# Audiophile Audiophoolery



## TrickyRicky

LOL I watched this EEV blog video on youtube a while back and totally forgot about it. Then I saw it again today and I just have to say.....damn he nailed it right on the head.

Take a look below.






You guys just have to take a look at it, trust me you'll never be the same. This applies to any AUDIO equipment.


Love the last minute of the video, "you'll hear the difference, just dont expect your friends too." lol.


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## minbari

love it! I will say, there are diffrence in cables. but you have to go super cheap to hear it. the $3 walmart ones are niosey compared to $15 ones. but that is the limit to what I will put on cables. kimber Kable is prolly who he is refering to. $16k for a 1 meter pair of RCA for thier most expensive series..........stupid!


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## TrickyRicky

Correct, I agree with the differences between cheap interconnects and good quality interconnects, but I'll never spend any more than 35bucks on RCA's (I usually stick with 5or 6m).

But same goes for any piece of audio equipment, as Dave mentioned in the vid above..... now even electrolytic caps mention their "AUDIO" Grade. Who here knows better than Dave?


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## Neil_J

EEVblog is great stuff, even if Dave is a bit biased and set in his ways (but what engineer isn't?). If you're looking to buy a scope or a DMM, his test equipment shootouts are priceless.


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## TrickyRicky

Yep, I've watch probably half of his vids on youtube (some are pretty long).


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## Neil_J

There was an audio myths workshop video on YouTube by the guy with the bass trap company, I'll see if I can dig that one up. It's been posted quite a few times here, but one of the most informative videos ever made on the subject of audio.


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## TrickyRicky

Must be this vid.


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## Neil_J

TrickyRicky said:


> Must be this vid.


Yea, that's the one.


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## Bumpin' Goalie

The last 12 seconds are words of wisdom.


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## trumpet

I subscribed to his YouTube channel a few months ago. Dave makes some great videos.


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## TrickyRicky

Am glad am not the only one that watches his vids. His videos are very educational. I also watch other youtube vids from afrotechs, thecoolchem, speakerguy and some other members that mess with old school electronics.


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## adrenalinejunkie

He had me crackin' up. I'll have to check out the rest of his videos. Thanks
P.S. Are these, "afrotechs, thecoolchem, speakerguy" the usernames of the channels? Will have to find out in a bit. If not, links would be nice. Thanks again.


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## Neil_J

adrenalinejunkie said:


> P.S. Are these, "afrotechs, thecoolchem, speakerguy" the usernames of the channels? Will have to find out in a bit. If not, links would be nice. Thanks again.


Yep. Youtube has a partnership program that sends you some of their ad money to support you making videos. Quite a few have invested quite a bit of time and some cash and made some truly awesome channels.

Some of the funniest are the survivalist / apocalypse prepper channels. I have no problem with being prepared, but some of these guys just look and act like total crazies :rolleyes2: Great entertainment value :laugh:


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## TrickyRicky

cooldudeclem, afrotechmods, cassettemaster, eevblog, hexibas, drjctu, neekstv, allamericanfiveradio - This are some of the channels I watch, I spell the names correctly so you can see/find their vids/channels.

All of them are related to electronics/audio. I missing a few channels that deal with speakers - which is about a young guy messing with vintage/old speakers. Anything he can find, sometimes he mentions about speakers he finds in trash piles or flea market. Good vids, very entertaining and educational.


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## ChrisB

I think we all fell for some audiophool terminology at some point in this hobby.  Some wise up whereas others continue to be suckered out of their money in a marketing scheme that is no better than your typical Nigerian email scam. I'm still waiting for the real ballers to show off their custom amplifiers with solid gold circuit board traces. 

For an interesting read, see this as stolen from another thread: NwAvGuy


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## trumpet

TrickyRicky said:


> cooldudeclem, afrotechmods, cassettemaster, eevblog, hexibas, drjctu, neekstv, allamericanfiveradio -


I unsubscribed from cooldudeclem because he's so godawful awkward on camera. Hexibase lost my interest because of not enough car audio videos, but I do check in on his channel now and then.


