A Short History of High-End Audio Cables

[ajawamnet]

Since this seems to be a bit of an "expensive cables are dumb" thread, here is a fun take.

SCSI is a communications protocol for storage devices. It is still with us, but it was more visible back in the 80s and 90s. Back when it was conceived, it was primarily used with parallel connections, over 50-pin cables at 5 and then 10 MHz (over time this evolved all the way to 68-pins at 160 MHz, albeit at very short cable lengths). We mass-manufactured super-thin ribbon cables that were capable of reliably transmitting 25 parallel signals at 40MHz in a very electrically noisy environment at reasonable prices. IDE, a slower but also parallel interface, was dirt-cheap because everybody used it. I don't know what the clock rate for IDE was, but I will bet you all of the money in the world it was more than 20 KHz.

If we can do 50-pin parallel at 40 MHz signaling using these mass-market cables in that kind of environment, then why would we need super-duper diamond-infused unicorn-har 300-dollar-per-meter cables to hear even a few hundred KHz properly? I grant you that one is analog signalling and the other is digital, but the difference in frequency is so extreme that it seems comedic to suggest that this matters. A 10 microsecond noise spike in an analog audio signal is completely meaningless (unless it is so large that it blows out your speakers). In Ultra2 SCSI, that's enough to mangle 400 bytes.

This is not the best argument against fairy-cables, but I think it puts things in a nice perspective.

This is similar to my audio rant on Marketturd:
http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/Audio_Voodoo_and_Stuff.html

SAS is serialized SCSI - I had to design some SAS backplanes years ago. 3GB/s...


Nowadays, with GHz diff signalling, even the weave of the PCB's is affecting things like skew within differential pairs:

https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...-material-matters/13746-material-matters-1907
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...erial-matters/13801-pcb-material-matters-1908
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...-material-matters/13881-material-matters-1909
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...how-to-avoid-getting-totally-skewed-part-four


But for audio little of this matters. A silly excessive amount of the three - resistance, capacitance, inductance - or a ridiculous combination of the them, whether in cable or substrate, may have an effect as would what Heaviside faced running cables across oceans.

But really now...

I recall getting Bell Telephone to install broadcast loops 50-15kHz over shit copper phone lines, either for STL (Studio to Transmitter links) or for remotes, and they used techniques that Heaviside invented/discovered. They'd be with a decibel or so - usually less. Very little phase diff too for stereo pairs of them. We'd test them when doing FCC PoP (Proof of Performance) tests. Out of Phase info is modulated as L minus R on the subcarrier used for stereo FM.

 

[nintendoeats]

Nowadays, with GHz diff signalling, even the weave of the PCB's is affecting things like skew within differential pairs:

https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...-material-matters/13746-material-matters-1907
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...erial-matters/13801-pcb-material-matters-1908
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...-material-matters/13881-material-matters-1909
https://www.pcdandf.com/pcdesign/in...how-to-avoid-getting-totally-skewed-part-four

I started reading the first article and thought "huh, I wonder if this is why PCIe Gen 4 is so expensive". 2 paragraphs later:

"PCI Express 4.0’s signaling speed, at twice the speed of PCIe-3.0, is even faster at 16Gbps (8GHz). This maps to roughly a 60ps UI and 15ps of skew tolerance – half of the 30ps skew tolerance in PCIe-3.0."

 

[Eirikur]

Yes! I need better SQ Led Zeppelin. What can you recommend?

I like the 1990 remasters best

To me the songs have notably better quality than my regular CDs (they are poor) - not everything is there of course.
I believe this 2CD is a subset of the 1990 "Boxed Set" remasters which I found too expensive at the time.

 

[that1guyinwi]

I found this information by Roger Russell interesting.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

 

[ajawamnet]

I found this information by Roger Russell interesting.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

That link at the end is great:

 

[Lao Lu]

What I find even more "interesting" is that a lot of "audiophiles" with their fancy wire and stuff - that are into rock - talk about all these different masterings and pressings (some going for ridiculous $$$) of Led Zep II ... and the first track - Whole Lotta Love - just sounds like crap. The distortion and all, which gets worse as Page and Kramer got excited on that old 12 channel rotary console they mixed it on.

Listen to my remix comparison - which ain't much - but a lot better than what these golden ears marketturds are stating:

http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawam2/lzcompare_0006.mp4

Watch that vid at the end where at the fade the original that was "remastered" in 2014 just sounds hideous... as did the old pressings and CD releases.

Maybe their wire makes that original version on a Ludwig $500 old vinyl sound better... but not to me.

I know nothing about mixing; the discrepancy between the two tracks was enormous...You did that without access to the original?

 

[anmpr1]

Confession is good for the soul. Regarding the Cobra cables, I believe I was the first in the US to write about how cables could audibly influence music reproduction and in particular how much of an improvement the Cobras were. This was for the St Louis area very small circ magazine called AudioGram. I remember a professor at the University of Wisconsin, R. Greiner, took me to task. How he found out about it is a mystery. No mystery in that later in life I found out - slowly - that he was right. I still have the Cobras, free to anyone who wants them.

I recall Audiogram. Mostly for the Polk speaker reprints. Richard Greiner, an EE with a long interest in audio related things, wrote articles and informative letters in the much missed Audio magazine. During the Audio Critic's 'subjective' days Peter Aczel got into a little methodological 'tiff' with Greiner, but later realized that the professor was correct, and made amends.

