Cordial CFU and Ceon Review (Cables) and more

[wwenze]

Maybe you misunderstand what I’m saying. Lowest signal level like a Moving coil cartridge, a moving coil transformer or moving coil stage, etc. That’s what I mean. Take it from there lower level than moving forward the higher level nothing about lower volume. Cable specs can make more of a difference.

Audio-Technica AT-OC9XSL

Output voltage 0.4mV

0.4mV = -74dB versus 2V

Well I'm pretty sure there are DACs/preamps capable of 0.4mV output with 30-40dB SINAD leftover, still lower than than speakers' distortion. Maybe if you are afraid of noise you can bump the volume up by 10dB.

Question still remains.

If you turn down the level of your line out, does the sound change?

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

Audio-Technica AT-OC9XSL

Output voltage 0.4mV

0.4mV = -74dB versus 2V

Well I'm pretty sure there are DACs/preamps capable of 0.4mV output with 30-40dB SINAD leftover, still lower than than speakers' distortion. Maybe if you are afraid of noise you can bump the volume up by 10dB.

Question still remains.

If you turn down the level of your line out, does the sound change?

The conversation was about cables, like capacitance, inductance, shielding of a cable, the cable specifications… who’s talking about anything about the amplification. I’m really not getting why that was so complicated. Isn’t this thread about cables?

 

[wwenze]

NTTY tjanks for testing, If you test cables in the future can you test capacitance, it cab affect frequency response when connected between a turntable and phono a preamp. Many high end cable suppliers leave out this information when selling cable specifically for this use. Mid priced cables such as those from Blue Jeans cable and WBC typically provide this information.

The problem with testing cable capacitance is forgetting the variability of capacitance of the preamp and the whole system.

MM has high output impedance making it sensitive to load capacitance so we'll go with that; MC doesn't care. Also, any line out from CD player etc with low output impedance doesn't care about capacitance either, @rebbiputzmaker, regardless of how low level the output is.

A typical phono preamp has load capacitance inside the preamp, adjustable from 0 to for example 300pF.
Tonearm, a bit less than 50pF or whatever

A typical cable for phono, let's say anything from 40pF to 100pF per metre <--keyword.

And here you notice that the typical audiophile don't actually do the math to get to the capacitance they need, much less performance measurements. Instead, they just throw whatever together and let the adjustable pF setting on the preamp do the rest.

Testing pF is good to know the spec, but as said a company that doesn't provide capacitance info probably doesn't produce cables for MM. But as for cable models that already show the spec, apart from checking the accuracy of the spec, it matters little because there is no golden standard target for what pF/m we actually need, especially when the rest of the setup is so variable. A 40pF/m cable is not automatically better than a 70pF/m cable, because you can do a combination of pF/m multiplied by length to get the pF of the whole cable. And even then, you have tonearm and preamp settings to worry about.

 

[DavidM1]

Not really - 'cause actually these words all have Latin roots (namely ratio, scientia/scire and comparatio/comparare). Pretty clever bunch, those old Romans...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

Definitely. No doubt about Latin roots but many words in English have arrived there from French, not directly from the Latin.

When in doubt, simply pronounce the English word à la Hercule Poirot.

“rational, scientific comparison.”

Greetings from Tasmania.

 

[lini]

When in doubt, simply pronounce the English word à la Hercule Poirot.

Uhm - which one? I mean, like Peter Ustinov (best swimming scene ever! ), like Albert Finney, like David Suchet or like Kenneth Branagh (quite a lousy Poirot, if you'd ask me...)?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[DavidM1]

Uhm - which one? I mean, like Peter Ustinov (best swimming scene ever! ), like Albert Finney, like David Suchet or like Kenneth Branagh (quite a lousy Poirot, if you'd ask me...)?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

Oh, I think any would do the trick… to be franc.

 

[Hayabusa]

Hello Everyone, this is a quick review and detailed measurements of the Cordial CFU and Ceon cables, and a little more.

