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What cables do you use in your systems?

Patrick1958

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Haha :)

Well you know the one and only reliable way to rule psychology out of the equation...

But despite my previous post, I suppose it's conceivable that a particularly poor cable could have an audible impact, although the electrical engineers here may be able to disabuse me of this belief too.

On two instances the Audioquest cables proved to be much better then stock market cables :

On the main floor, living room floor standing speakers with the top being passive mid/high section, active closed subwoofer the bottom part. The subs wood produce a consistent hum/buzz sound, faint, never the less audible for me. When i unplugged the hdmi cable from tv to amplifier the hum/buzz dissapeared. At first my impression was that fault comes from the tv. I contacted technical service (philips led tv), they came to investigate, they also heard the hum/buzz but didn't know what to do. They asked to take tv, amp and speaker to their technical department to investigate and eventual come up with a solution. Two week later they were brought back with an invoice stating : incompatible devices, no solution. At that time i was using generic cables. A friend visiting also heard the hum/buzz, went to his home and came back with two power cables (shielded Audioquest NRG 2 and two coax cables audioquest Forest, we connected those to the Subwoofer part of the floor standers and the hum/buzz was gone.

In my man cave (attic converted to computer room with audio/video corner) the settup is from computer to usb/spdif converter to dac. Audioquest cables. No problems here. Until i wanted to use an additional output from usb/spdif to another dac placed in the audio/video setup. A 5 meter Audioquest cable not being cheep i used a generic AES EBU connection. Every 2/3 minutes i would have a short hickup in the signal. Replacing this connection with a 5 meter AES EBU Audioquest Big Sur cable solved this problem.

So for those that ridicule the use of better cables (agree pricier than generic) the improvements i heard were not subjective or placebo. These were clear audible upgrades.

As stated above, i believe in good constructed/engineered cable. I do not believe in exotic expensive cables. Apart from the fact that the power cables are considerably more expensive, they are shielded, the interconnect used in my system are not that much more expensive than a good generic market cable.

Ps : heard the audioquest cables with battery in my setup and could not hear any difference to the audioquests i use.
 

Wombat

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On two instances the Audioquest cables proved to be much better then stock market cables :

On the main floor, living room floor standing speakers with the top being passive mid/high section, active closed subwoofer the bottom part. The subs wood produce a consistent hum/buzz sound, faint, never the less audible for me. When i unplugged the hdmi cable from tv to amplifier the hum/buzz dissapeared. At first my impression was that fault comes from the tv. I contacted technical service (philips led tv), they came to investigate, they also heard the hum/buzz but didn't know what to do. They asked to take tv, amp and speaker to their technical department to investigate and eventual come up with a solution. Two week later they were brought back with an invoice stating : incompatible devices, no solution. At that time i was using generic cables. A friend visiting also heard the hum/buzz, went to his home and came back with two power cables (shielded Audioquest NRG 2 and two coax cables audioquest Forest, we connected those to the Subwoofer part of the floor standers and the hum/buzz was gone.

In my man cave (attic converted to computer room with audio/video corner) the settup is from computer to usb/spdif converter to dac. Audioquest cables. No problems here. Until i wanted to use an additional output from usb/spdif to another dac placed in the audio/video setup. A 5 meter Audioquest cable not being cheep i used a generic AES EBU connection. Every 2/3 minutes i would have a short hickup in the signal. Replacing this connection with a 5 meter AES EBU Audioquest Big Sur cable solved this problem.

So for those that ridicule the use of better cables (agree pricier than generic) the improvements i heard were not subjective or placebo. These were clear audible upgrades.

As stated above, i believe in good constructed/engineered cable. I do not believe in exotic expensive cables. Apart from the fact that the power cables are considerably more expensive, they are shielded, the interconnect used in my system are not that much more expensive than a good generic market cable.

Ps : heard the audioquest cables with battery in my setup and could not hear any difference to the audioquests i use.


Shielded power cables? Why those?
 
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Blumlein 88

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Monoprice premier XLR cables thru out. An old pair of AQ Cobalt speaker cables. Various other low priced cables a step up from basic generic cables.
 
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Wombat

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solderdude

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Interconnects: yes, have a bunch of them.

Speaker cable: yes, those too

Coax cable: yes (TV) and for measurements

USB cable: yes, whatever I find cheaply or comes with gear

HDMI cable: yes

SCART cable: yes

DVI cable: yes, also

Power cable: of course

headphone cable: Yes... (missed that one in the list)

internal wiring in equipment: yes

mains wiring: yes

data cables for PC: Yes

high voltage cable: Only via the transformer down the street

Car battery cable: only when someone else's battery is dead.