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## Kh2456

That guy is so annoying. I watched 30 seconds of the vid and almost killed myself. :computer:


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## Salad Fingers

Twisted pair and directional cables with a drain wire is snake oil? I agree with everything else, but not sure about bringing those two things in to the mix. They seem like they have valid benefits. Now, $500 for it, no. But $30 or $50, yea sure. I also will pay more for an RCA based on the heads and what they look like. I LOVE the old Stinger Expert RCAs, super heavy metal heads and sexy design.


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## Neil_J

Salad Fingers said:


> Twisted pair and directional cables with a drain wire is snake oil? I agree with everything else, but not sure about bringing those two things in to the mix. They seem like they have valid benefits. Now, $500 for it, no. But $30 or $50, yea sure. I also will pay more for an RCA based on the heads and what they look like. I LOVE the old Stinger Expert RCAs, super heavy metal heads and sexy design.


Directional cables ARE snake oil... I'm talking about the kind that have been "burned in", the kind that boasts nonsense like, "conductors are actually a sea of microscopic diodes". Where people think they sound better in one direction than the other. 

There's nothing bad about having a shield connected to a drain wire on on end of the cable, though. I do that both in my car and all the miles of aircraft cabling use at my job.


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## Salad Fingers

Neil_J said:


> Directional cables ARE snake oil... I'm talking about the kind that have been "burned in", the kind that boasts nonsense like, "conductors are actually a sea of microscopic diodes". Where people think they sound better in one direction than the other.
> 
> There's nothing bad about having a shield connected to a drain wire on on end of the cable, though. I do that both in my car and all the miles of aircraft cabling use at my job.


Oh wow, never heard of that before. I'm not in to nor do I care about home audio, so I probably miss out on most of the cable snake oil.


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## Neil_J

Salad Fingers said:


> Oh wow, never heard of that before. I'm not in to nor do I care about home audio, so I probably miss out on most of the cable snake oil.


Yea.. Electrons don't really car which way they go down a wire. It's AC anyway, if their pitch held true, they'd end up clipping half their signal. How's that for audiophile quality?


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## chad

Neil_J said:


> Directional cables ARE snake oil... I'm talking about the kind that have been "burned in", the kind that boasts nonsense like, "conductors are actually a sea of microscopic diodes". Where people think they sound better in one direction than the other.
> 
> *There's nothing bad about having a shield connected to a drain wire on on end of the cable, though. I do that both in my car and all the miles of aircraft cabling use at my job.*




Thank you for clarifying that. and as Neil noted it IS a standard for cables to be directional, just not in terms of electron flow 

Kinda tough to screw that up with an XLR but for 1/4" and RCA, direction should be noted.


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## TrickyRicky

Also twisted wires serve no purpose unless you have a balanced signal....I'd say about 85% of the members here have unbalanced so the twisted RCA's are useless. They do look pretty though but thats it.

Also had a conversation with my brother-in-law about power wire. He mentioned the welding wire they use is about 4g and has very tiny strands and lots of them when compared to my Stinger 400series 1/0 gauge wire. He also mentioned the jacket on my wire is twice as thick as welding wire, but mentioned welding wire has a though jacket and has met certain critiria in the industry. He was pretty much saying the wire I had was an "over-kill" on both rating and jacket size. I only got it cause it was a fraction of the retail.


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## chad

I just use welding cable, another reason is that welco-flex (Harris) has a jacket, and a teflon inner jacket it makes it SUPER flexible, like wet noodle flexible.


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## SQfreak

I have no idea what you guys are talking about!! I only get the best SQ's from solid silver, 2" thick, single stranded, cryo-frozen RCA's that were blessed with holy water from Buddhist monk then dried in direct sunlight at the equator. The sold gold RCA tips with emerald dust inlay also help create an open and airy soundstage with out masking the crisp upper dynamics of the mid-level tonality. 

Pssshhtt and that guy says Im the crazy one? Wha'evah!


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## TrickyRicky

I remember seeing this interview that a news reporter did a while back. It was on a crazy lady (well they didn't label her crazy) and her magical water. She explained the process to make the magical water.

1- Get water from niagra falls
2- Place it in a blessed container (must be glass)
3- Place as many geniune diamonds as you wish (the more the better results)
4- Leave it in a dark place for 48hrs then in direct sunlight for 12hrs
5- Rub the water all over your body and feel the magical translusant feeling


Oh yeah by the way the crazy ***** sells the bottled water (with diamonds) for "very very expensive" atleast that's what she stated. Also stated "Around 10,000 for a bottle..... because it has real diamonds" lol.


