jannek
Active Member
They would have to think and understand, not just pay.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I don't believe in this 2000$ snake oil cable at all!
If you want to spend that money why not lemo connectors or triax BNC or even ordinary XLR. everything ist better then unbalanced RCA.
But BTT.
The conclusions your making from this test are also false.
Your assuming source impedance is low and sink impedance is high.
(this is not the case for Phone cartridges and some mc preamps)
Your assuming there is no (hf) Current or Voltage potential between Sink and Source device
This can be the casse with ground loops, RF interference, switch mode power supplies, PCs, etc.
Your assuming noise outside the audible band is not relevant.
(AM) RF can be demodulate by asymmetrical preamplifer and cause distortion and interference
(Put you cellphone close to a cheap powered speaker an call it...)
common mode chokes on cables for example have effects.
If you want to spend that money why not lemo connectors or triax BNC or even ordinary XLR. everything ist better then unbalanced RCA.
But BTT.
The conclusions your making from this test are also false.
Your assuming source impedance is low and sink impedance is high.
(this is not the case for Phone cartridges and some mc preamps)
Your assuming there is no (hf) Current or Voltage potential between Sink and Source device
This can be the casse with ground loops, RF interference, switch mode power supplies, PCs, etc.
Your assuming noise outside the audible band is not relevant.
(AM) RF can be demodulate by asymmetrical preamplifer and cause distortion and interference
(Put you cellphone close to a cheap powered speaker an call it...)
common mode chokes on cables for example have effects.
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2018
- Messages
- 1,449
- Likes
- 4,816
Well, the encoding is significantly different. That's a bit of a moot point these days as it is transparently handled by the hardware and the OS. But that was potentially problematic in the early days and, yes, a computer would have crashed if it handled the data read from an audio disk in the same way it did treat data sectors.
Without going into details (because the last time I looked at it in depth was when I wrote a driver for... OS/2 Warp). It isn't the data structure that was the biggest issue btw, but the error correction (or lack of it) that led audio data (samples) to be interpolated in some cases. There are also other issues, which is why software such as exactaudiocopy https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/ still exist today.
These issues surely contributed to some of the (well founded) complaints about cd based computer audio in the early days and are probably at the core of the belief that data streams or other forms of audio suffer from these issues as well (they don't). I believe that this ultimately led to all the confusion that remains today about digital signals and snake oil to "improve" them.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
I think it's a fair assumption. AudioQuest does not state anywhere that this cable is designed explicitly with turntables in mind.
Besides, if it was a really a problem, waiting around for a third party to do measurements on random cables would be a pretty ineffective way of dealing with it
Well with this assumption every wet string and rusty paperclip is a good cable.
This is not only true for turntables. turntables are just an extreme example, in realty its true for every non ideal device.
Compared to the test setup most devices are non ideal.
The conclusions from this review(video) sound very generalizing to me.
But the data is not backing up this conclusions. For you know "science" its imported to keep in mind under what conditions that measurements are true and what assumptions one have to make to draw conclusions from this.
"I can hardly measure any difference with this expensive an good equipment under this ideal conditions" is true.
"so there can't be a difference with less expensive and worse equipment under different non ideal conditions"
that's just an assumption.
And its not holding true under said conditions for example Phono MC preamp or High(RF) common mode current.
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2019
- Messages
- 1,852
- Likes
- 2,772
JVC also resold this cable. Same exact cable stock (even sane color insulation) but with JVC branding. There is a spool of it on eBay right now if anyone is interested.At first I was going to joke that it was nice of them to throw in a free audiophile-grade cable, but it looks like there's actually a fanbase for Hitachi LC-OFC cables. The LC-OFC (linear crystal oxygen free copper) process was patented by Hitachi:
"So the story goes... 1975, Hitachi developed their own method for reducing grain or crystal boundaries. LC-OFC is Hitachi's patented process and their exclusive product. After extrusion, the copper wire is re-heated, or annealed, which reduces impurities between the crystal boundaries as the copper crystal grows and leads to a longer grain length. A typical crystal (or grain) in a 1mm diameter LC-OFC conductor is 130 mm long."
https://theaudiostandard.net/thread/1117/lc-ofc
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4582545
So you actually have a rare and desirable free cable.
Yes, REW is free to download. But users in good conscience should send a donation to the developer John Mulcahy for all the work he pours into this program year after year.
