AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review

[Count Arthur]

These were useless, didn't work as a radio antenna either:

 

[mhardy6647]

These were useless, didn't work as a radio antenna either:

View attachment 90024

but great dielectric properties -- use 'em as cable hangers. (as opposed to cable hangars -- unless you have a lot of surplus cables, of course).

 

[Martin]

I’m pretty sure (not 100% though) that this is an epic troll of the high end audio industry... If it’s the same guy I’m thinking of who had some of the weirdest/funniest mod videos, back around a decade ago...can’t recall which forum it was on...

I believe the site to be legit. I think it’s the same guy that was behind Coconut Audio. Coconut Audio made Geoff Kait’s Machina Dynamica seem sane in comparison.

Martin

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

HDMI is a trainwreck of a connection standard. (Seriously, I2C for inter-device communications, whoever though that up clearly wasn't awake in lectures.)

Not necessarily ignorance or incompetence. I2C could have been shoehorned in by Philips or another HDMI consortium member with relevant I2C patents. I'm guessing the licensing royalties are shared (unequally) based on proportion of IP contribution to the HDMI standard. I don't know specifically about HDMI but this sort of gamesmanship is common in standards.

 

[fieldcar]

I don't know if we should add such measurements to this one or have a new project/review focused on those cheap cables.

I think a new project would work better as a few people mentioned. Maybe a roundup with a few cables compared.

Also, I wonder if there are other devices you could use to generate interference. I pick up an some amount of noise on my interconnects near my mini display port cable/monitor and usb cables/hub.

 

[RayDunzl]

Don't forget my own personal favorite -- (more or less) twisted pair of 30-ga magnet wire.

Sometimes just the signal lead (one wire) works, usually when both endpoints have an Earth ground.

If you run the single wire and the signal is attenuated, the gear on one end is floating.

 

[mansr]

Not necessarily ignorance or incompetence. I2C could have been shoehorned in by Philips or another HDMI consortium member with relevant I2C patents. I'm guessing the licensing royalties are shared (unequally) based on proportion of IP contribution to the HDMI standard. I don't know specifically about HDMI but this sort of gamesmanship is common in standards.

HDMI inherited the I2C connection from DVI, which adopted it from VGA (DVI-I includes VGA signals, remember). The original reason for using I2C probably had something to do with the ready availability of EEPROM chips with said interface. It works well enough for the intended purpose (reading the EDID block), so why complicate things?

 

[MattHooper]

Just saw this review.

Aaahh...what a breath of fresh air to see the claims of a high end audio cable company actually tested.

Wonderful, Amir, thanks! !!

 

[Azathoth]

I donated the cable. I was once an audio fool, now I am a science diehard. I hope no one else needs to learn this the hard way as I did.

I used to be an audiophilistine when I first started a decade ago. Had my cables(interconnects) custom made, with silver wires and solid gold connectors... $$$ gone. I had cables made to be 'warm' or 'cold' sounding to sort of EQ my AMP/DAC setup and give me the best possible sound I wanted. Oh what bullshit that is now, a deep part inside of me is still raw and bleeding from all the shit I spent thinking it did made a difference when actually, it was just DSP we never really consider.. You know, your brain.

Funny enough it was the cables that sowed the seeds of my doubt.. It was this audiophile meet where I brought some of those custom interconnects with me to test out whatever bullshit audio woo of Idiotland the event had to offer. My friend was there, he wanted to try an amp and he asked me to lend him a cable or two. I gave him my 'warm' sounding cable and after listening for a while he said my cable sounded neutral. That made me stop for a bit, because up to that point I had never had anyone else test my cables, I've always made it for my personal use, so that comment seemed to jumpstart something in my brain.

Lo and behold after I looked around the internet for some insight I realized there is this 'Science' section of the Head-Fi forums and there I found a wealth of topics, comments, stories and most important of all data that informed me that my life is a lie.

I've never really thought to test myself if there was an actual bloody difference, I just followed what everyone in those circles did, whatever they said, terms like boomy bass, clinical sound, pace rhythm and attack(PRATT), all these nonsense had influenced what I wanted and threw money at for a long time.

Further research led me to Ethan Winer, Xiph.org, The Well Tempered Computer and now recently this darn website that opened my eyes and closed my wallet educating me about audio and what the devices really do. I should have done earlier, imagine the money I would have saved.