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## Salad Fingers

TrickyRicky said:


> I remember seeing this interview that a news reporter did a while back. It was on a crazy lady (well they didn't label her crazy) and her magical water. She explained the process to make the magical water.
> 
> 1- Get water from niagra falls
> 2- Place it in a blessed container (must be glass)
> 3- Place as many geniune diamonds as you wish (the more the better results)
> 4- Leave it in a dark place for 48hrs then in direct sunlight for 12hrs
> 5- Rub the water all over your body and feel the magical translusant feeling
> 
> 
> Oh yeah by the way the crazy ***** sells the bottled water (with diamonds) for "very very expensive" atleast that's what she stated. Also stated "Around 10,000 for a bottle..... because it has real diamonds" lol.


Replace the water in step one with a three to one ratio of your urine to yeti semen. Then use it for bong water, and WOOOOOOW!!!!!










What a stupid *****.


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## Kpg2713

Where can I get some of this yeti semen? LOL!


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## djkomplex

I laugh when these places try to get me to buy crazy expensive HDMI cables saying they don't get noise and this and that and I say to them "It's a digital signal, its either a 1 or a 0, so your telling me the 0 is slightly fuzzy?"


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## TrickyRicky

djkomplex said:


> I laugh when these places try to get me to buy crazy expensive HDMI cables saying they don't get noise and this and that and I say to them "It's a digital signal, its either a 1 or a 0, so your telling me the 0 is slightly fuzzy?"


LOL no doubt. I buy my HDMI's and Composite cables online and dirt cheap. I bought some rocketfish (dont know if the brand is good or cheap) HDMI's for 6.00 shipped to my door and the quality looks excellent and the composite cables had high quality connectors, they look like 80.00 cables but my price... same as the HDMI... 6 bucks.


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## Neil_J

TrickyRicky said:


> LOL no doubt. I buy my HDMI's and Composite cables online and dirt cheap. I bought some rocketfish (dont know if the brand is good or cheap) HDMI's for 6.00 shipped to my door and the quality looks excellent and the composite cables had high quality connectors, they look like 80.00 cables but my price... same as the HDMI... 6 bucks.


Rocketfish is Best Buy's in-house brand. Formally called "Dynex"


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## TrickyRicky

Dont know but the ones I got look pretty darn expensive, especially after visiting BestBuy or such stores. Crazy how I can get them for 6 bucks, that reminds me some guy on ebay was selling some hi-end Stinger RCA's for 18bucks and it was 6 pairs (they were NOS, back then they retailed 60bucks if not more each- just to show they where good quality connectors at a killer price).


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## Neil_J

$1.97 on monoprice, but $6 at a brick & mortar store isn't to shabby


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## chad

Neil_J said:


> $1.97 on monoprice, but $6 at a brick & mortar store isn't to shabby


But it's impossible to go to monoprice's site and NOT spend 75-100 dollars.

I've tried.


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## TommyTuffnuts

I've heard rumors that monoprice cables are made in the same factory that makes monster cable


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## Neil_J

TommyTuffnuts said:


> I've heard rumors that monoprice cables are made in the same factory that makes monster cable


Yes, but only the Monster cables get sprinkled with magic unicorn dust before going through QA.


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## Midwestrider

Thanks to the OP for vid, good channel to view thanks!
And Salad this made me chuckle.



Salad Fingers said:


> Replace the water in step one with a three to one ratio of your urine to yeti semen. Then use it for bong water, and WOOOOOOW!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What a stupid *****.


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## captainobvious

Neil_J said:


> $1.97 on monoprice, but $6 at a brick & mortar store isn't to shabby


I've been using monoprice for some time now after hearing about them on these boards long ago. Excellent prices on cables of all kinds. DONT pay the bloated prices for speaker wire at any other retailer.


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## captainobvious

chad said:


> But it's impossible to go to monoprice's site and NOT spend 75-100 dollars.
> 
> I've tried.


Truth!

But you get alot of sh!t for your $75 !


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## Spyke

LOL. I really started laughing when he was talking about the power cable. Never heard that one before.


