pick a song, any song, and I’ll stick a 10k filter on it, and we’ll see how much music there is happening above there.
You won't hear much with the low pass filter, but it would be interesting to see what happens to the music if you set a high pass filter and switch it on and off, if you can tell.
molgrips
Full Member
pick a song, any song, and I’ll stick a 10k filter on it, and we’ll see how much music there is happening above there.You don’t hear frequencies in isolation.
The overtones will be recorded though.
Full Member
pick a song, any song, and I’ll stick a 10k filter on it, and we’ll see how much music there is happening above there.You won’t hear much with the low pass filter, but it would be interesting to see what happens to the music if you set a high pass filter and switch it on and off, if you can tell.
Yeah that would be a fairer way to do it., I know for me it doesn't make a great deal of difference, but peoples mileage will vary, we've all got differnence hearing. The good tones are all in the 20-10khz range for me!
The overtones will be recorded though.
I prefer the Undertones.
Well, I just downloaded a frequency generator app, that lets you play up to three frequencies. My top end is about 12kHz on this. I tested it on my nine year old daughter, she can hear up to about 16.5kHz so the equipment (the Mac, the bluetooth connection and the headphones) are capable of delivering sounds I can't hear.
Then I put one of the knobs on a lower frequency and I turned the second one on. I could hear both, until the second tone went up to 11kHz, but then after that I started to hear all sorts of other effects on the main tone caused by adjusting the high pitched one, all the way up to 15.5kHz.
Now this is highly likely to be related to beats and interference, possibly artefacts of the way the sounds are generated and the fact it's digital, but beats would still be an issue in a fully analogue setup. So this quick experiment suggests that it may be possible for inaudible frequencies to affect the audible ones. And even if it's a digital artefact, most music is mastered digitally now isn't it?
I got the 3.5mm cable out though and the effect disappears with sine waves, but with square waves all SORTS of weird noises are happening. Even with one tone.
Also - the sine waves seemed the same between 3.5mm and bluetooth, but when I play actual music, there is masses more bass with 3.5mm. The song doesn't have any deeper tones in it - when the bassist plays a note the root note, the mode of oscillation is the same frequency and definitely within the audio range - but there's unquestionably far 'more' bass.
jambourgie : Think I’ve got it set somewhere in the region of 70-90hz.
Sounds about right, the NS10M does not have much of a response below 100hz so you are probably in the right ballpark for crossover frequency. If you can be arsed then have a play with sub placement in your room - may offer a benefit or may not - let your ears decide rather than advice from a gob on a forum😉
molgrips,
what's the app you are using? to I have a gander, not really sure with out looking.
as for headphones, I use sony xm4s and I notice no difference with them wired or bluetooth. There's a difference between noise cancelling, off/on and ambient sound, but that's to be expected. But no difference wired or not, could just be quirk of your earphones.
If you are trying to get an accurate monitoring system using NS10's you are going to have a bad time.
They are common in studios because everybody knows what to expect from them and its not because they are accurate, quite the opposite.
Most audio apps will have a tone generator plugin, a 20-20khz sweep will probably surprise you in how certain frequencises will seem to vanish and others boom out when in your sweet spot.
Also interesting to set a few spot frequencies and rotate your head around or lean forwards/back. Then take a walk around the room as well.
Not shure of what kind of compression will be on the audio over web type tools, but using a test tone that has been through any type of data compression is probably worse than useless.
Well, I just downloaded a frequency generator app
Don't assume it's accurate or the device your using it on is physically capable of generating very high or very low frequencies.
Or if you can actually hear them, anything below 20hz or over 25000hz requires a good sound system and good ears. I.e not an app on an iphone.
mattyfez
over 25000hz requires
you to be a cat. 😆
you to be a cat. 😆
or a dog,
Bat's really hate it though, it really messes with thier sat-navs 😆
Bat-nav?
edit : oh thats wierd, I can hear 19 but not 18.. maybe their test is messed up
Yeah, weird.
I can hear: 8; 10; 12 (with the volume wellied right up);
I cannot hear: 14; 15;
I can hear: 16; 17 (just); 18 (again, just)
I cannot hear anything higher.
Presumably then it's more complex than "above X..."?
Volume makes a difference too. be careful with that, cause it can go right through you, start low! 😆
There's a thought. Can too-loud a noise do damage to your ears if it's at a frequency you can't hear?
pick a song, any song, and I’ll stick a 10k filter on it
Having just gone through those tests, I think I'd want it filtering out.
You have a two-lane motorway. It’s congested, so you expand it to a three-lane motorway and then you see traffic is flowing freely.
Where’s the discrete point here then? Shall we build a four-lane motorway? Why? A 9-lane? A 47-lane? A thousand?
