|
Post by Greg on May 14, 2017 7:58:19 GMT
Oh come on, Dave. That is a reply from a retailer who has an interest in perpetuating the cable myth foo. It is wrong on so many levels, one simply being that a well put together £1000 system can sound better than a poorly compiled £50,000 system. You yourself heard the dreadful result when you introduced TQ Black at Owston into a system. Everyone hated it and the cheap cable quickly went back in. My system does have the resolution to reveal the differences between cables and every time I try a different flavour, my own DIY options are preferred by me and others. Of course, I did try various types of cable to find what worked best, but the benefit of DIY is it is cheap to experiment, requires minimal electronic knowledge, requires minimal soldering skills and each cable can be made bespokely to a specific required length. As said, my best speaker cable is made from cheap as chips CAT5 and my standard interconnects are made from silver plated OFC with twin core and shield in PTFE insulation at a cost unfinished of £12 per meter. Sometimes it is worth looking at what the manufacturers use themselves, particularly when hidden from the punters observation. By way of example, Magico S5 speakers now retail at over £40,000. The internal driver hook up wire used is a Belden product that retails for approximately £2 a meter. A savvy friend of mine who happens to have a pair of these speakers found that using the same Belden wire for his main cables gave him as good a sound as anything else he tried regardless of price.
|
|
|
Post by MartinT on May 14, 2017 10:19:55 GMT
Speaker cables are easy to compare on say a £50,000 system, not so on say a £1000 one its just no up to revealing the differences. Agreed. I used to use twisted twin-and-earth solid core cable, using a hand-drill to get the twists even. At the time, it was excellent. This was when I was in my Croft days of medium-res equipment. That same cable now sounds constrained dynamically, with lower resolution and attenuation at the frequency limits. You could live with it, sure, but once you hear something better there's no going back.
|
|
|
Post by sondale on May 14, 2017 17:36:22 GMT
Oh come on, Dave. That is a reply from a retailer who has an interest in perpetuating the cable myth foo. It is wrong on so many levels, one simply being that a well put together £1000 system can sound better than a poorly compiled £50,000 system. You yourself heard the dreadful result when you introduced TQ Black at Owston into a system. Everyone hated it and the cheap cable quickly went back in. My system does have the resolution to reveal the differences between cables and every time I try a different flavour, my own DIY options are preferred by me and others. Of course, I did try various types of cable to find what worked best, but the benefit of DIY is it is cheap to experiment, requires minimal electronic knowledge, requires minimal soldering skills and each cable can be made bespokely to a specific required length. As said, my best speaker cable is made from cheap as chips CAT5 and my standard interconnects are made from silver plated OFC with twin core and shield in PTFE insulation at a cost unfinished of £12 per meter. Sometimes it is worth looking at what the manufacturers use themselves, particularly when hidden from the punters observation. By way of example, Magico S5 speakers now retail at over £40,000. The internal driver hook up wire used is a Belden product that retails for approximately £2 a meter. A savvy friend of mine who happens to have a pair of these speakers found that using the same Belden wire for his main cables gave him as good a sound as anything else he tried regardless of price. Greg, First of all just to be absolutely open and honest about things Colin and I obviously make cables - just in case anyone was in any doubt - and therefore we are biased in our point-of-view. So please take that into account when reading the response...... I am not sure what "the cable myth foo" means; you cannot be saying that cables make no difference as you can obviously hear differences between your DIY cables and the various other flavours you have tried. So are you saying that it is the price that is the problem, if so then at what price-point does a cable stop sounding different / better, i.e. is it simply price versus performance versus claimed performance? In the past I have made up lots of diy cables for myself and friends including the various TNT-based CATx cables, Jon Risch designs, various micro-wave hosepipes and many other (at times) strange configurations. I found that they all of course sounded different as you would expect - resistance/capacitance being two of the many cable parameters capable