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## Spyke

Anyone order from parts express? Pretty easy to lose a hundred there too.


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## putergod

TrickyRicky said:


> Also twisted wires serve no purpose unless you have a balanced signal....I'd say about 85% of the members here have unbalanced so the twisted RCA's are useless. They do look pretty though but thats it.


Twisted pair cables also help reject noise. So there is a benefit.



djkomplex said:


> I laugh when these places try to get me to buy crazy expensive HDMI cables saying they don't get noise and this and that and I say to them "It's a digital signal, its either a 1 or a 0, so your telling me the 0 is slightly fuzzy?"


Actually, you are right, to a point, but "good" HDMI cables DO matter. I buy "cheap" HDMI cables as well, but I buy "good" cheap HDMI cables... While the 1 or 0 will not "be slightly fuzzy", what does happen if the cables are "too cheap", i.e. not up to par, is bits will get dropped/lost. Pixilation will occur - or loss of pixels. I buy the heavy gauge cables from monoprice, and they work fabulously.


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## Gary S

minbari said:


> I will say, there are diffrence in cables. but you have to go super cheap to hear it. the $3 walmart ones are niosey compared to $15 ones.


 - Yes, some of those cheap cables that come with equipment are made of metallic thread - it's not even real wire. I just buy the cheapest twisted pair I can find these days.


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## simplicityinsound

just saw this lol i love the part about the power cables and the fact that the cables in the house is prolly ****...i always wondered about that myself lol


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## Spyke

putergod said:


> Twisted pair cables also help reject noise. So there is a benefit.
> 
> 
> Actually, you are right, to a point, but "good" HDMI cables DO matter. I buy "cheap" HDMI cables as well, but I buy "good" cheap HDMI cables... While the 1 or 0 will not "be slightly fuzzy", what does happen if the cables are "too cheap", i.e. not up to par, is bits will get dropped/lost. Pixilation will occur - or loss of pixels. I buy the heavy gauge cables from monoprice, and they work fabulously.


No sir. They did a test between some really expensive hdmi cables and then used coat hangers as conductors and got the same results. Like he said it's a 0 or a 1, no magic involved. I will say that I would rather use mid priced rca's and hdmi's just for the build quality.


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## minbari

I would like to see the HDMI coat hanger test. stuff moving at 10+mbps is different than RCA cables at less than 20khz.


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## Spyke

Google it, There's a lot of pages on it. One was done using monster cables but other people copied the test using other brands.


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## putergod

Spyke said:


> No sir. They did a test between some really expensive hdmi cables and then used coat hangers as conductors and got the same results. Like he said it's a 0 or a 1, no magic involved. I will say that I would rather use mid priced rca's and hdmi's just for the build quality.


A coat hanger is a mighty thick piece of metal.

Try using a bread twisty tie...

On really short runs, doesn't usually matter; but for longer runs, very small gauge, crappy cables tend to cause pixelation. I've seen it myself. No magic involved at all, but it's really no different than ethernet cables. Try running gigabit on cat 5 (not cat 5e) over 100 feet and see how much packet loss you get. That's also just 1's and 0's, and HDMI carries a high bandwidth.


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## Spyke

Perhaps shielding has something to do with it. In a 100ft run i'm sure there's a lot that can go wrong.


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## captainobvious

putergod said:


> A coat hanger is a mighty thick piece of metal.
> 
> Try using a bread twisty tie...
> 
> On really short runs, doesn't usually matter; but for longer runs, very small gauge, crappy cables tend to cause *pixelation*. I've seen it myself. No magic involved at all, but it's really no different than ethernet cables. Try running gigabit on cat 5 (not cat 5e) over 100 feet and see how much packet loss you get. That's also just 1's and 0's, and HDMI carries a high bandwidth.


 
Define pixelation.


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## putergod

Pixels are missing from the picture. Some call it snow, or "fuzziness", but ultimately, it's just missing pixels. It's 1's and 0's that get "lost".


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## sbeezy

^ do you mean Macroblocking?


