The effect of cables - A sane debate

[tuff]

I haven't played much with cables in general, nor have i ever felt the need to do so, (yet, although it is intriguing). But over the years ,i have quietly read on various forums and audio magazines, that split's opinion from none at all to adding a 'wow' factor to the same existing system.
What i have did notice is the opinions vary mostly between Audio enthusiast's and Audio engineer's. You would be hard pressed to find an engineer endorse that idea beyond saying that a decent quality cable should not make much of a difference. But as we know, Audiophile forums are filled with personal experiences that say otherwise.
I do agree that power lines make a huge difference in improving any given system. The cleaner it is with fewer components tapping into the source should be a priority if one wants to pursue a better listening experience.

 

[vnavin]

The cables have skin effect hence the outer surface of the cable is used its only our belief that we are using 12 awg or 14 awg.
The best wire for carrying signal should be hollow copper tube like and flexible.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Hari, start with a dedicated power line for audio from your mains box to begin with. Make sure nothing else operates on that line

Will adding a RF/ EMI filter be of much use? How about ferrite beads on the AC line?

 

[vnavin]

For more details just find regarding the skin effect in cables I think lot of things will be clear.

 

[prem]

No ferrite beads. Use a dedicated audio line and if you wish try a rf/emi suppressor for the whole house which you can get a local electrician to fit.

Before that i would suggest isolate your digital from the rest. You could try a simple isolation transformer. Better would be a balance transformer.

 

[spirovious]

Prem, How to get the power right. Most of what is supplied is not in our control. I have noticed in my setup, music played during day time is a bit harsher than the same music played at night after10:30pm. Does that mean, I shall gain by power conditioning?.

Yes,l experienced same.May be industries/ offices in our area shuts down.Sound after 6 pm is better in my area.

 

[prem]

Spirovious, isolate with a isolation or a balanced transformer, especially your digital gear. You could also try a Hammond choke. There’s lots of stuff on Hammond choke on the net. You can google it to see which model works. Make sure you get a model for Indian voltage

 

[Kannan]

Spirovious, isolate with a isolation or a balanced transformer,

Agree. Isolation transformer has worked big time for me.

Additionally, when using Amp Camp, I clean the output from the switch mode power adapter with Capacitance Multiplier.

 

[jls001]

The cables have skin effect hence the outer surface of the cable is used its only our belief that we are using 12 awg or 14 awg.
The best wire for carrying signal should be hollow copper tube like and flexible.

Please check the math on the effect of skin effect and frequency.

 

[vnavin]

Yes I have written just the opposite instead of high frequencies I have mentioned low frequencies.

 

[Kannan]

The cables have skin effect hence the outer surface of the cable is used its only our belief that we are using 12 awg or 14 awg.
The best wire for carrying signal should be hollow copper tube like and flexible.

Do you mean something like this, though this one is not flexible.



Here is the one I terminated

 

[Hari Iyer]

Do you mean something like this, though this one is not flexible.

View attachment 29776

Here is the one I terminated

View attachment 29777

Eeeeeeks, this look like a snake to me.

 

[Kannan]

Eeeeeeks, this look like a snake to me.

LOL: I thought you guys might guess this.
This comes with split air conditioners.

 

[jls001]

Yes I have written just the opposite instead of high frequencies I have mentioned low frequencies.

My question is, is skin effect significant or relevant at audio frequencies? Perhaps we need to bother about it at MHz and above frequencies?

 

[Hari Iyer]

My question is, is skin effect significant or relevant at audio frequencies? Perhaps we need to bother about it at MHz and above frequencies?

That too for such a short length of wire around 1 meter.

 

[vnavin]

Well did you check it by connecting it?

 

[Kannan]

My question is, is skin effect significant or relevant at audio frequencies? Perhaps we need to bother about it at MHz and above frequencies?

No sir. Skin effect has no bearing on audio frequencies.

But what the hell, I had these monstrous hollow copper tube lying around, so thought why not...

Well they had absolutely zero effect.

 

[jls001]

No sir. Skin effect has no bearing on audio frequencies.

But what the hell, I had these monstrous hollow copper tube lying around, so thought why not...

Well they had absolutely zero effect.

