Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

[Middle Earth]

I think Danny getting 8/10 is significant
I don’t have the budget to find out
10/12/14 gauge OFC stranded copper is my level
Amir favors the Amazon Basics USB cable
I favor Monoprice budget cables
If I had money to burn I would have $100k cables just because
Amir has a hard-on for Danny

 

[Mather]

The real kicker is if someone snuck in and swapped out a premium cable for a cheap one, would you notice?

I mean it's kind of a pointless argument to me. The difference between all the cables were night and day. I went in a sceptic who definitely did not want to spend the money on cables, and had no choice after hearing the difference... Like there is zero doubt in my mind that any person hearing my system with stock vs all upgraded would not come to the same conclusion. It wasn't subtle at all. So all together they are 1000% making a difference.. One individual cable swapped out? I don't know if I could tell, but all of them absolutely. Now again this isn't to say that you need to spend tonnes to get the same changes. I tested about 3 different types and all were pricey-ish, but not insanely so. It's certainly possible that had I swapped everything for Blue Jeans and similarly priced AC cables that it would have sounded the same or similar. But a near deaf 95 year old could hear the difference between stock and upgraded on my rig, zero doubt in my mind.

 

[OMC]

I mean it's kind of a pointless argument to me. The difference between all the cables were night and day. I went in a sceptic who definitely did not want to spend the money on cables, and had no choice after hearing the difference... Like there is zero doubt in my mind that any person hearing my system with stock vs all upgraded would not come to the same conclusion. It wasn't subtle at all. So all together they are 1000% making a difference.. One individual cable swapped out? I don't know if I could tell, but all of them absolutely. Now again this isn't to say that you need to spend tonnes to get the same changes. I tested about 3 different types and all were pricey-ish, but not insanely so. It's certainly possible that had I swapped everything for Blue Jeans and similarly priced AC cables that it would have sounded the same or similar. But a near deaf 95 year old could hear the difference between stock and upgraded on my rig, zero doubt in my mind.

An entire loom of the same tier quality from the same manufacturer is key here. No magic bullets in any individual cable is my experience.

 

[Mather]

An entire loom of the same tier quality from the same manufacturer is key here. No magic bullets in any individual cable is my experience.

Yeah I mean that's what I ended up with, all AC and audio same brand, I tried a couple other speaker cables within it but they sounded way off, far far too bright.

 

[SnowmaNick]

I think Amir is too religious about absolute measured accuracy and ignores the effects of psychoacoustics, so I tend to take his speaker reviews especially with a grain of salt, but the data he gathers is extremely valuable.

I like how Erin’s Audio Corner reviews speakers. Both the objective and subjective aspects are taken into account for a more holistic analysis.

 

[Angsty]

I try not to get into tiffs about cables; I agree that it's pointless. If you like what you have and you are convinced it sounds better than it used to, who am I to say otherwise? The objective of this hobby is to enjoy what you hear, not to be technically maximalist. If that were the case, none of us would be spinning vinyl anyway!

 

[Mather]

I try not to get into tiffs about cables; I agree that it's pointless. If you like what you have and you are convinced it sounds better than it used to, who am I to say otherwise? The objective of this hobby is to enjoy what you hear, not to be technically maximalist. If that were the case, none of us would be spinning vinyl anyway!

Genuinely curious, do you use basic out of the box stock cables on everything? Like the tiny skinny Radio Shack RCAs and out of the box $2 AC cables on your gear?

If you're ever in these parts I will personally swap out all my cables for the stock stuff and I promise you will quite easily hear the difference yourself.

 

[displayname]

I will personally swap out all my cables for the stock stuff and I promise you will quite easily hear the difference yourself.

I want to do this experiment with friends that know nothing about audio at some point.
I've done it with one friend only changing the coax from the CD player to the dac.

He didn't say any specifically sounded better or worse, but that he could easily tell the difference between them.

 

[SnowmaNick]

Genuinely curious, do you use basic out of the box stock cables on everything? Like the tiny skinny Radio Shack RCAs and out of the box $2 AC cables on your gear?

If you're ever in these parts I will personally swap out all my cables for the stock stuff and I promise you will quite easily hear the difference yourself.

Personally I wouldn’t make that promise. Not that I don’t believe your cables make a difference for you, or @Angsty being obstinate, unwilling, or untruthful in her/his reports. Rather, because of a psychological effect of nocebo. In a nutshell, we program ourselves to expect things, and the brain can have a lot more control on if we experience them or not.