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## putergod

^ No


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## ecrimjr

Interesting video. I come at this from an audiophile perspective having sold high end audio equipment for a number of years. I agree that my biggest peave is that cost of gear and equipment is out of control. But he is wrong if he implies that cables do not make a difference in a good home audio system. The phoolery is the cost of purchasing said wire. I'm not sure at all about what causes the differences in sound between cables though. He manufacturer of wire puts together their own explanation about the "technology". I've had friends here the difference. The question is whether they think the difference is worth the cost. Some do but many do not. I do agree that spending more does not equal better or more transparent sound and I have used wire as cheap as radio shack hook up wire in some applications that sounded pretty decent. The car environment is much more treacherous however and noise isolation is a primary consideration in that application.


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## ecrimjr

One other thing. Most of the audio guys as well as publications would say that coaxial digital cables sound superior to optical not the other way around as he says in his video.
The main problem is that high end audio decided that they all wanted the wall street banker as the customer to sustain their business and the profit on many of their products is so high that they only need to sell a hand full of them.

On the other end of the spectrum, many people have been listening to compromised compressed digital music now for so long they really do not know what a good high quality system sounds like. The market seems to focus mostly on convenience and features. This seems particularly true in car audio from what I have seen so far. Most of these players on the market get the macro dynamics right but not the micro dynamics.
Just my humble opinion.


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## Hillbilly SQ

I've gotta give my opinion and findings on good wire vs bad wire. Some of the crap they sell gets breaks in the wire itself far too easily and that will degrade the sound. It will also corrode at the drop of a hat. I have personally quit using real speakerwire. In my truck I use mostly 4-way flat trailer wire. If it can hold up to decades of getting thrashed around by weather, towing, and safety chains without needing replaced it's good enough to be used for speakerwire. The copper is pure and it doesn't corrode. It's also very flexible with a tough thin jacket that can run through the tightest places like molex plugs that are in quite a few of todays vehicles. Or run into a door panel between the metal and panel without being intrusive or very noticable. Automotive wire while not as flexible seems to work just as well when it comes to not corroding and keeping its integrity. For powerwire I try my hardest to use only pure copper stranded wire. I don't care how it looks as long as it will pass the test of time. rca's it all comes down to getting good cables at low prices. I got a Stinger Expert Series 4ch cable a few years ago for under $20 shipped to my door. Can't beat that.


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## jp88

putergod said:


> Twisted pair cables also help reject noise. So there is a benefit.
> .


Twisted pair work very well with balanced line signals it is fairly useless with unbalanced signals. Coax would be a better choice for unbalanced signals.


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## Sound Suggestions

ecrimjr said:


> One other thing. Most of the audio guys as well as publications would say that coaxial digital cables sound superior to optical not the other way around as he says in his video.
> The main problem is that high end audio decided that they all wanted the wall street banker as the customer to sustain their business and the profit on many of their products is so high that they only need to sell a hand full of them.
> 
> On the other end of the spectrum, many people have been listening to compromised compressed digital music now for so long they really do not know what a good high quality system sounds like. The market seems to focus mostly on convenience and features. This seems particularly true in car audio from what I have seen so far. Most of these players on the market get the macro dynamics right but not the micro dynamics.
> Just my humble opinion.


epper: Jackpot! agree with you 100%


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## flecom

I love that guys videos

I love the part where he complains that they are selling directional power cables... uh... pretty sure all power cables only work in one direction! :laugh:

as far as "directional" audio cables generally it refers to which side of the cable the shield is attached to... in a properly designed cable you have a pair of shielded conductors and only one side of the shield is attached to ground (usually the source)

we did an ABX comparison of a pair of cables at a hifi shop, one cable I brought, and one they used for the comparison... my cable was made of mogami starquad and neutrik XLR connectors... theirs was some crazy audiophool stuff...

a couple of us did the test using some 250k speakers, 50k amps blah blah

and we could notice a slight difference between the two, got a pretty good success rate at identifying which cable was which 

difference is mine cost me about $20 to make, the one they were using had an MSRP of $25,000(!!!)

the difference was minimal, and definitely not worth the $24,980 difference


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## Neil_J

flecom said:


> I love that guys videos
> 
> I love the part where he complains that they are selling directional power cables... uh... pretty sure all power cables only work in one direction! :laugh:
> 
> as far as "directional" audio cables generally it refers to which side of the cable the shield is attached to... in a properly designed cable you have a pair of shielded conductors and only one side of the shield is attached to ground (usually the source)


Read my post #19 and #21 from this thread (quoted below). There are companies that ARE actually telling people that the physical copper (or otherwise) conductor sounds better in one direction than the other. I'm not making that up, you can google it. But yes, I agree 100% with you that there are people in this world with more money than brains.