There is no “discrete point” because that’s not how analogue works. But you don’t need a pipe seven inches wide to supply a bath tap, the water ain’t gonna come out any faster.
You're using 2 different analogies there and not saying how they relate to the situation. Water and traffic are different you say hit it seems to me the 3 lane motorway will let 50% more traffic flow (speed and distance between cars remaining the same). It's not like one is gridlock and the other is free flowing, that's not credible.
So it's about resistance? The mains cable is sufficiently conductive but the bell wires isn't?
You concede there's no discrete point but your previous claim is that the mains cable is past the point at which there is no improvement. Doesn't make sense to me.
what’s the app you are using?
Frequency Sound Generator on Mac App store - it was 99p though!
Or if you can actually hear them, anything below 20hz or over 25000hz requires a good sound system and good ears. I.e not an app on an iphone.
I verified the setup could produce sounds higher than I could hear by testing it on my daughter. She could easily go up to 15kHz, and vaguely up a bit higher.
Just realised that I didn't turn the volume up at higher frequencies so we could maybe both have eked a bit more out. 15kHz is low for a 9 year old kid.
Presumably then it’s more complex than “above X…”?
My guess is that it's artefacts of the reproduction of the sound that you're hearing that end up in the audible range.
it seems to me the 3 lane motorway will let 50% more traffic flow
Assuming that there is, in fact, 50% more traffic that needs to flow.
So it’s about resistance? The mains cable is sufficiently conductive but the bell wires isn’t?
'Impedance,' but yeah, pretty much. If bigger is better would you hook up speakers with the cables they string pylons together with? Surely that'd sound surfmat-levels of awesome!!
Doesn’t make sense to me.
Then I'm not sure as I've got anything else.
Basically, it's diminishing returns. There comes a point where you're either not adding anything or are adding so little that it's a fool's errand. It's the latter bit which muddies the waters, means there's no single discrete cut-off and empowers AV companies to flog £1k power cables. Analogue by definition is shades of grey.
‘Impedance,’ but yeah, pretty much. If bigger is better would you hook up speakers with the cables they string pylons together with?
More confused, you are arguing against yourself here!
Basically, it’s diminishing returns
Ok, so different to what you originally said...
molgrips
Full Member
what’s the app you are using?Frequency Sound Generator on Mac App store – it was 99p though!
Or if you can actually hear them, anything below 20hz or over 25000hz requires a good sound system and good ears. I.e not an app on an iphone.
I verified the setup could produce sounds higher than I could hear by testing it on my daughter. She could easily go up to 15kHz, and vaguely up a bit higher.
Just realised that I didn’t turn the volume up at higher frequencies so we could maybe both have eked a bit more out. 15kHz is low for a 9 year old kid.
Yeah, volume, sound pressure, plays a big part, I need to increase a good bit to even hear the 13k sine. I can push it to 15k at very high volumes and just about hear something, but tbh, I'm a bit reluctant to do that for very long, no idea if it causes damage!
I downloaded and had a wee play around, seems, ok on the sine wav that, but there's an awful lot of distortion and extra noise on the square and saw tooth though, so I wouldn't really be trusting anything there.
I tried what you said, made a 2 note chord with 2 of the oscillators on sine and put the 3rd up beyond my hearing range, tbh I never really heard it making any difference to the dyad. could hear a bit of notchiness for turning the dial, but that was all, until the audible sound came back in to make it a triad.
Ok, so different to what you originally said…
It really isn't, unless you're arguing semantics over 'point' to mean a quantifiable absolute rather than "at some point."
Say I'm building a house and I've got free reign over a new front door. I'm 5'10". How high do I make the door? Your discrete "point" here is 5'10", but is that an ideal choice, do I want to be just skimming my way in every day? Does that account for occasional peak visitors who might be 6'5"? Or, I could get away with a door a metre high, it'd be functional but it'd be an uncomfortable compromise every time I have to slowly stoop / crawl through it. Maybe I should cover any eventuality and make it three metres high? Well, it'd look good at least, some public buildings such as churches do that sort of thing. Why not half a mile then?
Analogue is not discrete. Shit solutions are shit. But once you broadly approach, reach or exceed "good enough," anything further is just showboating. You're no longer paying for functionality, you're paying for ostentatious pissing rights.
Again the door analogy doesn't work for me as relevant. The item is question is copper wire, not a door, water or traffic. I understand your analogies, I just don't see how they are relevant because you haven't linked them to a copper wire carrying audio AC electricity. The only link is one of some sort of capacity, ie resistance (you said impedance, sure, but inductance and capacitance aren't affecting audio frequencies in the cable as much).