Placebo effect is often cited as a reason that someone may find a higher price item to be “better.” It’s essentially a Pavlovian conditioned response. We’ve seen/read/experienced examples of placebo in medicine, purchasing habits, sensory research, even where people hooked up to an fMRI have had different pleasure centers activated through suggestion (Baba Shiv and his wine experiments for example).

Inversely, nocebo is seldom discussed on why another person does not gain/experience benefits. Nocebo is also a subconscious trained response, and potentially just as powerful as placebo.

If I recall correctly Angsty is an engineer. He (or she, just picking a pronoun) has undergone extensive training and has been trained that when there is X, you should observe Y. That’s great for engineering purposes, but can potentially create a trained subconscious response. Potentially producing or amplifying a nocebo effect. One where in a test situation they honestly do not experience the same effects as another.

Engineering and science are awesome, squishy human brains throw all kinds of spanners in the works though.

 

[Mather]

Personally I wouldn’t make that promise. Not that I don’t believe your cables make a difference for you, or @Angsty being obstinate, unwillingly, or untruthful in her/his reports. Rather, because of a psychological effect of nocebo. In a nutshell, we program ourselves to expect things, and the brain can have a lot more control on if we experience them or not.

Placebo effect is often cited as a reason that someone may find a higher price item to be “better.” It’s essentially a Pavlovian conditioned response. We’ve seen/read/experienced examples of placebo in medicine, purchasing habits, sensory research, even to were people hooked up to an fMRI have had different pleasure centers activated through suggestion (Baba Shiv and his wine experiments for example).

Inversely, nocebo is seldom discussed on why another person does not gain/experience benefits. Nocebo is also a subconscious trained response, and potentially just as powerful as placebo.

If I recall correctly Angsty is an engineer. He (or she, just picking a pronoun) has undergone extensive training and has been trained that when there is X, you should observe Y. That’s great for engineering purposes, but can potentially create a trained subconscious response. Potentially producing or amplifying a nocebo effect. One where in a test situation they honestly do not experience the same effects as another.

Engineering and science are awesome, squishy human brains throw all kinds of spanners in the works though.

This is very true and a good point. I guess I'm just trying to express in no uncertain terms that there was no subtlety to the change so I can't fathom how it wouldn't be clear as day to literally anyone in this particular case.

 

[Angsty]

Genuinely curious, do you use basic out of the box stock cables on everything? Like the tiny skinny Radio Shack RCAs and out of the box $2 AC cables on your gear?

If you're ever in these parts I will personally swap out all my cables for the stock stuff and I promise you will quite easily hear the difference yourself.

No, I don’t use box cables for everything. I’m too vain for that.

I use BJC cables for most of my line level interconnects. I especially use LC-1 for my turntable to phono connections to minimize capacitance. I have a couple of WBC and Transparent XLR cables I use for balanced connections; I got the Transparents cheap off eBay. Used cables can be particularly good deals.

In two instances I do use skinny “Radio Shack” cables - one to connect my amp to a sub and one to connect a Bluetooth receiver to the amp. Those are uses where having a lightweight thin cable was preferable.

My cable vanity is that for all the money I have spent on components, I don't want to feel cheap in using cheap interconnects, even when they work well.

So when vanity strikes, I upgrade to BJC because they are well-made, well-shielded and have pretty plugs. It allows me to incorporate my engineering bias with something that looks better than “Radio Shack”.

Before BJC, I used Straightwire Symphony II interconnects, but the outer jackets became sticky with age.

 

[Mather]

No, I don’t use box cables for everything. I’m too vain for that.

I use BJC cables for most of my line level interconnects. I especially use LC-1 for my turntable to phono connections to minimize capacitance. I have a couple of WBC and Transparent XLR cables I use for balanced connections; I got the Transparents cheap off eBay. Used cables can be particularly good deals.

In two instances I do use skinny “Radio Shack” cables - one to connect my amp to a sub and one to connect a Bluetooth receiver to the amp. Those are uses where having a lightweight thin cable was preferable.

My cable vanity is that for all the money I have spent on components, I don't want to feel cheap in using cheap interconnects, even when they work well.

So when vanity strikes, I upgrade to BJC because they are well-made, well-shielded and have pretty plugs. It allows me to incorporate my engineering bias with something that looks better than “Radio Shack”.

Before BJC, I used Straightwire Symphony II interconnects, but the outer jackets became sticky with age.

So....

Cables DO make SOME difference then...

Hmmmmmm?


