[Closed] Hifi again!!

... and here's something for you to chew on...

https://www.stereophile.com/content/minnesota-audio-society-conducts-cable-comparison-tests-0

To be honest coming on here and talking about spending €550 on hi-fi interconnects is ‘asking for it’ and for someone who has been on here as long as you it has to be either tongue in check or, the very least, a bit trolly.

two can play that game so I decided to ‘play’ along but ask a genuine question (which tbf you kind of answered). It’s easy to judge, but my mother used to say if you can’t say anything nice say nothing 😉 Its more interesting to have a conversation than zokes deore diatribe. 25-30 years ago I worked with a guy whose BiL ran a Hi-Fi outlet and he talked about someone spending £30k each on pre-amps. I thought, that’s a shitload just to listen to Brothers in Arms... 🤣

im never going to spend £10k+ on hifi, ever, it’s just not that important to me. Plus at my age my ears!my ears!... Buts it’s your cash and if it brings you joy, great. And you obvs don’t care what other people think about it (which is as it should be).

Happy (enhanced) listening. 🙂

I was reading that report earlier this morning. What’s interesting with that, is that while the listeners could tell a difference and some expressed a preference, the most expensive cable didn’t win

"There were several comments to the effect that the sonics of the second amplifier, which was slightly preferred. Hopefully this did not significantly influence the results of test #3 and remaining tests."

So it's meant to be scientific but they change an amp halfway through?

Load of crap.

Also, they didn't test any decent quality, reasonably priced stuff, say £20 - £50? (Which I would consider "expensive")

It went from $3, then the next was $1000, rising to $8000.

The cheapest one isn't even really "speaker" cable.

Changed amp, all sat in a room together, in the same place as their mate switching the cables. Hardly scientific. And still not big enough results to get a statistically significant result!

If you look across the really cheap wire results with the aim to prove the hypothesis that more expensive wire is better:

1) 18 out of 40 people don't prefer the more expensive wire
2) 23 out of 40 people don't prefer the more expensive wire
3) 24 out of 40 people don't prefer the more expensive wire</span>

And supposedly the first one where they did prefer the expensive wire (although not by a statically significant amount) that was against the wire that "lost" to the other 2 expensive wires.

And that's despite using really, really cheap cable for the cable A and not just some fairly cheap reasonable cable.

I really wouldn't read much into that experiment!

Whereabouts are you Mr Woppit?

if you’re anywhere close I’d love to see/listen to your system - I’m a HiFi fan too, just alon a much lower budget.

im genuinely curious re the “spotting the difference in the cables” question too - I was serious about bringing my £60 cable over...

… and here’s something for you to chew on…

https://www.stereophile.com/content/minnesota-audio-society-conducts-cable-comparison-tests-0/a >

Interesting, but it's flawed. It's not double blind, ie those running the test were aware of which cable is which. One amp broke so the equipment in the test was not consistent.

Also the choice of cables is clearly biased. One $3 set then the rest are all over $1000. What about $20 cables, $50 cables, $100, $200 or $500?

<p style="padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.5rem; color: #444444; margin: 1rem 0px !important;">Whereabouts are you Mr Woppit?</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.5rem; color: #444444; margin: 1rem 0px !important;">if you’re anywhere close I’d love to see/listen to your system – I’m a HiFi fan too, just alon a much lower budget.</p>

Happy to host.

Orgiva, Alpujarras, Spain.

Just up the Calle from Dave at "Biking Andalucua".

<span style="color: #444444;">"Orgiva, Alpujarras, Spain."</span>

Wow, you lucky fella. Nice place to live!

markwsf - why not book a holiday with Dave and call in here on your day off with your cable?

Mr Woppit - quite tempting!

I suspect hifi might very much take a back seat compared to the local biking though...

Aren’t we getting into the realms of playing recordings back on equipment that’s “higher quality” than the gear it was originally recorded on? And then if that’s the case all this “detail” etc that people say they can here simply isn’t there in the first place?

Diminishing returns in terms of enjoyment/£ is definitely true, but I actually think that the more improvements you make, the easier it becomes to hear the differences.

In some ways those differences aren't so subtle.

My favourite hi-fi dealer makes their own racks ( https://www.musicworks-hifi.com) and on their mid-level systems upwards it's very easy to hear the differences between shelves made out of mdf/acrylic/peek swapped during listening.

But even though in some ways I've been blown away by their high-end systems, I've chosen to stay at a modest level myself just because my priorities and situation are different (kids, cats, room decor, home cinema, etc).

“I paid hundreds/thousands for xxxxxxx and now I can hear the bassist farting at the two-minute mark”, or, “I paid hundreds/thousands for xxxxxxx and now I can hear the singer’s breath wafting over the mic.”.

...is basically how it goes, and demonstrates how the ‘audiophile’ doesn’t really understand audio. It’s much more a matter of ”I spent hundreds/thousands and listened so hard for a difference that I heard something I hadn’t heard before”.

