Electrohead, yes I do find it hard to believe. We all heard the difference because it was mainly a level difference and some lack of extreme top end, maybe down to it being one of the cheapest and thinnest leads out there.
Unfortunately comparing Pluto's Maplin £7.50 Jobie's to the 'total top end' £500 I could not tell a difference, but whotslice could - just.
I would like to do a spectrum and level analyses of the two bottom end cables and actually measure the difference. The gear I have will measure 30Hz to 110MHz and level to 0.1dB
Hi wotslice, do you still have the cheapy you bought along?
Sure I can get Pluto's lead, then I will measure them 'side by side' and report the results graphically for all to see, that is if Dave goes along with it!
I've got some Straight-thru ics as well which didn't make a blind bit of difference to me, do you want to measure these as well? as I'd be intrigued to know the results.
I got them off ebay the claim was they are better than "expensive" but a fraction of the price, they had a 30 hour burn in period and even came with their own burn in CD !. They cost about £80, there was a thread about them on thissite some months ago - I could hear no difference between them and cheaper Van Damme interconnects.
Sorry Mate but 'I got them off ebay' what did you get off eBay, £80 is to my mind expensive, err what is a 'burn in period', I thought we had already ascertained that there was no such thing as 'burn in'.
However if you can't hear a difference then I'm sure no one else will, good to hear the admission that you cannot hear the difference between all leads. This thread is now sounding more like a wine tasting party than serious Hi Fi, but maybe the two are quite close, if not in sound then certainly in 'mindset'
"Straight-thru" is a make of Interconnect which seemed to be only available on Ebay. The reference to burn-in was just to let you know that that these cables have been "set up" as per the supplier's instructions - nothing to do with my views on burn-in.
I've always said a I can hear a diiference between SOME cables AND that the difference is not necessarilly better, I'f you've read my previous posts on the cable test thread I've always made this clear.
Come come Rik, you are replying to a three month old thread. No one is throwing knives, but simply an intellectual discussion about reality.
I read your link to Rod Elliot and find it amazing that you should suggest such a link, as it is so totally opposite your personal view.
Now think about what you say, a mains lead is say 1.6M long, however if it is braided/woven/screened etc. it can not remove noise that is already there, It may stop any more but can do nothing for what is already there.
Now any well designed piece of equipment be it a CD player, power amp, or telly has so much mains line filtering mainly to stop noise getting propagated back down the mains simply to achieve CE approval. But what you appear to miss is that filtering works in both directions, therefor the equipment is already well filtered from RF interferance in it's own right.
Now I have viewed the mains here on a scope and apart from the slightly flattened sine wave it looks just fine, no noise, no interference really nothing. Please tell me what is there to improve, incidentally the flattening observed is basically odd order harmonics and probably created by the oh so friendly CFL bulbs around.
Admittedly the mains supply here is pretty good as I am near a major hospital and get priority for 'good mains', however I do know people in the country who regularly get 'power cuts' and 'lightning strikes' so maybe their situation is different.
Most mains disturbances are by nature 'intermittant' the odd click or pop but never a general degradation of sound.
To electrohead, if just come across you original posting i hope you put this revelation to good use and find out why you heard a difference. Well yes the reason was dirt and muck on the connectors, once cleaned there seemed to be no difference at all.
Really what is it that I am so wrong about, now look at the differences, Ethernet signals are a volt or two at up to 100MHz, mains cables are several hundreds of Volts at 50Hz, how can you possibly compare them, what comparison can be made, they do such totally different things in life that there is no comparison, it is about as relevent as compareing my central heating pipes to my speaker cables, they are totally different issues, there is no comparison, they are not the same animal.
An Ethernet cable gets a load more information down it than an audio interconnect yet costs far less and does the job reliably every time, A kettle lead boils the kettle every time without fail, so what would a silver kettle lead do?
What real differences are you describing, apart from the vague 'etheral' space, the 'inner depth' the 'wider sound stage' etc. all aspects of reproduction that are so 'mood dependant' that they have no place in research or reality. What exactly do you hear and see with your 20/20 vision and hearing of a bat.
Don't get me wrong I am not 'having a go' but simply want to know what you hear that I don't.
Im in no way comparing the two, just pointing out that even a mighty Cat 5 DIGITAL ethernet cable has twisted pairs to try to keep out EMI interference and reduce crossover problems. Are we at least agreed THATS why theyre twisted?
Tell me also, how is it even POSSIBLE that I could hear such a difference between my kettle lead and my Isotek elite on my amp within a 5 min turn around listening to the same song and the same difference when going BACK?
If you cant hear it on yours theres probably lots of possible reasons but lets take the basics.....
Ur 60 (ish) so your hearing will almost CERTAINLY not be what it was (Sorry but thats how age works on the whole)
How do you know for 100% that what you MEASURE is the ONLY thing you should be measuring to tell a difference?