You live and learn, as they say.

It's not for the signal, it's for the grounding shield, in a legitimate application. Often, you will have a grounding shield that is only tied to the ground connection in one side. In this scenario, you want the shield tied to the low impedance side.

you sometimes see this on capacitors.

So is that why my Topping cables have arrows on them? Damn. Seems like I've installed them wrong? Left is the L30 and right the E30.

 

[A800]

I used to be an audiophilistine when I first started a decade ago. Had my cables(interconnects) custom made, with silver wires and solid gold connectors... $$$ gone. I had cables made to be 'warm' or 'cold' sounding to sort of EQ my AMP/DAC setup and give me the best possible sound I wanted. Oh what bullshit that is now, a deep part inside of me is still raw and bleeding from all the shit I spent thinking it did made a difference when actually, it was just DSP we never really consider.. You know, your brain.

Funny enough it was the cables that sowed the seeds of my doubt.. It was this audiophile meet where I brought some of those custom interconnects with me to test out whatever bullshit audio woo of Idiotland the event had to offer. My friend was there, he wanted to try an amp and he asked me to lend him a cable or two. I gave him my 'warm' sounding cable and after listening for a while he said my cable sounded neutral. That made me stop for a bit, because up to that point I had never had anyone else test my cables, I've always made it for my personal use, so that comment seemed to jumpstart something in my brain.

Lo and behold after I looked around the internet for some insight I realized there is this 'Science' section of the Head-Fi forums and there I found a wealth of topics, comments, stories and most important of all data that informed me that my life is a lie.

I've never really thought to test myself if there was an actual bloody difference, I just followed what everyone in those circles did, whatever they said, terms like boomy bass, clinical sound, pace rhythm and attack(PRATT), all these nonsense had influenced what I wanted and threw money at for a long time.

Further research led me to Ethan Winer, Xiph.org, The Well Tempered Computer and now recently this darn website that opened my eyes and closed my wallet educating me about audio and what the devices really do. I should have done earlier, imagine the money I would have saved.

You live and learn, as they say.



So is that why my Topping cables have arrows on them? Damn. Seems like I've installed them wrong? Left is the L30 and right the E30.

They probably sound better that way.

 

[AndrewDavis]

HDMI inherited the I2C connection from DVI, which adopted it from VGA (DVI-I includes VGA signals, remember). The original reason for using I2C probably had something to do with the ready availability of EEPROM chips with said interface

And I2C begat VGA. VGA begat DVI, who begat...

 

[Killingbeans]

And I2C begat VGA.

Not really. I2C was an appendix on the VGA connector. Didn't have anything to do with video signals.

You'd might say SCART RGB begat VGA, but that would be incorrect in a number of ways.

More like CGA begat EGA. EGA begat VGA ->

 

[voodooless]

Not really. I2S was an appendix on the VGA connector.

Don’t mix I2S with I2C. They are two totally different things. I doubt that there is any licensing involved for I2C, it’s from 1982.. any patents would have long expired by now. Every simple uC has an I2C bus. Any licensing will cover other parts of the standard.

One can however do I2S over a HDMI cable using lvds signaling

 

[Killingbeans]

Haha yeah, I know. Sorry, just a typo/brainfart

 

[oldsysop]

The cable was not tested with music.
The test is not valid.

 

[voodooless]

The cable was not tested with music.

What is music.. exactly?

 

[Cortes]

The cable was not tested with music.
The test is not valid.

And nobody listen to fart Fourier transforms. So, no valid test for AudioQuest.

Anyway, I must say that changing spaker cables from copper to silver does change the sound of speakers. Probababy due to different impedances, don't know.

 

[oldsysop]

Anyway, I must say that changing spaker cables from copper to silver does change the sound of speakers. Probababy due to different impedances, don't know.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

What would be the most appropriate nickname For this company ?

I think you gotta reach for the German: AudioQuatsch

 

[Killingbeans]

And nobody listen to fart Fourier transforms. So, no valid test for AudioQuest.

Anyway, I must say that changing spaker cables from copper to silver does change the sound of speakers. Probababy due to different impedances, don't know.

Too much sarcasm for my puny brain to comprehend?