Chris's cable article

[skeptic]

Chris has published (reprinted?) an article telling readers how much money to budget for audio cables, what's important and what isn't. Given that it is a protected forum and can't be replied to directly (even though there is a reply button) I thought some might like to discuss it here. Here's the URL for reading as Chris suggested in the how to use this fourum page.

http://forums.audioreview.com/showth...0731#post10731

[E-Stat]

Uh oh, my percentage of cable investment to system works out to be a pinch high for Gene's liking in the low 9s.

Part of the reason is that I have separate ICs for TT/preamp vs. CDP/passive attenuator. I bought the longer cable originally for use with subwoofers and can use the shorter one with the attenuators. Eliminating that redundancy would drop my percentage down in the 8s.

BTW, I totally agree with the comments found in the paragraph headed "Bottom Line". System matching is everything. His point on using solid mechanical connections is well taken. All of my ICs have WBT locking connectors. To that, I would like to add the value of using clean connections as well. For a very long time, I have performed an annual contact cleaning on all cable connectors and their respective jacks on the hardware side. Deoxit has replaced using Cramolin over the years. I have found regular contact cleaning to be an effective and inexpensive bit of system maintenance.

rw

[mtrycraft]

Chris has published (reprinted?) an article telling readers how much money to budget for audio cables, what's important and what isn't. Given that it is a protected forum and can't be replied to directly (even though there is a reply button) I thought some might like to discuss it here. Here's the URL for reading as Chris suggested in the how to use this fourum page.

http://forums.audioreview.com/showth...0731#post10731

I just have problems with the % figures, not what he has to say about cables as th elink is good, very good in fact.

It may be good for low cost systems but too high for high cost systems. No reason why they would not use the same cables, NONE.

[skeptic]

It may be good for low cost systems but too high for high cost systems. No reason why they would not use the same cables, NONE.

When I wasted my time argueing with JR, he said that unless you had a very "high resolution" sound system whatever that means (I assume it means expensive and to his liking) you couldn't hear the benefits of improved cables. Of course if you are skeptical like I am and are waiting for the wizards to raise the curtain to show us if there is really anything behind it (besides the old man pulling levers), you don't pay much attention to these articles telling you what to spend. IN the meanwhile, $500, $5000, or $50,000 system I would still use the same 16 gage speaker wire, the same $1 RS interconnects, and the power cords that come with the equipment. Even for a $500 system, that still comes out lower cost percentage wise than the numbers in the article.

[mtrycraft]

When I wasted my time argueing with JR, he said that unless you had a very "high resolution" sound system whatever that means (I assume it means expensive and to his liking) you couldn't hear the benefits of improved cables. Of course if you are skeptical like I am and are waiting for the wizards to raise the curtain to show us if there is really anything behind it (besides the old man pulling levers), you don't pay much attention to these articles telling you what to spend. IN the meanwhile, $500, $5000, or $50,000 system I would still use the same 16 gage speaker wire, the same $1 RS interconnects, and the power cords that come with the equipment. Even for a $500 system, that still comes out lower cost percentage wise than the numbers in the article.

Yep, that is why I sayd that on a low cost system, the wire might be 5%. 5% of $500 is $25. Actually, that may not be enough if you have much to wire together
On a $50K system, it may be .02%

[Tony_Montana]

In the link you provided, regarding digital signal, it said:"The signal on the digital output of a CD/DVD player looks like almost perfect square-wave, with an amplitude of about 1Vpp and a frequency bandwidth of almost 3 MHz."

The amplitude for digital signal (DD/DTS) is 0.5 vpp, not 1 vpp