Is there even a tiny bit of truth in all the marketing voodoo that audio cable manufacturers say? Or is it all BS?

[tomtoo]

Ive had and have active speakers with DAC’s inside I’m quite sure the spl and vibration inside the speakers or severe compared to sitting on a shelf .

But you not measured. Mhh not hearing a problem?? Mhh? Ok just troll a little for the fun of the argument.

 

[MarkS]

I'll try hard to be nice, but will gently point out that this isn't the correct way to measure low resistances.

@genesisaudiorack was not completely clear on what he's doing, but if it's this, what is wrong with it?

 

[madrac]

All we can do is try to educate the misinformed and steer them away from the scammers. The smart people will listen and learn, the dumb ones won't. You can't fix stupid.

Yet again Darwin was proven right. Or as one of my former customers used to say, "Bad things happen to stupid people".

 

[Esprit]

OT: How do you mute an entire thread?

 

[madrac]

Then again, a good turntable is supposed to have a good vibration damping of it's own, so there should not be a need for an extra damper.

Agree but there may be other external forces that would require additional damping. In my case, not sure if it was subwoofers vibration transferring up the rack or airborne vibration from speaker drivers at extremely loud volumes that I don't normally listen at..adding the Segue ISO cured that. Wasn't needed for normal volumes but sometimes I like to go to "11"

 

[RandomEar]

@genesisaudiorack was not completely clear on what he's doing, but if it's this, what is wrong with it?

We're talking about resistance values of <100 mOhm for common cable lengths and cross sections encountered at home. As far as I'm aware, you need a four wire setup to measure anything useful at those values.

 

[tomtoo]

Ä

OT: How do you mute an entire thread?

For this you need the Man in black.

 

[gofishus]

Then again, a good turntable is supposed to have a good vibration damping of it's own, so there should not be a need for an extra damper. Regarding vibration damping for solid state audio electronics - Whoever tries to tell You it is needed, is either a con artist, or his witless victim.

Just for more snake oil laughs.

Seismic vibration isolation equipment stand Hi-Fi + Home Cinema rack

The Townshend Audio Seismic Isolation Stand is an equipment support system designed to isolate all hi-fi, audio and video components from ground borne vibration.

www.townshendaudio.com

​

• Enhances clarity across the frequency range​

• Delivers wider and deeper soundstages​

• Improves bass definition​

• Reduced muddiness and time smear​

• Makes transients clearer​

Forgive me for being a bit skeptical of an equipment stand doing magical stuff like this.

.. and yet there are people who swear by them for solid state amps!

Best Isolation Systems for Amps

I am investigating isolation platforms for monoblocks. i am leaning towards SRA, but this is solely on research and other peoples comments as they need to custom size for your equipment. Can people comment on what they use, have used and specifically if they have experience with SRA's Ohio...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Hah!! anyone who thinks vibration does not matter has clearly never heard my system before using the EAT tube dampers and HRS materials! i literally used to be able to snap my fingers in the living room...and hear the snap come back thru my speakers! the microphony was ridiculous...but it stopped when i used an EAT tube damper. when i played loud orchestral, the metal casing used to ring slightly...that also stopped when i put the HRS dampers in place.

I made the mistake back in the late 80's of assuming that granite would make good shelving for gear. Just bad. The sound was just as David described with a hardness and a sense of the shelf having a sibilant ring. Greater thickness seem to offset this a bit by going from half inch to inch thick but still not good. The granite with larger crystal size like the black or green granite with big showy mica and Quartz seems worse in this regard.

Carrara marble on the other hand is great. If you strike it you hear a lovely dense thud with no ring. Once again it seems to be optimum when thicker. I use 2 inch thick slabs under all my gear then using Stillpoints ultra 5's in between the components and the slabs. I understand the difficulty some have found with the ultra 5s as they absolutely need tuning with additional mass loading to be optimum and I've usually found that just used indiscriminately can lead impressive outcomes in context of frequency extension and perceived resolution but can have down sides in terms of the whole of the presentation creating a loss of wholeness and potentially less than ideal musical outcomes. They also don't suit the balance of all gear. Used with the appropriate components and set up right they can prove extraordinary in both the sonic performance and also the experience of music.

Under some Manley 300b mono amps I preferred the SRA stands that were tuned for them over using stillpoints for example but on a whole range of electronics BHK amps, CHprecision, Soulution, ARC Ref150 and Shindo (please don't get upset Shindo fans) when properly set with appropriate system tuning the ultra5s can be absolutely great.

