Audio cable break-in?

[Jammrock]

You and Dogbert can scream bah-humbug all you want, but the fact of the matter is that cables do make a difference. I am not defending my purchases in any way. If they did not sound significantly better over my previous cables I would have returned them in a heartbeat (as all my purchases had a money-back gaurantee).

Have you guys ever actually tested cables on a nice stereo before or are you simply regurgitating garbage you found off the Internet? Ask anyone who has actually tested this stuff before and they will tell you that cables make a difference. I'm not saying that it's worth dropping $3k of a set of speaker cables, becuase that's plain stupid, but my LAT's souns far superior to my Type-2's, which sound better than my Monsters, which sound better than lamp cable. Period.

Ask Greebe (though he prefers to make his own), ALBPM, Maud'dib or any other person that is big into audio/video equipment.

Jammrock

[Dogbert]

Originally posted by Jammrock
You and Dogbert can scream bah-humbug all you want, but the fact of the matter is that cables do make a difference. I am not defending my purchases in any way. If they did not sound significantly better over my previous cables I would have returned them in a heartbeat (as all my purchases had a money-back gaurantee).

Have you guys ever actually tested cables on a nice stereo before or are you simply regurgitating garbage you found off the Internet? Ask anyone who has actually tested this stuff before and they will tell you that cables make a difference. I'm not saying that it's worth dropping $3k of a set of speaker cables, becuase that's plain stupid, but my LAT's souns far superior to my Type-2's, which sound better than my Monsters, which sound better than lamp cable. Period.

Ask Greebe (though he prefers to make his own), ALBPM, Maud'dib or any other person that is big into audio/video equipment.

Jammrock

I never claimed cables don't make a difference. I do claim that money doesn't have much to do about it.
Read the links I gave, they admit that cable can greatly affect sound. They also tell you that you usually put most of your money on stuff you could get at a tenth of the price by doing it yourself.

Try reading it Jammrock. You might be able to create cables even better then your current ones all by yourself at a fraction of the cost.

Once again, I didn't diss your cables. I did diss the amount of money you spend for 20% cable and 80% hype.

In other words: DON'T BUY cables, make them yourself !

[R.Carter]

Originally posted by thop
i can hear a sinus tone up to ~21Khz. when i was in school, i might add
if 22Khz is the maximum then i wonder what use does 48Khz sound have when 44Khz is enough. because from my understanding, and by some law that escapes me right now, you need roughly double the Khz rate for the real Khz rate you want to record.
i hope somebody understands what i mean

I think it was Nyquist and Shannon that both said in order to exactly represent a signal with a bandwidth of B, you will need at least a sampling frequency (FS) of 2B.

Given B = 22kHz that means that the FS has to be at least 44kHz. I suppose using a bit higher rate (44.1kHz) will result in less artificats when sampling a 22kHz signal.

With 16-bits per sample (2^16 discrete volume levels) that means 44100Hz * 16bit/Hz = 705,600 bit per ear per second.

Now come the ears into play:

705,600 * 2 = 1,411,200 bit/s

So 1.411Mbps would be the bandwidth of an uncompressed music-CD signal.


Personally, I think that the reason 48kHz is used has more to do with the fact that 48kHz has been in use for a while in the professional audio market (i.e. DAT). If I recall correctly, they couldn't use the "standard" 44.1kHz FS since the record studios thought that it would make it too easy for people to pirate audio CDs.

So they picked 48kHz.

Why? I'm not sure, but the bandwidth of a T1 line is 1.544Mbps. So you could stream a stereo 48kHz 16-bit signal over it since it is 1.536Mbps.

When you compared the bandwidth if an audio CD to your typical MP3 file, which is encoded at a rate of 128kbit/s, you get the famous "1:11" compression ratio.

[Muad'Dib]

Originally posted by Wombat
No, he was right. The maxium range of human hearing is up to 20 or 22kHz. The majority of the population tapers off aroung 16-18kHz.

Not according to Yost's Hearing Science textbook, Zemlin's speech and audio book (exact name escapes me), Schow and Nerbonne's "Introduction to Audiologic Rehabilitation," Martin and Clark's "Introduction to Audiology," Silman and Silverman's "Auditory Diagnosis - Principles and Applications," and Hall and Mueller's "Audiologits' Desk Reference."

Unless I misread every of those books?

Or you care to dispute them?

[mutz]

...DAT's right Carter.

I have to ask this. Are you guys listening to your system or the music?

For me the most important is dynamic range, transients and no distortions or frequency "accents" that bite on my nerves.

[Jammrock]

Originally posted by mutz
...DAT's right Carter.

I have to ask this. Are you guys listening to your system or the music?

For me the most important is dynamic range, transients and no distortions or frequency "accents" that bite on my nerves.

I don't know what sort of system you have, but mine doesn't make any noise unless music is playing.

Not so in many cases. I too am one to point out that there is all too much hype to the psychobabble which spews forth from the audio industry, but then I've also heard the differences they mention. For you to hear ie buy you must be convinced of what you hear is attributed to it's purchase. Some people will never take the time to truely listen to what is played and will never be convinced that spending another $100, $1000 or $10000 is worth the cost. Fine we're all individuals and our God given right, but to denounce another claiming it's BS is flat wrong. Each of us has a perverbial line drawn in the sand where enough is enough... normally that's our wallet. Spend a few thousand hours LISTENING with great intent to the details and you'll start to understand where part of all this comes from

Amen, Greebe!

Jammrock

[ALBPM]

3 pages on this topic....Not bad!!!!

