[Closed] Speaker cables - an experiment.....

Cable Talk Talk 2 sounded better to me than the bell wire stuff I initially bought.

I later bi-wired the speakers & that made an even bigger difference. Even my Dad who is rapidly going deaf and used to take great joy in taking the mick out of anything hi-fi admitted it made an appreciable improvement.
God knows what it actually does.

When I bi-amped I previously had some £2/m ish cable, flat stuff you could put under carpets, I forget what it was called though. For the second run I bought some QED anniversary silver, at £5/m. I put it on the base side, the difference in bass was tremendous. I put it on the treble side, the difference was also tremendous. The sound was so mis-matched it sounded really weird, so I bought some more. It really made a massive difference - no need to back to back test, it was really obvious.

Even though it seems a lot for cable, the whole lot only cost £60 and it was by far the most effective £60 I could have spent on the system. And it's not expensive kit, just Cambridge audio stuff from ebay.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has actually conducted any back to back tests and the conclusions they reached.

Yes. Obvious differences, but apparently (according to some experts on here, who weren't there at the time) it was all subliminal, or placebic, or something...

molgrips - Member

When I bi-amped I previously had some £2/m ish cable, flat stuff you could put under carpets, I forget what it was called though. For the second run I bought some QED anniversary silver, at £5/m. I put it on the base side, the difference in bass was tremendous. I put it on the treble side, the difference was also tremendous. The sound was so mis-matched it sounded really weird, so I bought some more. It really made a massive difference - no need to back to back test, it was really obvious.

Now swap the QED stuff for normal mains wire. 🙂

Thing is, you don't know how it was supposed to sound, so it may be the 'better' cable is actually degrading the music more, just in such a way it sounds better - but like people preferring valve amps for being 'warmer' sounding.

What you really need to do is make a CD of test tones (single and multiple), hire an anechoic chamber, a reference microphone and a decent spectrum analyser and do some proper calibrated tests.....

My mates an audio tech for bbc, prev did systems for Bentley etc. after lots of tests std 240v twin or triple core was best budget answer, put down to high copper content

Someone must have done cable tests using a reference mic and spectrum analyser before? I would be interested in seeing that, regardless of imperfections in the mic, if there are differences in speaker cable they should be apparent. I'd have thought if they had been done and shown a difference, cable manufacturers would use them instead of the usual BS..

Yes. Obvious differences, but apparently (according to some experts on here, who weren't there at the time) it was all subliminal, or placebic, or something...

If it's obvious, then you'll be able to tell the difference without knowing which cable is plugged in.

If it's obvious, then you'll be able to tell the difference without knowing which cable is plugged in.

That's what I was about to say. Can you do it blind if someone else does the cabling?

[img] [/img]

blind tests only begin to work if you using more than 50-60 participants - and even then they are still open to bias.

You can't conclude anything from a blind experiment with one guy taking part.

No one ever says;

"Yep, I could hear the difference but I preferred the sound when I had a plaited wrigleys wrappers as a speaker cable so I'm sticking with them"

which makes me think a lot of it is like bikes - 'I've spent cash ergo it's better'.

If it's obvious, then you'll be able to tell the difference without knowing which cable is plugged in.

Which is what I'm offering with my wager. 😀

Now swap the QED stuff for normal mains wire.

wwaswas - Member

No one ever says;

"Yep, I could hear the difference but I preferred the sound when I had a plaited wrigleys wrappers as a speaker cable so I'm sticking with them"

which makes me think a lot of it is like bikes - 'I've spent cash ergo it's better

That's exactly what I'm saying.
I prefer the Gale cable with this system - it was cheaper than the Mission cable which it's replaced.

I prefer a lot of cheaper bike kit to the more expensive alternatives too: Foam grips, Alpkit rucksacs, Bontrager tyres.
If it's better, it's better - cost doen't come into it.

Which is what I'm offering with my wager

I hope someone takes you up on your offer - if you manage what no-one has ever managed before, you stand to become a very rich man.

I hope someone takes you up on your offer - if you manage what no-one has ever managed before, you stand to become a very rich man.

Lots of people have done it before, just not to James Randi's exact terms and conditions.

Just to clarify, I've not blind tested the cables - if I can't tell the difference when & if I do, I'll be the first to let you know.
It'll be very interesting either way.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that it may be a load of old toss and I've managed to fool myself into hearing a difference.

So, what, you're 'blind', I swap the cables about and you tell me if you can hear the difference? And, if you can't, you buy the beer/pizza?

Where are you? 🙂

[img] [/img]

where do you live, roughly?

Burnley. 😀

No pineapple.

