Belden ICONOCLAST XLR Cable Review

[IPunchCholla]

@beagleman
Imagine a primitive man thousands of years ago sitting under an apple tree and apples start falling down in front of him. He tells his friends that they all fall straight down. No, they say, that's anecdotal, prove it. Anyway, the leaves fall slower and usually sideways. He's not going to wait thousands of years for Newton to explain gravity and wind resistance. He's certainly not going to invent differential calculus as a precursor for explaining the gravitational force. More likely, he'll eat the apples and enjoy them, perhaps put a net under the tree to catch them so they don't bruise or split.

The history of mankind is full of anecdotal experience waiting for an explanation. That's how science works. If you ignore anecdotal experience, progress explaining the physical world will come to an end. Most people pre-Newton would simply have avoided walking under apple trees should apples land on their head, but there would have been a few natural philosophers asking the more fundamental question : why they fell from the tree at all.

I have no skin in the game. My last component system was balanced and I used Mogami 2534 analogue XLR cables at about £15 each. But if people say they hear a difference, good for them, let them enjoy it, I'm sure one day it will be explained one way or another.

I'm no scientist. Galen appears to describe various reactive effects between cables and components. He may be correct that scientifically they do have an impact, but whether and how they may be audible is another matter.

The (two-fold) problem here is that repeated scientific tests have shown that there is no difference between the two cables. The science of audibility is well understood and every time (so far) a claim has been made of audible differences, it has been debunked. So this isn’t Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In this particular scenario you are the tribunal not Galileo.

The second issue is that we live in an increasingly ”fact free” world where false information and outright lies have real impact on peoples lives. We live in a world where people “know better” than epidemiologists and biologists and engineers and physicists… and people (not just the ones who know better) die because of it. You are free to believe pancakes and peanut butter make for better better brake pads than semi-metallics, but if you actually drive using them you deserve to go to jail.

Music isn’t the same life or death issue, but without all of the FUD, I could spend more time actually listening to it, rather than wading through all of the damn lies that exist on the internet to understand what cost effective steps I can take to get very good sound.

Misinformation creates massive waste even in the most harmless of situations. In less harmless situations it kills people.

We should always fight it.

 

[amirm]

is your first picture the original file compared to the recording?

No. It is two sequential captures of digital to analog and back to digital to see the variability in this process.

 

[mansr]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens

 

[AudioSceptic]

All I have now is anecdotes and it pees me off (and occasionally others too I gather) something awful, as I can't sit people down and demonstrate things I do appreciate here on ASR, we need properly tested and repeatable evidence and also some kind of research findings regularly repeated as to how easily we are fooled in what we think we hear (sight, touch, cost and so on).

I do worry about solid core conductors though, if only for reliability, knowing the way people pull and push the plugs in and out, even XLR's... Not presumption here, just experience and if it takes one to know one, I'll hold my hand up timidly!

There's a reason why in-wall mains cable is solid core but other mains cable (flex) is not!

 

[AudioSceptic]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens

LaPlace & Hume
<https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence>

Me, or I read it somewhere!
"You can't use logic to persuade someone to abandon a belief they didn't use logic to acquire"

 

[airgas1998]

Now there's ya problem... aren't Belden cables in general for Jazz only?

JSmith

wow... i think i really have seen it all now.....

 

[mansr]

LaPlace & Hume

And others before them: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/12/05/extraordinary/

 

[airgas1998]

Unless it's blow job cables you're referring to?

even @ 785.00 for that would be outrageous...unless there were some other non-tested perks that came with it...

 

[DWI]

Misinformation creates massive waste even in the most harmless of situations. In less harmless situations it kills people.

We should always fight it.

I agree, no one died from buying expensive hifi. Quite the opposite. People get big kicks out of it. They know that as soon as they open the box the value falls 30%. Thet doesn't stop them. I often buy ex-demo. My dealer knows it and twice he's called me about ex-demo units that I might be interested in that I ended up buying. The last thing I bought was new. Either way, I always have a demo or home loan first.