View attachment 527473

A friend of mine asked me what are the cables I use for my (analog) measurements. And I went Cordial cables simply because my preferred local shop is selling them. This question, together with the recent review of Amir about some Kimber Cables, made me want to go a bit deeper, and perform some measurements, of course

The above photo shows all cables I included for this quick review, to make a bit more interesting.

There are the two Cordial cables (those with the TS end) that I regularly use:

• Cordial CFU labeled as a "pro audio low noise cable" (the black one).
• Cordial Ceon which is "DJ" cable, meaning flashy for the ease of identification, and very flexible. It is my default cable.

The other cables are no-name ones that I got with devices I bought here and there. They include:

• Standard RCA cable (1m) with golden connectors (the one with the white ends)
• Very basic RCA cable (3m) probably very old too
• An AliExpress cable said to resemble an old McIntosh interconnect, included as a gift by the seller when I bought a genuine McIntosh amplifier

Last and not least to complement this list, I travelled to France recently, went to a Shopping Center (Leclerc), and bought the cheapest of their RCA cable, 1.5m for 2.78€. This is a photo of this one with the Cordial Ceon:

View attachment 527474


Measurements

I followed the review of the Kimber Cables from Amir, and so I went only for few measurements, including the standard "SINAD" dashboard, bandwidth, jitter and square.

My setup is very simple, the computer (REW Software) drives a Topping D50III converter (used as the generator) and the RCA output of the Topping is measured by my usual Cosmos combo Scaler + ADCiso Grade 0. All of these items run on batteries.

So it is: REW Software (generator) -> Topping D50II (DAC) -> RCA Cable Under Test -> Cosmos combo (ADC) -> REW (FFT analyzis)

I set the D50III to output 2Vrms.

Let's start by measuring with my usual Cordial Ceon, as it is the one I prefer using. The below is a 1kHz sine @0dBFS:

View attachment 527477

As you can see, the calculated SINAD (opposite of THD+N in the above dashboard) is identical to what Amir measured in his review of the Topping D50III (121.4dB), the only difference is that I get the same results from the Left or Right channel of the Topping (0.1dB difference only).

For this measurements, I set the Topping to 48kHz sampling rate, FFT length was 32k and I used 4 averages, and that is to replicate the setup of Amir's AudioPrecision (3 averages instead of 4, though, as I can't select 3).

The unweighted SNR calculated in presence of that Full Scale (0dBFS) test tone is a crazy low 122.3dBr. This is state of the art and if a cable would make a difference, that level of precision would allow us to easily spot that.

And as a matter of facts, at that level of precision, almost anything makes a difference. For instance I got better results when the battery pack powering the ADC was at least 50cm away from it, while I usually just put it below...

Let's run the same measurement switching to the Cordial CFU:

View attachment 527482

The THD+N remains -121.4dB (meaning a SINAD of 121.4dB). The measurement is therefore nearly the same, maybe that 50Hz little spike went down from -145dbr to below what can be measured with that FFT length.

During my measurements and attempts to reach the lowest level of noise, I noticed that the Ceon was more likely to pick up noise than the CFU, but never to the point of reaching an audible level, only something I don't want in the context of high precision measurements.

Let's continue with the basic 1m RCA cable that has golden connectors:

View attachment 527487

Nice, even a little better than the two Cordial cables. This is 0.1dB better of SINAD, not relevant and likely due to the shorter length of the cable.

It is anyways good to see that a standard RCA does the job perfectly well, and does not get in the way of the highly resolved Topping DAC.

Next is the other very basic 3m RCA cable from probably 20+ years ago:

View attachment 527490

Hey, very nice too, same as the Cordial. That probably means I lose 0.1dB of SINAD with 3m cable instead of 1m.

Let's continue with the pseudo McIntosh cable from Ali:

View attachment 527491

This is the same result as the Cordial Ceon. Note that this cable is stiff and heavy, everything but practical to use.

