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AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review

Frank Dernie

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I had a spectral pre-amp I bought second-hand in the 1980s. It was noisier than a bad tube amp. The dealer insisted there was nothing wrong with it. I never looked at their gear again.
When I was shopping for speakers in 2018, a dealer (who wanted me to upgrade to a spectral amp) insisted I had to be wrong about the pre-amp. I never understood why they go kamikaze on their irrational beliefs. Is it inward apologetics?
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/11/beware-inward-apologetics.html
My preamp was a DMC-20, it was fabulous and I loved it and it was quiet, the phono stage included.
 

DonH56

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The conundrum posed to High End Cable Believers is this:

If expensive, modern high end cables are necessary to reveal and transmit the sonic riches of a recording, how did all that glorious sonic information get there in the first place?

The the recordings audiophiles listen to - even standard classic "reference tracks" - were recorded with miles of bog standard audio cable. Much of which had been through rough times.

This means that every single time an audiophile throws in his new high end cable and marvels as the sonic purity and quality of sound, he is by default hearing the quality of sound captured and produced by cheaper run-of-the-mill cabling used for the recording. It doesn't matter if you put Nordost's most absurdly expensive cables in your system. The logic is inescapable: it can only reveal that the original non-audiophile cables used for the recording were up to the task of transmitting that very sonic information.

It's just a weird bit of inescapable logic that cable lovers never seem to contemplate when they fall for all this "We make our cables from unobtanium" marketing stuff.

Same argument as for any other cables... The miles of wire and bazillions of transistors, DSP, ADC/DAC, ad nauseum in the studio and production facility do not matter -- the cable is the first thing your amp/preamp sees so must be as perfect as possible. Just like the hundreds of feet of power cables in your house and many miles of transmission cable and transformers etc. between the power plant and your house does not matter; that power cord is the first thing your component sees and thus must be all-important.

I have tried now and then to explain that current is a loop but gave up...

Decades ago, when I was "in the biz" and doing some studio work as well, I commented that many folks' heads would explode if they saw what happened in the studio on the way to pressing the record. My boss thought it was funny, and very true, but told me to stay in the back. :)
 
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StefaanE

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that power cord is the first thing your component sees and thus must be all-important.
My Mom had a saying: “Even the smallest drop matters” said the mosquito, and it peed in the ocean.
 

MattHooper

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Same argument as for any other cables... The miles of wire and bazillions of transistors, DSP, ADC/DAC, ad nauseum in the studio and production facility do not matter -- the cable is the first thing your amp/preamp sees so must be as perfect as possible. Just like the hundreds of feet of power cables in your house and many miles of transmission cable and transformers etc. between the power plant and your house does not matter; that power cord is the first thing your component sees and thus must be all-important.

I have tried now and then to explain that current is a loop but gave up...

Decades ago, when I was "in the biz" and doing some studio work as well, I commented that many folks' heads would explode if they saw what happened in the studio on the way to pressing the record. My boss thought it was funny, and very true, but told me to stay in the back. :)

The thing is, the same argument I just gave for audio cables - speaker, interconnects etc - doesn't necessarily apply to undermining the claims for high end AC cables and power conditioners.

In the case of AC cables, many believers view them as essentially filters for various (spurious) forms of "noise" and distortion. So your expensive AC cable is like adding a water filter - all the water leading up to that filter is contaminated and dirty, but what passes through the filter is qualitatively different: cleaned of contamination. Of course the arguments for how this is achieved is typically bogus. But to the degree that is the claim, then simply pointing to all the dirty power leading up to the AC cable doesn't address that argument.

But this logic can't work to dismiss speaker cables/interconnects. If standard-grade audio cables used for recordings introduced all this noise and audible distortion, then those artifacts would be of necessity encoded in the recording. It couldn't be "filtered out" by an expensive cable you use in your hi fi system.
 

Count Arthur

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The conundrum posed to High End Cable Believers is this:

If expensive, modern high end cables are necessary to reveal and transmit the sonic riches of a recording, how did all that glorious sonic information get there in the first place?

The the recordings audiophiles listen to - even standard classic "reference tracks" - were recorded with miles of bog standard audio cable. Much of which had been through rough times.

This means that every single time an audiophile throws in his new high end cable and marvels as the sonic purity and quality of sound, he is by default hearing the quality of sound captured and produced by cheaper run-of-the-mill cabling used for the recording. It doesn't matter if you put Nordost's most absurdly expensive cables in your system. The logic is inescapable: it can only reveal that the original non-audiophile cables used for the recording were up to the task of transmitting that very sonic information.

It's just a weird bit of inescapable logic that cable lovers never seem to contemplate when they fall for all this "We make our cables from unobtanium" marketing stuff.

You can make similar points about vinyl, anything recorded since around the mid eighties is likely to have gone through some sort of digital process before being put on vinyl. So you're just listening to someone elses ADC or DAC on your analogue system.
 

infinitesymphony

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If standard-grade audio cables used for recordings introduced all this noise and audible distortion, then those artifacts would be of necessity encoded in the recording. It couldn't be "filtered out" by an expensive cable you use in your hi fi system.
The logic usually goes that all of the gear with coloration should be in the recording studio: tube amps, tube mics, tube mic pres, tube DIs, tube EQ, tube compression, analog console, analog tape. Then, after that point, the goal is to preserve what's there with as much clarity as possible. And to a certain extent, that's what we're doing here at ASR.