I use two Vibraplanes under my SS Pass Labs XA160.5 mono blocks, pre-loaded with steel ballast plates, and hooked up to a quiet compressor. These sit on birch plywood platforms that I made which provide a level and stable surface. They are very effective.
The Vibraplanes simply work for me in my environment. They were recommended to me by Syntax on Audiogon. At the time, he had Vibraplanes under his Lamm mono blocks.

I also have one lolli column under each amp/speaker location and two under my turntable/equipment rack coming up directly from the bedrock under my unfinished basement to the underside of the subflooring in my living room. This reduces floor bounce, and supports the massive weight of the gear. The 1790s central beam and joist construction would crack otherwise.

Townshend Audio Seismic Platform ($2600/pair)
From Absolute Sound:

For solo piano there was greater clarity between note fundamentals and trailing soundboard resonances. I noted this same clarity time and again with soloists in general, from violin, guitar, winds, and brass. The overall effect was a refinement and focus akin to achieving just the right amount of speaker toe-in, or precisely dialing in a cartridge.

Bass response, extension, and pitch definition were clarified and delivered in natural lockstep with the rest of the frequency spectrum. Low-frequency weight was evenly balanced and reflective of the musical source material. During Cat Stevens’ “Hard Headed Woman” from Tea For The Tillerman, the kickdrum sound (which is particularly prominent during the song’s bridge) was more tactile and complex, with a greater sense of the drum skin moving air back and forth under high pressure.

The other major takeaways regarded loudspeaker localization and soundstage dimensionality. As for the former, the loudspeaker simply vanished. It just couldn’t be localized as a source anymore. With the Podium in place the orchestral soundstage became infused with sharper contrasts and richer colors. The Podium delivered greater intensity and timbral detail, improved dimensionality, and clearer placement of images. I also noted during Ray Brown’s “Teach Me Tonight” [Soular Energy] that vertical information was enhanced—the cymbals on this track were lifted higher, and sustained longer seemingly on a raft of air.

Of equal importance, the Podiums preserved the general tonality and balance of the loudspeaker. Whether your current system’s overall voice is dark and ruminative or light and airy, these characteristics remain untouched. The Podiums don’t insinuate themselves over the music; they are essentially characterless. The difference is that any suggestion of confusion, confinement, or congestion is ameliorated.

The pleasures of the Seismic Podiums can sneak up on you at the oddest moments. For example two of the most commonly played male vocal tracks I listen to are Tom Waits’ “Georgia Lee” and “Take It With Me” from Mule Variations. Waits’ raspy voice is rich with deep chest tones, perhaps at times overly resonant. But with the Seismic Podiums there was a small but critical shift in this perception. Earlier hints of resolution-loss and smearing during his vocals seemed to vanish as if a light fog had drifted away—his voice rising to the surface of the mix with greater timbral detail and clarity.

It’s axiomatic that in high-end audio everything makes a difference. But sometimes the line between observed “difference” and genuine improvement is tough to judge. There is no doubt where the Seismic Isolation Podiums stand on this point. They lifted my loudspeakers and overall system to a much higher and more musical level.

The Podiums are not inexpensive, but it only takes a couple minutes to realize that the musical contribution these platforms are making is fundamental to the high-end experience. Townshend’s Seismic Isolation Podiums registered on my own personal Richter Scale like few so-called “accessories” I’ve ever experienced. And that, dear readers, amounts to an unshakable recommendation.

From The Audiophile Man:

If I could distill the Seismic Isolation Podium speaker stands down into one word, that word would be ‘organisation’. They not only bring order to the soundstage, they apply sense of understanding in terms of the instruments you hear. That is, each instrument makes more sense. When listening to a previously muddy piece of music, there is an element of “Oh, I see what they’re doing there now.” There’s a realisation. From an often confused mess, the Podiums bring an overall sense of clarity to any one track.

More than that, because you feel that you’re in good hands you find yourself relaxing and enjoying the music. There’s an expectation and excitement of what’s coming next instead of a fear that this or that frequency might be bright, sharp or one step away from sounding punch drunk.

More than any of this though, the Seismic Podiums allow your speakers to perform to the best of their ability. Grab yourself a pair of Podiums for your speakers and hear what those speakers – for better or for worse – are truly capable of doing. It’s my guess that yell be hearing them and I mean truly hearing them, for the very first time.

