Cables Recommendation

[Mayank Shah]

@Vivek Batra , investing in room treatment would be more worth the results than spending time and money on the cables. As many have said, decent inexpensive cables will do the job, but the long term benefits of even basic room treatment cannot be emphasized enough. I am sure once the room has been treated, then you are more likely to perceive the subtle differences between cables. I don't think cables should be expensively proportional to the gear.

For example, I am extremely happy with my Blue Jeans 12 awg plain white, unterminated 6 feet x 2 speaker cables which costed me around 11 USD.

It's nice to know that you are happy with the basic cables, leave it at that for now. Do think about room treatment or correction.

 

[Vivek Batra]

Hi Vivek,
If the difference is subtle and our memory is not able to remember such minor difference, then why to change or try different cables.

Exactly my point. So for me any cable is good. I believe the manufacturers of amps and speakers don't rely on pairing their products with expensive cables to get the best out of those. I will be happy if someone could make me feel the "cable" difference, till then I am happy with my very cheap cables and have no plan to change anything.

 

[firearm12]

Manufacturers do not do testing using expensive cables as they very well understand that audience is divided between non believers and believers. They would not be able to sell their recommended cables to non believers and they dont want to enter into that debate they cannot say my equipment will sound better on a particular cable only, they may lose customers. They want to tell the buyer that their equipmemt is best and you dont need anything else once you buy. So they use cheap cables to test so that the equipment sounds good on it. But the performance will always be enhanced by using good and appropriate cables, so much so that listening without them is not be an option anymore.

 

[keith_correa]

Oscilloscopes do not use fancy cables.
Hmmm, now, there's a business idea right there...

 

[pogballistics]

First cable to upgrade in a system should be power cable especially for your dac, then for amp. Rest of them can follow accordingly.

I am using Mr. Murthy power cable for amp.
Dac cable is still stock but of decent quality.

Do you recommend to change the dac cable as well? What is your opinion on Mr. Murthy power cable. Have you used / experienced it.

Thanks

 

[mbhangui]

I make my own cables using cat6 twisted pair. It even beats Mogami 2549 with Eichmann Bullet plugs.

There is nothing vodoo about cables as many would want you to believe (cable manufacturers and those who have spent good money on them). Cable manufacturers will give various reasons, some going to extremes like triboelectric charge, time smearing, copper oxide turning into diodes, skin effect and what not. But let me stop here else it will become an all out war.

You want to transport a complex signal from the source to the destination. The ideal cable would with 0 Ohms resistance, 0 Henry Inductance and 0 Farad capacitance.

You can easily make cables with extremely negligible resistance, inductance. But it is very difficult to make cables with very low capacitance. The moment you bring two conductors near each other, the capacitance increases.

Most commerical interconnects give you capacitance ranging from 60 pF (pico farads) to around 100 pF per meter. The cheap ones that you get free with Tata Sky set top box gave me around 300 pF. Now this creates a problem for high frequency. e.g. use this to calculate the impedance

Capacitor Impedance Calculator - Engineering Calculators & Tools

This tool calculates a capacitor's reactance for a given capacitance value and signal frequency.

www.allaboutcircuits.com

For 15 kHz a 100 pF capacitor will apply a load of 100 kilo ohms and for 1000 Hz it will provide a load of 1.5 mega ohms and hence make the response of the amp non-linear across the audio spectrum.

Just few days back my friend in Singapore was saying he is not happy with his vintage horn speakers from Technics. He even claimed his Klipsch R-15PM powered speakes connected via bluetooth was outperforming his Technics speakers. Today I guided him to make his own cable and he is amazed how revealing his Sansui amp and Speaker has become after changing the interconnects. He now says that the technics speakers are miles and miles better than the Klipsch.



This is my longest cable using twisted pair and it gives just 36 pF



Even the RCA connectors matter. The eichmann bullet plugs gives the lowest capacitance just a bit above 1 pF. The cheap MX RCA connectors have around 3 pF per connector. The costly lockable RCA connectors give around 4.5 pF per connector.

Capacitance of my twisted pair interconnect 36 pF of 105 cm length with eichmann bullet plug



Capacitance of Mogami 2549 94 pF for 95 cm with eichmann bullet plug



So if you can do a bit of soldering you can save yourself money. For those who are scared of soldering, you can buy solderless connectors like this (Rs 343 for pack of 6)

https://www.amazon.in/PagKis-Metal-Solderless-Connectors-Design/dp/B079FT6B2Q

There is one problem with these twisted pairs. They are very weak. So what I do is to pour molten glue using a glue gun inside the RCA connector.

