Cable measurement

[Vhond]

Any additional comments?

Measuring audio / hifi cabling

Cables are a highly controversial topic within the hi-fi hobby. And that is partly understandable… it’s rather intangible and difficult to prove that it does anything. We made an attempt with a mass test of speaker cables. We listened to them blind and measured everything. Including practical...

www.alpha-audio.net

 

[voodooless]

Any additional comments?

Don't buy a cable as an EQ device...

 

[JSmith]

... the values are very small, as you can see in the graphs above. We are talking picofarads, micro-henries and mostly less than tenths of an Ohm.

JSmith

 

[restorer-john]

Any additional comments?

I hope there's more to it, because as it stands, it's a load of unquantified BS.

 

[alex-z]

It shows most cables grouped within .1dB as expected. The cables outside that region should be considered deeply flawed.

They make no mention of length matching the different cables, which may tighten the grouping even more.

Blind testing is mentioned, but they show no results from this, and fail to discuss the testing procedure.

Their conclusion that measuring cables is tricky is blatantly false. I could teach a child to press a measurement button and write down the results, the tricky part is educating people about what they mean.

 

[Somafunk]

Any additional comments?

Company that sells expensive aftermarket cables attempt to justify expensive aftermarket cables by showing way less than .5db of difference.

There’s my comment

 

[restorer-john]

The cables outside that region should be considered deeply flawed.

My cat Julio loves to bite cables. He creates flaws, right through the insulation and dielectric. Little b#stard.

The more expensive and vital, the greater the likelihood they will be bitten.

 

[Purité Audio]

Tape measure is really handy.
Keith

 

[Deleted member 48726]

LOL
Snake oil galore on this site. Didn't know it and I don't want to click or read any further.. Will check if my adblockers work as they should though.

 

[pkane]

My cat Julio loves to bite cables. He creates flaws, right through the insulation and dielectric. Little b#stard.

The more expensive and vital, the greater the likelihood they will be bitten.

Another budding high-end cable connoisseur.

 

[olieb]

Any additional comments?

Measuring audio / hifi cabling

Cables are a highly controversial topic within the hi-fi hobby. And that is partly understandable… it’s rather intangible and difficult to prove that it does anything. We made an attempt with a mass test of speaker cables. We listened to them blind and measured everything. Including practical...

www.alpha-audio.net

From the text. "And in our blind test, this was also largely apparent."

This seems to be code for: "The statistics of our results was so bad that we do not want to talk about it."

 

[DonH56]

"Sounds calm and balanced"

Thanks for that, one less link for me to click.

 

[Killingbeans]

Any additional comments?

Measuring audio / hifi cabling

Cables are a highly controversial topic within the hi-fi hobby. And that is partly understandable… it’s rather intangible and difficult to prove that it does anything. We made an attempt with a mass test of speaker cables. We listened to them blind and measured everything. Including practical...

www.alpha-audio.net

Looks like it's the same dudes (same test gear on the shelves) as the ones who made this video:

Loudspeaker cable test

Hello Forum. In a Dutch test, speaker cables were tested but also measured objectively. see the video: my question is can anyone on this forum perform a similar test. I would like to see whether measurements will differ if one uses an amplifier-unfriendly speaker and compares it with an...

www.audiosciencereview.com

And yes, speaker cables with funky RCL parameters can have relatively funky interactions with speaker loads. Simple solution: Don't use speaker cables with funky RCL parameters.

 

[DVDdoug]

There was the James Randi (RIP) $1 Million cable challenge.

 

[Sokel]

Their graph shows 3x amplifiers x 3 cables x 3 speakers. (!)

Chaos listening?

(and I thought I was the crazy one mixing the impossibles)

 

[antcollinet]

I can measure all sorts of things about cables.

I can measure the length, the conductor diameter, the insulation diameter, the stiffness, I can look at the materials used, and yes - I can measure the LCR characteristics.

All cables will show some variation in these parameters. This is meaningless - what matters is what do they do AUDIBLY to the sound.

The answer to that question so far in every measurement carried out, where we actually measure what the audio waveforms look like when they come out of the cable (or of the DAC/AMP if digital or power cable) is.... wait for it....

Absolutely nothing.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Their graph shows 3x amplifiers x 3 cables x 3 speakers. (!)

Chaos listening?

(and I thought I was the crazy one mixing the impossibles)

Not only that. I also asked myself if they measured more the different speakers (impedance) interacting with the amp, than the cable effect? (I am too tired to look at all the colored lines and compare on a phone screen).

 

[voodooless]

I also asked myself if they measured more the different speakers (impedance) interacting with the amp, than the cable effect?

Of course: it’s amp output impedance + cable impedance together. The cable R will be the dominant factor with a decent amp.

 

[boxerfan88]

Pretty elaborate setup to measure cables. Differences can clearly be seen. How audible the difference is yet to be determined. Looking forward to the complete cable test.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Pretty elaborate setup to measure cables. Differences can clearly be seen. How audible the difference is yet to be determined. Looking forward to the complete cable test.

I'm worried when my half a gigahertz pulses get spreed into responding only around a hundred megahertz or so and I get that energy loss at those megahertz and above ranges. The detail loss is night and day no doubt.

"is it audible?....I don't know". Well I'm pretty sure I do know. His time would be better spent jerking off than this fully useless measurebating.