Truly amazed

[magiccarpetride]

I think you may be missing the point here Alex
Interconnects shouldn’t and in my experience don’t give “blow you away” sonic differences.
The point about these interconnects is the performance they give at the price.
Nobody has written that these are the best interconnects you can buy and nobody has written anything about astounding improvements in sound.
How much did you pay for the interconnects you’re replacing with these?

You're suggesting that the title of the thread -- "Truly amazed" relates to the low price, not to the amazing sound quality these cables offer?

That's not the impression I get when I read other people's description. There are many posts in this thread that extoll the sonic virtues of these interconnects. Barely anyone discusses the low price.

I don't know how much I paid for my old interconnects, as the dealer threw them in with the purchase of my separates.

[Welder]

From the man himself:
“Too right it is all about a £5 pair of cables David, that's why the thread title is . . . . . . . "Truly amazed"

If they were £100 there would be nowt to shout about

If they were £250 we would say "Are they worth £250?"

If they were £500+ someone would be yelling "Snake oil alert!!!" ”

I can see you’re going to have problems with anything that isn’t “the best” and any mention of “value” is likely to prejudice your listening.
Perhaps you ought to re read the comments because what I understand from them and from my own experiences is you could pay a lot of money for something esoteric and expensive and not get the same performance……......


Oh never mind…………God help us when you get a serious upgrade or mod

[Effem]

You're suggesting that the title of the thread -- "Truly amazed" relates to the low price, not to the amazing sound quality these cables offer?

That's not the impression I get when I read other people's description. There are many posts in this thread that extoll the sonic virtues of these interconnects. Barely anyone discusses the low price.

I started this thread on the basis they were cheap AND sounded very good on two systems I have here, one solid state and the other valve.

I bought a single set out of curiosity based upon my findings with the Belkin PF30 and the results I obtained from that pair induced me to buy a second set without any hesitation and the two sets together in the chain yielded far better results than even I had anticipated.

Being the former owner of Krystal Kables I have had more cables through my hands than I could care to remember, some of which had some lofty price tags too I might add, so it completely took my breath away that these poverty budget wires could produce an almost ruler flat frequency scale that emphasised no element of the sound spectrum, inasmuch as they didn't have any bass or treble uplift or attenuation at all, or having a recessed midband as the overwhelming majority of cables tend to exhibit. At the same time giving increased top end detail and bottom end welly, which sounds like contradicting the previous sentence, but that is where the english language has it's own set of inadequacies.

[magiccarpetride]

I started this thread on the basis they were cheap AND sounded very good on two systems I have here, one solid state and the other valve.

I bought a single set out of curiosity based upon my findings with the Belkin PF30 and the results I obtained from that pair induced me to buy a second set without any hesitation and the two sets together in the chain yielded far better results than even I had anticipated.

Being the former owner of Krystal Kables I have had more cables through my hands than I could care to remember, some of which had some lofty price tags too I might add, so it completely took my breath away that these poverty budget wires could produce an almost ruler flat frequency scale that emphasised no element of the sound spectrum, inasmuch as they didn't have any bass or treble uplift or attenuation at all, or having a recessed midband as the overwhelming majority of cables tend to exhibit. At the same time giving increased top end detail and bottom end welly, which sounds like contradicting the previous sentence, but that is where the english language has it's own set of inadequacies.

True. And it is really amazing that such cheap cables manage to fit so nicely in a well balanced high end audio system. Like, if I had a very pricey pair of interconnects, and if after replacing them by these cheapo babies I couldn't detect any degradation in sound quality, I'd waste no time waiting to sell the pricey ones.

It is actually a good thing that I wasn't able to hear any difference once I replaced my old interconnects with these. But I was hoping (naively, as it seems), that I'd be getting some improvements. There's no free lunch, sadly.

Two things remain to be seen, though:

1. The burn in for the Belkin RCA (I'm now sitting at approximately 10 hours, waiting to make the 20 hour mark)

2. I'm still waiting on the other pair to arrive (the one needed for connecting my pre amp to the power amp)

Once these 2 things happen (and after a proper burn in for the second pair), I'll be in the position to give a more level-headed feedback.

[magiccarpetride]

I started this thread on the basis they were cheap AND sounded very good on two systems I have here, one solid state and the other valve.

