HiFi snake oil or is it?

Bought a s/h Audiolab DAC on Ebay.

The seller mentioned it came with a “good quality” interconnect.

When it arrived the good quality interconnect turned out to be a https://www.futureshop.co.uk/wireworld-silver-starlight-7-digital-audio-cable

They retail for £200!

Bonus, I will sell it on Ebay, which will greatly offset the cost of the DAC. After all, it can’t make any difference, particularly as it’s a digital cable.

It’s a lovely looking thing TBF, really well made as it should be for a £200 50cm wire.

So I compared with my bog standard coaxial cable and it was “better”!

There seemed to be more detail and the sound was clearer!

Now the problem is that my source only has one coaxial output, so there is no way I can quickly switch between cables, there is always a few seconds delay switching hem.

Have I been tricked by the look and feel of this cable?

The source is streaming UHD 24bit/192kHz.

Also, considering I’m in my mid 50’s, have worked in noisy environments and have dived both for work and fun, since my teens, my ears can’t be the best.

TLDR/I think I can hear the difference between 2 different wires carrying the same digital signal.

run some blind tests, same piece of music a few times, but ask someone to change, or not change the cable every time, and note down what cable is in use

you note down your thoughts

maybe run it 10 times and see what the results say

I’m also in my 50’s and probably losing my top end, I’ve noticed this recently with my son’s turntable and amp set up, which should “sparkle” but it just doesn’t to me. It’s a bit like watching my 4k telly and not noticing a huge difference in picture between 1080 and 4K, until I put my glasses on!

This is how they get you !

What’s your original cable ? Is there a chance that your comparison cable is so terrible that it’s introducing enough noise to cause error connection (but not enough to cause total signal loss) because that’s the only way this could happen.. or the new cable looks better, so your brain is tricking you.

Your only choice is to spend £50 on a mid level cable to see which way the truth lies (obvious joke, I hope)

The major difference between them will be the materials used in the connection between plug and cable and the attention to detail.

I’ve had a vaguely nice hifi set up all my adult life, basically it’s best budget separates so not proper posh but it sounds really nice. But occasionally you get crappy records or CDs that just sound pants, no matter what you run them through.

Most of the time It just sounds great, I gave up worrying about minor sound differences a long time ago. Just turning your speakers upside down changes things!

The biggest single improvement was moving to a house with no neighbours, everything sounds awesome turned up loud!

TLDR/I think I can hear the difference between 2 different wires carrying the same digital signal

You’ve got better ears than me then!

I had 3 systems wired up, swapping speakers and cables about. I could hear they were all a wee bit different but none were better than the other.

Interestingly I could not hear any difference whatsoever between the thinnest wire I could find and some big fat hifi wire. The speakers I bought for £5 at a car boot sounded just as good as the £££ I’d bought second hand.

Get two more interconnects, someone to help you that doesn’t know which cable is cheap/ expensive and get them to swap stuff about while you have your back turned the whole time

Don’t forget to have them rattle about, tell you they have swapped the wire when they haven’t sometimes.

I teach science at high schools. In a class of 30, 3 to 7 kids will tell me a signal generator is on when its off while demonstrating frequency. After seeing this happen, other kids will also swear blind there is a sound when the kits off or it’s well above human heating.

Placebo is very real.

Hope it’s fun faffing about. I had an very fun nerdy hour or two when I tried it.

Bonus points for recoding a playing it back

Your original coaxial cable was probably in the wrong way round. Try reversing it and see how it is then.

Yeah, but what Burn In does your cable have? This is essential information, you should contact the original supplier to check, immediately!

(nope, me neither, no idea)

TLDR/I think I can hear the difference between 2 different wires carrying the same digital signal.

Of course you can.

The ‘B’ ark is this way, sir.

I’ve read the thread title but none of the posts. The answer is Yes, snake oil.

You forgot to mention what altitude you are listening at

But is it single estate, first pressing extra virgin snake oil from a local artisan snake strangler? or the supermarket stuff that’s really just a bucket of squashed worms?

I am as cynical as anyone about speaker cables and interconnects improving hifi.

I really wanted to sell the cable, the DAC was only £260 so if I could get £100  for it, then that’s a substantial saving.

However, it did appear to sound “better”.

I’m going to play around with it again tonight.

I’m hoping that it was my imagination and I can sell the cable on without regret.

To be clear, there is no way I would pay £200 for a single interconnect.