 

[keith_correa]

So if you can do a bit of soldering you can save yourself money.

See what you did? You just rained on the parade!

 

[mbhangui]

See what you did? You just rained on the parade!

There are RCA connectors that can be connected without soldering. 6 connectors for Rs 345 on amazon dot in

https://www.amazon.in/PagKis-Metal-Solderless-Connectors-Design/dp/B079FT6B2Q

 

[keith_correa]

There are RCA connectors that can be connected without soldering.

When it rains, it pours; lightening & thunder!

 

[mbhangui]

There is one problem with these twisted pairs. They are very weak. So what I do is to pour molten glue using a glue gun inside the RCA connector.

 

[keith_correa]

There is one problem with these twisted pairs. They are very weak. So what I do is to pour molten glue using a glue gun inside the RCA connector.

I pad the part of the wire that meets the RCA shell opening with Teflon tape. Now, the dielectric of Teflon....

 

[mbhangui]

I pad the part of the wire that meets the RCA shell opening with Teflon tape. Now, the dielectric of Teflon....

Your thinking is in the right direction. It is the dielectric in the twisted pairs that have made such a big difference. Over the years these cat cables have been continuously improving the dielectric material making the capacitance lower and lower and thereby allowing one to increase the freqency and hence the speed and the distance to which you can use a single cable.

But it is such a small portion where you will be applying the teflon tape. The capacitance might at the max increase by a pF. I will try this tomorrow and let you know

 

[mbhangui]

There is a site where you can calculate the parameters for twisted pairs

Twisted-Pair Impedance Calculator - Engineering Calculators & Tools

A tool designed to calculate the characteristic impedance of a twisted-pair cable

www.allaboutcircuits.com

 

[essrand]

I think this thread disturbed me a bit more than it should have, because I have been following Vivek Batra's journey with awe. In (please correct me if I am wrong) your first attempt you have built a very musical stereo system (something that's taken me years) with a Luxman 590Ax2, Luxman DAC and Forte speakers.

If I were to go back and do my audio journey all over again, I might have just bought a similar system that you did and called it a day. It shows that you have amazing audio instinct.

However, I am quite shocked at your cable decision.

I have had a similar journey, I started with Amazonbasics (AB), then Belden, then Joshua and on and on.

I hate testing cables. I hate it. So, I can understand how confused and tiring it must have been for you. Everyone hates cables, but they can easily make or break a system (I made a very costly audio purchase mistake because I was using a poor cable and blamed a component instead).

I think deleted member 1585 has said almost everything I want to say, but do take a break from this cable madness and come back to it some other time and you will find that the difference between Amazonbasics and audiophile cables is that of a Sony boombox from Croma to a Luxman, and if you can hear that difference, you can hear a difference between a stock and audiophile cables.

Belden etc are okay for mid-fi systems, AB is good for systems bought from Croma ----> Tell me if you were deciding on which racing tyres to purchase for your Porsche, would you ask advice from Maruti owners (they will say tyres don't matter, well true, they don't matter in a Maruti for normal day to day driving, IMO your luxman amplifier is a porsche). However $10000 cables don't necessary sound better than $500 cables (there's a brand/jewellery factor here) but please do get a decent cable from a decent cable manufacturer. And if you don't want to audition cables just blind buy entry-level Siltech (they are very okay, but at least do no wrong, and are available locally) or Acoustic Revive.

Just my two cents. No offence meant to anyone.

 

[k-pad]

I think this thread disturbed me a bit more than it should have, because I have been following Vivek Batra's journey with awe. In (please correct me if I am wrong) your first attempt you have built a very musical stereo system (something that's taken me years) with a Luxman 590Ax2, Luxman DAC and Forte speakers.

If I were to go back and do my audio journey all over again, I might have just bought a similar system that you did and called it a day. It shows that you have amazing audio instinct.

However, I am quite shocked at your cable decision.

I have had a similar journey, I started with Amazonbasics (AB), then Belden, then Joshua and on and on.

I hate testing cables. I hate it. So, I can understand how confused and tiring it must have been for you. Everyone hates cables, but they can easily make or break a system (I made a very costly audio purchase mistake because I was using a poor cable and blamed a component instead).

I think deleted member 1585 has said almost everything I want to say, but do take a break from this cable madness and come back to it some other time and you will find that the difference between Amazonbasics and audiophile cables is that of a Sony boombox from Croma to a Luxman, and if you can hear that difference, you can hear a difference between a stock and audiophile cables.

