designed i'd say a damm fine engineer too.

if you are of the belief that big buck cable's are not worth using you may get a chuckle but if your a firm believer then you might be bummed out,anyway's here's the link if you care to read about wire's.

{http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm}
128x128bigjoe
serus
93 posts
 
Pabelson:
But I do know why it sounds different.
No, you mean you ASSUME. Based on what? Absolute self-appointed authority?
It sounds different because you don't even bother to level-match before you do comparisons. Or it "sounds" different because you imagine it to sound different. That's the science you don't know. Go learn it.
I'll let you level match the boombox to the main system. I'll bring my own sig gen, scope and distortion analyzer for you to do a better job. If you want, I'll calculate the Fourier transform for you on paper, how about that?
Still think I don't know what I'm saying?
A scientific approach is based on observations, forming a theory and then showing that the theory predicts correctly other events, not forming the "super theory" and sticking to it no matter what.
Trouble is that with all that engineering knowledge I cannot ignore obvious OBSERVATIONS and you do. That's the only scientific difference, having an inquiring mind or dismissing what does not "fit our theory" based on "assumptions" like the quoted post (in its entirety - no editing).
pabelson
344 posts
 
Serus: You're the one who's ignoring observations. You're ignoring all the cases where people have claimed to hear differences where there really were none to be heard (like where the switch wasn't flipped). Ignoring half the data is not the way to good science, my friend.
steverw
30 posts
 
Cables that have larger capacitive or inductive characteristics than plain old speaker wire could act as filters on the audio signal, shifting it's tonal balance.

If you've ever messed around putting caps and resistors in a phono stage to match a cartridge, its likely you've heard the difference these reactive circuit elements can make, for example moving the perceived depth of someone's voice forward or backward in the soundstage.

I think this is a physical effect, not imaginary.
pabelson
344 posts
 
Stever: You're absolutely right. And no one's ever claimed otherwise. All that's been claimed is that one brand of 12-gauge copper cable sounds exactly like another. If you want to make cables sound different, you have to make them *very* different--greatly increase resistance, or monkey around with capacitance and/or inductance. The former will attenuate the overall level of the signal, while the latter can cause frequency response roll-offs. Why you'd want a cable that wasn't flat is beyond me, but there's no accounting for taste.

BTW, weren't you the guy who was planning to audition Transparent cables? You might want to take a look at what they're really made of:

http://cable.tcnerd.com/whymit.asp
serus
93 posts
 
Pabelson:
You're ignoring all the cases where people have claimed to hear differences
Did I at any time claim that these "people" are right?!
Let's be very clear about this: I'm only responsible for my own observations or claims and have no desire to defend someone I don't even know.
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