You told me when we first met online (Oh happy days............... ) ~ that your rich and have houses all over the place. Now wether or not thats true I really dont know but its a FACT that we obviously live miles apart (Forgotten where you said now ~ sorry). But it looks like your blessed with a really good clean power supply whilst mine (and im sure MILLIONS of other peoples) is a bit s*ite. So if THATS true then your stating that theres nothing to actually CLEAN UP from the mains that YOU have.
Now I cant really say 'why' for absolute sure. BUT..........cables HAVE and DO make a difference to my system AND my dads system (and my mates tv system). Weve tested them. We havnt measured them because I really dont care WHAT the measurements come to,.........if it looks and/or sounds better then we're onto a winner.
Now you mentioned interconnects up there which isnt the point of the thread. Ive heard a HUGH difference in interconnects (More so than mains cables), but heres the crux............I didnt hear a hugh difference UNTIL id changed the mains!
So the theory is this (in basics) ~
Im saying for hifi to work at its very best the components themselves must be as NATURAL sounding as possible. Then its down to cables to keep that natural sound. So we start at the mains with braided cable to remove (IF you have any) mains interference and keeps out EMI. The source then has a braided solid silver interconnect connected to the amp. The amp then has solid silver braided speaker cables connected to the speakers which are as SOLID AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
If you were to remove one, say the interconnects, and run a normal cheap c*appy interconnect instead then the mains cable is hardly going to make a difference as youve 'broken the circuit' so to speak...............
Summing all this up, Im saying that once ANY (Including yours John!!) hifi system has ALL the necessary cables ive just pointed out then it WILL sound better (Or indeed different but I was talking about a NATURAL sounding hifi)
Now Rik you are comparing them, a few facts, you rightly say that Ethernet is a twisted pair construction to reduce EMI effects, BUT that will do nothing for interference already on the signal and over short distances you could connect Ethernet with any old cable and it would still work.
You continue to question my hearing, OK so I'm getting on but my hearing was exceptional at your age and still is well above average at my age.
You bleat on and on about mains cables but have you not heard that my amp is battery powered and will run for many hours without a mains lead in sight. So no reason to change a non-existent lead, I'm sure even you will agree that no lead is better.
Now the theory, that components must be as NATURAL sounding as possible. No no no components do not have a sound apart from speakers and pick-ups no electronic components have 'a sound' we are talking science here and not organic farming, physics not plant growth, please what is 'natural sound'.
My system has only two types of cable, massive speaker leads as short as practicable (Maplin as Pluto's recommendation), and a short interconnect between the CD and the amp. Having used a mid priced interconnect for some time I changed it for woslice's 'out of the box' cheapie and noticed no difference, not a small difference but non whatsoever.
I can't quite get a grip on your stance, you offer a link to a site totally decrying lead effects then state the complete opposite, you think I am 'having a go' the one time I agree with you, maybe you should look more deeply into your own state of mind than look into cables. Sorry a hard one to 'come to terms' with but true never the less.
Now Rik you are comparing them, a few facts, you rightly say that Ethernet is a twisted pair construction to reduce EMI effects, BUT that will do nothing for interference already on the signal
So your stating that there IS interference already IN the signal? And therefore REMOVING that interference WOULD have a benefitial effect then yes?
you rightly say that Ethernet is a twisted pair construction to reduce EMI effects,
Were onto something here, TWISTED CABLE COMBATS EMI interference (Now all I have to do is find that damned pdf file I lost a few months ago thats states it removes it from WITHIN the signal too!!)
You bleat on and on about mains cables but have you not heard that my amp is battery powered and will run for many hours without a mains lead in sight. So no reason to change a non-existent lead, I'm sure even you will agree that no lead is better.
Cant disagree there, but YOUVE consistantly told me that your mains supply is without fault so why would you need a battery!??
Now the theory, that components must be as NATURAL sounding as possible. No no no components do not have a sound apart from speakers and pick-ups no electronic components have 'a sound' we are talking science here and not organic farming, physics not plant growth, please what is 'natural sound'.
well ive tried cd players that are completely devoid of 'life' and so they didnt retrieve the information of the disc to make the speakers SOUND natural (Plus you can argue that one out with Pluto if you want has we actually agree on the NATURAL SOUND part). Natural sounding means they sound as they would in real life............im sure I dont need to get into this silly debate........SURELY!!
) ~ that your rich and have houses all over the place. Now wether or not thats true I really dont know but its a FACT that we obviously live miles apart (Forgotten where you said now ~ sorry). But it looks like your blessed with a really good clean power supply whilst mine (and im sure MILLIONS of other peoples) is a bit s*ite. So if THATS true then your stating that theres nothing to actually CLEAN UP from the mains that YOU have.
(Plus you can argue that one out with Pluto if you want has we actually agree on the NATURAL SOUND part). Natural sounding means they sound as they would in real life............im sure I dont need to get into this silly debate........SURELY!!