Last is the cheap one I got from France:

View attachment 527493

Finally we get to see something!
This one is picking up some mains (50Hz) and harmonics from I don't know where since all devices run on batteries. There was nothing I could do to reduce this and I tried a lot of potential solutions (disconnecting all other surrounding devices, using an additional USB isolator, placing the cable differently, etc...).

Anyways, the SINAD degrades a little to a still extremely good 120.7dB which would keep the DAC in the "Excellent" category of Amir's chart. At least we have one cable that shows a little difference, yet of no importance...

----

As @amirm did with the Kimber cable test, let's continue with the bandwidth up to 200kHz. The below is an overlay of all cables:

View attachment 527494
Despite my usual zoom, they are the same. I did zoom much more and saw a very little 0.01dB difference between the "best" and "worst" cables at 200kHz.

Same in time domain, with a 20kHz square as Amir did with the Kimber test (but bandwidth is limited to 384kHz in my case). Results are identical between the best and the worst cable. For that reason, I show only one measurement, since all are exactly the same:

View attachment 527495

The ringing is due to the filter of the Topping (I'm not using a super resolved Generator as Amir with the AP) and a bandwidth limited to 384kHz (my maximum) instead of 500kHz.

----

Let me add a quick standard Jitter Test between the worst and best cable (FFT extended to 512k and 32 averages to visually lower the random noise):

View attachment 527498

I zoomed to better see potential side bands. The two traces overlay nearly perfectly, i.e. no difference.


Conclusion

Nothing new under the sun, I know.

Cables would make a difference if one had a massive issue, being incorrectly built, or of an extremely high length, placed next to a switching power, ...

In the end, buy what pleases you, for the convenience, the look, the price, ... and enjoy your music.

Have a nice WE!

Things that matters with cables is how well they shield interference.
Also from experience: very cheap cables can make bad grounding connections in the long term, I talk about months/years here.
I know difficult to test that

 

[carlosmante]

That’s interesting. I’ve always thought of the French as inclined towards rational, scientific comparisons…

In fact the English words rational, scientific and comparisons each have French origins. C’est la vie!

French? all three words are of Latin origin: rationālis, scientifĭcus and comparatio.

 

[daniboun]

I wonder what that could be because of ? I’m stumped.

I could answer but this is not the dedicated place...

 

[NTTY]

Things that matters with cables is how well they shield interference.

I guess I could have tested making each cable pass next to the power supply of my PC to I see which one captured the most interferences.

Also from experience: very cheap cables can make bad grounding connections in the long term, I talk about months/years here.
I know difficult to test that

At least one of them (the 3m long) is 20+ years old

 

[GWolfman]

... and enjoy your music.

Amen.

Thanks @NTTY!

 

[lini]

I guess I could have tested making each cable pass next to the power supply of my PC to I see which one captured the most interferences.

That would be quite interesting. But of course such a test would seem even more interesting, if the cable constructions would be known and actually differ (e.g. coax with served shield vs. braided vs. double braided vs. foil vs. braided plus foil...).

I could answer but this is not the dedicated place...

My bets would be on eating the wrong kind of frogs and/or snails.


Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[daniboun]

My bets would be on eating the wrong kind of frogs and/or snails.

If only! ))) Our specialty here is ramekin.))

 

[Jole]

Hello Everyone, this is a quick review and detailed measurements of the Cordial CFU and Ceon cables, and a little more.

View attachment 527473

A friend of mine asked me what are the cables I use for my (analog) measurements. And I went Cordial cables simply because my preferred local shop is selling them. This question, together with the recent review of Amir about some Kimber Cables, made me want to go a bit deeper, and perform some measurements, of course

The above photo shows all cables I included for this quick review, to make a bit more interesting.

