Cable connections to the connectors and more

[GaryProtein]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

My response had to go in Aficionado Lounge; consider it Pay per View.

Does that mean if I become a donator or aficionado I get to see it???

[Still-One]

That was a April Fools joke I hope.

Jim

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by GaryProtein

I'm in the process of composing my response to all your posts.

Thanks everybody.

Gary.......No rush.

[Masterlu]

[GaryProtein]

Ivan and Dave, not to seem heretical, I do not really consider the interconnects to be a component. But that is not to say I don’t feel they are important. The are very important. Plating with a non-corroding surface like gold, palladium or rhodium is very important. Heavy wire gauge cabling is important. High quality plugs and connectors are important, double shielding is important and a solid connection between the wires and plug connections is critical. However, I don’t see that spending $40,000 on speaker cables is going to improve my system. $40,000 will buy a lot of equipment (well, maybe not a lot of Burmester, MBL or Goldmund) but I suppose if I felt married to all my components, I would try other cables and interconnects to improve performance or change sonic characteristics. Meanwhile, I’m thrilled by my system every time I sit down to listen. I wipe away a tear from excitement, and breathe heavily at the end of each piece.


Josh, don’t worry, I’m not hot wiring anything to the source without fuses, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to audition outlets to see if I prefer the sound of rhodium vs. gold plated outlet receptacles. I mean, the plug either has contact to conduct 15-20 amps or it doesn’t. Can the contacts get dirty, I suppose so, but it seems all I need to do to correct that it to take the plug in and out five or ten times (maybe) to freshen the contacts. I do not believe that gold and rhodium receptacles will sound different, especially on the power line. I’ll grant you that neither will corrode. I firmly believe that glitzy marketing and fancy prices will entice people to believe one outlet or cable or anything else will sound better than the cheaper, stock item.


Dan, don’t worry, I’m not about to write too many shocking pages. While I’m very happy to be in your company, I don’t want to end up in a padded cell like Ivan, having a weak internet signal along with the lunatic fringe! Regarding your straight-jacket post, I only like restraints when applied by beautiful women.


Steve, I am sure cable designers, like clothing designers have a method to their madness, but most of the designs have reasons firmly based in their imaginations. Again glitzy marketing and pretty packaging will make anything sound better. I agree that good shielding is very important and many braid designs are costly to produce, but as you say, are purely cosmetic.


Ivan, I’m still waiting for your post of naked girls outside in a snow storm!

[MyPal]

Gary... No pretty packaging here... What do you think about rolling your own? I ended up engaging a guy to dress & terminate custom lengths. I mostly used the best cable Furutech has off the roll with their Rhodium Flux connectors & finished off with Techflex Flexo Conductive braid throughout. Cost of materials per piece is still well up there but I am very pleased with the result.

I have compared a few cables & am glad to have taken this route. I will have the opportunity to try & compare some Shunyata Zi-Tron products in the coming months.

I am also an advocate for silver & silver coated copper & use silver coated lousdpeaker cables. The resolution is amazing with silver in the mix.

I'd certainly love to try some Wireworld Platinum Eclipse XLRs in my 2CH someday.

Steve

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by GaryProtein

Ivan, I’m still waiting for your post of naked girls outside in a snow storm!

And wait you shall...

[GaryProtein]

Steve, that's what I did. I had the cables cut and terminated for me.

[jdandy]

Gary.......I have been poking fun at your phraseology, and I am glad to see you took it in stride.

I would like to tell you a story. In 1981 I met Ray Kimber, and help him set up a demo of his original Kimber 4PR speaker cable in a stereo store, Chelsea Audio in Beaverton, Oregon. I worked in the store for Ford Montgomery, the owner, who often brought manufacturer's reps, and company owners to the store for sales training of his staff. I met Bob Carver there, too.

Ray Kimber was just beginning Kimber Kable, and was trying to establish his unusual helix braided speaker cable in the market. I had the opportunity to speak with Ray at length about his cable and about the demonstration he was performing in the store. He explained to me how a speaker cable, no matter the length, acts as an antenna, acquiring electrical energy present in the air and directing it into both the speaker and the amplifier. This ambient electrical energy can and does impact an amplifier's ability to control such things as damping. Ray explained that his helix braid allows each positive and negative wire in the aggregate braid to pass back and forth across each other, essentially nulling a large part of the electrical energy in the air from entering the signal path.

Ray's demonstration consisted of using an oscilloscope, and connecting a four foot length of Monster cable, the best selling speaker cable at that time, to the scope input while observing the electric wave form displayed from the electrical energy induced from the air. The scope went from a flat reference line to two inch high frequency wave forms above and below zero reference on the scope's scale. Swapping the Monster cable for a four foot length of 4PR Kimber Kable attached to the scope's input produced less than a half inch of high frequency wave form on the scale. In other words, the 4PR Kimber Kable was far less sensitive to RFI and EMI than a typical length of 14 Gauge Monster Cable.

The tests went further. Ray cut two six foot lengths of 4PR and two six foot lengths of Monster Cable for a listening test. Using a Yamaha Receiver and a pair of stand mount Infinity speakers we listened, first to the Monster Cable, then the 4PR Kimber Kable. Without any input form Ray during the listening test, I was quite surprised to hear the bass grow deeper and more well defined with the Kimber Kable, and the upper midrange became cleaner with a better defined clarity. Ray swapped the Kimber Kable for the Monster Cable, and what I had thought was a decent sounding budget system suddenly was less flattering. The 4PR Kimber Kable just sounded better. Ray was selling it for $1.00 a foot, and I bought 20 feet of the 4PR on the spot.

I tell this story so that you might see there are concepts of how a speaker cable, or any cable for that matter, is designed and assemble that clearly impacts how that cable will perform in a circuit. Ray Kimber's helix braided cables have continued to be improved as his company progressed, using better raw materials and techniques for extruding copper and silver, higher quality insulation materials, etc., but he has remained steadfast to the helix braided design he developed so many years ago. I am a believer in this design, and moved from 4PR to 8TC when he developed that cable. I have routed this cable up into my attic where it crosses or runs parallel with 120 volt AC conductors with zero induced noise, no hum, no buzzing, just blissful silence. Cables do matter. The way they are assemble, the materials used, the entire design all has impact of an audio signal. It is a lot more than just a wire.

[Masterlu]

And outlets matter too!