The high-end audio industry is so incredibly small compared to the mainstream audio industry, companies like Sonos, which is again small compared to the headphone industry, like Beats, which is then very small compared to the mobile phone industry (how most people play music). I just don't know why people have a problem with high-end, it's so insignificant in the scale of things, and in some cases are just a few people making bespoke products to order.

 

[DualTriode]

There's a reason why in-wall mains cable is solid core but other mains cable (flex) is not!

Stranded wire is more likely pulled through conduit, the conduit is in the wall maybe.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Stranded wire is more likely pulled through conduit, the conduit is in the wall maybe.

I think you are missing the point. ;-)

 

[Rja4000]

My response to Galen:

---

Hello Galen. Thanks again for the response. I included your original write-up below in the review.

As to points made within, some of your comments are about speaker cables which I did not test (I only tested XLR interconnect).

You start with the premise that: “We do hear TIME based changes to the EM wave.”

We don’t have agreement on this. Sit in a live music presentation and you hear not only the direct sound, but reflected sound from the room. What you hear then is a phase/timing “soup.” Our hearing fortunately is designed to not care or we would go crazy, listening to others in our homes with all of those reflections/timing distortions. Indeed, the brain is good at filtering that. As you listen to your loved one in your home, they do not sound different as you or they move, yet timing distortion is introduced at higher frequencies like nobody’s business.

Please see these AES papers:
“Measuring Audible Effects of Time Delays in Listening Rooms,” Clark, David, AES Convention: 74 (October 1983)
On the Audibility of Midrange Phase Distortion in Audio Systems, STANLEY P. LIPSHITZ, MARK POCOCK, AND JOHN VANDERKOOY
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3Gl

My testing also was NOT white box as you mention below. Instead, I treat the cable as a black box and see what effect it has with respect to noise, phase, distortion and frequency response on an audio signal. I found no difference here.

Importantly, I also performed a null test. I captured the signal from both your XLR cable and a much cheaper one. The results nulled to threshold of hearing (-115 dBFS) which indicates no difference in sound with very high confidence. I further post the differential audio file which is silent. If there were changes to the waveform, this test would have detected it. But it did not.

Ultimately we, the audiophiles, care about the sound, not the cable parameters as we don’t listen to cables. In order to prove there is a difference, you either need to conduct a blind/controlled test with statistical significance, or null test above, or both. Without this, there simply is no way forward. The whole premise of needing a new cable relies on this basis being proven. If you have such data, I will happily eat my words and run with yours.

Best regards,
Amir

@amirm
You should add that in the review, after his answer, IMO
As is now, the review, ending with his words (full of acronyms most people -starting with me- don't understand) is confusing and let you go out with the impression he may have a point.
Which he does not.

Philosophically, his approach seems valid: make each component of the chain as good as you can and the total may only be better. That's similar to what you state when saying (my translation): we go for 120dB SINAD, because we know that to achieve that level, you need perfect engineering and execution at all stages, and there is therefore very little chance you could have hidden sins.

Economically, this can be non sense though (you, on your side, bring that in the equation : you proved that "perfection" can be achieved for a reasonable price)

Especially if NO measurable benefit on the whole chain's final output is measured.

 

[srkbear]

The (two-fold) problem here is that repeated scientific tests have shown that there is no difference between the two cables. The science of audibility is well understood and every time (so far) a claim has been made of audible differences, it has been debunked. So this isn’t Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In this particular scenario you are the tribunal not Galileo.

The second issue is that we live in an increasingly ”fact free” world where false information and outright lies have real impact on peoples lives. We live in a world where people “know better” than epidemiologists and biologists and engineers and physicists… and people (not just the ones who know better) die because of it. You are free to believe pancakes and peanut butter make for better better brake pads than semi-metallics, but if you actually drive using them you deserve to go to jail.

Music isn’t the same life or death issue, but without all of the FUD, I could spend more time actually listening to it, rather than wading through all of the damn lies that exist on the internet to understand what cost effective steps I can take to get very good sound.

Misinformation creates massive waste even in the most harmless of situations. In less harmless situations it kills people.

We should always fight it.

Agree on all points (and I love the Tom Stoppard reference). I’ll add that misinformation in the audiophile world causes direct harm to people’s wallets, which might very well be considered a grave situation.