The most generous component in your hi-fi chain, Seismic Isolation Podiums spend their time making your speakers sound great.

GOOD: organised soundstage, low noise, midrange clarity, tonal realism, tweakbility, solid design

BAD: nothing

IsoAcoustics GAIA Isolators ($999/pair)
From Audioholics:

The one thing that my months-long experience with IsoAcoustics GAIA isolators taught me is that decoupling the speakers from the flooring substrate and dampening the resulting vibrations plays a role in improving the perceived soundstage, imaging detail, and improves the overall experience of the music. Moreover, isolation most certainly needs to be part of our conversation of optimizing speaker-room performance and as far as I'm concerned now belongs as an essential part of our optimization toolkit.

In every instance the GAIA isolators improved the top to bottom performance of my two reference setups.

The price point of the GAIA lineup is not for the faint of heart or wallet. In fact, implementing a stereo set of GAIA isolators into your setup may end up costing you somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%-20% of your speaker's MSRP.

Nevertheless, my experience with the GAIA was so overwhelmingly positive that I’m going to do something that I don’t often do with review gear—make it a permanent part of my personal setup going forward. This road with the GAIA was more of a personal journal than a formal review. Therefore, I highly recommend you take GAIA for a spin yourself and draw your own conclusions. But something tells me we just might find ourselves walking together on the same path to audiophile nirvana.

Finite-Elemente Cerabase ($1600/pair)
From Stereophile:

On the other hand, installing a set of Ceraball or Cerapuc feet under a component was a huge, jaw-dropping change. The differences were the same—improved focus, transparency, resolution, and dynamic precision—but their magnitude was much larger. Slipping a trio of Ceraballs under the VTL TL-7.5 wasn't like demagnetizing a cartridge; it was like upgrading to a really good moving-coil. And dressing cables? Forget it—this improvement was like replacing all of my freebie and Home Depot wire with a good set of high-end cables.

Like a kid in a candy store, I kept adding more and more Cera feet. The effects were similar with each step, and similarly dramatic. The biggest improvements came when I slipped Cerapucs under my VTL Ichiban power amplifiers and between my turntable stand's steel frame and marble top plate. The soundstage became significantly cleaner and the picture snapped into focus. Images inflated from two dimensions to three. The performers on Lakmé felt more like real performers in a real space than like a portrait. And when I played the Oscar Petersen Trio's Return Engagement (LP, Verve V3HB-8842) I noticed several dramatic improvements. Dynamic transients sounded 10–20% bigger, and the piano had much more inner detail and complexity and a richer, more distinct tonal balance. The bass was more powerful and much tighter.

Adding another set of Cera feet, or moving another component onto the Pagode HD07 rack, always improved the system's sound. The same was true for mixing the rack and the feet. The improvement due to the Cera feet was as large when I installed them between the component and the FE rack as when I put them between the component and a different rack. Moving a component onto the FE rack improved its sound even if it was already sitting on a trio of Ceraballs or Cerapucs. And for the coup de gras, replacing the HD07 rack's spike feet with heavy-duty Cerabases moved the system's performance up yet another notch.

I know vibrations and resonance can definitely affect equipment and speakers but these reviews make it look like a night and day difference. How can that be?

 

[gofishus]

Just want to add some quotes from audiogon discussion forums involving high priced cables, though it was quite funny what people think there

Late to the party. I recently invested in the Wireworld Platinum 8 USB. It’s the most expensive USB cable I currently have in the system and it’s marvelous. It brought a level of refinement and control to the sound which I wasn’t expecting.

I haven’t listened to the costlier options which Audioman58 has tried. Nevertheless, I am currently very happy with the improved sound quality of the system with the Platinum Starlight 8 USB. Who would have thought that a USB cable would have such an impact to the system. Recommended.

The Infigo USB costs $1,600 so I guess it would fit the higher end systems. The Wireworld Platinum Starlight 8 USB at $600 is a fraction of the cost so I can understand the Infigo is better. Nevertheless, I am amazed and shocked that the difference with USB cables is noticeably huge, and the performance of the WW Platinum Starlight 8 can still be improved. My early experience with cheap USB cables around $100 and some $5 and below freebies, they all sound almost the same to me with negligible difference.

