I need help with audio interconnects????

[masstar]

I didn’t read this post entirely, but most of it...its real long, but I thought Id jump in just the same. I was dubious of cables for a long time. So i just bought the basics rather than use the standard wires that come in the box...just in case...but i never really 'tested" anything.

I was running tara labs prism 22s and Monster II interconnects (not particularly high end by any means) before I recently 'upgraded' and built some Canare wires based on the following DIY: Cost about $100 to replace all 11 wires in my system.

http://www.bus.ucf.edu/cwhite/theater/diycable.htm

The difference in sound is unmistakable. No chance it is "psychological". I could tell the difference between these wires and my old ones all day long, every time. Blindfold me, spin me around, get me drunk...whatever you want and ill call it within about 30 seconds. Change songs even...thats how BIG the difference was. Im not thnking, "hmmm, there seems to be a bit more detail there". Im hearing things I never heard - on albums Ive been listening to for years. My system was being held back by mediocre wires, no doubt about it...and has awoken to a new day. If you want proof just listen, its there.

Take that for whatever its worth. I have no ties to Canare or the audio industry.

[mtrycraft]

The difference in sound is unmistakable. No chance it is "psychological". I could tell the difference between these wires and my old ones all day long, every time.

Take that for whatever its worth. I have no ties to Canare or the audio industry.

Well, you may think it unmistakeable but you have no idea until properly compared which you didn't, it appears. So, the real chance of it being psycholagical is very real and great.

Not having ties to Canare is not a guarantee of anything, especially that your brains will not trick you to imagine things.

[masstar]

Theres simply no chance this is imagination. My evidence is having listened to countless albums on my system which has remained constant for several years...and then changing the wires and listening to those albums again. Absolutely better, not just slightly but in a major way.

Have you ever tried different wires on your system? Why are you so skeptical? Forget the scientific "proof" and give it a try...you might be supriseed...as i was. And very happy. And if not your out about $50 bucks. (bluejeanscable.com has the same wires I built for pretty cheap - Canare L-5CFB).

Im advocating functional wires, for a reasonable price...which is why i built my own. I didn't really expect to hear much if anything. What I got was a BIG suprise, there was no mistaking it.

Im not going to convince you, obviously, you'll have to try it yourself and see. But I wish you could feel as excited about your system as I am, thats why im posting, to give you that chance.

[Thomas_A]

Theres simply no chance this is imagination. My evidence is having listened to countless albums on my system which has remained constant for several years...and then changing the wires and listening to those albums again. Absolutely better, not just slightly but in a major way.

Have you ever tried different wires on your system? Why are you so skeptical? Forget the scientific "proof" and give it a try...you might be supriseed...as i was. And very happy. And if not your out about $50 bucks. (bluejeanscable.com has the same wires I built for pretty cheap - Canare L-5CFB).

Im advocating functional wires, for a reasonable price...which is why i built my own. I didn't really expect to hear much if anything. What I got was a BIG suprise, there was no mistaking it.

Im not going to convince you, obviously, you'll have to try it yourself and see. But I wish you could feel as excited about your system as I am, thats why im posting, to give you that chance.

Why should anyone "forget scientific proofs"? Similar statement like yours, i.e. that there is "no chance of imagination" have been claimed by others, but then shown to be imagination.

T

[masstar]

I think the reason to forget them in this case is because they seem to be holding you back from improving your system. Im actually surprised that tests have not shown these benefits to date, because they are so obvious to me.

The trouble with the "scientific" test whenever it involves a human variable is that the test can always be criticized as being flawed by the nay saying diehards. If a test shows neutral results the critics will use it as proof of their point, and if it shows positive results, they will find a flaw in the mechanics of the test. I suspect this is the continuing case where wire is concerned. What the individual is left with at the end of all of this is a choice based on his or her own experience. Something this subjective is not easily summarized by ‘science’.

Anyway, why not try it? You might be surprised...like me. Do you rely on "scientific" tests for speaker selection? Have any been performed? How do you ever decide on a pair? - You probably listen to them in the store, or maybe even your home, and make a decision....

Edit: I took out some of the text here, i was trying to be funny but I think it came off a little harsh.

Ok thats it

[skeptic]

Of all the different types of audio cables there are, interconnects are the one type which YOU can easily test at home and you can even perform a double blind test within the limits of your knowledge of how to perform it and the help you will get from other people in fairly administering it. I have suggested this test many times before and every time, some cable advocate chimes in about why this test is unfair. In their view, there are no fair tests. But the diatribes of nonsense they will post notwithstanding, here it is again for the umpteenth time for those who don't know it.

Connect the cables you want to test as jumpers between the tape output and the tape monitor input of your preamplifier or the preamplifier stage of your integrated amplifier or receiver. That's the setup. Now when you switch between source and monitor, you will be switching between the cable under test and a short length (a few inches) of wire in your preamplifier. If you hear NO DIFFERENCE, the cable is doing its job perfectly. Any difference whatsoever means that the cable is not perfectly transmitting what is being fed into it. The degree of difference and the nature of the difference is the error the cable is introducing. It dosn't matter whether you like the sound through the cable any better or worse. Different is wrong.

If there is a difference in sound level, the cable will always be the softer signal because it is a passive device and it can ONLY introduce losses. If this is the case, reject it immediately out of hand. It was designed to be an audio filter to deliberately alter the sound. If you have a cd player with what some manufacturers call A-B repeat and others call 4 way repeat, you can play the same arbitrary musical passage over and over again endlessly to help you decide.

I have tried this experiment on countless occasions and have never heard any difference for any properly functioning non audiophile cable. That will satisfy ANY person who is rational that the cable is performing its function perfectly. Anybody ever get any different result? I've never heard of one. No wonder the cable proponents hate this test. It blows their entire arguement out of the water.

