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AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review

Billy Budapest

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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.

And you also have to buy the crimp tool which is another $100 and if you want to make it really easy, the stripping multi-tool (which granted is really cool because it makes 3-4 different cuts at once around the cable at precise depths) is something like $120. Now, I know that good tools are expensive, but usually they are business expenses!
 

MattHooper

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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.

Yes but that doesn't address the logic of my point.

When the audiophile upgrades his speaker cables and suddenly "hears" that 3rd vocalist in the back all the more clearly, or marvels at the revelation of more detail, more sonic information, the fact is the cables used to make that recording were all competent to capture and transmit that information. It wouldn't be there to hear if that weren't the case. Which puts the lie to the idea you have to get some Ultra Newfangled Cable in order to transmit and reveal that sonic information.


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.

Yeah, the last post production sound company I worked at we had an associated cable-making facility, and if I needed some cables for work or home I'd just pop down and have some new ones made to order. It was usually Belden or Canare.
 

scott wurcer

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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.

The ADSL QUAM signal is noise like (maximum entropy) so it approaches the Nyquist limit. The DSP computes the echo return loss to optimize the simultaneous TX/RX hybrid in every channel. The key to ADSL was the simultaneous transmission (loud) and reception (weak) over the same wire pair. This concept actually dated to the 19th century and I was surprised this was actually granted https://patents.google.com/patent/US6163579A/en?inventor=wurcer&oq=wurcer
 

Chrispy

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Right but XLR's are used with mics and in any case the EMC mitigation would apply to any low impedance balanced interconnect.

Home audio usually doesn't include the use of mics, which was more my point. Sure, they can be useful, but in most cases not needed.
 

Blumlein 88

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Home audio usually doesn't include the use of mics, which was more my point. Sure, they can be useful, but in most cases not needed.
Yes, so if a cable is slightly beneficial in the more rigorous noise and interference requirements for a microphone signal, they'll be more than good enough for regular old line level signals.
 

Chrispy

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Yes, so if a cable is slightly beneficial in the more rigorous noise and interference requirements for a microphone signal, they'll be more than good enough for regular old line level signals.

If not overkill.
 

Francis Vaughan

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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.
Shannon, rather than Nyquist. But indeed, the manner in which ADSL wrings the last bit of information transmission out of the line is impressive. If you go back and read Shannon's original paper on signalling in a noisy channel he covers the theory of measuring the information rate even in such a mess. There is good reason he is held in such high regard.
 

Francis Vaughan

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There is property called skin effect which makes a difference to the resistivity for speaker wire which matters when significant current is flowing.
Skin effect was the go-to justification for cable magic in the early days, despite it being trivially provable not to have any effect for audio. Lots of magic cable claiming to be built with Litz construction (and most actually were not) to get magical bandwidth back. It seemed to be the basis for the super multi-stranded cables as well - despite such construction not having any effect on skin effect at all.
True Litz construction requires both individually insulated strands and a weave pattern designed to balance the anount each strand is woven near the middle and near the surface of the wire as a whole. Just twisting strands together doesn't work. Then there was Monster's cable with strands of different diameters, because the high notes went down different diameter strands to the bass, and you needed to make sure they stayed coherent. The woo was strong on these. :facepalm:
 

Unclevanya

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. Then there was Monster's cable with strands of different diameters, because the high notes went down different diameter strands to the bass, and you needed to make sure they stayed coherent. The woo was strong on these. :facepalm:
I remember those ads and explanations. Glad to finally know that it was bunk. I never bought into it, but it seemed plausible to me at the time. Where was my brain?
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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Shannon, rather than Nyquist. But indeed, the manner in which ADSL wrings the last bit of information transmission out of the line is impressive. If you go back and read Shannon's original paper on signalling in a noisy channel he covers the theory of measuring the information rate even in such a mess. There is good reason he is held in such high regard.
Modern FECs are proven to achieve channel capacity under specific (potentially unrealistic) channel models. It comes at the cost of large block lengths and low code rates. Some of the messages you send over your cell phone are mostly redundancy bits.
 

beagleman

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I see Four common denominators within the audiophile "groups" that believe in expensive interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables.

1. Usually far more money than knowledge of Electronics and Physics. ( I guess that is quite Obvious, but....)

2. Display a personality that just has to overly describe and embellish how great their purchase was and how much better it sounds than run of the mill products. (As if they require attention, or seek agreement, possibly to rationalize they made a great choice?)

