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Got some posh cables with a second-hand hi-fi.
Each of the interconnect cables have a 'ground-end' sticker on one end of them. The website suggests they should be plugged in with that sticker at the source end of the CD-Pre-Power link.
Are they for real?
Posh hifi cables are snake oil. If the manufacturers were confident in their claims, they would conduct double-blind tests to prove the difference. They don't becuase there isn't one.
as above nonsese i tried with my £50 ones (a gift) and the cheapest I could find you cannot tell the difference IMHO.
Speaker wire is different up to apoint.
Can you tell if you use a deore mech or an XTR though?
Quite possible that they fitted some kind of filter to it which reduces the reflected signal, therefore making the cable directional.
Or it could just be the direction they rubbed the "special crystals" on it.
Are they taking the piss?
Yes...
Next!
With cheap ones it's less important, as you're only going to be pushing 3-minute pop songs down them. A more expensive set-up gets to have an entire Ring Cycle forced through it at very high volume. That's pretty much like the difference between a penis and a baby, and you wouldn't try to get the baby to go the other way. 😉
Some cables are sort of directional in so much that the earth shield is only attached at one end, for sound electronic reasons. But the ones that claim that their actual wire is directional, probably also claim that sticking them in a homeopathic solution will naturally improve the sound quality.
I don't know about expensive HiFi cables, but....
If there is proper shielding on the cable then this should eb grounded, but only in one place. This is to prevent the creation of a ground loop where small currents (noise) could cause problems.
It seemd very overkill for a HiFi and will only make a difference if everything else is also setup to prevent ground loops.
Earth shield? On a speaker cable?
Speaker wire is different up to apoint.
[b]must[/b] be run along a ley line for true realism 🙁
Its all utter pish, they came up with the "aligned electrons in the copper" bull years ago to rip people off for £300 a meter cables
Just do a search on Kimber cables for a laugh !!
And sheilding ?
He is talking about interconnects, they dont have shielding on them.
Wasn't this directional cable a running joke on STW a couple of years back? I remember it popping up in a lot of post for several weeks, a bit like the generic answer 'Conti Vert Pro's' 🙂
Doh... just assumed it was another speaker cable thing, they usually are!
Anyway, how would interconnects only being grounded at one end work then? Where is the signal return path?
Blurb, and only £604....for 8ft !!!!
[url= http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?src=google&lookup=1®ion=UK¤cy=GBP&pf_id=3221&customer_id=PAA1224103809677HRNJELLBVGNPHBFN ]Speaker Cable[/url]
If you cannot tell the difference yourself then why worry? Either wire them up the way it says and forget about it, or do it wrong and make a lot of noise on internet forums about how you think it's daft and you know which end of a soldering iron to hold so you're an expert.
However, cables have directionality. It's a known phenomenon and measurable.
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
Music is an AC signal.
It goes both ways anyway!
p.s. traildog, please provide me with a physical explanation of how an speaker cable can be directional. 😈
LOL.
Any of you tried listening to proper cables in a good system in a well set up room?
Nordost Valhalla interconnects sound nice!
Kimber? Pah, get serious! you need some [url= http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20ODIN%20interconnect.htm ]Nordost Odins...[/url] Yes, £12,000 might seem like a lot for a cable but wait 'til you hear them!
Any of you tried listening to proper cables in a go system in a well set up room?
Have you tried a blind test of cheap vs expensive cables in that situation? Thought not.
You would think cynic-al might be a bit more, well... cynical? 🙂
Directionality of cables? You've having a giraffe!!!
Do you think anyone has told the National Grid? Just think of the power they could be wasting!!!
[i]It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...[/i]
As pointed out by glenh the signal is AC, so how would this work?
And does any of this actually matter when you're just going to be playing FM radio, poorly sampled mp3s or 44.1 kHz CDs?
Obviously it does GrahamS, otherwise why would people spend soooo much money on it...
;o)
Riiiight. So it's not going to explode if I get it wrong then. Good.
Must say they do look nice. Fat and yellow.
Probably worth it buying a decent quality cable but if there is an improvement in using high end cables its way beyond my law of diminishing returns.
I reckon the improvement people hear from upgrading cables is due to the removal of corrosion on the speaker terminals brought about by the act of changing the cables which results in a better contact for the new speaker cable.
Good cables do make a difference. BUT.....Only if the kit they're used with is worthy of them. The difference in Naim std interconnect & Naim Highline is totally breathtaking!!! I.M.O.
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
or indeed to see the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud...
Naim std interconnect & Naim Highline is totally breathtaking
Well the price no doubt is. LOL.
p.s. traildog, please provide me with a physical explanation of how an speaker cable can be direction
No, I am not arrogant enough to think I know everything. There are many things in this world I do not understand.
Directionality of cables?
Do you think anyone has told the National Grid
Or the telecoms industry? Oh wait, they already know about it and worry about it.
Have you tried a blind test of cheap vs expensive cables in that situation
How else would you buy such a thing? You'd always get the cheapest if you knew prices and there was no difference. The difference is often very noticeable.
by the act of changing the cables which results in a better contact for the new speaker cable.
