Cabling, Timing and other factors in System Building.

[Chippy_boy]

I am a complete skeptic when it comes to cables and cable directionality and other even more (imho) daft ideas. In my view (as an ageing physicist) - so long at the cables are of a high quality, without excessive resistance, inductance or capacitance, and with some decent mechanical integrity so they don't fall to pieces - then they should make no difference to the sound quality. If they DO, then there is something wrong with them (esp with regard to the 3 properties above)! The other thing is, I don't believe I have a particularly good "ear". I can't really say I can tell the difference from one decent cable to another.

My belief is even more strongly held when it comes to digital cables. What more is there other than bits and jitter? So long as all the bits are correct, and the jitter is either removed by the dac - or low in the first place - I can see no other way for information to be transfered from a transport to a dac. You don't get strawberry flavoured bits; only bits.

Years ago, when people had no experience of top quality hifi huge emphasis was placed on the quality of the source. 33%-33%-33% was a common understanding of the appropriate amount of spend on source-amp-speakers. Many advocated an even higher emphasis on the source. "Rubbish in, rubbish" out was the perceived wisdom.

But I really do think things have moved on so much today that a very inexpensive source can produce incredible performance. And *much* more benefit can be derived from using better speakers and amplification. Hence my use of the quite expensive Wilson Benesch's, and the slightly expensive Tag amplification.

Welcom Chip!!

You left out screening!

Dave

Indeed I did, lol.

I should have added, I have no issue with people preferring one cable sound to another... that's a matter of personal taste. Also - and this is perhaps a bit more contentious - it is my view that possibly some distortions just happen to sound nice. Maybe to everybody.

There was a device that came out in the 70's called the Aphex Aural Exciter. This device became extremely popular with recording studios and various artists - Alan Parsons and Fleetwood Mac spring to mind.

What the Aphex device did was to *add* harmonics to the signal. It was deliberately adding distortion! And yet the resulting sound was to many (most?) more appealing than the pure unadulerated source. So much so that the studios paid for it's use and records were sold with Aphex modified sound.

This being the case, it seems extremely plausible to me that certain hifi components can sound better than others, given similar, or possibly even inferior technical specs.

[StanleyB]

I am in this silly position where I used to design all sorts of cables for my former company of employment, but got this gagging order and confidentiality agreement imposed on me for a few years. So that's why I can only speak in broad terms. So bear with me..

The point about this directionality business is largely down to the termination and connector's individual performance at each end. For a super duper test: solder one connector with normal solder, and the other connector with silver solder. Now try the RCA cable either way. If you have a reasonably resolving system, you'll hear the difference.
Then cut the cables right by the connector and turn the cable round. Solder on the connectors using the same combination of solder. If you do the listening test again, in most cases you'll find that that position of the ordinary solder versus the silver solder is still the same in terms of observations, even though the cable direction has changed.

The same trick can be tried with two different connectors at each end.

Stan

[Dave Cawley]

solder one connector with normal solder, and the other connector with silver solder. Now try the RCA cable either way. If you have a reasonably resolving system, you'll hear the difference.

Why would that be?

Dave

[StanleyB]

solder one connector with normal solder, and the other connector with silver solder. Now try the RCA cable either way. If you have a reasonably resolving system, you'll hear the difference.

Why would that be?

Dave

You'll have to wait till May 2010 before I can answer that...

[Chippy_boy]

The point about this directionality business is largely down to the termination and connector's individual performance at each end.
Stan

100% agree. However, how detectable this is, is open to debate imho. There's a world of difference between double blind controlled tests and "I think that sounds a bit nicer".

But putting that to one side for a moment and assuming we can all tell the difference, and in response to Dave's question, I don't know for sure why why the connector (or even the solder) makes any difference, but I would strongly suspect it's due to the impedance of the connector and therefore it's frequency rolloff characteristics.

This is why you have to crimp bnc connectors to maintain the rating impedance. Adding blob of solder buggers it up and you end up with significant signal attentuation due to impedance mismatch.

Phonos are not impedance matched in the same way, but it doesn't mean to say that their impedance does not have an effect on the transmission of the signal.

But as I say, this is only a guess - I don't know for sure.

[StanleyB]

100% agree. However, how detectable this is, is open to debate imho.

There are ways of working that out, but I can't tell you till next year...

But in a broad sense: imagine you had a glass tube that was narrower at one end, with bends and twist in it as well at the ends. Now pump through that tube a stream of lightly coloured water. Try it from both ends. Now observe the change of density of the coloured water at the bent ends, between the wider and the narrow end of the tube. Which side has the darker coloured water, and where exactly is it darker...?

[Chippy_boy]

There are ways of working that out, but I can't tell you till next year...

But in a broad sense: imagine you had a glass tube that was narrower at one end, with bends and twist in it as well at the ends. Now pump through that tube a stream of lightly coloured water. Try it from both ends. Now observe the change of density of the coloured water at the bent ends, between the wider and the narrow end of the tube. Which side has the darker coloured water, and where exactly is it darker...?

I think that's an analogy too far Stan.

[Dave Cawley]

Adding blob of solder buggers it up and you end up with significant signal attentuation due to impedance mismatch.

Only about 0.1dB at 100,000 times the limit of a young persons hearing. But when it meets the PCB inside? this must be a red herring surely?

Regards

Dave

[StanleyB]

I think that's an analogy too far Stan.

Now let me see, water is a bunch of molecules, which are a bunch of atoms, which are a bunch of electrons.
An electrical signal is a bunch of..hmm.. electrons traveling along a conductor.

[Chippy_boy]

Now let me see, water is a bunch of molecules, which are a bunch of atoms, which are a bunch of electrons.
An electrical signal is a bunch of..hmm.. electrons traveling along a conductor.

As I said, the analogy goes a bit too far ;-)

I could pick holes in it all over the place, but to pick just 2:

1. Atoms are not electrons
2. An electrical signal is the propagation of an electromagnetic wave, not electrons travelling along a conductor.

It is wrong to think of electons as ping-pong balls whizzing down a tube. Or water in a pipe for that matter. It's more akin to a copper pipe packed with sand. You push a bit more sand in one end and almost instaneously an equal amount of sand pops out the other end. But it's not the same sand.

This is how electricity works. The electrons shuffle down the wire at circa 0.1mm / second. Not 3 x 10^^8 m/s.

I am sure you knew all this ;-)