There are the two Cordial cables (those with the TS end) that I regularly use:

• Cordial CFU labeled as a "pro audio low noise cable" (the black one).
• Cordial Ceon which is "DJ" cable, meaning flashy for the ease of identification, and very flexible. It is my default cable.

The other cables are no-name ones that I got with devices I bought here and there. They include:

• Standard RCA cable (1m) with golden connectors (the one with the white ends)
• Very basic RCA cable (3m) probably very old too
• An AliExpress cable said to resemble an old McIntosh interconnect, included as a gift by the seller when I bought a genuine McIntosh amplifier

Last and not least to complement this list, I travelled to France recently, went to a Shopping Center (Leclerc), and bought the cheapest of their RCA cable, 1.5m for 2.78€. This is a photo of this one with the Cordial Ceon:

View attachment 527474


Measurements

I followed the review of the Kimber Cables from Amir, and so I went only for few measurements, including the standard "SINAD" dashboard, bandwidth, jitter and square.

My setup is very simple, the computer (REW Software) drives a Topping D50III converter (used as the generator) and the RCA output of the Topping is measured by my usual Cosmos combo Scaler + ADCiso Grade 0. All of these items run on batteries.

So it is: REW Software (generator) -> Topping D50II (DAC) -> RCA Cable Under Test -> Cosmos combo (ADC) -> REW (FFT analyzis)

I set the D50III to output 2Vrms.

Let's start by measuring with my usual Cordial Ceon, as it is the one I prefer using. The below is a 1kHz sine @0dBFS:

View attachment 527477

As you can see, the calculated SINAD (opposite of THD+N in the above dashboard) is identical to what Amir measured in his review of the Topping D50III (121.4dB), the only difference is that I get the same results from the Left or Right channel of the Topping (0.1dB difference only).

For this measurements, I set the Topping to 48kHz sampling rate, FFT length was 32k and I used 4 averages, and that is to replicate the setup of Amir's AudioPrecision (3 averages instead of 4, though, as I can't select 3).

The unweighted SNR calculated in presence of that Full Scale (0dBFS) test tone is a crazy low 122.3dBr. This is state of the art and if a cable would make a difference, that level of precision would allow us to easily spot that.

And as a matter of facts, at that level of precision, almost anything makes a difference. For instance I got better results when the battery pack powering the ADC was at least 50cm away from it, while I usually just put it below...

Let's run the same measurement switching to the Cordial CFU:

View attachment 527482

The THD+N remains -121.4dB (meaning a SINAD of 121.4dB). The measurement is therefore nearly the same, maybe that 50Hz little spike went down from -145dbr to below what can be measured with that FFT length.

During my measurements and attempts to reach the lowest level of noise, I noticed that the Ceon was more likely to pick up noise than the CFU, but never to the point of reaching an audible level, only something I don't want in the context of high precision measurements.

Let's continue with the basic 1m RCA cable that has golden connectors:

View attachment 527487

Nice, even a little better than the two Cordial cables. This is 0.1dB better of SINAD, not relevant and likely due to the shorter length of the cable.

It is anyways good to see that a standard RCA does the job perfectly well, and does not get in the way of the highly resolved Topping DAC.

Next is the other very basic 3m RCA cable from probably 20+ years ago:

View attachment 527490

Hey, very nice too, same as the Cordial. That probably means I lose 0.1dB of SINAD with 3m cable instead of 1m.

Let's continue with the pseudo McIntosh cable from Ali:

View attachment 527491

This is the same result as the Cordial Ceon. Note that this cable is stiff and heavy, everything but practical to use.

Last is the cheap one I got from France:

View attachment 527493

Finally we get to see something!
This one is picking up some mains (50Hz) and harmonics from I don't know where since all devices run on batteries. There was nothing I could do to reduce this and I tried a lot of potential solutions (disconnecting all other surrounding devices, using an additional USB isolator, placing the cable differently, etc...).

Anyways, the SINAD degrades a little to a still extremely good 120.7dB which would keep the DAC in the "Excellent" category of Amir's chart. At least we have one cable that shows a little difference, yet of no importance...

