karkus30 said:
Are you really suggesting that speaker cables dont make a difference? Ive done the blind listening test thing and I can tell quite easily
Karkus if you can identify any type of cable be it IC (normally screened coaxial rather than freebies leads) or speaker cable (of similar cross sectional copper area that is & not bell wire) under controlled blind tests consistantly then you will be the first person Ive ever heard of in hifi circles to do so, there is even rewards on the net from a guy called Steward Pinkerton for $1000 IIRC on offer for you if you wish.
What Daneel is questioning above IMHO is whether racks can act like tone-controls on frequency response I very much doubt it, I also doubt this for ICs & Speaker cables FWIW, either a loudspeaker supplies current or not, hence cross sectional area is paramount. If CSA is not enough then amplifier will struggle to send current along thin CSA and give up the ghost (hopefully after clipping sets in), next we get into how LRC factors can effect tone controls of a system again I dont buy the argument as such, these conversation have been done to death on various hifi forum but it boils down to 2 distinct groups of audio believers IME.
Believers in cables, racks & tweakery
Sceptics of cable, racks & tweakery
Depends on which side of the fence you sit on, Its not worth arguing with a believer about tone control in cables when they are pre-deposed to believe all they have read on the net from other believers, hence the logical recourse for sceptics is to call in blind testing which they have generally tried (and here speaks a former cable believer FWIW), Ive been part of controlled tests over on HFC ie proper blind testing/opinion of DIY ICs of varying nature, Ive also (well the good lady) switched between the 2 anlg outputs on my DAC into 2 different inputs on my RC switched amplifier between vastly different priced/material ICs and not been able to detect the slightest difference at all, now when my eyes+ears=brain are in tandem I become succeptable to pre-belief and can instantly pick out a superior IC, blind though there is no difference whatsoever. Ive also played around with mains cabling (and ferrite RFI clamps) Suzy to no effect whatsoever. So am sceptical of the merits of all cabling. I use cheap well cheap in relation to dealer bought ICs, £30/M Pure silver IC with £20 Audusa Silver plated Lockable WBT Clone RCAs with silver solder that sound as good to me as Ixos 104s @ £15, I also use cheapo CAT5 speaker cable that to me is as good as any dealer heard cable Ive ever heard.
I have simply gave up thinking of what cabling can do to a system (its quite a liberating experience as an audiophile BTW), unless you are a Naim owner above where the amplifier circuit design is built around a mean NAC5 length of 3.5m and this is the only cable to use for the amp to save it blowing up due to impedence mismatch from other cables you have no worries, then yes Naim due take the hassle out of cabling, although Naim IMHO have long propogated hifi myths/legend of how good DIN connections are compred to RCA and how they fail to put a digital output on their CDPs due to it effecting playabck quality when 99% of the remainder of aduio component manufacturers can do so very easily. So Naim do compromise themselves in design stakes to me FWIW by using fixed LRC lenghths of cable inherent in their amplifier design. How many amplifier companies do you know that wont give a warranty on an amplifer if you use say QED Original speaker cable and the amp blows up ?
No argument though they make fine sounding kit that Ive heard. Just their design ethos is a bit wayward to me.
The point I was making earlier about one set of audio users in this case Naim, they are diametrically opposed in stand/rack beliefs, now as I said one set is obviously wrong or are they both misuguided prone to belief of whatever belief system they hold. The nearest example I could give of this is a religious one, where 2 sets of religion both worship an item/place for totally different religious reasons with differing accounts of what happened at said location, for example that tunnel under the Sepulctre in Jerusalem (IIRC) one is patently wrong, its a funny thing to bring religion into hifi discussions but so fervantly are some view held that it is fundamentilism IME. No basis in reality a lot of the time. IMHO of course.
Anyway dudes some interesting threads from HFC that centre on blind testing and claims about sound perception that may be of interest :
http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=10222
http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=9984
If any of you guys are interested in blind testing and sonic perception about cables do a search over at HFC on a forum user called
adb the guy is on a different plane intellectually IMHO, Ive not seen many cable believers come up with any valid argument to refute what he has to say (and he was saying it when I was a cable believer FWIW).
ATB