Scientific reasons why cables matter for audio

[maxmax]

Actually, they say that all the time. ...

Thanks for posting these messages.
While he doesn't explicitly say so, it's obvious he simply isn't interested in gaining a better understanding of the matter. A better understanding carries the risk that he'd have to admit he was wrong if measurements (or an ABX test) show no relevant differences between the cables. That, in turn, is bad for business as a YouTube influencer.

 

[fpitas]

There's an old saying about a man's lack of understanding when his job depends on that.

 

[Ruediger]

Bad for business alright. The whole company is about fantasy prices for products that at best change nothing. Some conversations forbid themself there.

 

[EDbit]

Yes he (Galen) has gone on the offensive on that site,perhaps silence was a better option....once again big thanks to Amir for testing these cables.

 

[DonH56]

From Blue Jeans website:

"Enter Galen Gareis. While the cable may be called Iconoclast, Galen is the real iconoclast here. As a (now retired) product development engineer at Belden, Galen has dealt with every sort of wire and cable phenomenon and every aspect of wire and cable theory, in connection with just about any sort of application you can think of, for decades. Confronted with his own experience of listening to different cables and finding audible differences, he had to ask: why? The "why" is at the heart of any engineering problem, because you can't optimize what you can't define. To know his thinking on this, you need to read his papers, which we have put on the iconoclastcable.com website -- but it's fair to say that Galen approaches the problem primarily from a time-domain perspective, in which aligning the timing of the different frequencies in an audio signal is a central goal. There are surprising factors involved here -- the propagation speed of signals in the audio band is highly variable, for example. While in many applications we are accustomed to higher frequencies requiring more specialized and precise designs, this is just the other way around -- propagation speeds flatten out at high frequencies making it a non-issue. Thus, while some things are vastly more difficult at extremely high frequencies, the low frequencies of analog audio turn out to present their own set of challenges."

So it appears he is asking for time domain measurements. I wonder just how "highly variable" the speed of propagation is for audio signals in a cable, and just how much it affects wave shapes. And I find the idea that propagation "flattens out" at high frequencies contradicts my experience of decades of experience dealing with high frequencies, though this excerpt does not say how high. MHz, 100's of MHz, GHz, 100 GHz, when does it flatten out? Very much depends upon the cable and time integrity, critical to high-speed data and telecommunications, also depends upon signal bandwidth.

I skimmed the first white paper. It throws out a lot of analysis mostly (all?) based upon standard RF equations and compares Iconoclast to regular RCA and XLR cable. The differences appear small to me, at least at first glance, and do not show how Iconoclast outshines the regular cables. The paper is about Time, as stated in the title, but all the charts and tables show frequency response. Of course time and frequency are related and we can use either, but I expected a few pulse or step waveforms to show the alleged advantage in the time domain since that's the main claim. He focuses on phase response but never (that I saw, may have missed it) mentions group delay changes that could impact time response. A simple phase change due to frequency and the length of wire is expected and true for any wire; where phase becomes interesting is when it varies in a nonlinear way that causes non-constant group delay. If all frequencies are delayed equally in time, the phase will be different for every frequency, but linearly. And of course any change must also be large enough to be audible.

There are a lot of equations, tables, and plots about a number of typical cable parameters but its hard to see how it really affects the time response let alone audibility of the cables. Whatever.

Here is the link to the white papers:

Design Papers -- Iconoclast Cable

I only looked at the first one.

I do not know if the AP does time domain measurements though you could infer (or calculate) them from the frequency domain response. One of the common marketing tricks IME is to show step response using a edge rate far exceeding (or rise/fall times far less than) that required for the audio band. They will always argue that you need such fast edges to ensure inaudible changes in the audio band, ignoring the limits of human hearing and all that jazz. That leads to audio components with MHz bandwidth, something already discussed endlessly here and elsewhere.

 

[arqwfxdv]

@maxmax:


I actually think Lachlan is a nice guy. I came across his channel a couple of years ago when I rediscovered headphones, and I really liked, and to some extent still like, what he does. His channel grew, became more professional, new studio, rapidly growing subscriber base, and now is a business. I'm really and honestly appreciative of his success.

And then there are ... his forays into murky territory, and on occasion I can't help myself and comment and get carried away. I agree that what he says shows that there is some, sometimes more than some, lack of accompanying competence. I remember his videos about USB cables, the recent “blind test” of power cables, or the one on power conditioners.

In the comments of the last one I was directed to an, I guess, Dutch site (Audio something) that had “tests” that “showed” how these affect sound quality. But when you looked closer, you could see that they don’t. The guy running these “tests” had a monitor somewhat in the background apparently showing SINAD, and when you zoomed in, it was the same below -110dB noise floor that you would see in Amir’s reviews, but with completely opposing interpretation.

One thing, though, is really great about Lachlan: He accepts criticism on his channel and engages with it. He never sanitizes anything. Many channels don’t do that at all. I remember that one ultra-high-end-dealer from Berlin once presenting this C.E.C. TL0 3.0 as a “technological miracle” (sic!) that finally (sic!) showed that digital can keep up with vinyl (sic!). The thing costs 37.000 Euros, and he hooked it up to a DAC and PSU from NAGRA, making this a near 80.000 Euro combo. When I started dissecting this miracle, telling him that any Denon for one grand or so looks better built on the inside (the C.E.C. even had ribbon cable glued to the chassis with duct tape and the external power supply screamed DIY), he deleted my posts and shadow banned me.

Lachlan doesn’t do that ever at all. And that is something I can only highly appreciate.