Thanks. The WW Platinum Starlight 8 seems to have the edge in areas of transparency and detail in comparison to the Tellurium Q Ultra Silver. I haven’t switched back to the Tell-Q to reconfirm my impressions and will do so sometime. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the improvements the WW cable has brought to the mix are something that’s real, and I’m rather stunned that a USB cable is able to do this.

All are 'stunned' that USB cables are able to magically upgrade sound quality!

 

[antcollinet]

@genesisaudiorack was not completely clear on what he's doing, but if it's this, what is wrong with it?

Because when you get to low levels of resistance, the resistance of the test leads and probes - and more importantly the contact resistance where you touch them to the wire becomes as big or bigger than the resistance you are trying to measure. Further, many DVMs resistance resolution is not capable of measuring that low in any case.

At this point, as stated by @RandomEar you then need a four wire measurement.

If you have a DVM, try setting it to measure ohms, and then just touch the probe tips together. What does it read? How much does it change if you change the contract pressure between the two probe tips?

My fluke varies from 0.1ohm up to 0.4ohm. Note that the resolution is only 0.1 ohm (100 mOhm). The accuracy is not even close to that specified as 0.5%+4 - where the +4 means 4 Counts. So if the resolution is 0.1ohm, and the DVM is reading 1Ohm, the actual resistance can be from just under 0.6ohm to just over 1.4 ohm. If it is reading 0.1ohm, the real value is between 0 and 0.5ohm.

How am I going to measure the resistance of a wire which might be as low as 0.003 Ohm / meter, with that?

 

[SIY]

@genesisaudiorack was not completely clear on what he's doing, but if it's this, what is wrong with it?

Unreliable for low resistances. You need something like a Kelvin connection (4 lead) for that.

edit: sorry, people answered before I did.

 

[Mart68]

cheaper is always better

Trolling.

 

[tomtoo]

Just want to add some quotes from audiogon discussion forums involving high priced cables, though it was quite funny what people think there





All are 'stunned' that USB cables are able to magically upgrade sound quality!

That reads like a fu##ing stupid AI. I mean not even a good one.

 

[Killingbeans]

Ok here let me list these out then based on what 'audiophiles' have told me... and what my understanding is of each.

1. The end reproduction equipment makes an audible difference. i.e headphones, speakers. True. We all know speakers and headphones themselves sound different, pretty universally agreed upon.
2. The source of the audio makes an audible difference ie. Spotify vs Tidal vs mp3 vs CD vs Vinyl vs FLAC file vs DSD etc. True.. up to a point. There is definitely benefits from higher resolution audio.. up to a point. I cannot say once we get past CD level that everyone can then distinguish a difference between FLAC and DSD for example.
3. The DAC makes an audible difference i.e AKM vs ESS vs R2R etc. The more expensive the DAC and the more higher level the chip, the better. True.. up to a point. A better DAC will definitely improve sound quality up to a point coming from a low quality DAC, but when it comes to the 'flagship' tier DACs and upper tier DACs, I'm not really sure how many people can tell a difference.
4. The amplifier makes an audible difference i.e class A vs class AB vs class D, architecture etc. Not sure. For power, of course it does. But as for improving the sound? I have heard people say that more expensive amplifiers improve the sound.. but how and why? An amplifier ideally has one job and that is to amplify the signal. Any colorations to the sound are either intentional (tube amps) or if not intentional, then it's a defect in the amplifier. An amplifier should ideally not impart any coloration of it's own to the audio quality and even if it does - how can it actually 'improve' the sound?
5. Room correction software makes an audible difference i.e Dirac vs Audyssey vs Anthem etc True. I believe there is a measurable difference between different room correction software.
6. Cables make an audible difference. False. That's what we have been showing here in this thread, and many others. Differences in how we perceive sound between cables is a result of placebo effect and priming our brains.
7. Burn in / Break in makes an audible difference. Yes and No. It makes a difference for speakers and headphones because there are physical drivers inside these devices. For amplifiers, DACs and cables, I am not so certain as to what the mechanism is behind how burn in or break in improves the sound on these.
8. Isolation equipment makes an audible difference. i.e using isolation feet or spikes for speakers improves soundstage and detail etc Not sure. I think it may improve some aspects but it might not be totally audible.
9. Room treatment makes an audible difference. True. I personally haven't done it, but I believe people have measured the differences in treating their room acoustically.

