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Speaker Cable (sorry!)

ryanosaur

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There is really only one way to get that warm sound out of your speaker cables. You need to soak them in bacon grease for at least 1000 hours.
But you can't get the chocolatey Mids if you don't also use pure Cocoa Butter!

FWIW, I've also heard of using Duck Fat instead of Bacon Fat or Lard.

;)
 

egellings

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That’s an interesting comparison because placebo effects can be measured and many medicines, drugs, and even vaccines are highly valued because they notch just slightly above the placebo effect which can cure and improve conditions on average by factors of up to/ around 18%.
And as the placebo effect is really real is it at all possible that the brains of audiophiles who are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars on scientifically unmeasurable differences are actually hearing things they personally can’t hear through lesser cables? Apparently branded drugs like Neurofen are statistically more effective than plain pack Ibuprofen because of the placebo effect. I’m glad that I’m one of the lucky ones whose wallet also has a placebo effect on their brain and responds well to aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen and electrically conductive cables regardless of their packaging.
Maybe the audiophile buys an expensive tweek[sic], installs it and hears a difference, when in fact all he did was pay much closer attention to the test tracks after the tweek[sic] installation and is just noticing more detail that was always there. I fell into that trap after getting a different preamp to try out. After a few back-and-forths with the preamps, I could no longer discern a difference.
 

Punter

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Lot's of talk about the placebo effect but don't forget the "Peacock" effect. Audiophools love new, expensive and shiny things to dazzle other phools with. There's nothing quite like the glint of the oxygen free, directional, quantum-cryogenic, indium-copper, rhodium plated, French polished Mega-Super-Reference cables proudly strung over the unobtanium cable lifts connected to the $30,000 speakers! Of course they have improved the sound, no other outcome is possible!
 

Jack Harrison

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There’s also the nocebo effect which is just as powerful and for instance can cause placebos given in trials to have the same side effects as the drugs actually being tested. And maybe something like that kicks in when some people listen to cheaper simple looking cables? Which might explain the ‘night and day‘ difference they swear they experience between electrically identical but financially and cosmetically dissimilar cables.
 

fpitas

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There’s also the nocebo effect which is just as powerful and for instance can cause placebos given in trials to have the same side effects as the drugs actually being tested. And maybe something like that kicks in when some people listen to cheaper simple looking cables? Which might explain the ‘night and day‘ difference they swear they experience between electrically identical but financially dissimilar cables.
I just think about how inexpensive yet effective my cables are, and that improves my mood :)
 

theREALdotnet

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The most pronounced night-and-day difference I ever experienced was with glow-in-the-dark cables.
 

kemmler3D

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is it at all possible that the brains of audiophiles who are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars on scientifically unmeasurable differences are actually hearing things they personally can’t hear through lesser cables?
When they say they hear a difference, they really do hear it. However, the difference exists in their minds, not the actual sound waves coming out of the speaker. This is still a real difference, but it is not one that has to do with the gear itself, it has to do with their perception of the gear.

This is why the differences disappear in true, proper blind tests. The cause of the heard difference (a perceived change in the system acting on their expectations) goes away.

In a sense they are right. Better cables (to them) actually do sound better. It's just that the cause of the better sound is placebo, not the electrical properties of the cable.

Keep in mind that nocebo (feeling worse for no reason) also exists. I saw a review on a homeopathic sugar pill that it gave them a terrible allergic reaction. This is not dissimilar to the audiophool reaction to certain Chinese and/or digital equipment.

There’s also the nocebo effect which is just as powerful and for instance can cause placebos given in trials to have the same side effects as the drugs actually being tested. And maybe something like that kicks in when some people listen to cheaper simple looking cables? Which might explain the ‘night and day‘ difference they swear they experience between electrically identical but financially and cosmetically dissimilar cables.

Ah, you beat me to it!
 

Speedskater

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There’s also the nocebo effect which is just as powerful and for instance can cause placebos given in trials to have the same side effects as the drugs actually being tested. And maybe something like that kicks in when some people listen to cheaper simple looking cables? Which might explain the ‘night and day‘ difference they swear they experience between electrically identical but financially and cosmetically dissimilar cables.
An MIT article on the topic:

How Expectations and Conditioning Shape Our Response to Placebos
Kathryn Hall, an expert on placebos, considers the ways that expectations and learning affect our response to them.

 

MarcT

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Afternoon all,
I find myself in a discussion with various snake-oil driven folk about the audibility or speaker cable. I, for what it's worth, fall very much into the camp that believes there's many easily measurable aspects of speaker/amp systems that are vastly more significant than the changes that may result from the substitution of one eye-wateringly expensive speaker cable for another eye-wateringly expensive speaker cable. But hey, not everybody sees things that way.

So, can anybody here point me in the direction of any properly peer-reviewed objective technical evidence that points to speaker cables having an influence beyond what would be expected and predictable from their bulk resistance, capacitance and inductance (this is of course after they've been, "burned in" :)

Thanks
Phil
Well, with some of the really "high end"(expensive) cables, some incorporate various sorts of gizmo boxes into the cables, some include materials like graphene, some put magnets in the connectors, and others employ different approaches, all with the purpose of producing a certain sound signature. I'm not sure what those gizmos are that MIT Cables are using, but they say their cables achieve an "ethereal" sound. They are all intentionally trying to achieve a unique sound signature for their brand. So, I actually don't see how some of those even could sound the same. They don't want their cable to sound like any other brand, so they work on getting a certain type of sound that they can sell. We may think they are shysters, but they are not stupid.
 

kemmler3D

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I actually don't see how some of those even could sound the same. They don't want their cable to sound like any other brand, so they work on getting a certain type of sound that they can sell.
Yeah, but the thing is, all of these interventions don't actually produce a detectable sound signature in 99.9% of systems.