FWIW, many studios make their own cables using Belden, Canare, or Mogami and Neutrik, Switchcraft, or Amphenol connectors, so what they're using is professional grade. But for them it's mostly about durability.
 

scott wurcer

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FWIW, many studios make their own cables using Belden, Canare, or Mogami and Neutrik, Switchcraft, or Amphenol connectors, so what they're using is professional grade. But for them it's mostly about durability.

The Neutrik EMI/RFI resistant XLR's make a measurable difference in many environments.
 

DonH56

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The thing is, the same argument I just gave for audio cables - speaker, interconnects etc - doesn't necessarily apply to undermining the claims for high end AC cables and power conditioners.

In the case of AC cables, many believers view them as essentially filters for various (spurious) forms of "noise" and distortion. So your expensive AC cable is like adding a water filter - all the water leading up to that filter is contaminated and dirty, but what passes through the filter is qualitatively different: cleaned of contamination. Of course the arguments for how this is achieved is typically bogus. But to the degree that is the claim, then simply pointing to all the dirty power leading up to the AC cable doesn't address that argument.

Maybe, if the power cord includes RF/EMI filtering, but many do not include any, or include no more (and often less) than what is already inside the component. Most do not realize how much filtering there already is in the power supply.

But this logic can't work to dismiss speaker cables/interconnects. If standard-grade audio cables used for recordings introduced all this noise and audible distortion, then those artifacts would be of necessity encoded in the recording. It couldn't be "filtered out" by an expensive cable you use in your hi fi system.

Studios use mostly XLR cables and balanced component connections so have better noise rejection than typical consumer RCA cables. High-quality-connectors (and connections) maintain the integrity of the RF shielding and common-mode rejection the components and cables provide. Note cheap plastic XLRs, for example, offer an opening for RF, whilst most good XLR connectors (e.g. Amphenol, Neutrik, Switchcraft) are metal and keep the solid shield in place.

Speaker cables are another matter; the usual sneak path for RFI is through the feedback network back to the input stage of the amplifier. The amplifier's output impedance is low, and bandwidth intentionally limited for stability, so coupling via a speaker cable is rare, again IME. Large ferrite beads or clamps will usually help; shielded speaker cables are somewhat rare IME even in professional installations, but fixed setups often run the speaker cables in their own conduit.

Note studios often use active monitors for recording/mixing though final mastering and listening typically (IME, very limited!) uses more consumer-oriented gear.

FWIWFM - Don

Edit: I forgot about the Neutrik EMC XLRs with internal RF filtering that Scott mentioned. I've only those once or twice and have no idea how much they are used in modern studios. Maybe a lot given all the DAWs in use (Scott probably knows).
 

infinitesymphony

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The Neutrik EMI/RFI resistant XLR's make a measurable difference in many environments.
Edit: I forgot about the Neutrik EMC XLRs with internal RF filtering that Scott mentioned. I've only those once or twice and have no idea how much they are used in modern studios. Maybe a lot given all the DAWs in use (Scott probably knows).
These are interesting, thanks for the heads-up. I was not familiar with the EMC series. How dense would the environment need to be to see a difference? I'm sure studios in major metropolitan areas could use these. When I was in downtown Atlanta last year, the RF spectrum was a mess -- TV production crews, stadium wireless, 5G, and digital TV channels moving to different frequencies.
 

scott wurcer

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Edit: I forgot about the Neutrik EMC XLRs with internal RF filtering that Scott mentioned. I've only those once or twice and have no idea how much they are used in modern studios. Maybe a lot given all the DAWs in use (Scott probably knows).

No idea, I just know the reduction in external interference was measurable on the mic pre-amps I was using.
 

chelgrian

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Don't know if this has been discussed before, but for the engineers out there, is there any technical reason to prefer stranded twisted wire core to a solid core for audio use (interconnects not speaker wires) or vice versa?

There is property called skin effect which makes a difference to the resistivity for speaker wire which matters when significant current is flowing. For interconnects *shrug* my wife is the physicist and she's watching trash on Disney+ after teaching all day :)
 

Billy Budapest

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't want to mess around with that. I'll pull out my soldering iron when I need to fix something, and I am not entirely incompetent, but there's nothing fun about it to me. I made one pair, years ago. These days, that 'order now' button is all the effort I want to expend on it.
Canare recommends their cables to be crimped using a special (but expensive) hand tool that supplies just the right amount of torque to make a connection within their factory specs. No soldering. I’ve thought about purchasing it and enough Canare cable stock, connectors, and boots to re-cable my whole system. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, though.
 

BDWoody

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Canare recommends their cables to be crimped using a special (but expensive) hand tool that supplies just the right amount of torque to make a connection within their factory specs. No soldering. I’ve thought about purchasing it and enough Canare cable stock, connectors, and boots to re-cable my whole system. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, though.

I could get my head around that... I have been using crimpers in most auto work I get into, and should look into that.
 

DonH56

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chelgrian

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At an industry demo it was demonstrated that ADSL worked fine over a pair of razor wires.

That's nothing ADSL has been demonstrated over wet string(1) by AAISP in the Uk.

https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.html?m=1

The signal processing in ADSL is magic and appears to violate Nyquist, it doesn't really because it's making use of measurements of the noise on the line then incorporating that in to the DSP required to extract the signal.

1) ok ok slightly salty wet string they had to get the ions from somewhere
 

DonH56

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Fine if you're using mics.....

In my case it was to suppress noise from a PC in the room coupling into the mixer's outputs. The primary culprit ended up being the video cable to the monitor. Church installation, not by EE's... :)
 

Billy Budapest

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I could get my head around that... I have been using crimpers in most auto work I get into, and should look into that.
The problem is the crimp dies are really expensive. It’s hard for me to justify spending $70-$80 just for a small hunk of steel.
 
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