Just out of interest what is this cable doing. Computery source to the DAC box, or somewhere else. If it sounds good to you, keep it. My ears are shot from teenage gigs but when I get sounds I like, I value that, whatever the price or brand name.

It’s a digital coaxial cable connecting Wiim streamer to an external DAC.

Short answer – you are probably imagining it.

Slightly longer version – well, digital signals are not perfect, there are 1s that come through as 0s and vice versa. That’s why we have error checking, which of course tries to remove the erroneous bits and restore them (not quite true but close enough). And if the number of erroneous bits is low the check bits work well – but a high number causes problems. Think dalek voice on mobiles for an extreme example.
But over 500mm on a controlled path? Probably imagination.

But over 500mm on a controlled path? Probably imagination.

I agree.

I don’t know why have been suckered in though?

I wanted to sell it but now I’m in 2 minds.

Wouldn’t you be worried that you were missing out on all that detail and depth, if you sold it?

Did you upgrade you mains supply to the house, BTW?

Have you got your DAC on a concrete slab?

Speakers on point stands?

Anechoic wall coverings?

Directional speaker cables?

Magic woo crystals on your ley lines?

I run enormous experiments of new drugs vs placebo.

We spend a lot of time blinding our experiments, because placebo works.

Does it matter if it’s objectively better?  It’s subjectively better – but if you are the subject, then it’s better…. right?

just keep the cable, you know you want to

Do a blind test with a friend as above… It would be a bit of fun if nothing else… And make sure to post your results here.

What was your source material for the test OP?  Was it this?

Have I been tricked by the look and feel of this cable?

Yes.

However, it did appear to sound “better”.

Get your partner or a friend to change it around at random without you knowing which is which. Hell, if you’re local I’ll come and do it.  I’ll bet you the price of that cable that you can’t reliably tell which one is in use.

It’s not carrying audio, it is carrying data, the signal is either intact or it isn’t. Do you ever drive listening to DAB in an area with poor signal? The quality doesn’t tail off like with FM, it’s either perfect or you suddenly get a wet squelch followed by silence.

People like to apply analogue thinking to digital technology, often when trying to sell £200 interconnects, and it’s wrong-headed. The part where cable quality becomes important is the A side of the DAC.

The problem is it sounds better to you. That has value. If you eBay it, what do you get? £70 tops?

Then you ask yourself, if I could spend £70 and make my hifi better, would I? (We know the answer to this as you just spent £260 for a box to go between the Wiim and your amp, when lots of people just go direct and are quite content.) So keep it and think of it as Brucie Bonus.

As a sanity check, though, try a third cable, whatever your best “non digital” RCA interconnect from between your other boxes, your original cable may just be really crap/nearly broken inside.

You need to get some Audiophile Rocks to improve the sound even further.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18meYHp7D9x4JL2wXAFbopTGxg6sFHhUt/view

or you suddenly get a wet squelch followed by silence.

The same thing can happen in a lift

So I compared with my bog standard coaxial cable and it was “better”!

There seemed to be more detail and the sound was clearer!

Of course it was better, you have inherent bias towards it sounding good as it is more expensive and looks good.

Snake oil bullshit, as is much of what comes from futureshop

Right, I have ordered another cable for £12 from Amazon.

I will compare the 3 and get back.

Snake oil bullshit, as is much of what comes from futureshop

But what about this? It’s only £200.

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/new-products/chord-chordohmic-transmission-fluid-contact-cleaner?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwooq3BhB3EiwAYqYoEr0BQgNW7LjG07A2qQXfS7dmynZcqJ54OP8X0qKV3vGRXLWQv4tKEhoCEtkQAvD_BwE

The major difference between them will be the materials used in the connection between plug and cable and the attention to detail

I think some of the fancier ones put some passive devices in the connector to better reduce reflections which can throw timing a bit.  I’ve seen small ferrite beads and resistors in there before.  This is what can make a cable (assembly) directional rather than the copper itself :).  Whether this should be audible or not I don’t know.  Remember that digital audio isn’t like a computer file where if it’s corrupt it will stop working.  It’s designed to keep going and fill in the errors if it can’t correct them but without you knowing so you could have lots of errors normally but not really know

I love how these threads never fail to bring out all the “its just ones and zeros” armchair experts. How would any of you actually know, seeing as you’ve obviously never spent more than 20 quid on a cable? And probably not more than a couple of grand on the whole system.

I will go against the grain and say “not snake oil” but I’m not going to claim that I can explain why. In my experience cables matter, supports matter, power supply matters (and I did go to the trouble of having my hifi wired onto its own circuit with switchless silver plated sockets and power conditioning etc.)