Audiofoolery as a hobby mostly started as a grounded, reality based, endeavor. By the mid '70s it all went south. Fueled by an undisciplined journalism (thanks mostly to Harry Pearson but there were a lot of others)--the entire scene was confirmation of Hunter Thompson's drug-fueled observation: when the going gets weird the weird turn pro.

 

[SIY]

I recall Audiogram. Mostly for the Polk speaker reprints. Richard Greiner, an EE with a long interest in audio related things, wrote articles and informative letters in the much missed Audio magazine. During the Audio Critic's 'subjective' days Peter Aczel got into a little methodological 'tiff' with Greiner, but later realized that the professor was correct, and made amends.

Audiofoolery as a hobby mostly started as a grounded, reality based, endeavor. By the mid '70s it all went south. Fueled by an undisciplined journalism (thanks mostly to Harry Pearson but there were a lot of others)--the entire scene was confirmation of Hunter Thompson's drug-fueled observation: when the going gets weird the weird turn pro.

My earliest exposure to cable nonsense predated Polk- Bob Fulton was hawking them.

As with most nonsense, I’ll bet if we dig deep enough, it will turn out to originate with Jean Hiraga.

And yes, Dick Greiner (with whom I was lucky enough to spend some time) and Fred Davis pretty much said everything that actually needed to be said.

 

[ajawamnet]

I know nothing about mixing; the discrepancy between the two tracks was enormous...You did that without access to the original?

That was my remix from a FLAC dump of the original Multitrack (back the it was only 8) . The story of how I did it is here:

http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/remixoflz.html

Lot of info there for Zep heads. Esp. where the "preecho" came from.... There's a link to a VU meter thing that was driven my remix..

And as I mention, when I first heard the multi's I thought it was some guy's kids' band doing a cover of Whole Lotta Love. Finally figured out it was the actual multi's that were out a few years back.

 

[snapsc]

From a psychology standpoint...the brain puts a lot of pressure on us "not to go against the grain"...so if "experts" are saying that expensive cables work, the brain wants to believe...and...

Our senses are interconnected so when we see something attractive, our other senses are likely to look for further confirmation...so, if particular cables look like they could really sound better, there is a good chance that they will sound better.

There is no incentive for stores, magazines or reviewers to demonstrate that well made $50 cables don't sound any different than well made $500 cables...so, it is up to us individually to conduct some for of blind testing at home (hopefully, where someone else switches the cables at random intervals unknown to us to see if we can identify the change). But, this usually doesn't happen because there is a strong desire to believe in and then justify the purchase....especially, if it can't be returned.

 

[snapsc]

But....just in case cables are pretty much the same and it is actually the cable risers performing the magic...these are available at a bargain price...and look pretty good also meaning there is a good chance that you will hear a difference. Or, if you don't like the looks...try these.

 

[mhardy6647]

The genesis (more or less) -- or, perhaps, geneses (plural ) of "high-end" audio cables (to the best of my knowledge & recollection):

speaker wire

(the infamous Polk "Cobra Cable" in its earliest form; it was also briefly marketed as "Soundcable" by Polk, later in 1977)

"interconnects" (that term, right there, is worth about ten bucks a cable, you know? )

ahh, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
- Bobby Zimmerman

 

[AudioSceptic]

The genesis (more or less) -- or, perhaps, geneses (plural ) of "high-end" audio cables (to the best of my knowledge & recollection):

speaker wire

View attachment 51815
(the infamous Polk "Cobra Cable" in its earliest form; it was also briefly marketed as "Soundcable" by Polk, later in 1977)

"interconnects" (that term, right there, is worth about ten bucks a cable, you know? )

View attachment 51816

My recollection is that, in the UK the first time speaker cables became a "thing" was in 1978 with QED 79-Strand, so that was a bit later. <https://www.qed.co.uk/qed-story>

 

[Billy Budapest]

But read his stuff. It still seems like an elaborate prank.

http://www.machinadynamica.com/

teleportation tweak. My my.

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=2228

Some audio reviewers have tested this stuff. “Brilliant Pebbles,” etc. After reading the Machine Dynamica website, there is no way it is serious.

 

[egellings]

It's all audiophile orthodoxy. Put your robe on and just listen!

 

[ahofer]

Some audio reviewers have tested this stuff. “Brilliant Pebbles,” etc. After reading the Machine Dynamica website, there is no way it is serious.

Kind of what I thought, but there are folks on this site who know Geoff and say he is sincere. Furthermore, you can go mix it up with him on Audiogon. Never drops the facade for a second, if it is a facade.

 

[mhardy6647]

Kind of what I thought, but there are folks on this site who know Geoff and say he is sincere. Furthermore, you can go mix it up with him on Audiogon. Never drops the facade for a second, if it is a facade.

He's on audioasylum as well (and FWIW).

 

[scott wurcer]

( FWIW).

Not much.

 

[wje]

I believe I received a pair of those Discwasher "Gold-Ens" interconnects when I purchased a used amplifier from a guy. Not sure what the deal was with those interconnects because I was excited to try them. Yet, they introduced a lot of noise in my system. Directly into the trash bag they went!

 

[egellings]

If there are differences in cable sound, they are likely to be minute. Why spend so much money for such a tiny if any, benefit?