2. cables
  3. 1363769103

Have cables become somewhat of a snake-oil topic.

I've invested many tens of thousands in high end 2-channel home audio gear and cables. I'm also a musician who has recorded and created mixes in many of the top recording studios in LA, NY and Nashville. These studios most often use the highest quality power treatment, tube condenser microphones, pre-amps, EQ modules, AD/DA converters, compressors, monitors, etc. Obviously, the goal in a recording studio is to capture the realism of the live studio performance for both vocals and instruments, and create a final mix-down that highlights the natural subtle nuances of the performances of each musician.

With that said, my 20 years of informal research inside these studios says that virtually NONE invest in high priced specially stranded balanced interconnects or speaker cables. Instead, various models of a particular Japanese cable is considered the studio "gold standard" and is WIDELY used in the top studios across the country. Now any good mixing engineer is at least AS interested as any audiophile, in all the audio characteristics and variables we discuss ad nauseum in these A-gon threads. So if recording pros are willing to spend hundreds of thousands on electronics and speakers, to capture the natural and neutral sound of a musician's studio performance, why is it that expensive cabling is seen as the snake oil equivalent in the recording industry. (Moreover, I could go one step further and ask why some home audio D/A converters far exceed the cost of the most sought after professional studio D/A converters?.......we'll leave that for another discussion.)

I DO NOT disagree that substituting a Nordost, Siltech, Cardas or various other high end brands into my personal studio rig do not make a difference. There are indeed audible differences between the brands in terms of bass extension, smoothness, imaging, graininess, etc. However, these DIFFERENCES are not necessarily equivalent to an IMPROVEMENT in capturing the natural/neutral details of a given performance.

(I intentionally will not address the mastering process since that has everything to do with radio and marketing execs commercial sales expectations, rather than a true to life presentation of the musical performances.)
jymc
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Jymc,
I bought a couple of VH audio AirSines with Furutech FI-50 plugs and IECs. Stunning resolution, and they took a bit of a nasty nasal tone out of my Cary amps that I didn't know was there until I heard the amp with AirSines. There was also just a little bit of what Valin calls "scrim" that the AirSines rectified. Finally, there is a clear improvement in dynamics. I had a chance to use a friends AirSines for a couple of weeks and was very impressed. Based on that audition, I expect the Cary's will also exhibit a bit more warmth with some additional burn in. Having lived with my friend's AirSines for a couple of weeks, there was no way I was going to live without at least getting a couple for the Carys. Yes, they are expensive. But as I said, they are worth every penny.
gregm
3,409 posts
 
Hi Mezmo - yr point is well put
what exactly is some other wire plugged into the playback chain changing, or adding, or whatever?
Presumably, the idea is to lose as little as possible of whatever sonic info still remains on the medium (i.e. whatever escapes the compressions, the distortions, the filterings, zips cables, noise, (re-)masterings... etc)...
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Hi Brownsfan,
Have these power cords produced similar impressive results with your linestage and other components or just specifically your Cary amolifiers?
Regards,
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Charles1dad,
Good question. Let me start by saying that I was able to borrow 4 AirSines from my friend for 2 weeks, which gave me a good bit of time to switch cords around and see what mixture of the AirSines plus my existing cords gave the best overall result. Based on that evaluation, the AirSines made the biggest difference with the Carys, so my initial purchase was for two AirSines for that purpose.

I found that I liked my Voodoo Vector Dragon with my modwright sony power supply about as well as the AirSine, and liked those two cords better than anything else I had at my disposal. I tried a half a dozen power cords going to the ModWright Sony CD player per se, and I couln't hear a shread of difference in any of them. So I left the existing PC in place for that piece, which was a VH Audio flavor 3. The Airsine was also very good (the best of all the cords) going to my Audio Magic power filter, which supplies power to the ModWright gear and the Line Stage.
That gave me an opportunity to try all the cords with the Coincident line stage. Three stood out as being good with the CSL. The AirSine, the Voodoo, and an old PS Audio Statement I had. Keeping in mind that the CSL was not (and is not) fully burned in, I preferred the PS Audio, AirSine, and Voodoo in that order. I thought the PS Audio gave better dynamics, but the AirSine allowed the CSL to exhibit a bit more complexity in the upper harmonics. I would want to reevaluate after I have 300 hours on the CSL before drawing any firm conclusions, and I would love to have access to a Coincident PC as well. But I can say that I heard clear differences with the different cords to the CSL.
zenblaster
504 posts
 
I just spent 2.3K on two power cords. Yes, they are that good, worth every penny, and they won't be going back. Got another Power cord that runs about 700 that is only marginally better than a $60 cord from Signal Cable

If you had to scale the the $60- Signal Cable vs the cable you bought for 2.3k on a 1-100 scale how would you score them. Is the expensive cable making your system 10% better? 2 or 3 points better? Of course it is all system dependent. Also, is the power cord for amp, pre or other?
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