Neil_J said:


> Directional cables ARE snake oil... I'm talking about the kind that have been "burned in", the kind that boasts nonsense like, "conductors are actually a sea of microscopic diodes". Where people think they sound better in one direction than the other.
> 
> There's nothing bad about having a shield connected to a drain wire on on end of the cable, though. I do that both in my car and all the miles of aircraft cabling use at my job.





Neil_J said:


> Yea.. Electrons don't really car which way they go down a wire. It's AC anyway, if their pitch held true, they'd end up clipping half their signal. How's that for audiophile quality?


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## flecom

Neil_J said:


> Read my post #19 and #21 from this thread (quoted below). There are companies that ARE actually telling people that the physical copper (or otherwise) conductor sounds better in one direction than the other. I'm not making that up, you can google it. But yes, I agree 100% with you that there are people in this world with more money than brains.


no no, trust me I've seen all the claims, my favorite are the line level cables that have inline "filters" for clarity... "upgradable" cables, all sorts of crazy...

I asked a guy once that really believed in this stuff if he honestly believed they used $25k interconnects in a studio, he went off on some tirade about who knows what...

I make all my own cables using Mogami and Canare wire, Canare/Neutrik/Switchcraft connectors... you know, the stuff you find in a nice studio...

and none of it is particularly expensive...

Canare even makes some really nice crimp type RCA's for 75ohm coax that actually maintain their impedance unlike a normal RCA which is great for S/PDIF/composite/component etc


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## evilspoons

jp88 said:


> Twisted pair work very well with balanced line signals it is fairly useless with unbalanced signals. Coax would be a better choice for unbalanced signals.


Yeah. The reason for twisted pair is so that each wire gets subjected to exactly the same noise. You can then subtract one signal from the other to get a clean signal with next to no noise.

If they're not doing differential signalling, the wires being twisted means absolutely nothing at all.


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## chad1376

I used to read _The Absoulute Sound_ back in the early '90's. From what I remember, here's a few of some of the high dollar gimicks they favorably reviewed.

- Prismatic Foil Stickers: to be placed inside of component cases, and on items like capacitors, transformers etc. They didn't address what exactly the foil was supposed to do, but they could hear some improvement.

- 3" Teak Pucks: to be placed on speaker cabinets, and atop component cases to optimize harmonous resonances. OK, maybe there's a tiny bit of merit to this, but if I remember correctly, these pucks were several hundred dollars apeice.

- Pointy Sticks, held at ear level by high dollar stands: to be placed between the speakers and listener, outside the soundstage. Supposedly these noticeably opened up (or tightened up) the soundstage.

I joked at the time I could likely be sucessfull at marketing a heavy brushed aluminum component case with nothing but a heavy duty industrial switch and a battery powered LED on it: Claiming it would be absoulutely transparent and would not alter the the music signal in any way.


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## tima4h

The etching shape of the anode foil affects the loudness in intermediate low ranges determines the sound tendency, balance and orientation.

I nearly snorted lasagne out my nose when I read that I was laughing so hard


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## chad

evilspoons said:


> Yeah. The reason for twisted pair is so that each wire gets subjected to exactly the same noise. You can then subtract one signal from the other to get a clean signal with next to no noise.
> 
> If they're not doing differential signalling, the wires being twisted means absolutely nothing at all.


Correct and in order to do this each signal carrying wire must have the same impedance characteristics. This also makes sure they have the same amount of noise riding on them.