Belden etc are okay for mid-fi systems, AB is good for systems bought from Croma ----> Tell me if you were deciding on which racing tyres to purchase for your Porsche, would you ask advice from Maruti owners (they will say tyres don't matter, well true, they don't matter in a Maruti for normal day to day driving, IMO your luxman amplifier is a porsche). However $10000 cables don't necessary sound better than $500 cables (there's a brand/jewellery factor here) but please do get a decent cable from a decent cable manufacturer. And if you don't want to audition cables just blind buy entry-level Siltech (they are very okay, but at least do no wrong, and are available locally) or Acoustic Revive.

Just my two cents. No offence meant to anyone.

Well said, sir.
Though I don't understand a lot about Stereo chains, you are spot on when you say Vivek is nailing it in a fix it and forget it manner! He is on a roll

The way he is building his room also is superb.

Having said that, the only quibble I have is the tyre analogy.
They are the only parts of a vehicle that are in contact with the road, and hence the most important whether you are commuting or racing.... In audio terms, the most important aspect of a chain would be the tyre
Cables are cable, IM(limited)HO...

 

[keith_correa]

But it is such a small portion where you will be applying the teflon tape. The capacitance might at the max increase by a pF. I will try this tomorrow and let you know

Please don't waste your time. My comment about the dielectric of Teflon was tongue in cheek.

 

[mbhangui]

Please don't waste your time. My comment about the dielectric of Teflon was tongue in cheek.

It is possible the tape will have an effect. I was guiding my friend on skype yesterday after he told me that he isn't able to do the soldering well. So I told him to apply soldeinng flux at the point where he will solder the wire. Little bit of flux spread over the insulator that separates the center pin from the body. He got 874 nF (which is 0.874 microfarad) as the capacitance. For the remaining RCA plug I told him to apply a tiny tiny bit of flux and clean it with IPA after the job

This is something i too cannot believe.

 

[mbhangui]

Exactly my point. So for me any cable is good. I believe the manufacturers of amps and speakers don't rely on pairing their products with expensive cables to get the best out of those. I will be happy if someone could make me feel the "cable" difference, till then I am happy with my very cheap cables and have no plan to change anything.

If you have a LCR meter or know any friend who has a LCR meter, just measure the capacitance across the leads. Anything around 400 pF and above will seriously ruin your midrange and HF. And there are plenty of terminated cables reasonably priced which easily give you < 100 pF per meter.

 

[keith_correa]

<snip>
Belden etc are okay for mid-fi systems, AB is good for systems bought from Croma ----> Tell me if you were deciding on which racing tyres to purchase for your Porsche, would you ask advice from Maruti owners (they will say tyres don't matter, well true, they don't matter in a Maruti for normal day to day driving, IMO your luxman amplifier is a porsche).

I really don't know what you really were implying here but to me this sounds terribly elitist, snobbish and snooty. Read what you wrote again and perhaps you will see what I mean. I understand you equating the Lux to a Porsche but what I don't understand is the "Maruti owners" part? Did you mean he shouldn't have asked what he did on this "maruti owners" forum and he should have posed this on a "porsche owners" forum? Maybe you didn't mean it the way it has been written and has come across and I sincerely hope it is that.

Just my two cents. No offence meant to anyone.

Actually it is offensive and, giving offense and then saying that one does not mean to give offense is just not done.

 

[raghupb]

Cables are always gonna be divisive. I did try some experiments to learn and figure out the hoopla.
There isn't any.
Cables don't add stuff that isn't there. They may subtract something thus providing the illusion of enhancing something else.

If sourcing locally, the real VFM analog/digital IC would be MX/MDR brand. Very good contact with RCA terminals.
Otherwise do Mogami or Belden with RCAs from SwitchCraft or Canare. Both these RCAs make very firm contact.
The above three wire use OFC (Oxygen Free Copper). Good stuff.

I also tried UP-OCC (ultra pure Ohno Continuous Cast) from Neotech (good deal on it price wise to experiment).
Nasty connectors to work with; but once soldered and terminated makes firm contact due to interlock mechanism.

All four of the above present the very similar presentation. A couple are more peppy, a couple are smoother.
So there you have "decent" cables from 4 "decent" cable companies soldered/terminated by "decent" guys.
All 4 of them presented "decent" sound. Nothing to go wow about but nothing lacking either.

The car analogy is perfect, but not in the sense applied to cables.
The basic function of a car is to get passenger/s from point A to point B.
A luxury car may make the passenger/s comfortable.
In case of a cable, it is the same. Get a signal from point A to point B.
Difference being, the signal doesn't care for luxury, just a clean path to flow by.
If the material, copper or silver or whatnot provides this clean path, all is well.
It is not rocket science or car science.

Cheers,
Raghu