mschlack;152393 Wrote: > First, let me agree that there's way too much emphasis on cables. I am > every bit the skeptic. > > I did not do a blind fold test, but what I did do was observe the > ability to hear low-level details that are right on the edge of > resolution. I used "A Case of You" from Diana Krall's Live in Paris and > "If I Were Blue" from Patricia Barber's Verse. The former has a lot of > ambient stuff: people coughing, pedal noise, hall reverb. The latter > has a nylon string guitar solo where Neal Alger takes a few breaths, > moves around a bit on his chair, and of course, finger noise on the > strings. I have used these cuts on many systems, and believe me, > sometimes you can hear these things and sometimes you can't (even the > ones you know to expect). > > I checked the volume with an SPL meter to make sure there were no level > differences. While all cables showed some of this low level detail, > there was a general correlation between price and detail. I re-listened > when I thought I had heard something that I didn't hear on a cheaper > cable, and verified every time. > > That says nothing about imaging, general tonal quality, etc. But I > think the theory is that if you are dropping discreet low level events, > you are probably also dropping transients, minor harmonics and other > parts of the signal that make it life-like, contribute to imaging, and > so on. At least, that was my theory. > > As to why, I don't know. I have read some articles on coax cables that > talk about reflection. Digital signals travel as a pulse. Some people > say that cables that don't strictly offer 75 ohm impedance can cause > internal reflections (possibly other factors there too besides the > impedance) that cause collisions between the pulses. That can lead to > zeros becoming ones and vice versa, and if that happens a lot, some of > the signal is degraded. > > Can that happen to an optical signal? Beyond my expertise. I have > generally found optical to be inferior to digital, as have many people, > but I don't why that would be either. > > I do know that if you talk to engineers who work in data > communications, they can verify that optical cable quality is certainly > an issue for high load or high distance, and that carriers, for example, > spend more on cables that need it (is it single-mode vs. multi-mode > fiber that's the difference?). That may or may not be relevant to > carrying a single audio signal for a short distance. > > AQ's propaganda shows one being able to read a small "e" from a book > through the Optilink 3, and not through the 1, but my eyes are way past > being able to do that. Nice stunt, but I don't know if it's relevant or > not. Some of AQ's stuff seems full of it (most reviewers pooh-poohed > their battery-powered cable jackets, for example), so who knows? > > To put it in perspective, the cheap Radio Shack cable was acceptable. > However, why would one buy a DAC, etc., if you weren't looking to > squeeze the most out of your setup? I don't own any cables more > expensive than this, so I'm not buying into Nordost Valhalla type > craziness, but I thought the $200 was worth it. I didn't really think > the $80 ones were better enough than the Radio Shack, though. YMMV
When it comes to coax my guess is that, provided the cable is properly shielded, the contacs make the most difference. I have achieved astonishing improvements by treating the contacts, so I wouldn't be the least surprised if most of any differences are due to contact pressure etc. -- P Floding ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29353 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