Unless I have misunderstood, the bell wire doesn't sound good enough for you? You originally said bell wire wasn't up to the job but mains cable is as good as anyone needs and nothing else is any better.
Bell wire seems to be 0.5mm², copper has a resistance of 0.0171 mm²/m. So a 3m run of bell wire is 0.2052 ohms there and back, against nominal 8 ohms of drive unit impedance. Mains cable is 2.5mm², so 0.08208 ohms. Voltage drops of 2.5 and 1% respectively to an 8 ohm load (which varies from say 6 ohms to much higher over the spectrum). Around 0.1dB.
Can you explain using physics why mains cable vs bell wire makes the difference you say it does?...and why nothing over 2.5mm² will.have any benefit?
You’re no longer paying for functionality, you’re paying for ostentatious pissing rights.
Mor Tusk....obvs
I had Mission 733 floorstanders with a cavity for mass-loading at the bottom, you poured in a bucket of special acoustic metal (swarf) and the increased weight made the speakers sound a bit tighter
I had a set of those. Still regret selling them - they really did sound great for the money
Cheap builders sand does just as good 🙂
you need it properly dry. Childrens play sand went in mine.
Yeah, volume, sound pressure, plays a big part, I need to increase a good bit to even hear the 13k sine. I can push it to 15k at very high volumes and just about hear something, but tbh, I’m a bit reluctant to do that for very long, no idea if it causes damage!
Interesting. I can't hear much above 12 (a little bit further if I turn it up). Our cat, who is pretty much deaf now, woke up downstairs and started shouting though so seems she may have lost all the lower frequencies but not the very high....
cats can hear up to about 65k, apprently.
Can you explain using physics why mains cable vs bell wire makes the difference you say it does?…and why nothing over 2.5mm² will.have any benefit?
If I've not got anywhere by this point then no, I can't.
And honestly, it's a reasonable question to ask, but it's beyond my knowledge to field I'm afraid.
anecdote time. I ran my half decent system on bell wire then mains - the difference in sound was obvious. I then put proper but basic speaker wire on. I am sure I could hear a difference but very hard to be sure
Thanks Cougar, I understand what you are saying, and your explanation, but it's the scientific answer that matters to me.
I downloaded and had a wee play around, seems, ok on the sine wav that, but there’s an awful lot of distortion and extra noise on the square and saw tooth though, so I wouldn’t really be trusting anything there.
I thought that, but then I realised that the outer knobs move the frequency by smaller amounts, and you can clearly hear the sounds coming in and out of phase i.e. beats. So I think the funny noises you hear are the beats of the square wave interference creating waves in the audible spectrum. Given that the kit seems to be able to reproduce sounds at high frequencies it does rather suggest that you can make audible frequencies out of multiple inaudible frequencies. Ok so in this case it's not a pleasant sound, but it demonstrates the principle.
it’s the scientific answer that matters to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect
Carriage of AC frequencies is geometry (but not really material) dependent. Copper or silver wires will have the same effect. Thickness matters up to a point. Length less so. Skin depth for 10 KHz is 652 uM, so a decent cable thicker than a couple of mm diameter will certainly perform better than a very thin one over the audible range.
Thanks Cougar, I understand what you are saying, and your explanation, but it’s the scientific answer that matters to me.
@cynical-al
From the context of power transmission (but it's the exact same principle)
High transmission voltages allow the use of a thinner wire for a given power (since the current and associated resistive losses are lower) therefore for a set voltage more power requires a bigger cable (since there is a corresponding increase in current). The power transmitted in a cable is equal to V × I but the transmission loss is proportional to the square of the current (3.I^2.R). Now you can decrease the resistance of the cable by decreasing the current, shortening it or (for our argument) making it bigger. Obviously that works but after a certain point you hot the law of diminishing returns since the power loss would be so marginal.
So why are "audio" cables a load of crap? Well, look at this and tell me it's not twin core? https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/hi-fi-accessories/speaker-cables/audioquest-terminated-5m-pair-of-speaker-cables.html
Copper is copper, the resistance may vary slightly but a signal doesn't give the slightest shit so long as it gets to its destination without outside interference. This isn't the bounds of known science, this is solid known science and to be honest I'm pretty disappointed that even needs to be said.
Copper is copper, the resistance may vary slightly but a signal doesn’t give the slightest shit so long as it gets to its destination without outside interference
Copper isn't just copper, it can have lots of impurities in it, and it's also (like all metals) crystalline which means it has crystal boundaries in it. These things affect electron paths through the solid.
Copper isn’t just copper, it can have lots of impurities in it, and it’s also (like all metals) crystalline which means it has crystal boundaries in it. These things affect electron paths through the solid.
Of course it does, but not in any meaningful way as far as we are concerned.