Towing cable: check

Flat cable: on some DIY projects.

PCB traces: yes that too is a lot of wiring

Fiber optic cable: only at work.
 
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Patrick1958

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You don't know why? They are not a usual purchase. I am interested as to why you need such a product.
I live next to a student dormitory, imagine the abundance of wifi, bluetooth, 3G, 4G and 5G signals i'm surrounded with. Better safe than sorry, hence shielded cables.
 
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Legion1capone

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So most of you think its bullshit that cables can tweak the sound of a system? You do agree though that proper shielded cables does help against noise and interference?
 

Wombat

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I live next to a student dormitory, imagine the abundance of wifi, bluetooth, 3G, 4G and 5G signals i'm surrounded with. Better safe than sorry, hence shielded cables.

I can't imagine it affecting your relatively short power cord which is the tail-end of all the unshielded wiring running through the building circuit to the outlet it is plugged into. One way to find out - replace it with one from an electrical appliance and do some blind A/B testing.
 
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SIY

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So most of you think its bullshit that cables can tweak the sound of a system? You do agree though that proper shielded cables does help against noise and interference?

1. Only if something is severely broken.

2. Proper shielding is easy. Generic cables (e.g., cheap stuff from Amazon, Ace, Home Depot...) are usually fine in that respect. "Audiophile" cables are variable. Shielding power cord is (to be generous) wack.
 

Wombat

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So most of you think its bullshit that cables can tweak the sound of a system? You do agree though that proper shielded cables does help against noise and interference?

The problem with generalities is that they are seldom universal in application.
 

Thomas savage

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You gota invest in piezoelectric shielding and absorption else you will never know what music can sound like, you Guys with your Monoprice stuff...

You must try harder !

I’m so well shielded from nasty high-band dirt it’s common to see dogs, cats and even the odd bat boogieing down when I’m listening to music.
 

Ron Texas

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Speaker Wires: Original Monster Cable, so old it's turned green. Interconnects: Some stuff my son left around the house when he went off to college 20 years ago. Due to their age these wires obviously have magical properties.
 

RayDunzl

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So most of you think its bullshit that cables can tweak the sound of a system?

Not entirely, but I think the purported effects of a Super-Premium and a simply adequate cable are overstated - FUD factor comes into play.

You do agree though that proper shielded cables does help against noise and interference?

Don't know. My rat's nest of a main system produces no audible noise, nor is it measurable - doesn't exceed the RF hash in the air when observed with with an o'scope at the speaker leads, powered on or off. The little JBLs hiss at you if you get too close.

I did pick up a cheap (used) though expensive (if new) balanced power isolation transformer. So I've got that going for me, which is nice. Purported to have hum-busting capabilities. I like it because it raises the height of the preamp just enough to exactly match the top of the monoblocks, creating a solid massive look to the bottom shelf of the shelf.

I guess I get to show my speaker cables again. As I initially said in post #2 above, "copper". These have lots of it. Bi-wired, no less... They came from my scrap box, cost $0.

Interconnects (including the coaxial S/PDIF) are "whatever". Generic XLR mic cables where they can be used. 4-wire something from the scrap box terminated with fake Lemo connectors for the CAST connection from pre to amps (frees up an XLR out at the pre for other purposes).
 
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restorer-john

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I make my own with Canare (or another 100% shield, pro type cable with soft outer and a stringer inside) cable and Amphenol RCAs. I just love the Amphenol RCAs, they are a real quality product at a good price. Their tolerances are perfect- no tight or loose fittings, perfect finish and they don't discolor or corrode. The white boot can go a little yellow but that's it. The best RCA I've ever used.

cable1.jpg


cable2.jpg


I just bulk buy them and they last years

amphenol.jpeg


white.jpeg


Speaker cable is some decent OFC, 273 strand per conductor stuff I have several 100M rolls of. Bought in bulk probably a decade ago. No discoloration of the conductors due to some special jacket material that didn't gas off supposedly. Wasn't expensive, maybe $70 per 100M reel IIRC. Japanese banana plugs I bought tons of years ago before everything got copied in China, Some angled gold pins at the amp ends that can take a 4MM adaptor if I want. Just makeup whatever lengths I want.

speaker (Large).jpeg


Coaxial digital I used 75 ohm coax and Amphenols RCAs.

Optical just whatever old Japanese ones I have in the drawer/box. No Chinese ones, they don't fit well.
 
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Legion1capone

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When picking cable what properties of the cable should one look at for good shielding? Many show a rating of capacitance in pF/ft. Is this relevant? Bluejeanscable website states a higher pF/ft number equates to higher frequency roll off. So a lower number is better?
 
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