This lack of understanding of sound is usually also made apparent by a failure to adequately treat the space that the equipment is played in.

You've completely made that up Three_Fish.
Most hi-fi people I know talk about the emotion and communication of the music. They also go to a lot of live gigs and concerts. They are basically trying to recreate the same connection that occurs at those at home. It's nothing to do with breaths/noises.

It's to do with musical intent, subtlety and communication.

I leave the specifics to our engineers, but wide bandwidth, phase coherence and fast transient handling are important.

That's certainly the traditional NAIM approach - communicating the emotional content by concentrating on "pace, rhythm and timing" - musicality.

My own upgrade path has been to look for all the "hifi" qualities - soundstaging, detail, instrument placement and so on, whilst retaining the essential qualities on which Julian Vereker founded the company.

My experience is that, with careful choice of upgrade (largely sticking with NAIM boxes but going outside the company for speakers and in this case, speaker cable) you can indeed have the best of both worlds.

http://I was reading that report earlier this morning. What’s interesting with that, is that while the listeners could tell a difference and some expressed a preference, the most expensive cable didn’t win

That's a fairly typical result in these sort of tests. Subjectivity and all that. I'm reminded of a test of oboes. There is a lot of sniffiness about materials used in woodwinds - MUST be wood, DEFINITELY NOT resin or plastic. Anyway in blind testing musicians and non-musicians alike couldn't say which were wood and which were plastic. They could state a preference and it wasn't the same for everyone. So I guess the upshot of that is, whatever you like personally, go with it. I have Radiospares speaker cable and mic cable in my AVI/ATC setup. It sounds fine to me.

Mr Woppit, I know you have NAIM amps but don't which ones. What I have found about the smaller ATC speakers (I have SCM20s) is they need serious amounts of power driving them. I have AVI 150w mono blocks but I know they sound better with the 250w model. I'm talking of dynamics and transients not just ultimate peak SPLs.

Most hi-fi people I know talk about the emotion and communication of the music. They also go to a lot of live gigs and concerts. They are basically trying to recreate the same connection that occurs at those at home. It’s nothing to do with breaths/noises.

It’s to do with musical intent, subtlety and communication.

So what do you do to run it in?

@ slowoldman

At the moment,  I've got a NAC202 into a NAP200.

This hits the absolute minimum requirement for the SM19'S at 70wpc.

Seriously considering ebay searching for a relatively recent NAP250 to bring it up to 80wpc which would be a much better fit.

The Cuervo Gold. A fine Columbian.  Make tonight a wonderful thing.

Nice

At the end of the day, it's your money and if you're happy, then cool.

Curious, but how much were your banana plugs?

No idea.

The cables came made up to my spec.

And 100 hours to burn in? Burn in a cable? What happens when you go from 99 hours to 100?

"wow, that's amazing. Spotify 128k never sounded better"

<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px; background-color: #eeeeee;">Possibly, but it’s a very, very rare concert where the sound is on a par with even a £300 home system, apart from volume, of course.</span>

In my experience live music knocks spots of any hi-fi, however expensive. But then again most gigs I go to these days are classical. I find that in general classical musicians couldn't really give a toss about hi-fi. They understand it is a second rate copy.

Of course. Cds and records are mastered to suit an average home hifi, not replicating a live concert. Completely different.

So you bought 2x single runs, you're not bi-amping or bi-wiring? What speakers are you running? Assuming they are front ported as the pics I saw they looked like they were in corners with acoustic dampening and a tiled floor.... Get a rug lol

<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">Seriously considering ebay searching for a relatively recent NAP250 to bring it up to 80wpc which would be a much better fit.</span>

A little story. I was at a trade show years ago. Martin Grindrod of AVI had an interesting demo set up incorporating power meters showing average power over a 1 second period and instantaneous peak power. This was using ATC SCM20s. He was playing the start of Sibelius Violin Concerto. It's a quiet intro and the average power meter showed about 0.1 watts with peaks of a watt or so. Come the first orchestral tutti the instantaneous power requirement shot up to 400 watts!! That requires an amp of about 250w RMS to reproduce cleanly. What price SETs?

@aphex

I'm pretty sure a giant unicorn leaps into the room through a 6th-dimensional portal in the subspheroidal continuum.

Which is what I suppose you'd like to read as a response to your goad.

Smartarse (not an ironic compliment).

You’ve completely made that up Three_Fish.

I wish I had.

They also go to a lot of live gigs and concerts. They are basically trying to recreate the same connection...

Well there's a fool's errand if ever there was one.

It’s to do with musical intent, subtlety and communication.

Oh give me a break. Nobody, and I repeat, nobody, needs 500quid cables to be able to discern any of those things in a recording. I'm fortunate to know a lot of musicians - I'm a bit of an old hand myself - from punks and grungers to professional jazz players, and I know people who record and produce for a living. Many musicians record and many recording engineers play. I don't think I can think of a single one who is also an 'audiophile'. Most of them love music, though; funnily enough. It's almost offensive to artists and engineers, to suggest that their work can only be properly appreciated with pretentiously over-priced equipment.

