[[email protected]]

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ Andrews. Any
opinions?

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite significant.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.

PS also found some people call Pure Reference but no heard of them

Thanks StevieT

[jwvm]

On Feb 9, 7:33=A0pm, wrote:
snip

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.


Why would that be the case. Studios use copper cables all of the time
for recording. If copper works well for recording why wouldn't it
work well for playback which is less demanding? Competently made
interconnects need not be expensive. Even the throwaway cables that
come with some audio equipment are likely to be indistinguishable from
more expensive cables under blind testing although they may well be
less reliable.

[bob]

On Feb 9, 7:33=A0pm, wrote:
but not
sure about the science.

I'll say.

The science is that these things are all interchangeable commodities,
and none is better, worse, or different than whatever you are using
right now=97even if you are using unwound coathangers.

bob

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:33:01 -0800, wrote
(in article ):

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ Andrews. Any
opinions?

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite significant.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.

PS also found some people call Pure Reference but no heard of them

Thanks StevieT


The science is simple: wire is wire at audio frequencies. A piece of
coat-hanger or a pair of $4000/meter Nordost Valhalla interconnects, they
both will sound identical. Cable is audio jewelry; IOW, bling, and nothing
else. Do the math. It will tell you all need to know about the three
components of any conductor: DC resistance/foot, capacitive reactance and
inductive reactance. The effect of these components on an audio signal (DC -
50KHz) over any practical length? Negligible, unimportant, a non-event.

Add that to the fact that NO double-blind test (and there have been lots of
them) has EVER been able to detect any difference between an expensive
speaker cable and a length of zip cord. No double-blind test has EVER been
able to detect any difference between the "sound" of a set of Radio Shack
throw-away audio interconnects and any expensive interconnect that you care
to name. Spend your money on better speakers and forget this cable nonsense.

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for
my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference
205 system - Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord
signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ
Andrews. Any opinions?

Fancy cables are audio jewelry - all looks and generally no sonic benifit at
all.

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite
significant.

From a sound quality standpoint, the money would be a loss.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at
that , but not sure about the science.

The science says that good sounding interconnects are easy to make, and
inexpensive to obtain.

[Dave Cook]

On Feb 9, 4:33=A0pm, wrote:
Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

I use Monoprice XLR cables. Build quality seems very good. I haven't
tried their RCA cables.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/se...lr&x=3D0&y=3D0

Dave Cook

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 20:28:42 -0800, Dave Cook wrote
(in article ):

On Feb 9, 4:33=A0pm, wrote:
Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

I use Monoprice XLR cables. Build quality seems very good. I haven't
tried their RCA cables.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/se...lr&x=3D0&y=3D0

Dave Cook

Yes, I've used these people. Their RCA/RCA stereo interconnects are cheap,
well made and reliable. You cannot ask for much more than that. (well you can
ask for quasi-balanced, which I prefer from a low noise standpoint, and which
these aren't, but otherwise...).

[Frank[_11_]]

Il 10/02/2010 4.03, Audio Empire ha scritto:
On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:33:01 -0800, wrote
(in ):

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ Andrews. Any
opinions?

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite significant.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.

PS also found some people call Pure Reference but no heard of them

Thanks StevieT


The science is simple: wire is wire at audio frequencies. A piece of
coat-hanger or a pair of $4000/meter Nordost Valhalla interconnects, they
both will sound identical. Cable is audio jewelry; IOW, bling, and nothing
else. Do the math. It will tell you all need to know about the three
components of any conductor: DC resistance/foot, capacitive reactance and
inductive reactance. The effect of these components on an audio signal (DC -
50KHz) over any practical length? Negligible, unimportant, a non-event.

Add that to the fact that NO double-blind test (and there have been lots of
them) has EVER been able to detect any difference between an expensive
speaker cable and a length of zip cord. No double-blind test has EVER been
able to detect any difference between the "sound" of a set of Radio Shack
throw-away audio interconnects and any expensive interconnect that you care
to name. Spend your money on better speakers and forget this cable nonsense.


I agree about speaker cables but ... "bad" audio low signal cables do
exist and have high capacity.
Try putting 2 or 4 nF across your rca connector terminals and hear the
difference please.
Those 2000 $/meter cables are rubbish and surely sound different from a
good real low capacity double shielded solid "video" cable.