Wrong end of the country (for now)

How about we do it over the phone? 🙂

Lots of people have done it before, just not to James Randi's exact terms and conditions.

The terms are pretty important - e.g.the number of samples required to be confident that the result isn't by chance. Is Randi asking for anything that isn't standard practice for ABX experiments?

That sounds like a tempting challenge; as a bona-fide sceptic who wires everything up with whatever the hell I've got lying around at the time ...

What Footflaps said

Thing is, ALL HiFi equipment colours the sound, it is designed to flatter the music you are listening to. Some will flatter different types of music, so this is where the subjectivity comes in, when one person prefers X setup and another prefers Y.

I used to really buy into all the HiFi stuff, thing is when you actually get into sound engineering and music production, you start to understand what's important and why it's important... It's the music! Cos good music will sound good on anything, and shouldn't need an expensive HiFi to make it sound good. And that's why producers will usually buy the flattest reference monitors they can, so the sound they hear is as true a representation of the original recording as possible.

My mates an audio tech for bbc, prev did systems for Bentley etc. after lots of tests std 240v twin or triple core was best budget answer, put down to high copper conten

That's exactly what I use and it's free off cuts from work too. Always had this so don't know any different. 😀

stevehine - Member

That sounds like a tempting challenge; as a bona-fide sceptic who wires everything up with whatever the hell I've got lying around at the time ...

Try it yourself.
Mains twin & earth vs cheap stranded stuff.

Not expensive, but it's interesting. 😀

How about we do it over the phone?

Brilliant! 😆

What you really need to do is make a CD of test tones (single and multiple), hire an anechoic chamber, a reference microphone and a decent spectrum analyser and do some proper calibrated tests

That would be silly, as mentioned above a lot of it is about preference. You might be able to reproduce the content of the CD exactly, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll like it the best.

I've been tempted to enter the world of moderate Hi-Fi geekery and play around with cables and other tweaks etc.

I'm open minded yet cynical all at the same time so anything could happen!
My speakers are currently bi-wired, with different lengths and makes of cable, but can't remember if it made a difference at all.

Having read a load of Hifi mags a couple of years ago it just all sounded like a load of waffle, much like the bike chat that goes on here and in the mags (parallel worlds of nonsense with lots of similar kit, doing the same job, but with different logos on)

That would be silly, as mentioned above a lot of it is about preference. You might be able to reproduce the content of the CD exactly, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll like it the best.

The idea behind the reference mic and spectral analysis is to see if there is any difference in output between cable types at all, ie detectable actual real world difference rather than perceived difference.

bi-wired

ah you mean buy-wired 😀

That would be silly, as mentioned above a lot of it is about preference.

At least it is objective and scientific.

Once you get into personal preference for sound, there is no right and wrong and no better / worse, just all different.

EDIT: Previous place I worked we had a custom test rig for doing just this for DACs to compare them all so we knew which performed best. The application was multi-carrier mobile phone base stations, so linearity was critical (as 3rd order intermodulation products would sit on another carrier).

Rusty I volunteer to be the subject and i can even bring some more cable with me and another set of speakers if you want

I dont drink nor eat pizza so the wager is low

PS I struggle with long sentences is it the same stuff all over again ...seeks the comfort only another religious thread can offer

Junky, you're on. 😀

We'll get something sorted soon.

There is a lot of waffle separating £10k kit, but there's clearly a difference between 10p/m cable and £5/m cable imo.

Burnley.

I work just off J9 of the M65. You said there'd be beer, right?

EDIT: Bonus, I'll have Junky's too.

[img] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRcqiPAZtE_vpdAHjO2O9Skj4ynm64_HMiEgFTM0fJtk4i9KovB-g [/img]

And anchovies.

I can't hear the difference between My Cheapo [£5 a pair] Monster Interconnects and an Optical connection between my Amp and CDP. Which is a bit of a surprise is it's also a change of DAC...!

All the other things I have, I can hear a great difference between them and their predecessors - the 3 CDPs I've been through in the last few years, the 2 Record Decks, 2 Amps, and Three sets of Speakers.

Funny stuff, Hi-Fi.

Interestingly I am booked for a full hearing range test in an anechoic chamber on Thursday, courtesy of a friend 🙂 Maybe I'm just deaf, we'll see then!

I recently stumbled across this:

[b]Are You on the Road to Audio Hell?[/b]
http://audionote.co.uk/articles/art_audio_hell.shtml

Try it yourself.
Mains twin & earth vs cheap stranded stuff.

Oh believe me I have done 😉

I've discussed (argued ;)) about this before on here ... there was talk back then of setting up an A/B test but nothing actually came of it I don't think.