Personally, I find "Since I've Been Loving You" on Led Zeppilin 3 to be a real test of patience due to Bonham's incredibly squeaky bass drum pedal, for instance…

Wow. That £11k was a great investment then? Anyway, enjoy your cables. 🙂

At the risk of showing my age, this whole debate reminds me of the fuss magazines made of the first CD players that only had one DAC. This led to a phase delay between channels that was seen as a major indicator of the players performance.

However some simple sums showed that this difference, in the worst case, was the equivalent of misplaceing your speakers (or ears) by about 3mm, but every month critics would slag off a player for its phase difference. I can only assume that their heads were held in a metal clamp to ensure fair comparisons …

Sounds good, whereabouts are you?

Please describe the room, the equipment and the test process.

Hatfield, Herts.
The room's an Anechoic chamber about 6ft by 8 of usable space I'd guess. The equipment would be any sound equipment you'd care to bring along. I'd supply some sort of 'black box' to switch between the two sets of speaker cables. You'd choose whatever ever bit of music you like. I use a random number generator to select which bit of speaker wire get's switched into the circuit, you listen to the music and tell me which you think it is. I note your choice, and we repeat the test 10 times. You're allowed to listen to the music with either wire before the test starts, but you won't be told which is which.

I don't understand why anyone would think the composition of the materials conducting signals WOULDN'T make a difference. After all, you've got one signal wiggling away along the wire which your ear (inner and outer) transposes then your brain manages to decode it into instruments, squeaky pedals, fingers on fretboards, smokers' larynxes and an infinite array of expressions and nuances. So it's fairly for me to accept that absolutely minute electronic effects could alter the unbelievably complex perception of this soup of analogue data.

Even a few atoms of impurities in a crystal of metal in a wire would affect the electron transport through that structure – after all that's how semiconductors work. Loads of factors involved here.

No-one here is claiming that £30,000 of cable will turn crap into gold (so stop extrapolating to extremes to try and win arguments!) but I will hands-down guarantee that I can tell the difference between my old £1/m speaker cable and the QED anniversary silver £5/m stuff I replaced it with. There was tons more bass, and anyone would have been able to tell. And I'll take that double-blind test. I'm also fairly confident that I woudl be able to tell the difference between my setup (not expensive btw) on its low-end real hifi stand and on the floor. Even my Mrs remarked upon that and a) she wasn't listening for it, b) she doesn't really care about hifi and c) she wasn't even asked about it by me. She is however intelligent and observant 🙂

I'd supply some sort of 'black box' to switch between the two sets of speaker cables

Not good enough – have to be wired in directly, you're gong to have to change the cables by hand.

I'd be interested in joining in this experiment btw although i'm not making any wild claims. Apart from the one about the QED silver cable *on my system*.

but I will hands-down guarantee that I can tell the difference between my old £1/m speaker cable and the QED anniversary silver £5/m stuff I replaced it with

I wouldn't dispute that for a moment.

No-one here is claiming that £30,000 of cable will turn crap into gold (so stop extrapolating to extremes to try and win arguments!) but I will hands-down guarantee that I can tell the difference between my old £1/m speaker cable and the QED anniversary silver £5/m stuff I replaced it with. There was tons more bass, and anyone would have been able to tell. And I'll take that double-blind test.

If you could win the £500 offered here, you could follow it up by doing the $1 million challenge that James Randi offered.

http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-09/092807reply.html#i4

Just got this back from NAIM:

We listen to a sample of all our cables (my emphasis), to determine directionality, before manufacture

If you do a Google search on "cable directionality" you will find many discussions, for, against and theory

Not a great deal of use, but I did as I was told. A brief scan doesn't seem to show what we're looking for but instead just highlights the discussion so far, including some claims to published evidence without any indication as to it's whereabouts. Oh well.

I enclose one article which goes into the technology in some detail which may be of interest with just the sort of measurements we're looking for. However, not for "burn" or "directionality", only the claim that it exists.

For what it's worth:

http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/aq_cable_theory.pdf

As far as badly-produced albums go, fortunately, few of the ones I'm interested in are completely unlistenable, most production values are more than acceptable and the best ones are awesome.