It’s nothing to do with breaths/noises.

Really?

Isn’t it great when, even after all this time an upgrade proves to be little short of jaw-dropping? Very familiar with the track, but this was the first time I’ve been able to hear Sandy Denny’s breath passing through her throat as she sings.

Get in the sea man 🙂 Currently listening to the track streamed from YouTube on my MacBook and I can hear her breath as she sings. That's just what her voice sounds like. Granted, it's easier to hear when I stream through the hifi, but if you've never heard it before it's nothing to do with your speakers unless you were previous listening through potatoes. It's a lovely song, on that we agree.

“pace, rhythm and timing” – musicality.

All wholly independent of audio quality unless, again, possibly when played through a potato.

It's anyone's business what they spend their money on, but if you're going to play show and tell then you have to be prepared to have people point out your bullshit. It also totally undermines your 'expertise' when you refuse to acknowledge the significance of one of the most important factors in audio reference.

Oh dearie me.

I just can't be bothered with this thread anymore.

Best argue amongst yourselves.

Haha,  what did you expect?

Still, if you're still reading, which I expect you are as you've only demi-flounced, stick a picture up eh? Be right back, I'm just plugging my phone into charge using a $700 USB C cable as I find I charges better.

X

Also giggling that you had these cables made up to spec but no idea what plugs you have. Money well spent. Well done you.

pace, rhythm and timing

All wholly independent of audio quality

<p>

Diminishing returns in terms of enjoyment/£ is definitely true, but I actually think that the more improvements you make, the easier it becomes to hear the differences</p><p>In some ways those differences aren’t so subtle.My favourite hi-fi dealer makes their own racks ( https://www.musicworks-hifi.com ) and on their mid-level systems upwards it’s very easy to hear the differences between shelves made out of mdf/acrylic/peek swapped during listening. But even though in some ways I’ve been blown away by their high-end systems, I’ve chosen to stay at a modest level myself just because my priorities and situation are different (kids, cats, room decor, home cinema, etc). -Advertisement--

A flounce!

"Look at my brilliant £500 wires. They make the music come alive!"

Really?

"Yes. Here is a completely flawed test to prove it."

Well here's some evidence to debunk your audiophile BS talk of balance, sound stage, detail, colour etc.

"I'm off!"

You OK hun?

Incidentally,

What's the logic behind "directional cables" anyway, how's that supposed to work?  We have a cable which conducts electricity better in one direction than the other?

That has always baffled me Cougar.

We have a cable which conducts electricity better in one direction than the other?

Yes, we do, and it also helps the band play in time. What a pair of them will do will make your jaw drop!

Maybe they do sound better, but I'd be unable to hear the improvement over the sound of my wife saying "500 euros, on ****ing copper wire? That's more than gypsys get at the scrappies,  you dick!"

What about a £350 power cable?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audiophile-Power-Cable-Professional-Discerning/dp/B01IF3ST60

HTAF can that make any difference?

The 240v has travelled from a sub station maybe miles away, then through the cabling in your home.

How can adding a 1m length at the end make any difference whatsoever?

<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">How can adding a 1m length at the end make any difference whatsoever?</span>

If you don't understand the physics of snake oil (or $ sign) I can't help.

What you really need is a £1650.00 power cable.

https://mcru.co.uk/product/mcru-no-77-power-lead/?v=79cba1185463

To make that really sing you need some £3500.00 speaker cable

https://mcru.co.uk/product/black-rhodium-thunder-loudspeaker-cables-2/?v=79cba1185463

You guys are really playing at the cheap end....

What about the £1350 ethernet cable or the £1350 USB cable?

https://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/vertere-pulse-data-ethernet-cable.html

https://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/vertere-pulse-hb-double-usb-cable.html

Surely there can be nothing madder than those 2?

Never mind that cheap speaker cable.

How about £54,000 for 5m of this:

https://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/audioquest-wel-signature-speaker-cable-per-terminated-pair.html

They are made with directional unicorn hair.

What’s the logic behind “directional cables” anyway, how’s that supposed to work?  We have a cable which conducts electricity better in one direction than the other?

I'm pretty sure there are materials that are directional conductors, e.g. the stuff in diodes and rectifiers. However, an audio signal alternates about 0 volts reference so directional material is surely pointless

Positive and negative connectors only exist on speaker cable for phase coherence

What’s the logic behind “directional cables” anyway, how’s that supposed to work?  We have a cable which conducts electricity better in one direction than the other?

I can't imagine anywhere in audio where that matters and I say that as someone who used to design the front ends for ultrasonic scanners where the signal levels are rather low.  Doesn't mean I'm right though - just means it doesn't make any sense to me