If you want to really put it to the test, then you need to keep the cable in your system for a couple of weeks and then switch back. There’s no point just swapping back and forth after a few minutes because you need to give your ears chance to acclimatise.

The speakers I bought for £5 at a car boot sounded just as good as the £££ I’d bought second hand.

Perhaps your £5 car boot sale were a bargain and you paid over the odds for your 2nd hand £££ ones. Or you need to spend £££££ for a significant difference. FWIW IMO speakers make a massive difference compared to the small differences between electronics and cable.

Of course as mentioned earlier, hi-fi is subjective.

Jamz
Free Member
I love how these threads never fail to bring out all the “its just ones and zeros” armchair experts

Because it’s a digital connection in this case.

With analog connections such as speaker cable… It could be argued some sound better than others.. I’d argue they can sound sightly different. Whether different equals better is entirely subjective.

I’m looking forward to the blind test OP! Switch places and get your friend to do it too as an extra control.

I love how these threads never fail to bring out all the “its just ones and zeros” armchair experts. How would any of you actually know, seeing as you’ve obviously never spent more than 20 quid on a cable? And probably not more than a couple of grand on the whole system.

I will go against the grain and say “not snake oil” but I’m not going to claim that I can explain why. In my experience cables matter, supports matter, power supply matters (and I did go to the trouble of having my hifi wired onto its own circuit with switchless silver plated sockets and power conditioning etc.)

If you want to really put it to the test, then you need to keep the cable in your system for a couple of weeks and then switch back. There’s no point just swapping back and forth after a few minutes because you need to give your ears chance to acclimatise.

Bullshit Bingo!……I claim my prize.

I love how these threads never fail to bring out all the “its just ones and zeros” armchair experts.

Yet your post is brimming with knowledge.  You presume to know what everyone else has spent on equipment, admit that you don’t know how any of it works, segue through silver-plated power sockets and finish off with some random bollocks about acclimatising your ears.

*golf clap*

Tell you what, here’s a quick primer.

In an analogue system, you put 17 down a wire, you might get 15.7 out the other end.  Cable quality can have a massive impact here.  Length, shielding, grounding, impedance, twisted pair; interference, crosstalk, degradation…  I wouldn’t wire up a VHS video recorder with an out-of-the-box SCART cable, let alone hi-fi separates.  I would – and did, despite your assumptions – pay a good amount of money for decent interconnects.

In a digital system, you put a 1 down a wire, you either get a 1 out of the other end or you don’t.  If you don’t, it is broken.  You cannot install a £200 digital interconnect and get “1 only better,” it’s a physical impossibility.  This myth persists because a) people are applying analogue thinking to digital systems as I said earlier, and b) people are stupid/gullible enough to drop £200 on a bottle of contact cleaner and then sit there desperately trying to convince themselves that it’s made the blindest bit of difference.  Anything beyond “does it work” and “is it going to fall apart,” you’re simply throwing money away.

I can’t think of any other industry which routinely trots out such astonishingly abject bollocks and not only gets away with it but has a legion of fans who lap it up.  Is it time for this again?  https://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_to_storage.htm

I would say that the biggest difference I ever had from interconnects was a decent  Ixos SCART cable.

The improvement in picture quality was amazing.

it’s either perfect or you suddenly get a wet squelch followed by silence.

Last time this happened to me I swear to god I heard someone in the office whisper “oh for **** sake”

I would say that the biggest difference I ever had from interconnects was a decent  Ixos SCART cable.

The improvement in picture quality was amazing.

Yup, I can well believe that.

As hi-fi peddlers go, Ixos is one of the good guys.  They sell decent stuff without talking shite.

In a digital system, you put a 1 down a wire, you either get a 1 out of the other end or you don’t. If you don’t, it is broken

Broken is not a black-and-white outcome.

You put some 0s and 1s down a wire, plus some extra 0s and 1s as a checksum. At the other end, you check and find that the checksum is wrong, so you ask for all the bits again.

You might instead add some error correction 0s and 1s so that much of time you can figure out what the original 0s and 1s were and don’t need to ask for them again.

I would say that the biggest difference I ever had from interconnects was a decent Ixos SCART cable.

SCART is just an analog connector format, basicaly RCA/speaker cables with a SCART connector at each end, so a cheap crappy one, I can well belive could cause problems.

Spending a few more quid on one that has better build quality connector/soldering etc. can absolutley make a difference up to a point, both in terms of signal quality and more robust/better fitting/construction.