----

As @amirm did with the Kimber cable test, let's continue with the bandwidth up to 200kHz. The below is an overlay of all cables:

View attachment 527494
Despite my usual zoom, they are the same. I did zoom much more and saw a very little 0.01dB difference between the "best" and "worst" cables at 200kHz.

Same in time domain, with a 20kHz square as Amir did with the Kimber test (but bandwidth is limited to 384kHz in my case). Results are identical between the best and the worst cable. For that reason, I show only one measurement, since all are exactly the same:

View attachment 527495

The ringing is due to the filter of the Topping (I'm not using a super resolved Generator as Amir with the AP) and a bandwidth limited to 384kHz (my maximum) instead of 500kHz.

----

Let me add a quick standard Jitter Test between the worst and best cable (FFT extended to 512k and 32 averages to visually lower the random noise):

View attachment 527498

I zoomed to better see potential side bands. The two traces overlay nearly perfectly, i.e. no difference.


Conclusion

Nothing new under the sun, I know.

Cables would make a difference if one had a massive issue, being incorrectly built, or of an extremely high length, placed next to a switching power, ...

In the end, buy what pleases you, for the convenience, the look, the price, ... and enjoy your music.

Have a nice WE!

Thanks NTTY. I use Cordial..as all my interconnects and speaker cables 2.5mm and I'm absolutely OK with them. Cheap and ok.

 

[pieterv1]

Great effort!

I swear by Cordial cables. Great quality vs price ratio, using high quality Rean / Neutrik connectors.

The only issue when it comes to maintenance and repairability is that for some of the cables, the strain reliefs are fixed - so the connectors can not be replaced or upgraded.

 

[Jole]

Great effort!

I swear by Cordial cables. Great quality vs price ratio, using high quality Rean / Neutrik connectors.

The only issue when it comes to maintenance and repairability is that for some of the cables, the strain reliefs are fixed - so the connectors can not be replaced or upgraded.

All the truth.

 

[daniboun]

I swear by Cordial cables. Great quality vs price ratio, using high quality Rean / Neutrik connectors.

German quality, isn't it? They're definitely good at everything.

For the curious :

 

[capslock]

That’s interesting. I’ve always thought of the French as inclined towards rational, scientific comparisons…

In fact the English words rational, scientific and comparisons each have French origins. C’est la vie!

Well, they are Latin, and then might as well have found their way into modern English via Shakespeare and Italian (would need to look it up).

You also have the concept of passion in French and that is what is probably ruling the audiophile discussion. It certainly has its place when it comes to artisanal cheese where I like most and can appreciate those few I am not a big fan of, but then there is no ideal cheese that a machine could be calibrated to.

 

[Sokel]

Great effort!

I swear by Cordial cables. Great quality vs price ratio, using high quality Rean / Neutrik connectors.

The only issue when it comes to maintenance and repairability is that for some of the cables, the strain reliefs are fixed - so the connectors can not be replaced or upgraded.

I wouldn't swear without testing them first:

What we see here is that the two red+blue (should be twisted) conductors are used for (+) and the shield is split in two for (-) and shield.
It does not make sense at any configuration.

About connectors, XLR are nice/basic but the RCA side of the cheap REAN far-east varation of Neurtik can fall apart if used to a nice tight female connector, the pin can start rotating and eventually short with the ground.

There are far better options out there.

 

[DavidM1]

Well, they are Latin, and then might as well have found their way into modern English via Shakespeare and Italian (would need to look it up).

Well there you go. As it happens I did look them up and apart from the obvious Latin roots they were indicated as having arrived in English in different centuries from French or perhaps Old French.

I don’t understand the pushback. I think you are the third. Do the words not hit your ear as having something of a French sound?

This is certainly not my area of expertise but given the proximity and history of the two countries I expect they are three immigrant words among a great many.