Frank

[Robert Peirce]

In article , wrote:

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

Frankly, for anything up to a meter I have never heard a difference.
I'm not sure electrically you could unless the cable has some really
weird topology.

The longer the run the more likely you may encounter resistance,
capacitance and reluctance issues, but it would take a really long run.
I've been away from this too long to do the calculations. Maybe
somebody else has it handy.

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:20:28 -0800, Robert Peirce wrote
(in article ):

In article , wrote:

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

Frankly, for anything up to a meter I have never heard a difference.
I'm not sure electrically you could unless the cable has some really
weird topology.

By weird topology, it would almost have to be that external capacitors,
resistors and inductors would have to be added to the cable to PURPOSELY make
filters which would alter the frequency response of the interconnect. Simply
a 1 meter length of coax with RCA connectors on each end can not possibly
have enough reactance at any audio frequency to affect the sound in any
audible way.

The longer the run the more likely you may encounter resistance,
capacitance and reluctance issues, but it would take a really long run.
I've been away from this too long to do the calculations. Maybe
somebody else has it handy.

Capacitive reactance (X sub C) = 1/(2 Pi Fc) where F = the highest frequency
in the pass band, and c = the capacitance in Farads.

Inductive reactance (X sub L) = 2 Pi Fl where l = the inductance in Henrys.

Z (Impedance) = The square root of (R squared Times (Xl squared - Xc
squared))

Where R = Total DC resistance in Ohms, Xl = Inductive reactance in Ohms and
Xc - capacitive reactance in Ohms In a case where Xl is than Xc. If Xc is
than Xl, the formula becomes:

Z = The square root of (R squared Times (Xc squared - Xl squared))

If you use typical coaxial cable specs for C and L/foot, then at 20,000 Hz
(or even 50,000 Hz) the impedance is miniscule and attenuation is not enough
to make any difference whatsoever in the audio band for normal interconnect
runs. Now you get to 20 ft and more and it is measurable, but only as a loss
at extremely high frequencies and not likely audible. Extreme cases could
effect a very slight "dulling" of the highest frequencies that most adults
can hear, but no other effects.

The bottom line is that if you can hear, using controlled double-blind
testing, any difference between two interconnects or speaker cables it's
because one of the manufacturers has purposely designed the cable to
attenuate (that is, take away from) some portion of the audio spectrum and
this is NOT anything that one should want.

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:52:56 -0800, ScottW wrote
(in article ):

On Feb 9, 7:03=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:33:01 -0800, wrote
(in article ):





Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ Andrews. Any
opinions?

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite significant.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.

PS also found some people call Pure Reference but no heard of them

Thanks StevieT

The science is simple: wire is wire at audio frequencies. A piece of
coat-hanger or a pair of =A0$4000/meter Nordost Valhalla interconnects, t=
hey
both will sound identical. Cable is audio jewelry; IOW, bling, and nothin=
g
else. Do the math. It will tell you all need to know about the three
components of any conductor: DC resistance/foot, capacitive reactance and
inductive reactance. The effect of these components on an audio signal (D=
C -
50KHz) over any practical length? Negligible, unimportant, a non-event.


DC resistance in the ground path is a source of hum. I strapped all
the chasis together in my system in a star configuration and I believe
it made for a subtle improvement even though I had no audible hum at
the listening position.

I too use star configuration grounding. I do it this way: My preamp is the
central ground point. I use only quasi-balanced interconnects between
components. That's where the shield carries no current and is only tied to
the return "barrel" of the RCA connector at one end. Inside the shield are
two conductors: one is the hot and goes to the RCA's pin on both ends and the
other goes to the barrel on both ends. These two conductors are hot and
return and shield is just a static shield. By making sure that all shield
ends terminate at the pre-amp, irrespective of whether the cable is being
used as an input or an output. This means that I have extended the common
chassis ground out the entire length of all shielded interconnects. It
definitely results in a "blacker" background to the music.

This is worth studying.

http://www.jensen-transformers.com/an/an004.pdf

"The 99 dB figure can be improved further by lowering the shield
resistance of the 5 foot cable which uses a foil shielded cable with
#24 gauge drain wire (25 mohm per foot). Cable using a #18 gauge
equivalent braided copper shield (6.5 mohm per foot) will lower hum
level by 5 dB from 99 dB to 104 dB."