It’s highway robbery, and it’s not only perpetrated by the manufacturers but by the swindled buyers who have invested so much cash in their false beliefs that they not only entice others to buy into the scam, but often viciously double-down when presented with evidence that they were misled.

If we only use cables as an example, just think about what the expenditure delta would be if everyone bought serviceable versions for 25 bucks in lieu of the three to five figure options that are being heavily pushed by dealers. At Moon Audio, they literally make you deselect their nonsense Dragon cables when purchasing a set of headphones. It’s insidious…

 

[AudioSceptic]

Cables better go higher than that. You run out of cables, all you get is silence my friend. Cables matter! Frankly, I put cables ahead of the actual music since without cables, none!

Who's saying that we don't need cables? We're just saying that cables don't need to be absurdly expensive and that they should be designed using science, not pseudoscience (or magic).

 

[Spkrdctr]

What is interesting is the average person couldn't tell the difference between 16ga wire and 10ga for their speakers. Most of audio is obsessing over issues that ARE NOT AUDIBLE! But, since I have said as much about 50 times on ASR, you are free to ignore me. I will just sit in in amazement at (you guessed it) people with God like hearing that they think they have.

I'm not as sweet as normal in this post. My cat just puked on the floor and I wanted to drop kick him into next week. He looked at me and his look said "You and who else"? He knows he gets away with murder. Always thinking he is my boss and I'm his slave. The nerve of that guy!

 

[AudioSceptic]

wow... i think i really have seen it all now.....

Of course: doesn't Jazz need Pace, Rhythm and Timing?

 

[Deleted member 46664]

What is interesting is the average person couldn't tell the difference between 16ga wire and 10ga for their speakers. Most of audio is obsessing over issues that ARE NOT AUDIBLE!

Yep. Most of the "should I buy this or that" decisions I've talked to people about in the last couple of years have been over either inaudible differences or features they'll never use.

 

[AdamG]

As the saying goes, “there is a Sucker born every minute”. And it looks like this is their target Consumer group.

People fall for all sorts of scams and shell games in the constantly evolving underworld of Fraudsters and Manipulators. Presenting fraudulent products as legitimate. This happens in all segments of the economy. Audio misdirection is not special or unique.

We can only help those who decide to look behind the curtain and are inquisitive enough to conduct due diligence and research before parting with their money. Sadly, Amir will never run out of illegitimate products to test and expose.

 

[srkbear]

Cables better go higher than that. You run out of cables, all you get is silence my friend. Cables matter! Frankly, I put cables ahead of the actual music since without cables, none!

I do play instruments so I have to say the music is ahead of the cables for me. But we’re talking about price, not about eschewing cables. I follow the mantra that far wiser and more educated audio enthusiasts have taught me, which is to invest my money in the following descending order of priority: headphones/speakers—>amp—>DAC—>cables/connectors. And the degree of decline price-wise is exponential, not linear.

By the way, guitar and other instrument cables come in a huge price spectrum as well, and there are similar dichotomies in who buys the ultra-pricey ones and who couldn’t care less. I’ve met all sorts of pretentious paraprofessional or amateur rock gods who spend into the four figures for a guitar cable, with all the same “premium” materials and connectors and lofty claims from those manufacturers as well.

But I’ve delved deep enough into the gear that players of true eminence prefer, and although some may shell out astonishing amounts for their Les Pauls or Strats, they record and tour with cables that cost nothing and nobody is complaining that their albums would have sounded so much better had they just gone for broke and spent til it hurts on a $1,000 guitar cable. Those are made for fools and wannabes and everyone in the industry knows it.

 

[Spocko]

I haven't had any issues with mine, but I don't disconnect/reconnect them much either. You do know that the Monoprice cables have a lifetime warranty too, right?

WHAT?! I thought it was a year and didn't know that cables were specifically "lifetime", hmmm, ironically, I know Hobie - I should've just emailed him LOL. Ok, I'm back on the monoprice bandwagon and will just accumulate XLR cables for replacement.

Yeah, I do disconnect frequently, not like a roadie, but for microphones and the like.