Cabling, Timing and other factors in System Building.

[Chippy_boy]

I think it's not black and white Alex. In my mind, it's not a case of either saying (a) cables make a difference, or (b) they do not.

Clearly (at least I think so) a 10ft piece of bell wire is not going to be able to handle a 40A peak from a 500W amp handling a transient from a full orchestra. And therefore it would be madness to assume ALL speaker cables sound the same.

But at the other end of the extreme, are we to believe that if a DAC receives every single one of the bits sent to it in a digital stream, and the DAC also reclocks the signal to remove any timing errors, then somehow the digital cable can affect the sound? That's equal madness to me. What on earth physical phenomenon could be responsible for enabling one set of bits and timing to sound different from another set of bits and timing, when the bits are the same and the timing is the same???? It makes no sense at all, does it.

[Jonboy]

I have dabbled a bit with a few cables and found that i'm not that keen on silver ones on Valve amps, i tend to use My copper based Atlas ones most, if you have a dull sounding system try using silver and vice verser for a dull system.
The worst combination i used was Chord Rumour 4 speaker cables with a Siver Arrow interconnect between source and amp through a pair of Mission Argonaut speakers to much sibbulence thats for sure

[Alex_UK]

Well Chip, I agree, it makes no sense at all, but I have very little knowledge of the scientific side of hi-fi, passed the basics, and certainly not to any academic level passed 'O'

However, there are a lot of things in the world which (to me at least) make no sense, so I am definitely an open-minded sceptic - and the only thing I can judge with is my own ears, or maybe sometimes my own imagination, I guess!

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Well Chip, I agree, it makes no sense at all, but I have very little knowledge of the scientific side of hi-fi, passed the basics, and certainly not to any academic level passed 'O'

However, there are a lot of things in the world which (to me at least) make no sense, so I am definitely an open-minded sceptic - and the only thing I can judge with is my own ears, or maybe sometimes my own imagination, I guess!

im with you on this one alex...

phisics is riddled with unaswerables... its one of those things i never really understand about science, im fairly sure it can be pretty much proved by science its self, as we currently understand it, some things are unaswerable! dont ask me to name an example,im not clever enough..i have just read stuff that says thats the case... so knowing that, how can scientists be so sure of them selves all the time

please no one take that as a personal jab, its just an uninformerd observation of science as a whole

[Steve Toy]

Phase and timing issues chaps?

Forget about cables as tone controls and learn what to listen for perhaps, regarding differences.

[Dave Cawley]

Hi Steve

They are better in all respects - timing, dynamics, neutrality and bandwidth.

Could you explain what you perceived relative to "bandwidth" please?

Thanks

Dave

[Chippy_boy]

Phase and timing issues chaps?

I don't buy any of that Steve. But I accept if there are differences, they are difficult to describe in the same way as it's hard to describe how a Chateaux Lafite tastes compared to a Latour, if you are lucky enough to have tried both.

[Steve Toy]

Chippy,

If someone lends me two runs of Chord Epic Twin I'll be happy to have you round, and demonstrate by comparing it with the much cheaper Black Mamba.

The difference is not subtle but you will have to believe what your ears tell you.

Timing issues. Do you believe that some systems resolve rhythm and timing better than others? Note I said R & T not PRAT. I'm not sure where "pace" really fits into all of this. A note should be permitted to tell its full story and in the temporal context of other notes and musical events. Overemphasising its leading edge does not do that.

Dave,

Bandwidth - is it really necessary to reproduce frequencies that are inaudible to the human ear/brain?

Yes. Just as it is necessary to produce cars that do 150 mph when the limit in most EU countries in practical terms is only 80. The power of an engine capable of such speed gives other benefits in terms of torque, acceleration and effortless refinement. With extended bandwidth a given hi-fi component will not only reproduce those inaudible frequencies it will also reproduce the audible ones with much greater accuracy, lower distortion and with less scope for timing anomolies.

So, if I hear a cable that seems to reproduce the audible frequency extremes much more accurately to the extent that I hear and appreciate much improved top-to-bottom cohesion and I am able to make more sense of the rhythmic pattern of the music, the soundstage is bigger and imaging more precise (imaging is perceived through accurate reproduction of high frequencies, is it not?) I think I'm safe to conclude that there has been an increase in bandwidth through that particular cable.

[Joe]

I don't buy any of that Steve. But I accept if there are differences, they are difficult to describe in the same way as it's hard to describe how a Chateaux Lafite tastes compared to a Latour, if you are lucky enough to have tried both.

It's also interesting to note how wine experts' opinions change depending on whether they know what they're drinking; in a 'sighted' test they will tend to rate the most expensive/prestigious wines more highly than they are likely do in a 'blind' test.

IMO the same applies to cable comparisons, once you know you're listening to a more expensive cable (particularly from the same manufacturer) you'll be likely to rate them as 'better' than cheaper cable. This was borne out in a cable test in HiFi Plus some years back, when the blind test failed to give any consistent ranking order. For some reason, they never repeated the experiment!

[Steve Toy]

Joe, my point about rhythm and timing. It is quite a specific one that goes beyond "hearing differences" in the vaguest sense. It is the difference between walking out of the room after a couple of minutes and being moved by the music on an emotional level for some considerable time. Some setups won't show up the differences anyway, especially if there is a bigger bottleneck in the chain than that imposed by any of the cables.

We can all idly read reviews and reports before regurgitating them on a forum. Hands-on experience is what counts.

Chord Epic Twin versus Black Mamba in the context of the system I use for resolving rhythmic pattern of music. I'll give you a clue:

The cheaper cable wins.