Are there any conclusions I made here that are incorrect? or any other missing variables? Let me know.

1. Yes, speakers and headphones are by far the biggest contributors to the sound of a system.
2. It's more likely that that you'll struggle to find anynone who can reliably tell the difference between material above CD quality. At best they'll cheat and crank up the volume massively in the most quiet parts of a track in order to get a tell from the noise floor. A well designed high bitrate compression algorithm will also not present a difference in sound quality, but will instead give you tells in very specific situations.
3. The measurement we've seen so far tells us that good implementations of "pleb" chips have no problem keeping their artifacts below audibility. Yes, there are still genuinely bad DACs out there that mess things up audible, but we're talking $1 DACs from eBay or Amazon. Some $10 smartphone dongles have no problem performing SOTA as far as our ears are concerned.
4. Peak power and residual noise. Some would argue that the "plasticity" of the power supply have a saying too. As far as I've been told the "magic" of tube distortion only seems to works on certain types of music and becomes horrible with anything else. Nothing but a party trick if you ask me, but others seem to swear by them.
5. Room correction undeniably makes a difference. Especially on peaks below the Schroeder frequency. But if you want things fixed in more than a single seating position, you are probably better off using a multi-sub setup and/or some radical room treatment. Others probably won't agree with me on this.
6. Cables do not have a sound. In almost all cases they function as a linear component, and in the few cases where they don't, it's mostly because they're designed to have huge amounts of resistance, inductance or capacitance and are connected to horribly designed and/or antiquated gear with bonkers in/output impedances.
7. Even in speakers and headphones burn-in seems to be non-issue in most cases. The TS parameters that change in speakers often end up canceling each other out, and in headphones the physical "burn-in" mostly seems to be caused by the squishiness of the cups. Burn-in is very likely something that more often than not only happens in our brains.
8. Isolation equipment used on speakers mostly just stops them from transfering energy to their surroundings. Especially useful in desktop setups where you don't want the table and everything on it resonating. Spikes actually do the opposite. They are designed to transfer the energy effectively, and work best on solid floors with lots of mass for absorption.
9. Again undeniable. The effects from proper room treatment are measurably gigantic compared to the stuff people lose sleep over in DACs. Human brains are however surprisingly good at filtering out the bad things in rooms, meaning that they usually aren't as bothersome as you'd think. But once you do an A/B comparison the change becomes glaringly apparent. Truly a case where no blind test conditions are needed.

 

[Sal1950]

Like I understand for record players and speakers yes they are affected by vibrations and resonance.. but amplifiers and DACs? those are solid state and have no moving parts.

Influence of vibrations to solid state equipment?

Capacitors can be very minimally microphonic but decent mounting design should make it a non-issue.

Tubes can be very microphonic, anyone here that doesn't believe me, go to your amp while on and tap the glass lightly with your fingernail.
Hear a thump from the speaker?
Isolation platforms may be minimally effective but it's near impossible to get the sound waves stopped from beating on the glass. I don't belive the o-rings they sell for tubes are worth crap.

Then again, a good turntable is supposed to have a good vibration damping of it's own, so there should not be a need for an extra damper. Regarding vibration damping for solid state audio electronics - Whoever tries to tell You it is needed, is either a con artist, or his witless victim.

Don't mean to hurt your feelings but turntables and needles by their very nature are microphones, some more so then others.
In any case they are antiques and mostly irrelavant in any discussion of modern High Fidelity components.

 

[Anton S]

Just want to add some quotes from audiogon discussion forums involving high priced cables, though it was quite funny what people think there





All are 'stunned' that USB cables are able to magically upgrade sound quality!

I always consult the Audiogon crowd when considering the validity of any audio product. They're such a level-headed bunch.

 

[xray]

I can't believe there's 10 pages on this dead-horse topic

 

[coonmanx]

I can't believe there's 10 pages on this dead-horse topic

Agreed. But on most audio forums this has to be rehashed about once a month for some reason so that we can come to the same conclusion as before...

 

[Anton S]

Agreed. But on most audio forums this has to be rehashed about once a month for some reason so that we can come to the same conclusion as before...

Unfortunately, the conclusion is not the same on all forums.

 

[Sal1950]

Unfortunately, the conclusion is not the same on all forums.

Ya just can't make them all open to learning the facts, they NEED some magic to believe in.
Just a shame it has to be about the reproduction of music,