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SIY

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Thanks for your kindness! I will answer to you and to Sgt. Ear Ache with what has been formulated from time to time by many in relevant forums as an unanswered question, but also as a statement:

What kind of measurements do you propose for an interconnect, or for a RCA connector, or for a solder?
First demonstrate that there's an audible difference before putting in effort to correlate to a measurable difference. If you haven't done Step One, anything after that is worthless. That may seem harsh, but determining what's real and what's imaginary is basic in science.
 

BDWoody

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Phorize

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Thanks for your kindness! I will answer to you and to Sgt. Ear Ache with what has been formulated from time to time by many in relevant forums as an unanswered question, but also as a statement:

What kind of measurements do you propose for an interconnect, or for a RCA connector, or for a solder? The most common measurements for cables are capacitance and inductance (impedance). What will that tell you?

A cable’s capacitance and inductance might give you a somewhat vague idea of things, but it will not tell you how a cable sounds, nor how it sounds with different equipment in different listening rooms. The same more or less happens when you use an oscilloscope. Unfortunately your ears and brain are the best judge for that, supposing that they are adequate trained to do that.

And believe it or not, I'm not a... Luddite. As a qualified mechanical - marine engineer and naval architect I have conducted a bunch of performance measurements and scientific tests, with repeatable process, validation, proof, etc.

In an ideal world, we would be able to conduct research and find out why, scientifically, audio gear sounds the way it does. It involves a very – very complex interrelationship between materials, their purity, build, electricity, EMI, RFI and many – many other factors. Many phenomena in audio unfortunately are not yet totally backed up by science. That does not mean these things are non existen, and that we should not talk about them.

Instead, implementing our - subjective of course - experience, it may motivate some music lovers to experiment on it in order to draw their own conclusions on sound issues that concern them. And if they want, to compare their above findings with the relevant scientific measurements currently available, lest they find any correlation.

After all, if a soprano manages to make me emotionaly shocked by her performance (while another does not for the same musical part), I honestly don't need any measurement or double blind tests of her performance to convince myself of her greatness in this ART.

So it’s obvious that I do have registered with the wrong forum. I'm done._
I’m not sure if you are aware but there are quite a number of technical experts, including several engineering luminaries who frequent this site. If you were genuinely interested in these questions you could learn a lot. You seem to be explicitly saying that there is nothing you can learn however , so I’m not sure what to suggest, other than that you may wish to try enquiring appreciatively when someone with decades of experience in audio engineering responds to your posts.;)
 

Geert

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Unfortunately your ears and brain are the best judge for that, supposing that they are adequate trained to do that.
Most audiophiles are not trained listeners.

Many phenomena in audio unfortunately are not yet totally backed up by science. That does not mean these things are non existen, and that we should not talk about them.
The first step should be to prove these phenomena exist. Shouldn't be to difficult. If you find they do, science will certainly look in to them.
 
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Grumpish

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I’ve got over 55 years of using my ears to make judgement about sound. I think it is terrible the high end roll-off that I hear in all modern audio equipment. Twenty-plus years ago the high frequencies (14kHz and above) had much more sizzle and presence. I don’t know if it is to do with more pollution in the atmosphere now or where the copper mines were then, but something is definitely up with modern audio equipment.

I was talking to my audiologist about just this the other day, while I was getting my hearing aids checked.
 

Geert

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I’ve got over 55 years of using my ears to make judgement about sound. I think it is terrible the high end roll-off that I hear in all modern audio equipment. Twenty-plus years ago the high frequencies (14kHz and above) had much more sizzle and presence. I don’t know if it is to do with more pollution in the atmosphere now or where the copper mines were then, but something is definitely up with modern audio equipment.
It's all this WIFI and 4G radiation intermodulating with high res audio. Doesn't happen with vinyl.
 

Katji

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What a lot of bollocks.
Especially the bull about 50 years of experience, and the "spoiling the hobby" story.
You know what? That's why "practice [does not] make perfect" - because practicing wrong technique or whatever just makes it worse. Only "perfect practice makes perfect."
 

DanielT

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What a lot of bollocks.
Especially the bull about 50 years of experience, and the "spoiling the hobby" story.
You know what? That's why "practice [does not] make perfect" - because practicing wrong technique or whatever just makes it worse. Only "perfect practice makes perfect."
Just think of all the things you can do if you have some money.
Buy unnecessarily expensive cables for example, in the rich mans world.

 

Killingbeans

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What kind of measurements do you propose for an interconnect, or for a RCA connector, or for a solder?


The most common measurements for cables are capacitance and inductance (impedance). What will that tell you?

Combined with resistance it tells you everything you need to know. You don't want a low-pass filter in the audible range, that's all.

A cable’s capacitance and inductance might give you a somewhat vague idea of things, but it will not tell you how a cable sounds, nor how it sounds with different equipment in different listening rooms.

Factor in output impedance and input impedance of the gear. Done. Clear picture.

Unfortunately your ears and brain are the best judge for that, supposing that they are adequate trained to do that.

I'm glad that I can relieve you of that misfortune. The math and the physics checks out. No need to rely on erroneous listening tests.

And believe it or not, I'm not a... Luddite. As a qualified mechanical - marine engineer and naval architect I have conducted a bunch of performance measurements and scientific tests, with repeatable process, validation, proof, etc.

 

SIY

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engineers and scientists
C_izg1FVYAAECG6.jpg
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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You don’t need to measure the cables. Just measure whats being fed to your speakers…if its the same with the super cables as without, you aren’t hearing any difference.

But of course chances are a bit of A/B blind testing would absolve you of the need to bother doing any measuring at all
 

antcollinet

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I’ve got over 55 years of using my ears to make judgement about sound. I think it is terrible the high end roll-off that I hear in all modern audio equipment. Twenty-plus years ago the high frequencies (14kHz and above) had much more sizzle and presence. I don’t know if it is to do with more pollution in the atmosphere now or where the copper mines were then, but something is definitely up with modern audio equipment.
It's the HF leprechauns guzzling all the Hz.
 

antcollinet

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What kind of measurements do you propose for an interconnect, or for a RCA connector, or for a solder? The most common measurements for cables are capacitance and inductance (impedance). What will that tell you?
It's very easy - you measure what goes into a cable.
You measure what comes out the other end.

When you discover there is no difference between input and output amongst all the cables you are looking at (competently manufactured of sufficient guage) then you can recognise they will sound identical.
 

naviivan

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ASR probably isn't the right place to talk about expensive cable differences without measurements that back it up. It's all snake oil to the die hard members. Your topic get derailed pretty quickly.
 

Chrispy

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ASR probably isn't the right place to talk about expensive cable differences without measurements that back it up. It's all snake oil to the die hard members. Your topic get derailed pretty quickly.
What would you say are more appropriate places to discuss such nonsense?
 

ahofer

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searching on the way that will make this hobby as enjoyable as possible for eachone of us (through the exchange of our – subjective of course - experiences
subjective experience isn’t very helpful, though.
 
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