I have briefly tried at home a speaker cable constructed from a microwave RF cable (hollow foam type inner jacket that contains some sort of sticky gel usually used in outdoor cables to keep away moisture) and it sounded amazingly good. The inner conductor was solid core copper, very thin (my guestimate is 18 AWG or even thinner) coated like transformer wires in dielectric, and it had multiple layers of additional dielectric insulation layers and shielding layers around it. Finally, there was a drain wire for the shield which must be grounded to a grounding point in the amplifier. I looked for similar RF cables but so far no success. Incidentally I asked the price of the cable only after I tried it and was given a massive sticker shock. I still don't know if it was worth so much money but the sound was amazing.

 

[Kannan]

Guys my auditory observations. No measurements though as I don't have any means to do so.

Limitations:
1. No dedicated preamp in the chain and the interconnect was used between the DAC/pre and the power amp.
2. This is of course absolutely subjective to my hearing abilities and the limitation of the equipment chain.

Best of the lot: My original chain with the single interconnects

I could hear some very minor changes by doubling the interconnects in various configurations, but no motivation to switch over in terms of any improvement in sound quality.

 

[jls001]

Guys my auditory observations.

@Kannan thanks for sharing your honest observations.

My experience has been quite nice.

The first step for me was to double the IC from source to buffer. I used two different pairs of unbalanced cables, both of which I like a lot. RCA splitters used was very cheap, chrome-plated ones costing Rs 10 per piece. I felt a hardness in the sound but despite that the highs became much sweeter than before. The sound stage also expanded a bit. There was more bass weight. I blamed the lack of refinement on the new splitters but felt there was clearly potential in this mad scheme. I actually had to turn up volume by 2 notches. In hindsight, I realised that this was counter intuitive.


Step 2: added second speaker cables. I don't recall the exact details but I recall that the volume still needed to be 2 notches up and in general it sounded better than doubling only source to preamp/buffer. This bore out the assertion in the originally linked article that the effect is cumulative.


The next day I bought better RCA splitters and replaced the earlier ones, and the sound became instantly more refined. The hardness was completely gone and in its place was much better sounding music. However, the volume still needed to be 2 notches up to have the same subjective SPL that I was used to before introducing double ICs.


This was when I got convinced that I must fill in the gap between buffer and power amp too to complete the chain. That Hari doubled his preamp to power amp link gave me lots of encouragement. On doubling this link the first thing I did was to decrease the volume by 3 notches from the original (no doubling anywhere) state. What I heard was:


a/ improved midrange - it sounded almost like hearing a “tubey” (in a nice way) SET tube amp. Voices stood out like I've never heard before. The closest I had heard in my setup was when I briefly had a Line Magnetic DAC at home. This DAC produced dense and highlighted mids and was likeable in many ways but the mid-range was spotlighted at the cost of higher frequency details; bass was poorly defined too. I never warmed up to that sound though I appreciated it for certain types of music. What I'm hearing now in the mids is less denser, yet sufficiently spotlighted to accentuate voices and mid-centric instruments. The quantity was just right for my taste. I know that it's not neutral in its frequency response but that didn't deter me because I've never aimed for ruler-flat amplitude response in my room.


b/ however the bass weight was clearly more than my liking. This was cured by disconnecting the super tweeters from speakers. Weird, but it's worked that way.


c/ highs: lesser than before but surprisingly it still sounds better than before and I'm actually hearing more details despite the high frequency roll off and the volume knob being 3 notches down.


More subjectively, this is the most musical I've heard my setup. The proof is in the number of hours I'm spending in listening to music without getting bored. The bass weight is now more than what I had before and this allows me to enjoy acoustic bass much better than before (small speakers - so it inherently suffers from limited bass extension). It feels like I'm listening to bigger speakers. The texture of bass is also better defined than before. Overall, I'm hearing more details at much lower volume. This reminds me of a Quad ESL I hadb heard a few years ago at a friend's place at very low volume without missing any details. For me, this ability had long been one of the hallmarks of a very good speaker. Besides the Quad, I've heard this type of sound in only one other setup (a really high end setup). Of course I'm not saying that my speakers now rival those speakers I mentioned. Just suggesting that it has gained some of that property I so admired.


After I doubled the IC from from CD player (actually an old bluray player) I observed the same improvements observed in the previous source, namely, improvements in midrange density and weight, bass weight and texture, and the slight roll off in the highs. So I am guessing that the effect can be replicated in other setups too.


The last refinements I had done was to bundle the same ICs in the same link. I didn't bother to revert to mixed ICs as it is a tedious job so I'm not 100% sure if using the same ICs bring further refinement. But even when mixing different ICs they sounded pretty damned good to my ears (and I must say, in my setup, since I haven't tried this anywhere else).


I'm certainly not reverting to single IC.