Bonham's careless kit maintenance notwithstanding.

Not good enough – have to be wired in directly, you're gong to have to change the cables by hand.

I thought about that, but decided that would be open to the accusation that there was then too much time between hearings so comparison wouldn't be possible?

I had a brief dalliance with 'proper' hi-fi about 20 years ago and it's nice to see the same old bullsh*t is being bandied around re: the emperor's new cables. We'll all be blu-tacking 2p coins to the ceiling next. There is only one man who can hear stuff the rest of us can't and that's Derek Acorah. Ain't that right Sam?

Ian Munro – Member

Not good enough – have to be wired in directly, you're gong to have to change the cables by hand.

I thought about that, but decided that would be open to the accusation that there was then too much time between hearings so comparison wouldn't be possible?

I'm happy with that parameter…

I'm also fairly confident that I woudl be able to tell the difference between my setup (not expensive btw) on its low-end real hifi stand and on the floor.

Wouldn't argue about that – speaker stands compared to no speaker stands does make a difference. There's genuine science behind that though. 🙂

hands-down guarantee that I can tell the difference between my old £1/m speaker cable and the QED anniversary silver £5/m stuff I replaced it with.

But might that not be explained by:

the obvious – resistance,
capacitance and inductance

Don't think anyone is claiming that there is no difference at all between any speaker cables, just that a lot of the claims of the more expensive ones are bullshit.

I'm happy with that parameter…
You're happy with the switch or the manual?

Ian Munro – Member

Sounds good, whereabouts are you?

Please describe the room, the equipment and the test process.

Hatfield, Herts.
The room's an Anechoic chamber about 6ft by 8 of usable space I'd guess. The equipment would be any sound equipment you'd care to bring along. I'd supply some sort of 'black box' to switch between the two sets of speaker cables. You'd choose whatever ever bit of music you like. I use a random number generator to select which bit of speaker wire get's switched into the circuit, you listen to the music and tell me which you think it is. I note your choice, and we repeat the test 10 times. You're allowed to listen to the music with either wire before the test starts, but you won't be told which is which.

Aha. That would mean disassembling my entire kit and finding transport there and back (I don't drive). Then setting it all back up again when I get home. BIG faff. I thought you were going to provide the kit! Anyway, I'd certainly be VERY wary about running my NAIM boxes with dodgy cheapo wire – if anything went wrong it'd invalidate the warranty.

Although I hate the idea of missing out on the chance of an easy 500 knicker…

Mr Woppit… unfortunately that appears to contradict that other quote you posted from the founder of NAIM…

It doesn't seem to matter how the bundle (of copper) is drawn, single direction or mixed direction, but as soon as the insulation is
extruded onto the bundle, the directionality is established. This
means that one can mark the insulation and it will always be the right
way round.

This states that it doesn't matter what the cables are like beforehand, but when the insulation is applied, it affects the cables in the same way…

Whereas the new quote says

We listen to a sample of all our cables, to determine directionality, before manufacture

It appears NAIM are a little confused about what it is they actually do…

:oD

PS: The manual. Although that may be academic now…

😥

>I wouldn't dispute that for a moment.

I probably would, depending on what that £1/m wire is. Equally if you've wound up the excess wire on the cheap one that'll make a difference, 'cos you've just stuck an inductor between the amp and a speaker. Try drawing a lot of current through a rolled-up extension cable (reel type thing) – it'll get hot, and that's just at 50Hz

I'd certainly expect there'll be a difference regarding whether it's on the stand on on the floor – equally move it in the room too – well, not by 3mm 😉 – that'll make a difference because the pressure waves off the speakers will reflect around the room differently

>Even a few atoms of impurities in a crystal of metal in a wire would affect the electron transport through that structure – after all that's how semiconductors work. Loads of factors involved here.

You've only half the story. You don't have a semiconductor just of one n or p type – it's how you use them together that's important, the crystalline structure of the copper is effectively random (and even it its weren't there doesn't appear to be any reasoning as to why that would make a difference.)

It appears NAIM are a little confused about what it is they actually do…

Agreed. I'm surprised. Well spotted.