 

[EDbit]

@maxmax:


I actually think Lachlan is a nice guy. I came across his channel a couple of years ago when I rediscovered headphones, and I really liked, and to some extent still like, what he does. His channel grew, became more professional, new studio, rapidly growing subscriber base, and now is a business. I'm really and honestly appreciative of his success.

And then there are ... his forays into murky territory, and on occasion I can't help myself and comment and get carried away. I agree that what he says shows that there is some, sometimes more than some, lack of accompanying competence. I remember his videos about USB cables, the recent “blind test” of power cables, or the one on power conditioners.

In the comments of the last one I was directed to an, I guess, Dutch site (Audio something) that had “tests” that “showed” how these affect sound quality. But when you looked closer, you could see that they don’t. The guy running these “tests” had a monitor somewhat in the background apparently showing SINAD, and when you zoomed in, it was the same below -110dB noise floor that you would see in Amir’s reviews, but with completely opposing interpretation.

One thing, though, is really great about Lachlan: He accepts criticism on his channel and engages with it. He never sanitizes anything. Many channels don’t do that at all. I remember that one ultra-high-end-dealer from Berlin once presenting this C.E.C. TL0 3.0 as a “technological miracle” (sic!) that finally (sic!) showed that digital can keep up with vinyl (sic!). The thing costs 37.000 Euros, and he hooked it up to a DAC and PSU from NAGRA, making this a near 80.000 Euro combo. When I started dissecting this miracle, telling him that any Denon for one grand or so looks better built on the inside (the C.E.C. even had ribbon cable glued to the chassis with duct tape and the external power supply screamed DIY), he deleted my posts and shadow banned me.

Lachlan doesn’t do that ever at all. And that is something I can only highly appreciate.

Agreed hes a nice guy,cables are something he should avoid,although the Chord Quartet Mscaler will be an interesting one to review given its huge price.

 

[maxmax]

@maxmax:


I actually think Lachlan is a nice guy.

My comment wasn't directed at Lachlan personally. I've watched several of his videos and I usually find them quite entertaining. I also like the way he speaks and makes the videos. But I just don't understand that story about these cables. Maybe it's just me

By the way, I've recently come across some other strange videos from other YouTubers. For example, about audiophile network switches. Oh my...

 

[arqwfxdv]

My comment wasn't directed at Lachlan personally. I've watched several of his videos and I usually find them quite entertaining. I also like the way he speaks and makes the videos. But I just don't understand that story about these cables. Maybe it's just me

Agreed.

 

[IngMishael]

"nice guy" doesn't mean he is not peddling useless drivel

 

[fpitas]

The "nice guy" comment seems odd, unless he is incapable of understanding the "science" (or lack thereof) behind his claims.

 

[Speedskater]

So it appears he is asking for time domain measurements. I wonder just how "highly variable" the speed of propagation is for audio signals in a cable, and just how much it affects wave shapes. And I find the idea that propagation "flattens out" at high frequencies contradicts my experience of decades of experience dealing with high frequencies, though this excerpt does not say how high. MHz, 100's of MHz, GHz, 100 GHz, when does it flatten out?

Well it's true that the speed of propagation and the Radio Frequency Characteristic Impedance do flatten out in the neighborhood of a 100 kilohertz.
So if your audio cables are a mile long it starts to become a factor. Just as the telephone company.

 

[pablolie]

I only wish there was a dedicated forum for cable discussions... so that I can mute it forever...
why not write a book about the nefarious impact of cosmic neutrinos on audio equipment in general?

 

[fpitas]

I only wish there was a dedicated forum for cable discussions... so that I can mute it forever...

I'm sure a lot of people have been educated (and not cheated) because of these discussions. But yeah, it goes on and on.

 

[gzost]

In the comments of the last one I was directed to an, I guess, Dutch site (Audio something) that had “tests” that “showed” how these affect sound quality. But when you looked closer, you could see that they don’t. The guy running these “tests” had a monitor somewhat in the background apparently showing SINAD, and when you zoomed in, it was the same below -110dB noise floor that you would see in Amir’s reviews, but with completely opposing interpretation.

That site could be https://www.alpha-audio.net/

They do a lot of measurements of cables and jitter. The problem is that they start off with the irrelevant "results" of their listening tests and then seek any correlation whatsoever in their measurements. Based on that they conclude that these measured differences are the cause of what they think they hear. So they get proof for e.g. Ethernet cables making an audible difference to DAC output, which is obvious nonsense.

 

[solderdude]

I spoke with some of these guys (Alpha-audio) a few years back .... they are mostly ... well ...errrmm. Starts with an 'i' and end with 'ots'.

 

[Cbdb2]

Well it's true that the speed of propagation and the Radio Frequency Characteristic Impedance do flatten out in the neighborhood of a half Megahertz.
So if your audio cables are a mile long it starts to become a factor. Just as the telephone company.

How many miles of copper did a phone call half way around the world go thru back in the day? But 3' of copper cable is supposed to be a problem?

 

[fpitas]

How many miles of copper did a phone call half way around the world go thru back in the day? But 3' of copper cable is supposed to be a problem?

They had repeater amps. Which makes me think of a whole new snake oil idea!

Imagine if you will...cable risers, each with a repeater amp! A blue LED glows atop each tower...

 

[solderdude]

A blue LED glows atop each tower.

But only when the repeater transports MQA files.
In all other cases it should glow like a tube.

 

[kemmler3D]

For my own edification, I don't have any EE background... I think many arguments in favour of snake oil like network switches or fancy cables of all stripes rest on preventing noise from entering the audio signal.

I understand that audible noise doesn't actually get into the system in those ways (would have heard it if it did, obviously) but I'm not as clear on exactly why e.g. a network switch or cheap power cable isn't a vector for noise.