ScottW

[Frank[_11_]]

Dick Pierce wrote:
Frank wrote:
I agree about speaker cables but ... "bad" audio
low signal cables do exist and have high capacity.
Try putting 2 or 4 nF across your rca connector
terminals and hear the difference please.

Let's see. 2 to 4 nF of capacitance... Well, assume
the load impedance presented at the receiving end of
the chain is, oh, 10 kOhms, and assume the sending end
of the chain has a source of, let's say, 1 kOhms, the
result is an additional 0.23 dB down at 10 kHz with
4 nF shunt capacitance. The response would be 3 dB
down at about 43 kHz.

Maybe you'd hear it, maybe not. Likely not.

Now, I'd bet you could hear it if you hung a 1000 uF cap
across the RCA jack as well. So what?

It's hard to find coaxial cable with more than about
50 pF/ft of shunt capacitance.

That means to achieve a 4nF shunt capacitance , you'd
need, let's see, 4nF/50pf/ft ...

That's a piece of interconnect cable 80 feet long. With
more typical figures in the, oh 25 pF/ft realm, that's
a 160 ft long interconnect.

The notion that a 4 nF shunt capacitance is at all a
reasonable test for demonstrating cable effects is,
well, absurd.

Let's look, instead, at a 3-foot piece of cable with
a shunt capacitance of 30 pF/ft, for a total of 90
pF shunt capacitance.

You'd end up with a system that isn't 3 dB down until
well past 1.5 MHz.

You'd have to come up with some pretty wierd cables
to end up with the level of concern you express here.

Those 2000 $/meter cables are rubbish and surely sound
different from a good real low capacity double shielded
solid "video" cable.

And your reason for this is?


My ears. Young and working. Never been to a disco.

Would you like to share the formulas you use to obtain that result and
what happens if loads are higher?

I've seen cables with a 350-400 pF capacitance per meter (circa 3 feet?)
marked low c.

Frank

[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:09:21 -0800, Frank wrote
(in article ):

Dick Pierce wrote:
Frank wrote:
I agree about speaker cables but ... "bad" audio
low signal cables do exist and have high capacity.
Try putting 2 or 4 nF across your rca connector
terminals and hear the difference please.

Let's see. 2 to 4 nF of capacitance... Well, assume
the load impedance presented at the receiving end of
the chain is, oh, 10 kOhms, and assume the sending end
of the chain has a source of, let's say, 1 kOhms, the
result is an additional 0.23 dB down at 10 kHz with
4 nF shunt capacitance. The response would be 3 dB
down at about 43 kHz.

Maybe you'd hear it, maybe not. Likely not.

Now, I'd bet you could hear it if you hung a 1000 uF cap
across the RCA jack as well. So what?

It's hard to find coaxial cable with more than about
50 pF/ft of shunt capacitance.

That means to achieve a 4nF shunt capacitance , you'd
need, let's see, 4nF/50pf/ft ...

That's a piece of interconnect cable 80 feet long. With
more typical figures in the, oh 25 pF/ft realm, that's
a 160 ft long interconnect.

The notion that a 4 nF shunt capacitance is at all a
reasonable test for demonstrating cable effects is,
well, absurd.

Let's look, instead, at a 3-foot piece of cable with
a shunt capacitance of 30 pF/ft, for a total of 90
pF shunt capacitance.

You'd end up with a system that isn't 3 dB down until
well past 1.5 MHz.

You'd have to come up with some pretty wierd cables
to end up with the level of concern you express here.

Those 2000 $/meter cables are rubbish and surely sound
different from a good real low capacity double shielded
solid "video" cable.

And your reason for this is?


My ears. Young and working. Never been to a disco.

Good for you. I envy you your young ears. Still and all, such tiny losses
(less than a half a dB) at the top extreme of human hearing is unlikely to be
heard in such a way that it would be noticed by even a 12-year old girl.

Would you like to share the formulas you use to obtain that result and
what happens if loads are higher?

I did that in another post. You should be able to see them on your news
reader now. They've shown up on mine.

I've seen cables with a 350-400 pF capacitance per meter (circa 3 feet?)
marked low c.