BTW, if you are handy with tools, you can easily build inexpensive devices to test speaker wires and power cords in exactly the same way. This is not an "AB" test. It's a test of "A" against nothing.

I will add one note. The fairness of this test depends on there not being any additional buffer amplifier stages on the tape output circuit of your preamplifier. In my experience, most don't have any. To test for this if you are not sure, try the following. Turn off your receiver. Remove the input signal of your source from one channel only. Connect one of the test cables between the left and right tape output jacks. Now turn it back on and place the monitor switch in the source mode. If there are no buffer amplifiers, the sound will be heard through both channels when the mode switch is turned to Stereo. If you hear output through only one channel in this test there IS a tape output buffer amplifier and it can theoreticaly introduce a change in the test signal going through the test cable that would invalidate the test. Of course you can still try the test and if you still get no difference, the cable proves its merit anyway. It is likely that the buffer amplifier if there is one does not degrade the signal either.

[masstar]

I like your idea to test the cable between the tape monitors...i agree the best cables in this test will be the ones which have the least amount of change to the sound. I think the poor cables will be the ones where you "loose" the most...ill try it out.

PS, i edited my above post to say a little more about scientific tests where individuals try to hear the difference between different wires. (rather than one vs. none).

[masstar]

I tried your test on my new wires, and my old ones...I couldn't tell the difference. Not on any of them. Wire in / wire out...immediately with the push of a button - no difference. You got me. HA! Now i feel stupid, but its important to say im wrong.

Im satisfied with my ultimte decision to go the economic route and build my own cables...in the end they probably cost me about $20 for each pair. And i still reccomend them...but im a lot less ecstatic about my new found "sound". I guess it could be that re-wiring things fixed an old bad connection...but more likely your right and I just imagined things. After reading some of my previous posts I think Ill go crawl under a rock for a while.

After i put a few disclaimers on my other posts

[DMK]

I tried your test on my new wires, and my old ones...I couldn't tell the difference. Not on any of them. Wire in / wire out...immediately with the push of a button - no difference. You got me. HA! Now i feel stupid, but its important to say im wrong.

Im satisfied with my ultimte decision to go the economic route and build my own cables...in the end they probably cost me about $20 for each pair. And i still reccomend them...but im a lot less ecstatic about my new found "sound". I guess it could be that re-wiring things fixed an old bad connection...but more likely your right and I just imagined things. After reading some of my previous posts I think Ill go crawl under a rock for a while.

After i put a few disclaimers on my other posts

You aren't the first to be duped by the claims of cable manufacturers and other audiophiles and you won't be the last. I felt pretty stupid when I did my blind tests years ago. But better to feel foolish and wise up than to be foolish forever. The imagination is a powerful thing, no? Just be aware that not everything the scientific community says doesn't make a difference truly doesn't. Cables don't - unless you imagine them to.

[masstar]

This post entered out of order so i moved it...

[masstar]

Aha! I found it...im not quite so stupid after all! (well, maybe a little bit)

I decided to test ALL the previous wires I was using...cause I had a few pairs of monster 300. The first monster I tested was fine...but the other connection to the CD was obviously bad because I did hear the difference with that one. The wire is gettting old I guess and looks pretty corroded inside the end link...it might even be just one channel i cant really tell...but theres my culprit.

Thanks for helping me figure this out...what a ride!

[masstar]

ya i was so suprised that wire had any difference...i never thought it would. it wasnt really all that bad but I should have realized it was more than just wire for the differences I was hearing. Im glad i did your test because I was on the track to being a real believer! whew.

[masstar]

You know what, when I was doing the tests and I was 'trying" to hear differences, i could for a minute, and then Id do it again and I woudnt...then id switch back and forth real quick a few times so i wouldnt remember which souce i was on, and i wasnt so sure...i guess thats evidence of imagination at work

[WmAx]

sure...i guess thats evidence of imagination at work

Human perception is an interesting subject, in itself. Funny how we are fooled into believing some things are true, that indeed are not.

Here is a fun example of a visual perception that is false:



The complex variables, summed, create this illusion. Take the image into a photo editing application and measure the values of A and B. They are the same. Move a crop of A to B or vice versa, and see hw they seemlessly match when viewed against each other directly.

I introduce this example, because in a way relates to audiatory perception. The brain expects certain results, due to complex set(s) of variables, that of which, we may not be consciously aware. Such things can and have lead to false differences identified in wires, for example(see Dunlavy trickery examples). However, remove the variable(s) that are being processed by the brain, that allow differentation/bias, and the results can be very different. Analogous to the image above, if you take the A and B square into an image editor and move them directly next to each other, it is then apparent they are not different. In audio, I propose that you take two equivalently measured cables, but with different appearance/name/etc. and listen to them in uncontrolled conditinos, and they may sound different. Use the two same units and perform a comparitive test that removes all variables except actual sound, such as an ABX or double-blind test, and I wager that the results will be null(no differiantation possible).

But, that's not the end of the story, unfortunately. Whether the result is 'real' or 'not' does not matter if a reliable end-product can be created using this 'trickery'. The image example should consistely appear as a shadow, even though the A and B are the same actual values. I propose that if the combination of brand name, model name, color, conductor name, etc. has an effect on perception that can not be replicated without these things, then the end effect is the same, perceptually, as if the sound really was different, at least for some people IMO. IN such case, would these factors justify purchase? Of course, the visual illusion is probably far more reliable in it's perceptual effects then wire. But as I stated, "at least for some people", it may be very important for their perceptions.

-Chris