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Kimber RCA Cable vs Amazon Basics (Video)

JSmith said:
www.audiosciencereview.com

Battle of RCA Cables: Mogami, Amazon, Monoprice

This is a review, measurements and comparison of a number of RCA cables from Mogami, Monorpice and Amazon Basics. The first two were kindly provided by a member. This is a subset of the cables tested: And details of each: Monoprice 1.5ft Premium 2 RCA Plug/2 RCA Plug M/M 22AWG Cable -...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com




JSmith
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I do not recall this test.
For digital sources, noise probably did not raise to audible level but for vinyl playback which has an additional amplification stage, it might become audible, especially for MC cartridges.
 
Maxicut said:
Sorry, but I don't really see the point of going over this AGAIN. It's a cable. it's not broken, it transmits the signal correctly & it probably costs around $2.00 or less to manufacture. What has happened to all the SMSL & Topping reviews promised, which are what the majority of people here want to see? Sorry for being so negative, but it's probably becoming a bit of a joke now.
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I appreciate these types of comparisons. Tends to put things in perspective. Anyway, feel free to submit some SMSL and Topping gear to Amir for review. I sure he and the forum would be very appreciative!
 
solderdude said:
But but ... but...

  1. Ears are more discriminate than an analyzer.
  2. We don't even know how our brain works.
  3. Your system isn't good enough.
  4. All happy owners can't be wrong.
  5. Did you burn in the cable.
  6. You have to live with the cable for a few months before you can appreciate the differences.
  7. You did not even listen to the cable (by your own admission).
  8. You are too old to hear the minute differences.
  9. You have not measured all relevant aspects.
  10. I can even hear differences between mains cables so why would RCA cables not sound different.
  11. I can clearly hear differences... I don't even need to do a blind test as it is so obvious.
  12. Music is different to test signals.
  13. How do you measure the 'soul' of music ?
  14. You can't measure the emotion that is conveyed.
  15. Surely the designers at Kimber will know what they talk about.
  16. etc....
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It must be #5. He didn’t burn it in for 200 hours!!
 
solderdude said:
But but ... but...
  1. How do you measure the 'soul' of music ?
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Very simple. You set the switch to "Soul" on the measurement microphone, start the measurement, and if the "Soul" line rises, then it's good.

Here's a "Soul" measurement for the Kimber cable:
scatter-plot.png
 
What I love is the ability to test against a loopback, and show that the cheap Amazon cable takes nothing away compared to no cable at all. In a stroke, that's effectively tested all possible cables and shown not one of them can possibly reduce cable losses better than Amazon Basics (because Amazon Basics doesn't have any).
 
solderdude said:
But but ... but...

How do you measure the 'soul' of music ?
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Ahhh . . . a philosophical question!

I think that was answered in "Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse. This is a very long quote from a (nearly) 100-year-old book. Bear with me:

Then the door of the box opened and in came Mozart. I did not recognise him at the first glance, for he was without pigtail, knee-breeches and buckled shoes, in modern dress. He took a seat close beside me, and I was on the point of holding him back because of the blood that had flowed over the floor from Hermine’s breast. He sat there and began busying himself with an apparatus and some instruments that stood beside him. He took it very seriously, tightening this and screwing that, and I looked with wonder at his adroit and nimble fingers and wished that I might see them playing a piano for once. I watched him thoughtfully, or in a reverie rather, lost in admiration of his beautiful and skilful hands, warmed too, by the sense of his presence and a little apprehensive as well. Of what he was actually doing and of what it was that he screwed and manipulated, I took no heed whatever.

I soon found, however, that he had fixed up a wireless set and put it in going order, and now he inserted the loud-speaker and said: “Munich calling. Concerto Grosso in F major of Handel.”

At once, to my indescribable astonishment and horror, the devilish metal funnel spat out, without more ado, its mixture of bronchial slime and chewed rubber; that noise that possessors of gramophones and wireless sets are prevailed upon to call music. And behind the slime and the croaking there was, sure enough, like an old master beneath a layer of dirt, the noble outline of that divine music. I could distinguish the majestic structure and the deep wide breath and the full broad bowing of the strings.

“My God,” I cried in horror, “what are you doing, Mozart? Do you really mean to inflict this mess on me and yourself, this triumph of our day, the last victorious weapon in the war of extermination against art? Must this be, Mozart?”