(I kid)

 

[Angsty]

Personally I wouldn’t make that promise. Not that I don’t believe your cables make a difference for you, or @Angsty being obstinate, unwillingly, or untruthful in her/his reports. Rather, because of a psychological effect of nocebo. In a nutshell, we program ourselves to expect things, and the brain can have a lot more control on if we experience them or not.

Placebo effect is often cited as a reason that someone may find a higher price item to be “better.” It’s essentially a Pavlovian conditioned response. We’ve seen/read/experienced examples of placebo in medicine, purchasing habits, sensory research, even to were people hooked up to an fMRI have had different pleasure centers activated through suggestion (Baba Shiv and his wine experiments for example).

Inversely, nocebo is seldom discussed on why another person does not gain/experience benefits. Nocebo is also a subconscious trained response, and potentially just as powerful as placebo.

If I recall correctly Angsty is an engineer. He (or she, just picking a pronoun) has undergone extensive training and has been trained that when there is X, you should observe Y. That’s great for engineering purposes, but can potentially create a trained subconscious response. Potentially producing or amplifying a nocebo effect. One where in a test situation they honestly do not experience the same effects as another.

Engineering and science are awesome, squishy human brains throw all kinds of spanners in the works though.

Placebo and nocebo (i.e. expectation) effects are real influencers of perception. People are not as genuinely objective as we like to believe ourselves to be. That’s why I like to start with understanding the measurements and then see how experiences vary from there. An oscilloscope is a pretty rational actor, more so than me.

Like I said, I’m vain enough to replace a $5 cable with a $50 one because the more expensive one looks better and has more intensive design specs which may not matter one little bit. I just won’t do that for the leap from $50 to $500, because I *can* be cheap. Squishy brains.

 

[Jbraswell]

I'm sold on the BJC after a few orders. But I did run a fancier cable out of the Technics because that signal is so small.

I thought it was noticably better than the stock cable but like always, it's partly psychological and impossible to quantify to peeps over the Internet.
Some of this stuff is impossible to test. How does a SUT test compared to gain switches? It's a really different sound but gain is gain.

 

[Angsty]

How does a SUT test compared to gain switches? It's a really different sound but gain is gain.

There are measurements! The gain from a SUT is lower noise than most headamps because the only introduced noise is thermal noise from resistance. Also, it’s not always recognized that a SUT dramatically increases the impact of capacitance in a MC circuit, sometimes to the point of altering high frequency response. That may not always be a bad thing.

However, I have a harder time with understanding how and why different SUTs of the same gain would sound different. For the record, my two SUTs with the same gain but different transformer manufacturers sound very similar to me - I would not tell them apart in a blind test.

 

[Angsty]

So....

Cables DO make SOME difference then...

Hmmmmmm?
View attachment 199467

(I kid)

It’s entirely possible for a cable to suck.

If the resistance or capacitance is too high, it can foul up the frequency response. Think of 20 gauge speaker cable with a 2 ohm speaker. Think of 500 pF interconnects with a MM cartridge.

There are examples of cable manufacturers making cables that deliberately change the FR of an audio system and often not for the better.

I use 12 gauge zipcord speaker cables because my Audioquest CinemaQuest Type 6 cables suck.

I probably should have sold them before I said that. Damn.

 

[Jbraswell]

There are measurements! The gain from a SUT is lower noise than most headamps because the only introduced noise is thermal noise from resistance. Also, it’s not always recognized that a SUT dramatically increases the impact of capacitance in a MC circuit, sometimes to the point of altering high frequency response. That may not always be a bad thing.

However, I have a harder time with understanding how and why different SUTs of the same gain would sound different. For the record, my two SUTs with the same gain but different transformer manufacturers sound very similar to me - I would not tell them apart in a blind test.

It's black magic. I don't understand it either but coil winding is like an art form that AI, robots and the like can't touch. I suppose it's similar why different MCs have different sound also. Again measurements can't show data what is heard differently from each.

I would like to hear some different SUTs but it's not feasible to buy several and test. Tracking Angle or Analog Planet did a comparison of some different brands recently but it was a complete time waste of a read. I felt dumber for clicking on the article.

 

[Mather]

It’s entirely possible for a cable to suck.

If the resistance or capacitance is too high, it can foul up the frequency response. Think of 20 gauge speaker cable with a 2 ohm speaker. Think of 500 pF interconnects with a MM cartridge.

There are examples of cable manufacturers making cables that deliberately change the FR of an audio system and often not for the better.

I use 12 gauge zipcord speaker cables because my Audioquest CinemaQuest Type 6 cables suck.

I probably should have sold them before I said that. Damn.