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## ecrimjr

Just commenting on the comments about power cables above. Power cables on home audio gear actually do serve to help filter out ac noise going both ways, that is from the wall (socket in to your equipment) and from your equipment (which can be a source of ac line noise) to the wall which can then effect the sound of other components in the system. It's the only cable that actually benefits from being longer. You usually want your interconnect and speaker cable to be as short as they can be in your home system to decrease the ability for noise to get into the system and to deal with signal impedance issues from your preamp to amp of from your amp to your speakers.
Beyond that they simply need to be large enough to be deliver the required current of the components. I'm more on the audiophile side of things as I sell high end audio equipment and I have been a hobbiest for a long time. I have heard differences between cables both interconnect and speaker cables but I believe in trying to find the best values for myself and my customers and I really don't like the pricing in the market. I think while part of the debate is about differences I think the other part of the issue is about pricing and the high end home audio market has gone nuts after CEO and wall street money and of course lots of joe the plumbers ( I mean that purely as a metaphor for the common man) get into the hobby trying to keep up with the Jones's. What I am saying is that much of the gear is priced to high.

I've owned a pair of MIT speaker cables with the network boxes. A more middle of the road pair which I purchased used at a reasonable price. They did sound good but I did not think they sounded better. I have also owned cables by Kimber which have one of the great value interconnects in the high end (PBJ) Peanut butter and Jam and 8TC, which also have an excellent reputation as a reasonably prices speaker cable that sound good ( I should say sound reasonably transparent). I currently own audioquest CV8 speaker cables with a db system) And I really like the sound of the cables in my system. They sound detailed and smooth with good bass delivery and a smooth mid and top end. 
I have in the past used Nordost ( I don't care for them and they are one of the companies that is rediculously priced, and Alpha Gore (I liked these a lot but I had an audio research amp at the time that kept blowing when I used these speaker cables. They did something to the impedence of the signal flowing from the amp that the amp did not like. last but not least I have used Canare ( i actually still have a canare digital cable in one of my tv set ups) and Mogambi interconnects. The cheapest speaker wire I ever used was in my first high end system which consisted of a B&K st 140 amplifier, a B&K pro ten MC preamp a Sony ES series CD player and some speakers I'm drawing a blank on. The speaker wire I used in that system was a radio shack hook up wire. I bought two spools of it one red and one black. It was a very thin solid wire and it sounded fairly neutral for peanuts. I have found over the years that one does not have to spend a fortune to get good sound and I am sure there are lots of home brew wires that work well for speaker cable etc. Many of the high end wire manufactures make cables that sound good at a reasonable price. They also make wires for CEO's and wall street types that can afford to feel like they have the best. And for the record, there are recording studios that use Audioquest wire and I have spoken to some of the sound engineers that worked there. But I know many just use canare and mogambi. One interesting point of fact. I currently have a NAIM audio cd 3.5 in my home system. It is a beautiful sounding cd player with an upgraded power supply. I bought it used from a buddy of mine and he had made some special interconnect using wire made by Cardas for Bernie Grundman one of the most famous recording engineers out there. The cables are home made from wire that Grudman uses in his studio. The other recording studio guy that I have spoken to is Joe Harley who was responsible at least partly for many of the audioquest recordings. There are many excellently recorded jazz and blues records and cds from the audioquest label and they were using audioquest's top all silver cable in the studio.
Now the good thing for me is that audioquest's reasonably priced cables also sound good with the caveat that they worked well in my home system but not in my car. The noise environment in a car is much worse than home. I have used Kimber and JL audio interconnects in my car to good effect though.


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## I800C0LLECT

I hate to be a jerk...I think I missed your point?


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## MinnesotaStateUniversity

Someone STICKY this.

Lmfao, I still call this forum "diyma theory"


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## MinnesotaStateUniversity

I800C0LLECT said:


> I hate to be a jerk...I think I missed your point?


Same here. I read something about how he went to MIT & ate peanut butter & jelly samwiches


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## chad

ecrimjr said:


> Just commenting on the comments about power cables above. Power cables on home audio gear actually do serve to help filter out ac noise going both ways, that is from the wall (socket in to your equipment) and from your equipment (which can be a source of ac line noise) to the wall which can then effect the sound of other components in the system. It's the only cable that actually benefits from being longer. You usually want your interconnect and speaker cable to be as short as they can be in your home system to decrease the ability for noise to get into the system and to deal with signal impedance issues from your preamp to amp of from your amp to your speakers.
> Beyond that they simply need to be large enough to be deliver the required current of the components. I'm more on the audiophile side of things as I sell high end audio equipment and I have been a hobbiest for a long time. I have heard differences between cables both interconnect and speaker cables but I believe in trying to find the best values for myself and my customers and I really don't like the pricing in the market. I think while part of the debate is about differences I think the other part of the issue is about pricing and the high end home audio market has gone nuts after CEO and wall street money and of course lots of joe the plumbers ( I mean that purely as a metaphor for the common man) get into the hobby trying to keep up with the Jones's. What I am saying is that much of the gear is priced to high.