[url=file:///C:/Users/hu03042/Downloads/bs6004-624y-twin-and-earth-pvc-cable.pdf]Here[/url] is an example of some twin and earth. Note the conformance to EN 60228.
Now what does that mean? [url= https://www.elandcables.com/company/news-and-events/why-copper-purity-matters ]Here[/url] you go.
So yes, it can have "lots of impurities" in it. But if it does it's shite, which we have all agreed isn't worth using.
To add, that document lists the resistance value of 1.5mm^2 cable as 12.1 ohms/km. That's 0.0121 ohms per metre, less than a six hundredth of the resistance inside your speaker. If you're really concerned you could go with Cougars 2.5mm^2 cable for a 0.00741 ohm per metre drop.
Good job we have international standards for these things. Like I said, this isn't cutting edge fringe science.
Cheers @Squirrelking I understand voltage/power etc (see my prev post, I calculated a power loss of 0.1dB between the cables) and I don't feel you have answered my Q. Cheers TiRed - I'll look into that, I knew all this stuff a couple of decades ago!
What this tells me is that no one knows the answer to this, some on both sides believe passionately (moreso the naysaysers is seems) but no one can prove either way.
As mentioned by a pp, I think it’s quite telling that by and large, audio professionals don’t buy into all this. Of course they’re not using complete crap but they’re not generally using stuff that costs hundreds or thousands a metre. And these are people who often have systems that cost house type money.
There was a long discussion on this on GS and the conclusion (apart from snake oil) was that different cables can make a tiny difference, but that difference wasn’t actually better or worse. Just different.
Personally I think about 2% of system budget is about right. Op looks like he’s spending about a grand so about £20 is appropriate. Any higher than that you will be better off spending on the source components, as you stand a far better chance of being able to actually perceive any improvement.
Cheers @Squirrelking I understand voltage/power etc (see my prev post, I calculated a power loss of 0.1dB between the cables) and I don’t feel you have answered my Q
Well I don't know how else to answer it. Those are the facts so either you don't really understand or you're not asking the right question.
What this tells me is that no one knows the answer to this, some on both sides believe passionately (moreso the naysaysers is seems) but no one can prove either way.
And that's just crap. I'm not an electrical engineer, far from it but we're talking about fairly elementary stuff for those who are. This is their bread and butter, how else do you think cables get specced for specific purposes?
I can't believe it has taken 214 posts to say NO.
I am really glad that fools fall for this bunkem as it makes the world go round and creates jobs. If everyone could critically think then most markets would collapse.
All this fuss so you can sing along with Neil...
Altogether now, Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Caroline, dur dur duuuuuuur...
@squirrelking, I should have/meant to say
no one here can prove either way.
And 5plusn8 it's been said from the first page. You are making me giggle with your last sentences tho - you think the same doesn't apply to the bike market?
We have proven it, you just don't care to listen or believe us.
Read a book.
And 5plusn8 it’s been said from the first page. You are making me giggle with your last sentences tho – you think the same doesn’t apply to the bike market?
I know that, I'm not claiming to be the first. My point is: it is on 214 comments and the answer is still no.
I don't think the bike market is any different, that's the point of my last sentence, I wonder if your comprehension skills need a tune up? Maybe that's why you think fancy cables make a difference. As I said, most markets would collapse if we were not so stupid, why would that not include the bike market?
Ken Leeeeeeeeeeee if libidibi dowt you,
Ken Leeeeeee, Ken Leeeeeeeee anymore!
Of course it does, but not in any meaningful way as far as we are concerned.
Well, I'm no audiophile (I do own a hifi with separates but it cost a few hundred quid and is 20 years old), but I think I should correct that sentence - not in any meaninful way as far as YOU are concerned.
You are providing us with calculations, which is fine, but you are not demonstrating that you are calculating the things that actually affect perception of music in certain people's minds. Of course you'll scoff and say something about placebo here, which isn't necessary as we're all aware of this effect, but despite your contributions I am still not seeing enough science here when it comes to hifi audio. It's a complex area and I'm not sure it has been fully explored even by the scientific community.
Ken Leeeeeeeeeeee if libidibi dowt you,
Ken Leeeeeee, Ken Leeeeeeeee anymore
That echoed round my office for months! Some one would just start at random and people would join in!
Molgrips - surely the science needed here is blind testing. Surely someone has done some?
You are providing us with calculations, which is fine, but you are not demonstrating that you are calculating the things that actually affect perception of music in certain people’s minds.
Correct and that sums up the main point about audio/hi-fi. It is highly subjective. Hence why some prefer vinyl over digital or valves over solid state. If you prefer the sound of something that's the one you think is right, even if it's highly inaccurate (which it often is).