Okay so genuine question because you are literally an engineer and get this stuff and I am literally an increasingly inaccurately named Technical Director and I push buttons that light up when I push them for a living... When I tested cables I had two different speaker cables I tried out, one was braided and I think silver plated or something of the sort... looked like this...

It was incredibly bright, like just tinny and awful sounding.
The cable I went with was Bis Vivat, warm and full sounding.

What do you think would cause one to be so much thinner and tinnier than the other? I've heard since then that silver plated or whatnot can be very sharp and I had the same experience with a IEM cable that I tested, very sharp and tinny, also silver plated. For the purposes of this question you will have to trust me that they actually sounded as I describe.

 

[Angsty]

Okay so genuine question because you are literally an engineer and get this stuff and I am literally an increasingly inaccurately named Technical Director and I push buttons that light up when I push them for a living... When I tested cables I had two different speaker cables I tried out, one was braided and I think silver plated or something of the sort... looked like this...
View attachment 199468
It was incredibly bright, like just tinny and awful sounding.
The cable I went with was Bis Vivat, warm and full sounding.
View attachment 199469
What do you think would cause one to be so much thinner and tinnier than the other? I've heard since then that silver plated or whatnot can be very sharp and I had the same experience with a IEM cable that I tested, very sharp and tinny, also silver plated. For the purposes of this question you will have to trust me that they actually sounded as I describe.

It’s likely that the braided cable has high resistance. If the cable core is hollow, the resistance might be higher than you expect because the total copper cross section could be low. It’s effectively a ribbon cable rolled on itself. On the cross section, it’s like the phenomenon that two 6” woofers (or pizzas) don’t equal the area of a single 12” woofer (or pizzas).

It’s also pretty likely if you sliced open the BIS cable you’d find fat, high-purity copper stranded cable with low resistance.

The lower the resistance of the cable, the lower the contribution of the speaker cable's resistance to the damping factor, and the flatter the frequency response will be. The lower the impedance trough in your speaker’s impedance curve, the more susceptible it is to high resistance cable. Simply avoid high resistance cable - it’s easy to do.

High capacitance can sometimes be a problem with braided speaker cables. I would suggest that this braided cable is a high capacitance design. To quote Roger Russell from McIntosh, “capacitance is of concern not so much that it could cause a possible high frequency rolloff but that it can affect the amplifier feedback and cause the leading edge of transients to overshoot. This in turn can make an audible difference in the system sound. It can make the sound brighter…” - but this impact is highly amplifier dependent. Many solid state Class AB amplifiers will show no notable change with capacitance. So, resistance tends to be the culprit of sound changes.

On my engineering credentials, I was trained as a mechanical engineer not an electrical engineer. Many, many years ago. So I’m still on a journey to revisit the learnings of my freshman electrodynamics and sophomore electronics courses!

 

[Mather]

It’s likely that the braided cable has high resistance. If the cable core is hollow, the resistance might be higher than you expect because the total copper cross section could be low. It’s effectively a ribbon cable rolled on itself. On the cross section, it’s like the phenomenon that two 6” woofers (or pizzas) don’t equal the area of a single 12” woofer (or pizzas).

It’s also pretty likely if you sliced open the BIS cable you’d find fat, high-purity copper stranded cable with low resistance.

The lower the resistance of the cable, the lower the contribution of the speaker cable's resistance to the damping factor, and the flatter the frequency response will be. The lower the impedance trough in your speaker’s impedance curve, the more susceptible it is to high resistance cable. Simply avoid high resistance cable - it’s easy to do.

High capacitance can sometimes be a problem with braided speaker cables. I would suggest that this braided cable is a high capacitance design. To quote Roger Russell from McIntosh, “capacitance is of concern not so much that it could cause a possible high frequency rolloff but that it can affect the amplifier feedback and cause the leading edge of transients to overshoot. This in turn can make an audible difference in the system sound. It can make the sound brighter…” - but this impact is highly amplifier dependent. Many solid state Class AB amplifiers will show no notable change with capacitance. So, resistance tends to be the culprit of sound changes.

On my engineering credentials, I was trained as a mechanical engineer not an electrical engineer. Many, many years ago. So I’m still on a journey to revisit the learnings of my freshman electrodynamics and sophomore electronics courses!

This sounds viable.

FRIENDS, CABLES MAKE NO DIFFERENCE

UNLESS IT IS A CAPACITANCE THINGY...
I'M UNCLEAR ON THE DETAILS BUT ANGSTY HAS IT COVERED

I'm selling everything and becoming a monk.