I'd like to see some of your math behind this other than profit margin.

Well, no. The gear does not really put that much hash on the line... I mean in a linear supply the first thing the AC cable "sees" is a transformer which is pretty much tuned to run at 60 cycles. Not a whole lot gets past that especially considering how many feet the primary winding is and its inductance (good HF filter.) 

If the supply is PWM (which we are seeing more of) there's a pi filter network then a rectifier, then smoothing. After the smoothing it gets chopped up. So therefore your AC cable has to be long enough to actually be even a percentage of the Pi Network and smoothing cap at minimum... And sorry chap, I'm not buying a damn 500'+ power cable.

Side note. Back in the day..... To prevent blowing breakers, we used to coil up extension cords to act as "soft start" devices in amplifiers that have HUGE filter caps, HUGE transformers, and consequently a HUGE inrush with no soft start mechanism. This proves that the "transient response" of a 50'-100' cord sucks.


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## ecrimjr

Mostly I'm talking about analogue linear power supplies. I have seen in car audio digital amps with pwm power supplies dominate. I have only recently heard one that I liked well enough to purchase. Until that point I had a clear bias against them. JL audio's HD series amps sounded really good with combined with some German Maestro acoustics. 
Regarding the math, I'm not an engineer and the caveate is that these listening sessions were not double blind. Just me in my own room with my own gear deciding if I hear a difference, if that difference is better and finally if I think the difference is worth what they are asking for it. Sometimes I have heard differences that were not better sometimes better, sometimes worth it and sometimes not worth it and somtimes I have not heard any difference to my ears. So I am not knocking anyone that does not buy something that they don't hear a clear better difference or if they did and decided it wasn't worth what they were asking for it. I'm speaking clearly from my own experience. As a sales person, I have had very skeptical customers including engineers (I'm in a college town and work at a university) hear differences they could not explain based on what engineers are taught and able to measure. In fact two of my listening buddies are both scientists. One at the University and the other in a private research concern. Also have done lots of listening tests and measurements and have come to believe that their are differences between cables that are audible. They also don't believe in spending gobs of money on cables and such but finding good wire and building good sounding cables they do believe in. And they have also both purchased reasonably priced cables for there systems. I guess if there is a point to this discussion it is that while it is true that there is a lot of mumbo jumbo used to justify charging too much for wire it is not true that there are no differences between cables and the engineering axiom that wire is wire may also be short sighted.


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## chad

You understand that there are class AB amplifiers (not PWM) that have PWM power supplies correct?

There's also PWM amplifiers that have standard linear power supplies (like the crown K series)

I'm just gonna leave the university thing alone.


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## minbari

chad said:


> You understand that there are class AB amplifiers (not PWM) that have PWM power supplies correct?
> 
> There's also PWM amplifiers that have standard linear power supplies (like the crown K series)
> 
> I'm just gonna leave the university thing alone.


I would say most car audio amplifiers have PWM power supplies. in a car efficiency is always a concern. (not that this is news to you  )


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## chad

As were many of the "lightweight" touring amps before they went class D.

PWM PS, AB or G rear end.


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## captainobvious

chad said:


> But it's impossible to go to monoprice's site and NOT spend 75-100 dollars.
> 
> I've tried.


Truth. I just ordered speaker wire again. Monoprice is great.


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## inspector3711

McIntosh sound labs did some testing years ago. They have one of the better labs, if not the best, in the industry. After all the measurements were taken, they concluded that the single measurable change between different brands and models of speaker wire, was wire gauge. Granted, at the time I don't think aluminum wires were common yet.

I pretty much take their testing as gospel. 

There was no measurable difference in wires that had different levels of insulation or different twist patterns. Better to use heavy gauge copper generic wire than high priced name brand lighter gauge wire was gist of it.

I would think this should apply to all wire, not just speaker wire. That said, I'm not about to go with heavy gauge RCA wire though when the light gauge does the job.


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