This is very true and a good point. Just remaking your contacts every few months is well worth it.
or indeed to see the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud...
Whether or not its the Virgin Mary rising from a cloud or not, has nothing to do with cable science.
If a tree fell in a forest and you didn't hear or see it. Did it ever fall? Perhaps it's still standing?
The telecoms industry? Care to let us know where within the telecoms industry they use this property? Lemme guess though... long distance transmission cables maybe?
If that's the case, and it's a noticable phenomena over an 8ft run of cable, it must be massive over long distance cables.
Oh, any why doesn't the IEEE have any papers on it? You'd think they might...
How else would you buy such a thing? You'd always get the cheapest if you knew prices and there was no difference. The difference is often very noticeable.
What really? A blind test where you didn't know which cable was which? Pretty easy to convince yourself you can hear a difference when you know which is which.
funkynick
Shhhh, he's just annoyed that people think he is silly for spending hundreds of quid per meter for cables on his hi-fi !!!
traildog
You really need to point us in the direction of this research\evidence that a directional cable has any merits in the Hi-Fi world to make anybody believe a word, after all thats what we were talking about, not the telecomms industry ?
Clubber - unfortunately - the price is quite breathtaking - although nowhere near as breathtaking as some 🙂
[i]If a tree fell in a forest and you didn't hear or see it. Did it ever fall? Perhaps it's still standing?[/i]
Show me the science!
It is also perfectly possible to hear the difference in having the cables the wrong way round, with your eyes open or closed...
Course you can.
See also [url= http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427285.700-think-yourself-a-sharper-tv-picture.html ]Think yourself a sharper TV picture (NewScientist, Sep 2009)[/url] 😉
hifi bears the same relationship to electronics as astrology does to astonomy :o)
🙂
I was never convinced about directional-cables for hi-fi, but a decent quality cable is a must IMO if using with a good system.
I upgraded from a freebie CD interconnect & cheap speaker wire, and was amazed at the improvements it made.
The soundstage was wider, the bass punchier & I heard extra musical detail in tracks that i hadn't heard in them before.
Interconecting cables are shielded from one end, what effect this has on sound quality I have no idea. I always presumed it was to avoid earth loops in PA equipment, and then that only realy becomes an issue if you've pluged into two different electrical sources, which you'd know about because of the humming noise it causes. But then again, you only have one phase electrics in a house so that cant realy be it.
Snake oil of the highest order IMO.
Just to tidy this up slightly form a scientific point of view, speaker cables can and do make a difference. However, this is entirely (assuminng sensible current carrying capability) due to the relative impedances (specifically inductance) of your amplifier output, cable and speaker combination.
It has zero to do with fancy materials, directionality are any other industry/manufacturer BS (although cable geometry does have some effect).
However, expensive does not mean better. The 'best' cable for you system my be bell wire. It might also be some expensive cable, but that cable won't necessarily be better for any other system.
One more point - psychological effects are probably larger. 😉
traildog - Member
If you cannot tell the difference yourself then why worry? Either wire them up the way it says and forget about it, or do it wrong and make a lot of noise on internet forums about how you think it's daft and you know which end of a soldering iron to hold so you're an expert.
Although I can use a soldering iron, I wouldn't say I was in anyway and expert. I have however studied analogue electronics, AC theory + electro-magnitism, electronic communications and the psychology of human perception. 😯
It's mostly b*llocks* at audio frequencies - you'll probably get away with a pretty scummy shielded cable for a short run so long as you don't move* it and the connections don't oxidise. If it's a long cable (lots of metres) then in theory the cable impedance should correspond to the output impedance of the driving end...but you still need the receiving end to be the correct impedance anyway so as not to reflect back to the source. That's called impedance matching.
Which is why it's pretty academic for a short cable, and reflections happen in a v. short space of time compared to the wavelength of the highest audio you're likely to hear.
By comparision, in the electric transmission industry it *is* important, because the distances between source and destination points are so great that they can lead to what's called 'standing waves' as a result of reflecting energy from the receiving end back to the source. You can get the same thing with a radio transmitter, except now the cable lengths are very short, the result of the reflected energy can be to overheat the output stage.
In baseband (ie voice) telecoms (frequency range is only above 300Hz - 3.4Khz) similarly due to the distance involved, you want impedance matched cables - not necessarily just to reduce reflections, but to maximise the amount of power received. Years ago there used to be something called 'lump loading' - basically a filter in the line at periodic distances to equalise for the characteristics of the line, which itself was less than ideal.
Re ground loops - I find that a little difficult to believe, if the (pair of) cables are only grounded at one end then there's no reference ground at the other end and you're relying in whatever scummy ground there is via the mains (if there is one). At each end the grounds of the connector will be physically (=electrically) close so I can't see why there should be a ground loop issue, at least for hifi.
I can imagine there be an issue if you fed through several levels of equipment and back into the first, mebbe that's what TINAS is referring to - but when chaining stuff end-to-end I'd expect they'd be grounded both ends. (AdamT - you heard anything like that when you were at Harman ?)
*you can get microphonic/movement noise on cables - eg guitar leads are made from 'Low noise' stuff - it's actually mechanically generated noise due to moving the cable.