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/
GuidoK
Member
I specifically said MM/MI cartridges. (and these are also the most used (or sold) cartridges
Where this effect does play. A lot.
A cheap chinese interlink with high capacitance can cause effects in the frequency plot as low as 7khz, and in phase shift even lower.
To me, a cable review should at least give or explore the elementry physical paramteres that a cable is made up of (so R, C, L), where when it comes to turntables the capacitance is the most important parameter (when using mm/mi cartridges). For the rest of audio playback gear I cant think of devices that are really susceptible to these parameters in their in/output cables as they generally work on line voltage/parameters where these effects only show up in really high frequencies. Even HOMC's show resonance peaks with cable capacitance above 100khz.
?
They also don't state that it shouldnt be used for turntables. They also don't state that turntables only should be used with cables desinged for turntables. They also don't state that interlinks are designed to be used only with certain equipment.
I'm only saying that this review isnt complete imho without regarding R,C,L
I mean this is audiosciencereview. regarding the cable as a circuit might make sense.
It also might be interesting as the maker of this cable calls it "Dielectric Bias System". Does it do something with the Dielectric? Only way to find out is to examine the capacitairy properties imho.
Last edited:
Vini darko
Major Contributor
Because 6 layers of insulation (that doesn't work) won't cause any increase in capacitance /sk
It's actually several notches above most of the cables I've gotten with other audio products. OFC
I bought a set of RCA's off Amazon by Worlds Best Audio Cables and was surprised to find they are "directional". Is this a thing? They appear to be very well built cables and "sound" fine but directional?
How does the country of origin or price affect capacitance?
Since the "dielectric bias system" is based on exactly zero actual physical or material principles, and is presented without ANY supporting evidence, the only way to "find out" is to understand the marketing.
Vini darko
Major Contributor
Directionality in this case should indicate wich end the shield is connected. Usually host end.
IIRC it's part of the joke, like the brand name is. Marketing.
You can see there are a lot of parameters that effectively did not get tested!
As long as the the DAC output impedance (Ris_low) is Close to zero the cable capacitance and Leakage did not change anything at all!
As long as the the ADC input impedance is high (megaohms) the cable series impedance has no effect
As long as the Ground loop current and voltage is Zero the shield resistance and inductance (impedance) has no effect.
As long as there is no RF and nothing to measure it the shielding effectiveness is not tested.
As you can see lots of key parameters did not get tested directly.
In real application source impedance is not zero, input impedance is not infinite, ground current as well as RF might be present and the input might not be immune to RF.
GuidoK
Member
By removing as much insulation material as possible.
Do you know which interlinks I'm talking about? the really thin ones. Have you ever measured any with low capacitance? I haven't.
So they are rubbish to use with turntables. Or at least, they will alter the sound. They act as an equalizer (you can use that as an advantage if that's the sound you're looking for of course)
That the "Dielectric Bias System" doesn't give any evidence doesnt mean it doesnt do anything... or nothing for that matter. That's what research in a review is about imho. Why else do an audiosciencereview?
10 seconds with an LCR meter would have given a conclusive result in the parameters I explained.
Last edited:
GuidoK
Member
I always found this a strange topology. Usually within audio applications (and lots of others), a star grounding topology is used.
By connecting the shielding to the host end instead of the amp end this is the other way round, imho increasing potential ground loops.
jsrtheta
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Don't know which test you're talking about, but the one I'm most familiar with was not with a digital cable. It was coat hangers versus Monster speaker cable: https://gizmodo.com/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger-363154
How does the country of origin affect the diameter?
You're so right! Scientists (and science-based reviewers) ought to spend their time chasing bullshit presented with no plausible correspondence to physics and no supporting evidence. Because that's what "research" is.
GuidoK
Member
Because that's where those interlinks are made nowadays.
The cable got reviewed here, didn't it? So Amir apparently thought it was worth spending his time. He made the review, not you.
I'm just showing a way to make the review more complete. Cable capacitance is important for some audio sources.
How do you know that applying a voltage across a dielectric doesn't change any of its properties? Or do you deny that the dielectric plays a role in a capacitor?
Like I said, it only takes 10 seconds with an LCR meter to find out.
I think a good cable review should include LCR information about said cable (mainly the capacitance), but you don't seem to understand the relevance of those parameters.
Do you have a turntable?
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Poll