I'm sorry Frank, but that seems pretty unlikely to me. Are you MEASURING
these cables? Can I ask you what your methodology is? About the highest
capacitance that coax gets is 50 pF/foot, but one would be fairly incompetent
to specify such a cable for audio interconnects, when plain-jane average coax
of the type commonly used for audio interconnects is about 30 pF/foot and
relatively inexpensive low capacitance cable is available at 20 pF/ft.

[Eric Downing]

I've used a lot of different cables. I've settled with Blue Jean Audio
for straight up speaker wire and banana plugs, and monoprice for
everything else. The products both companies sell are inexpensive
(relatively) and the build quality is excellent. I would like to know
who their supplier is so I can buy direct from them.

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:15:49 -0800, Frank wrote
(in article ):

Il 10/02/2010 4.03, Audio Empire ha scritto:
On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:33:01 -0800, wrote
(in ):

Have been looking at some really good interconnects for my system;

MF KW550 Amp, DM25 transport and dac and Keff reference 205 system -
Need RCA and XLR - speaker cables are Chord signiture

Looked at Van De Hul, Chord and some stuff on Russ Andrews. Any
opinions?

Lot of stuff about Nordost but the money is quite significant.

It seems that silver is the best so would be looking at that , but not
sure about the science.

PS also found some people call Pure Reference but no heard of them

Thanks StevieT


The science is simple: wire is wire at audio frequencies. A piece of
coat-hanger or a pair of $4000/meter Nordost Valhalla interconnects, they
both will sound identical. Cable is audio jewelry; IOW, bling, and nothing
else. Do the math. It will tell you all need to know about the three
components of any conductor: DC resistance/foot, capacitive reactance and
inductive reactance. The effect of these components on an audio signal (DC -
50KHz) over any practical length? Negligible, unimportant, a non-event.

Add that to the fact that NO double-blind test (and there have been lots of
them) has EVER been able to detect any difference between an expensive
speaker cable and a length of zip cord. No double-blind test has EVER been
able to detect any difference between the "sound" of a set of Radio Shack
throw-away audio interconnects and any expensive interconnect that you care
to name. Spend your money on better speakers and forget this cable nonsense.


I agree about speaker cables but ... "bad" audio low signal cables do
exist and have high capacity.

Yet, the cheapest Radio Shack cables do not have significantly high
capacitance, and even if they (or anyone else's interconnects, for that
matter) DID have high capacitance, it would have to be impossibly high for it
to have any affect whatsoever on an audio signal at the typical half and one
meter lengths used in most audio systems to connect between components.

Try putting 2 or 4 nF across your rca connector terminals and hear the
difference please.

4 NANOFARADS (10 to the minus 9)? Are you serious? You've actually SEEN
cables with that high of a capacitance? Are you aware that this would give an
X sub C of almost 2000 Ohms at 20 Khz (assuming I didn't get any decimal
points in the wrong place)? I question whether it's possible to make a
reasonable length of coaxial cable with that high of a capacitance. Now,
maybe a cable 100 meters long could have that kind of capacitance, but 1/2
and 1 meter interconnects? I'm dubious. What brands might these be?

The highest capacitance per foot coax that I've ever heard of is 50 pF/ft (50
X10 to the minus 15) with most coaxial cable types being in the neighborhood
of 30 pF/ft and real low capacitance being around 20 pF/ft. Average coax
would make a 1-meter run approximately 100 pF total. That's several orders
of magnitude less than your 2-4 nF!

Those 2000 $/meter cables are rubbish and surely sound different from a
good real low capacity double shielded solid "video" cable.

You mean that they surely sound NO different from a good, real low capacity
etc.?

[Walt]

Audio Empire wrote:
The bottom line is that if you can hear, using controlled double-blind
testing, any difference between two interconnects or speaker cables it's
because one of the manufacturers has purposely designed the cable to
attenuate (that is, take away from) some portion of the audio spectrum and
this is NOT anything that one should want.

I mostly agree with what you have said, and am no fan of "magic cables".
But one thing is worth correcting:

For speaker cables, long runs of high-gauge cables can be audible. Say,
100 feet of 20 gauge speaker wire. This gives a series resistance of
about 2 ohms, which is close enough to the load impedance (nominally 8
ohms, but many speakers have a dip at certain frequencies, sometimes as
low as 2 ohms) to create audible effects.

This, of course, depends on the impedance plot of the speaker.