I bought a single set out of curiosity based upon my findings with the Belkin PF30 and the results I obtained from that pair induced me to buy a second set without any hesitation and the two sets together in the chain yielded far better results than even I had anticipated.

Being the former owner of Krystal Kables I have had more cables through my hands than I could care to remember, some of which had some lofty price tags too I might add, so it completely took my breath away that these poverty budget wires could produce an almost ruler flat frequency scale that emphasised no element of the sound spectrum, inasmuch as they didn't have any bass or treble uplift or attenuation at all, or having a recessed midband as the overwhelming majority of cables tend to exhibit. At the same time giving increased top end detail and bottom end welly, which sounds like contradicting the previous sentence, but that is where the english language has it's own set of inadequacies.

Another thing I forgot to mention is the directionality of these cables. I see that on one end they have an arrow pointing away from the plug, while on the other end they have an arrow pointing towards the plug. I'm assuming that I should plug the away pointing arrow into the analog out (from the Caiman), and the toward pointing arrow into the analog in (into the pre amp). Correct?

Does the directionality affect the sound quality? If I were to plug it incorrectly, would it sound worse?

And btw, what's the theory behind directionality? How does it work?

I've tried to take a snapshot last night, but I have such a snake nest mess of coiled cables that it didn't turn out that well. Here it is, anyways:

[Jonboy]

some cables are direction marked some are not, perhaps this is the way they may have been pre burnt in or the maker intended them to be run that way, just try swapping them around and see if YOU hear any difference, then YOU will find YOUR answer.

[Effem]

Directionality of cables is the biggest non-event ever.

The reason is perfectly simple; music is an alternating current so electrons pass BACK AND FORTH along the cable, hence it changes "direction" many thousands of times per second

It was theorised way back in the 80's that a reviewer could allegedly hear a difference between the cable being plugged in one way or the other and never had any basis in fact, despite claims of the way the metal is drawn through the die during manufacture having an effect, or there was some mysterious "diode effect" going on within the wire.

I have all my cables going every which way in my system and couldn't give a toss about "directionality"

[Welder]

It looks to me from your pic Alex that you have the Dual RCA audio cables rather than the AV cables.

If this is right they are fully balanced and it doesn't matter which way round the arrows go.
If on the other hand you do have the White AV cables then apprently according to AnthonyTD these are semi balanced (shield not connected at one end)
Ideally with semi balanced cables the end where the shield is attatched to the plug should go to source. If you read the other posts on these cables properly its been explained.

[Barry]

Directionality of cables is the biggest non-event ever.

The reason is perfectly simple; music is an alternating current so electrons pass BACK AND FORTH along the cable, hence it changes "direction" many thousands of times per second

It was theorised way back in the 80's that a reviewer could allegedly hear a difference between the cable being plugged in one way or the other and never had any basis in fact, despite claims of the way the metal is drawn through the die during manufacture having an effect, or there was some mysterious "diode effect" going on within the wire.

I have all my cables going every which way in my system and couldn't give a toss about "directionality"

+1 , assuming they are symmetric.

Directionality might only matter with 'directional' cables, that is cables that have an asymmetric construction. An example would be the so-called semi-balanced cable, where the screening is connected to the outer conductor of the RCA connector at one end only. Ideally, this should be at the point of lowest electrical potential (usually the source, but not always).

Regards

[Marco]

Hi Frank,

Directionality of cables is the biggest non-event ever.

The reason is perfectly simple; music is an alternating current so electrons pass BACK AND FORTH along the cable, hence it changes "direction" many thousands of times per second

It was theorised way back in the 80's that a reviewer could allegedly hear a difference between the cable being plugged in one way or the other and never had any basis in fact, despite claims of the way the metal is drawn through the die during manufacture having an effect, or there was some mysterious "diode effect" going on within the wire.

I have all my cables going every which way in my system and couldn't give a toss about "directionality"

Fairy muffs... I can't dispute what you're saying, but I'm afraid that it's completely contrary to my own experience. With almost every cable I've owned, when connected to equipment, there has always been one way that has sounded significantly better than the other, my current Mark Grants included.

Don't ask me why, but I can clearly hear the difference - and I'm not someone who's prone to imagining things...

Marco.