Audiophile mains cables please explain?

If you can produce a hydra lead for a fiver that sounds as good as my £80-worth from Graham’s, you’ve got my vote.

I tried listening to my mains lead and couldn’t hear anything. I suspect my ears may not be up to this.

😆

I’m talking about speaker cables btw.

Never compared mains cables.
Logic tells me that beyond suppressing interference, there can’t be any audible difference.
Dunno what my ears tell me because I haven’t tried it yet.

I’ve an idea for a very simple speaker cable test. I’ll stick a thread up later.

I tried listening to my mains lead and couldn’t hear anything

try licking it

this could be a contender for thread of the year… never heard such poppycock. in recording studios everyone uses kettle leads. we also put signal thru various pieces of outboard gear specifically to “colour” it ie degrade it, add some freq, take some off.
surely the question is what music he is listening to? if its mumford and sons its always going to be pap

this could be a contender for thread of the year… never heard such poppycock. in recording studios everyone uses kettle leads. we also put signal thru various pieces of outboard gear specifically to “colour” it ie degrade it, add some freq, take some off.
surely the question is what music he is listening to? if its mumford and sons its always going to be pap

I want to hear from the £225 cable for the skybox guy, that is truly amazing.

Article in SOS on mains:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul03/articles/mainsproblems.asp

I’m enjoying this thread.

Cards on the table I used to work in a hi-fi shop.

I used to sell this stuff. I worked in a few different shops selling various budgets of kit from the NAD / Rotel end to the Linn / Naim / Meridian end.

The mid price guys generally new the value of kit. So they know they hear and feel the difference when you bi-amp a set of speakers but there is no way you could sell them stuff of dubious benefit.

The high end guys you could pretty much sell anything too. Sometimes I would demo stuff without making any changes and then ask them if they could hear the difference. Most of them could

I’m talking about speaker cables btw.

Never compared mains cables.
Logic tells me that beyond suppressing interference, there can’t be any audible difference.

Aye. That’s pretty much what I said a couple of pages back. Going from crappy bell wire to a heavier gauge cable should make a difference; beyond that, meh. I’ll be interested in the results of your experiment.

The high end guys you could pretty much sell anything too. Sometimes I would demo stuff without making any changes and then ask them if they could hear the difference. Most of them could

Can’t say as I’m totally shocked.

people can spend their money on whatever they like, and, the beauty of it is they don’t even have to justify it, not even to the internet.

but,

What I don’t get (genuine ignorance rather than for effect) is what all this audiophilia is trying to achieve? I was once caught on a night ride for a long time attending an injury and got chatting to this new chap. He spent his retirement lump sum on a set of handmade amps, but freely admitted he liked punk and the records he listened too were sometimes recorded on Wollworths standard equipment.

Is the Audiophile trying to perfectly capture the recording, warts and all, or is it an effort to make a system that renders the recordings ‘better’?

My cousin is a Sound Engineer, they use the same speakers all over the world in recording studios, Yamaha somethings (IIRC) so that wherever you are you always have a reference. The cabling in the studio is just decent shielded industrial stuff to all the kit, I’m sure all the interference is included in the recording isn’t it?

Is the Audiophile trying to perfectly capture the recording, warts and all, or is it an effort to make a system that renders the recordings ‘better’?

Very good question. 😀

Listening to a bad music system is like reading a book with half the words blanked out, or a badly focused photograph.
You can sort of tell what’s going on but you the miss a lot of the detail.

I like systems that present as much of the original info as possible in the way the artists/producers/engineers intended.

It’s then up to me to decide whether I like the music or not. That’s the important bit.

My cousin is a Sound Engineer, they use the same speakers all over the world in recording studios, Yamaha somethings (IIRC) so that wherever you are you always have a reference.

Yamaha NC10’s. I posted something about them on a thread where some muppet reckoned the Japanese couldn’t make quality speakers. Very detailed and revealing speakers. BBC LS3/5A’s are another.
The only thing that I can remember having any affect on mains were special plugs with components built in to help prevent spikes and switching noise from other devices on the mains.

If you need a magic mains cable (that you could never identify in a blind A/B) to make your hi-fi sound good the PSU’s in your components are inadequate of doing what they were designed for so I would get rid of them ASAP.

Great article from SOS about NS10’s:
Link.