Given the capatance per foot and the resistance per foot of the wire,
the output impedance of the amp, and the impedance plot of the speaker
one can calculate the frequency response of the circuit. For most
reasonable wire at reasonable lengths, cable effects are negligable.
And for line-level signals that are normally terminated with a high
impedance (10k ohms is typical) the response at audio frequencies
doesn't change until you reach multiple hundreds of feet.

So, yes, you can hear the difference between cables, but you need a
*lot* of cable!

//Walt

[Robert Peirce]

In article ,
Dick Pierce wrote:

Robert Peirce wrote:
The longer the run the more likely you may encounter resistance,
capacitance and reluctance issues, but it would take a really long run.

The only reluctance you will find in long cables is the
reluctance I and other hasve in believing that reluctance
is a relevant property of interconnects. :-)

Reluctance is a property of magnetic materials and circuits.
It's not a relevant factor in the conduction of eletrical
signals in cables.

That being said, I assume you meant "inductance" and not
"reluctance."

You are correct.

[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:20:31 -0800, Walt wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:
The bottom line is that if you can hear, using controlled double-blind
testing, any difference between two interconnects or speaker cables it's
because one of the manufacturers has purposely designed the cable to
attenuate (that is, take away from) some portion of the audio spectrum and
this is NOT anything that one should want.

I mostly agree with what you have said, and am no fan of "magic cables".
But one thing is worth correcting:

For speaker cables, long runs of high-gauge cables can be audible. Say,
100 feet of 20 gauge speaker wire. This gives a series resistance of
about 2 ohms, which is close enough to the load impedance (nominally 8
ohms, but many speakers have a dip at certain frequencies, sometimes as
low as 2 ohms) to create audible effects.

Well of course. As I've stated several times here over the last several days,
long runs will start to have deleterious effects on high frequency signals.

This, of course, depends on the impedance plot of the speaker.

Given the capatance per foot and the resistance per foot of the wire,
the output impedance of the amp, and the impedance plot of the speaker
one can calculate the frequency response of the circuit. For most
reasonable wire at reasonable lengths, cable effects are negligable.
And for line-level signals that are normally terminated with a high
impedance (10k ohms is typical) the response at audio frequencies
doesn't change until you reach multiple hundreds of feet.

So, yes, you can hear the difference between cables, but you need a
*lot* of cable!

AS I and several other have pointed out several times.

//Walt

[Rick[_4_]]

"Eric Downing" wrote in message
...
I've used a lot of different cables. I've settled with Blue Jean Audio
for straight up speaker wire and banana plugs, and monoprice for
everything else. The products both companies sell are inexpensive
(relatively) and the build quality is excellent. I would like to know
who their supplier is so I can buy direct from them.

I believe Blue Jean uses Beldon and maybe some Canare cable.

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:07:50 -0800, Rick wrote
(in article ):

"Eric Downing" wrote in message
...
I've used a lot of different cables. I've settled with Blue Jean Audio
for straight up speaker wire and banana plugs, and monoprice for
everything else. The products both companies sell are inexpensive
(relatively) and the build quality is excellent. I would like to know
who their supplier is so I can buy direct from them.

I believe Blue Jean uses Beldon and maybe some Canare cable.


I don't think that is what he meant by "supplier". I suspect that he wants to
know who manufacturers the finished cables for Blue-Jean so that he can
purchase from them directly. I don't think he cares about who makes the
actual wire.

[Rick[_4_]]

I believe Blue Jean is the manufacurer. I checked their web site, and they
said their manufacturing methods were state of the art. They supply a full
range of finished cables across the entire broadcast and communications
industry. they are not limited just A/V cables.
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:07:50 -0800, Rick wrote
(in article ):

"Eric Downing" wrote in message
...
I've used a lot of different cables. I've settled with Blue Jean Audio
for straight up speaker wire and banana plugs, and monoprice for
everything else. The products both companies sell are inexpensive
(relatively) and the build quality is excellent. I would like to know
who their supplier is so I can buy direct from them.

I believe Blue Jean uses Beldon and maybe some Canare cable.


I don't think that is what he meant by "supplier". I suspect that he wants
to
know who manufacturers the finished cables for Blue-Jean so that he can
purchase from them directly. I don't think he cares about who makes the
actual wire.