of altering, for example, the amplifier/speaker response. If you are happy with the overall sound of your system with your cables then (and I am not being patronising) I am happy for you. To put this into context over the years people who know that I am into music / hifi ask me what they should buy - the answer is simple - whatever makes you enjoy the music. Many years ago when I got fed up with the constant changing of equipment as I tried to achieve audio nirvana I got rid of it all and spent about 3 years listening to a little Sony radio. Nowadays when I test equipment my main criteria is whether or not I get enjoyment out of the setup, do I become more involved in the music, if introducing a new cable does not do that then it is wrong FOR THAT SETUP. I just wish that I had enough time and money to look at why cables (of all types) can have a positive effect on one system and a negative effect on another system AND most importantly be able to quantify all of the reasons for this. What I think is good nowadays is the spin-off from Distance Selling in that people can try (on a sale or return basis) cables from a large number of manufacturers and are therefore able to make up their own minds whether or not Cable A is better than Cable Z IN THEIR OWN SYSTEM and return the cables if they do not work. Since it is usually 30 days this allows people to get over the honeymoon period (for me about a week) and any expectation bias and start to hear any adverse sounds and then to go back to the original and see if it is worthwhile buying the new cable - which may actually be cheaper! Part of the ethos of Bake-Offs is to allow people to hear different equipment and to be able to say (to themselves at least) - I did not like A but B was my type of sound - Cable X was better/worse than Y etc - especially if their kit was part/all of what was being listened to. Whether or not manufacturers / dealers should be there demonstrating their wares is a moot point - if that is what has caused friction then perhaps it should not be allowed in future.
|
|
|
Post by Rexton on May 14, 2017 18:10:50 GMT
I've been using 3mm solid core silver for years and have never felt the need to spend stupid amounts on cables. My days of buying very high end Nordost cables have none gone for good.
|
|
|
Post by MartinT on May 14, 2017 20:10:13 GMT
Whether or not manufacturers / dealers should be there demonstrating their wares is a moot point - if that is what has caused friction then perhaps it should not be allowed in future. I for one see the value of having limited dealers and manufacturers at bake-offs. I doubt that anyone is going to be intimidated into liking or saying that they like something that they don't. The benefit is all for the members and the risk is only for vendor products that are unliked. I think we'll continue to invite a few at future bake-offs.
|
|
|
Post by julesd68 on May 14, 2017 20:32:25 GMT
Agree 100% with Martin on this one!
|
|
|
Post by The Brookmeister on May 15, 2017 19:19:52 GMT
Oh come on, Dave. That is a reply from a retailer who has an interest in perpetuating the cable myth foo. It is wrong on so many levels, one simply being that a well put together £1000 system can sound better than a poorly compiled £50,000 system. You yourself heard the dreadful result when you introduced TQ Black at Owston into a system. Everyone hated it and the cheap cable quickly went back in. My system does have the resolution to reveal the differences between cables and every time I try a different flavour, my own DIY options are preferred by me and others. Of course, I did try various types of cable to find what worked best, but the benefit of DIY is it is cheap to experiment, requires minimal electronic knowledge, requires minimal soldering skills and each cable can be made bespokely to a specific required length. As said, my best speaker cable is made from cheap as chips CAT5 and my standard interconnects are made from silver plated OFC with twin core and shield in PTFE insulation at a cost unfinished of £12 per meter. Sometimes it is worth looking at what the manufacturers use themselves, particularly when hidden from the punters observation. By way of example, Magico S5 speakers now retail at over £40,000. The internal driver hook up wire used is a Belden product that retails for approximately £2 a meter. A savvy friend of mine who happens to have a pair of these speakers found that using the same Belden wire for his main cables gave him as good a sound as anything else he tried regardless of price. LOL Greg. Just like a £1400 Chord DAC comes with a £3 switch mode power supply, keep on DIY ing chief, the self satisfaction of spending bugger all on a cable forces your brain into telling you it sounds good.
|
|