Beeing a mischevious little merkin, I think I'll post it on the NAIM forum and see what happens…

😯

I'd certainly be VERY wary about running my NAIM boxes with dodgy cheapo wire

What do you think is going to happen exactly?

if anything went wrong it'd invalidate the warranty.

😆

'Finding out that cheap cables work just as well as the ridiculously expensive ones we sold you invalidates the warranty.'

I CBA reading this but from what I have skimmed it makes me LOL.

Splits opinion into:

1. Those who have heard a difference, don't know why, but believe their ears.
2. Those who have much invested in "engineering" etc who won't swallow any of it, and listen accordingly.

I'm glad I have the breadth of mind to be in camp 1.

MrWoppit, why are you backing out? If it does turn out that your kit is merely OK, rather than the best of the best, surely you can just sell a couple of bits of it to someone equally deluded (I can imagine it would make £500 easy, given that a NAIM remote is £250, and even their take on the humble kettle lead power cable is £400).

Then you could pay off Ian, and get something slightly cheaper that does just as good a job. 🙂

They believe their ears only because they have a receipt for £11k in their wallet! If I'd dropped that much on a bit of kit I reckon I damn well would believe I could hear a difference before I admit I appear to have given almost half my yearly take home pay on a bit of copper 🙂

I'm sure New Scientist and Slashdot.com, would both very interested in getting hold of you Mr Whoppit, and finding more about the directionality of conductors. Contact for both are below, best be quick though, before someone else pips you to picking up that Nobel Prize for Physics with your name on it.

http://slashdot.org/submission

http://www.newscientist.com/contact/us

And I 'love' the old ignorant argument that a scientific mind is a closed mind when the exact opposite is the primary reason people get into science in the first place 🙂

MrWoppit, why are you backing out?

All the fuss and faffing about deconstructing my system, finding and paying for transport, setting up at your end and then doing it all over again in reverse…

As for the cheap cable/warranty issue – it cost me a great deal of money and I'm not willing to risk it especially as NAIM recommend against it, marketing hype or not.

If it does turn out that your kit is merely OK, rather than the best of the best,

That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. How would your proposed test reveal whether or not that is the case?

Anyways, whatever…

I tested cable directionallity in a c. £11K Linn system I owned a few years back. I could not tell any difference between the different cable directions. It's funny when you listen to some of the people on the Naim /Pink Fish forums who profess to have golden ears, then find out they have had one of their speakers wired out of phase for the last 2 years ;-).

Back in the 80's/90's people would put up with this shit, but now things have moved on. The cult of the british HiFi industry has choked on it's own BS, and personally I am very glad about it (dispite wanting to support british industry).

In what possible way could "cheap" cables damage your system? I honestly can't think of any mechanism by which that could happen.

Also if I were you I'd be going for the $1,000,000 from the JREF, never mind the measly £500 that Ian is offering.

One of the things that's worth spending some extra dosh on is your power lead.
Interconnects and speaker wire make a huge difference, but put your amp & / or cd machine on an isolation platform and you'll sit back with a huge grin on your face. The bass especially does amazing things.
I've got mostly Nordst Vishnu power leads and Music Link+ speaker cables & inters and yes, they do make a difference.
If you afford it, try cleaning up the mains too, I have 2x such units, each requiring yet more power leads. About £12k worth in total.

This thread has made me smile, especially in light of mr woppit's comment on the tooth fairy thread yesterday 🙂

Mark – Administrator

They believe their ears only because they have a receipt for £11k in their wallet! If I'd dropped that much on a bit of kit I reckon I damn well would believe I could hear a difference before I admit I appear to have given almost half my yearly take home pay on a bit of copper

You give me no credit for intelligence. I "dropped" £11k on the system after I'd heard it demonstrated. Or are you just being an arse?

Dougal – Member

I'm sure New Scientist and Slashdot.com, would both very interested in getting hold of you Mr Whoppit, and finding more about the directionality of conductors. Contact for both are below, best be quick though, before someone else pips you to picking up that Nobel Prize for Physics with your name on it.

Given my previous post regarding what has and what hasn't been published and my comments thereon, I find you to be a supercilious c*nt. No offence.

No smiley.