Here are some more issues to consider:

Resistance makes it difficult to transmit an electrical signal along a cable without losing some of that signal. In short, resistance absorbs power. Because of resistance, what we would like to hear as clean, clear sound may instead sound weak, hazy, or distorted. Resistance is closely related to wire size. This is because the size of the wire (its area in cross-section), together with the conductivity of its metal core, determines how much energy will be lost to resistance along the length of a cable. In general, the larger the wire, the less resistance it offers to electrical current. And conversely, the longer the cable, the greater the effects of resistance.

Inductance is similar to resistance, but it opposes the inevitable fluctuations in an electrical current by actually pushing back against the current. Resistance is a constant value; inductance is more challenging to predict. High inductance in a cable causes loss of signal strength (or roll-off) toward the high end of the
audible frequency range.

Capacitance is usually thought of as storage of electricity (or potential) in a conductor. It affects higher-frequency signals—the sound of a flute, for example. The higher a cable’s capacitance, the more the high-frequency sound becomes eroded.

Impedance is simply the total opposition to current flow in a cable caused by resistance, inductance, and capacitance together. Every cable has a characteristic impedance value that is determined by its materials and geometry. In designing and selecting audio cables, the goal is always to match the impedance of the cable to the impedance of the equipment to which it will be connected. This impedance matching makes possible the most efficient transfer of energy.

Ringing, or resonance, is caused by the buildup of vibration in a cable due to storage of the energy that fails to pass through it. In effect, the music signal echoes back and forth through the length of the cable—very much the way ripples in a pond, radiating from different directions, interfere with one another. Ringing can produce a diffuse, unclear sound. Sometimes it slows the natural decay, or falling off, of the sound, so that the music loses crispness.

Skin effect arises when tiny “eddy” currents in a large conductor (that is, one with a low AWG number) cause the resistance of the conductor’s inner core to increase with electrical frequency. The “skin” of the conductor then has lower resistance
to current flow, and higher-frequency electrons move to it. Skin effect causes “smearing” of the audio signal—much the way a neighbor’s voice, calling across a distance, sounds less distinct on a hot, muggy summer day than on a crisp, cold
winter day.

Electromagnetic interference and radio frequency interference arise from the invisible sea of electromagnetic energy in which we live. It is a sea created by our electronic appliances—from computers and televisions to cellular telephones and pagers—as
well as by the earth’s movement through space and even the sun’s radiation. These kinds of energy are all detrimental to audio signals, creating noise and distortion in the music being reproduced.

Microphonics are noises or vibrations created in a cable by the very sound waves an audio system generates. When those sound waves strike the cable, they cause tiny movements that alter the spacing between the wires inside it. The result is heard as a haze over the music.

Turboelectric noise is noise generated inside a cable (unlike microphonics, the source of which is sound waves outside the cable). In turboelectric noise, the physical flow of electrons through the wires causes movement in the cable’s insulating jacket. Musically, this is perceived as loss of soundstage width and depth.

All BS !!! Nope, I have heard the difference and have limits to what I will spend for these differences.

Paul

[rugger]

Originally posted by Greebe

Not so in many cases. I too am one to point out that there is all too much hype to the psychobabble which spews forth from the audio industry, but then I've also heard the differences they mention. For you to hear ie buy you must be convinced of what you hear is attributed to it's purchase. Some people will never take the time to truely listen to what is played and will never be convinced that spending another $100, $1000 or $10000 is worth the cost. Fine we're all individuals and our God given right, but to denounce another claiming it's BS is flat wrong. Each of us has a perverbial line drawn in the sand where enough is enough... normally that's our wallet. Spend a few thousand hours LISTENING with great intent to the details and you'll start to understand where part of all this comes from

Heh, your right

I must have not been clear enough. I mean people often buy expensive stuff, and then convince themselves it makes a big difference when it often, not always, does not.

I am never going to train myself to listen to music properly the same way audio-pro's do. It just sounds expensive (imagine all the audio equipment I would need to replace after just realizing all the stuff I am reasonably happy with now is all crap) and would be like tourture (noticing every damned flaw a stereo system produces, to the point where it makes music unenjoyable)

I still haven't seen scientificly sound evidence either way yet though.

[az]

There's only so much point in getting a high end system anyway. Much of the music we hear today is recorded with more or less big flaws.

AZ

[Greebe]

but nothing like it was a decade or two or three or... ago

[mutz]

Many middle to upper middle systems today are more than adequate. The higher you go the more diminishing the returns, unless you ego needs constant massage...

[az]

Greebe, sadly, it's become worse for mainstream records (OK, probably not what most music lovers would listen to all day, but...).

Dynamic compression (I HATE this!) to make the record stand out, mastering at too high a level, which creates hard clipping & distortion...

AZ

[Dogbert]

Once you have the best Audio setup, what'll it be next ?
We'll start discussing local vs. imported wines ? Different kinds of wood for the barrels (amplifiers), bottles, storage and transportation (cables) ? We'll discuss the vibration effects of airplane vs. ship vs. train vs. lorry on the quality of the wine ?

Damn people, get a life !

[az]

Hey, the Glass is of utmost importance! For each wine, you need a different special glass

Ugh, wine... whine.

AZ

[Jammrock]

Wine = NASTY!! Ick...

Music recordings have gotten incredibly better as of late, especially for classical and jazz fans. Classical and jazz have recording engineers and houses dedicated to making audiophile grade recordings. If you're into more popular music than classical, jazz and the like, then your recordings may be or not be any good; although, I have heard some popular music on uber-high-end systems and they sounded wonderful.

My best case to hear the difference between a good and bad popular recording is U2's newest album. Beautiful Day sounds like Bono wiped his arse with the CD on a sufficiently accurate stereo. Elevation on the otherhand (both on the same CD) sounds wonderful. Go figure.

Jammrock