How the uncomfortable man laughed! And what a cold and eerie laugh! It was noiseless and yet everything went to smithereens in it. He marked my torment with deep satisfaction while he bent over the cursed screws and attended to the metal trumpet. Laughing still, he let the distorted, the murdered and murderous music ooze out and on; and laughing still, he replied:

“Please, no pathos, my friend! Anyway, did you observe the ritardando? An inspiration, eh? Yes, and now you tolerant man, let the sense of this ritardando touch you. Do you hear the basses? They stride like gods. And let this inspiration of old Handel penetrate your restless heart and give it peace. Just listen, you poor creature, listen without either pathos or mockery, while far away behind the veil of this hopelessly idiotic and ridiculous apparatus the form of this divine music passes by. Pay attention and you will learn something. Observe what this crazy speaking-trumpet, apparently the most stupid, the most useless and the most damnable thing that the world contains, contrives to do. It takes hold of some music played where you please, without distinction or discretion, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks it into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the original spirit of the music; it can only, however it may meddle and mar, lay its senseless mechanism at its feet. Listen, then, you poor thing. Listen well. You have need of it. And now you hear not only a Handel who, disfigured by wireless, is, all the same, in this most ghastly of disguises still divine; you hear as well and you observe, most worthy sir, a most admirable symbol of all life. When you listen to wireless you are a witness of the everlasting war between idea and appearance, between time and eternity, between the human and the divine. Exactly, my dear sir, as the wireless for ten minutes together projects the most lovely music without regard into the most impossible places, into snug drawing-rooms and attics and into the midst of chattering, guzzling, yawning and sleeping listeners, and exactly as it strips this music of its sensuous beauty, spoils and scratches and beslimes it and yet cannot altogether destroy its spirit, just so does life, the so-called reality, deal with the sublime picture-play of the world and make a hurley-burley of it. It makes its unappetising tone-slime of the most magic orchestral music. Everywhere it obtrudes its mechanism, its activity, its dreary exigencies and vanity between the ideal and the real, between orchestra and ear. All life is so, my child, and we must let it be so; and, if we are not asses, laugh at it. It little becomes people like you to be critics of wireless or of life either. Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest. Or is it that you have done better yourself, more nobly and fitly and with better taste? Oh, no, Mr. Harry, you have not. You have made a frightful history of disease out of your life, and a misfortune of your gifts. . .

I read Steppenwolf when I was in High School. I was also listening to a lot of big classical works on very bad playback gear. The book's description of music playback, circa 1927—"Bronchial slime and chewed rubber"—has stuck with me for all these years. That would certainly apply to a record player I lashed together back then using a turntable from a cheap stereo with a functioning turntable and a nonfunctioning amp. Connected it to a tape recorder with a semi-functioning amp section. Sounded horrible, kept listening to Beethoven quartets and the like on it anyway.

My take? The soul is in the music; it can be accessed via flawed playback mechanisms and all musical playback mechanisms are flawed to one degree or another. In any case, there's no measurement possible or even conceivable for anything that's ineffable.
 
Clearly Ray Kimber is using his virtuoso skills in metalurgy to augment the pallette of tonal colors his virtuoso skills in sound curation are capable of evoking from even the most non-virtuoso of recordings. And that costs, baby, that costs! :p:p:p
 
phoenixdogfan said:
Clearly Ray Kimber is using his virtuoso skills in metalurgy to augment the pallette of tonal colors his virtuoso skills in sound curation are capable of evoking from even the most non-virtuoso of recordings. And that costs, baby, that costs! :p:p:p
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It's a form of old-school alchemy—spinning dross into gold.
 
Maxicut said:
Sorry, but I don't really see the point of going over this AGAIN. It's a cable. it's not broken, it transmits the signal correctly & it probably costs around $2.00 or less to manufacture. What has happened to all the SMSL & Topping reviews promised, which are what the majority of people here want to see? Sorry for being so negative, but it's probably becoming a bit of a joke now.
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It’s a service to the broader community who will find this on a web search to keep them from being scammed
 
JSmith said:
Even in this video @7:24 Amir explains that he placed a transformer right next to each cable and measured noise was insignificant.


JSmith
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Yes, I thought that was an impressive point. I've made my own interconnects in the past using shielded cable, together with making shielded mains leads - really just so I don't have to bother trying to keep them apart to reduce any possible mains interference. At £7.59 a pair in the UK, I now have some Amazon Basics in my shopping basket.
 
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It's a status thing isn't it?! Anyway, I have so many great Amazonbasic products. Glad to see it on here performing like an ultra premium product.
 
amirm said:
Follow up video to my text review and comparison of Kimber KS1036 "high-end" RCA cable vs ultra low cost Amazon Basics:
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This brings back bad memories from my audiphool days. I bought into two stupid concepts in one go: Kimber cable and bi-wiring. Back then, the kimber cable was only about $40 (probably $100 today inflation adjusted).

I was 100% sure I could hear better bass with the cables because that’s exactly what the sales person programmed me to expect. Back then, I could have gotten 3-4 CDs for that price. Having said that, I still have the cables and they work and look fine.
 
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