3. Seemingly lacking in any knowledge about the actual human hearing process, and a complete disregard for believing their hearing is fallible in regards to any of the well documented hearing/cognitive processes, such as bias, expectation, post purchase rationalization, and audio peer pressure.
(It is as if they are only semi-human and have abilities and powers beyond the mere human audiophile)

4. A personality type, that believes "what they think" is obviously what they are hearing, but are unable to substantiate what they believe they hear to any real world comparison.
(Blind testing, and double blind testing , No way! Even A/B comparison is useless as they "Know what they hear")

I am sure I missed a few key points, but to me that sums up the Cable/power cord/interconnect people.

Very flowery descriptions, and grand claims, but never able to back them up or substantiate. "Just believe me, I know what I hear!!"
 

CDMC

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I see Four common denominators within the audiophile "groups" that believe in expensive interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables.

1. Usually far more money than knowledge of Electronics and Physics. ( I guess that is quite Obvious, but....)

2. Display a personality that just has to overly describe and embellish how great their purchase was and how much better it sounds than run of the mill products. (As if they require attention, or seek agreement, possibly to rationalize they made a great choice?)

3. Seemingly lacking in any knowledge about the actual human hearing process, and a complete disregard for believing their hearing is fallible in regards to any of the well documented hearing/cognitive processes, such as bias, expectation, post purchase rationalization, and audio peer pressure.
(It is as if they are only semi-human and have abilities and powers beyond the mere human audiophile)

4. A personality type, that believes "what they think" is obviously what they are hearing, but are unable to substantiate what they believe they hear to any real world comparison.
(Blind testing, and double blind testing , No way! Even A/B comparison is useless as they "Know what they hear")

I am sure I missed a few key points, but to me that sums up the Cable/power cord/interconnect people.

Very flowery descriptions, and grand claims, but never able to back them up or substantiate. "Just believe me, I know what I hear!!"

I think it is the Lake Wobegon effect: Where “all the children are above average”. They want to be part of the elite club that hears a difference. The emperor has no clothes.
 

beagleman

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I think it is the Lake Wobegon effect: Where “all the children are above average”. They want to be part of the elite club that hears a difference. The emperor has no clothes.


I used to debate back and forth with these guys. But after a while realized, it was more of an ego thing, than a discussion of actual substance. Every time I questioned them or tried to bring some logic into the debate, they would quickly run out of arguments, and resort to name calling, or the old stand by, "Maybe you can not hear it, but I do", or "Your equipment is not worthy, or resolving enough".

But it seems they were unable to or unwilling to demonstrate their abilities in public or to anyone other than themselves.
Bragging about these big improvements to sound, on an online forum... sure! but anything that involved real life, or a comparison, or demonstration of how easily they could tell one wire from another and whoosh, out came the personal attacks.
 

infinitesymphony

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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... :)
Speaking of video causing audio problems, I remember when cable TV was the most likely cause for ground loops in home systems because it was the only connection with a different ground potential.
 

DonH56

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Speaking of video causing audio problems, I remember when cable TV was the most likely cause for ground loops in home systems because it was the only connection with a different ground potential.

That has not changed, nor made any better by satellite dishes... :(
 

scott wurcer

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Shannon, rather than Nyquist.

Sorry to propagate the brain fart, the common impression is that the POTS phone infrastructure is designed to carry voice at 8kHz or so which people take to mean a low max sampling frequency which makes 2MHz data rate seem impossible. The ADSL issue has little or nothing to do with Nyquist but depends on the Shannon limit for channel capacity.
 

scott wurcer

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This reminds me of a video by Keith Johnson of Reference recordings talking about wire.

My experience is that K. O. J. is an unassailable guru and any criticism of anything he says or does will rain brickbats upon you. You could say he employs the flying monkeys.
 

Blumlein 88

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My experience is that K. O. J. is an unassailable guru and any criticism of anything he says or does will rain brickbats upon you. You could say he employs the flying monkeys.
That explains why he said he had employees who could hear femto second levels of jitter.
 

solderdude

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When this cable nulls just like all the other cables (send it to Ethan W) we will know how it handles music as well.
I can make an educated guess.
 
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