Well I didn't expect that level of debate when I posted this – I expected to be told I'd die in a fireball for getting the cables the wrong way round.

So I should flog the posh cables and stick with the red/white plugged jobbies off my old stuff then?

Thanks all for an amusing read.

miketually – Member

This thread has made me smile, especially in light of mr woppit's comment on the tooth fairy thread yesterday

We did this already. Catch up.

As this is turning into a bully session, I'll just cover the NAIM anomaly issue before I leave the jackals to yap at each other.

Apparently:

Fact is, on interconnect and Burndy cables in particular, we don't rely on the cable factory to tell us the "direction" – just because the printing goes in a certain direction doesn't mean that the insulation has been applied consistently in the same direction from one reel to the next. That is why the only true test is to listen. Roy gets some samples cut from each reel and listens to them before declaring the direction. He says it's usually quite easy to tell…

Speaker cables can be problematic because if they are printed incorrectly then the cable must be scrapped – not cheap and very inconvenient! They are sampled by batch, and luckily mistakes are rare..

One of the things that's worth spending some extra dosh on is your power lead.

Yes, 1 metre of overpriced cable on the end of the street supply from the substation definitely makes a difference. To your wallet.

IMO the only directionality in any conductor is one that is imposed by the design – i.e. if you have directional connectors (duh!) or if your system connects all shielding to the amp-side/one side (fairly standard practice in noise reduction). There's no inherent directionality in a chunk of braided wire.

On the subject of expensive versus decent kit – of course there could be a difference. Whether there is or not depends on the quality of design and manufacture. I'd believe and oscilloscope before I believed my ears, but I'm fairly sure my ears would miss what a scope wouldnt. Prove it on a scope and I'll believe some people MAY be able to hear a difference.
You want to keep everything as low-resistance as possible so as to reduce losses, you want to avoid capacitance and noise pickup, but otherwise – move along, nothing more to see.

How would your proposed test reveal whether or not that is the case?

Well, I don't think anyone's denying that the quality of componentry used in a hi-fi system makes a difference, up to a point. We've all had experience of crap hi-fi systems (usually correlating with our first flush of enthusiasm for recorded music) and it's clear that spending a few more quid here or there can make a big difference. But this thread is specifically about the fringes of lunacy, and I'd say that stuff like directional cables and £400 power leads fits the bill. Say if you'd spent £1100 on your separates, rather than £11,000, would you be denied the pleasure of hearing Jimmy Page scratching his bollocks?

We did this already. Catch up.

must have been lost among the wild claims, and bragging about expensive hi-fi systems…

I wasn't being an arse Whoppit. My point is that people's perceptions of the value of a product really are directly proportional to how much they have paid for it. It's one of the reasons we treat submitted reviews from people who have actually bought a product with some sceptisism. My point was genuinely meant.. If I'd spent £11k on stereo I'd definitely hear a difference. Whether that difference is real or not is the question. It's not your fault really… The ridicule and derision should really be aimed at the scammers who sell 'directional' cables and not their victims. As you are clearly one of the latter I apologise for my comments.

Don't think we / I spent £thousands on kit in one go.

I spent my 21st birthday money on an amp and a turntable and that was 24 years ago.
The rest of the kit has been upgrades.
Listen to kit in shops and in your own home and if it works, buy it.
If not try something whilst you're there else or return the kit.
It's how it's done. 50% of my ventures have not resulted in a purchase.
It'd be wrong to make the map fit the ground which is what some are suggesting – exactly the opposite is the truth.

Adventures in HiFi – it's even had an album named after it and always done with pals and a bottle of something cold.
Settle on a few tracks on different CD's and see where it all takes you.!

i think the cable test would've been cool and if i was in englandshire i'd have been up for it. of course what you could do is find yourself an audiobooth somewhere and see who's really got the 'golden ear'. Me, while having some lovely, and stupidly expensive, kit in years past age and noise have left me with little in the way of top end hearing. much cheapness has ensued.

and while i neither know nor care if cables are directional, i'm prepared to admit my cable buying purchases in the past have been more motivated by the way they looked, i'm curious about this gem

people's perceptions of the value of a product really are directly proportional to how much they have paid for it

what proportion would that be exactly?