They do, however, stimulate the imagination and get people to hear one that isn't actually there... they're really good for that.

We may think they are shysters, but they are not stupid.
I don't think any of them are flat-out stupid. It takes a bit of cleverness to arrange random exotic materials into a cable that still performs the same as a normal piece of copper.

As to dishonesty, my guess: Some of them really believe, because they manage to induce placebo effect in themselves, too. Some of them (perhaps a minority, I don't know) don't believe in cables, and are wildly dishonest. Some are just borderline disingenuous, depending on how exaggerated their marketing copy is.
 

JSmith

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So, can anybody here point me in the direction of any properly peer-reviewed objective technical evidence that points to speaker cables having an influence beyond what would be expected and predictable from their bulk resistance, capacitance and inductance (this is of course after they've been, "burned in" :)
Well... I raise you a 2004 coathanger. :p


JSmith
 

MarcT

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Those are equalizers with attached cables!
Well, if that's true, then, there you go. Those cables would be expected to sound different from a non-equalized cable!
 

TLEDDY

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An old friend of mine, Bob Fulton, RIP:

Bob Fulton (1925–1988) has been called a mad genius and a “screwball,” but it’s fair to say that during Fulton Musical Industries’ (FMI) relatively short lifespan, few designers have been more creative than he was. Gordon Holt was a big fan of the FMI 80 loudspeaker, but Fulton was also actively involved in the entire recording chain, including microphones, tape recorders, and record production via the Ark label. He was the first U.S.-based designer to focus on optimizing the amplifier-speaker interface. His research resulted in two models of cable, referred to as Gold and Brown, presumably on the basis of the color of the outer jacket. The Gold turned quite a few heads because of its price and performance. It was a massive cable which quickly gained a reputation for stupendous bass response and midrange clarity. It was said to be equivalent to 4-ga. wire, but its resistance (R) per foot was 0.001 ohms versus 0.00025 for 4-ga. copper wire. The Gold was a multi-strand twin-lead design with each polarity conductor adequately spaced apart to keep capacitance (C) quite reasonable at 28pF/ft. Inductance (L) was 0.19µH/ft., about the same as 18-ga. zip cord.
 

ChrisCables

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I hope this won't be classed as 'advertising' but it might be relevant to the conversation. It's a bit of a rant on my part in fact.

A year ago I decided to chip in a 35 year career and take 'early retirement' by turning my hobby into a commercial enterprise making cables.
One thing that motivates me is the outrageous amounts of money some cable peddlers are prepared to ask for cables that are actually nothing special at all.
Wait! Before you all jump on me...not to emulate this dubious practice of course, but to rebel against it and become a market disruptor by selling better made, better looking, sensibly priced cables. After playing around with literally hundreds of cable types and knowing without any shadow of a doubt that there isn't much of a margin to distinguish the sonic properties of cables I put more of a focus on other aspects than how they 'sound', such as build quality, durability, aesthetics etc.
e.g. I'm a fan of braided cables because a braided conductor geometry is a 'real thing' that is measurable and actually works to help mitigate EMI/RFI. Notice I didn't say 'remove' there. I think external noise is possibly the single biggest influence or sonic component affecting how cables 'sound'.

I don't make any ludicrous, outrageous claims that my cables will 'transform your listening experience'. On the contrary, I offer to loan prospective clients cables in order that they can make up their own minds and explore if there is a 'synergy' with their own systems. If they don't like them for any reason then send them back, no problem!
I hope this is the concientious and honest way to sell cables to people instead of building fake mystique or a false notion of 'specialness' due to using exotic materials and production processes and gimmicks and I propose it should be made absolutely obligatory for all cable retailers to offer this as a service.

I wouldn't class cables as snake-oil necessarily as you need them to transfer signals and data after all! The snake-oil regarding cables is the false and unproveable claims made by some with damn-near fraudulent asking prices!
It's interesting to hear people talking about the 'differences in how they sound', however I'm sort of impervious to it these days preferring to avoid arguments or any form of discussion as well as knowing that most of those differences are down to perception rather than anything real/measurable.
Grrrr
 

Speedskater

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Back in the days of CB, police and taxi cab radios all on low RF frequencies, interference pick-up thru loudspeaker cables was a common problem. Now communications are on much, much higher frequencies and amplifier interference rejection designs have improved. But now we have interference from some SMPS designs. Yet these interference's are rare.
Jim Brown, retired Audio Engineering Society interference expert thinks that all cables should be twisted. Note that twisting and braiding are about equally effective.
 

ChrisCables

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Back in the days of CB, police and taxi cab radios all on low RF frequencies, interference pick-up thru loudspeaker cables was a common problem. Now communications are on much, much higher frequencies and amplifier interference rejection designs have improved. But now we have interference from some SMPS designs. Yet these interference's are rare.
Jim Brown, retired Audio Engineering Society interference expert thinks that all cables should be twisted. Note that twisting and braiding are about equally effective.
Indeed.
magnetic-field-emissions-2_1.jpg
 

ahofer

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Then there is this little experiment Archimago did



I think it's just hilarious.
"[Darko believes] It's financially advantageous for cheapo audiophiles to purposely claim expensive cables make no difference so they save some $$$. "

That one slayed me. We cheapskates have a conflict of interest.
 
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