Dangerous new find about an old subject

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audioraptured

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I was having a discussion about newer interconnects and how it might help the sound if you stuck with the same brands, or if you were consistant with the same brand and company for gear, (unless you were looking for a specific type of sound and knew what it would be with a mix and match equipment), and was directed to this site. It may answer a few questions; or start new ones. I for one used the spikes as a tweek on my Ascents, (soon to have the new 10 woofers) , and I believe it does make a difference. However, I still burn in my Sennheiser HD650 headphones for 50 hours and then listen to them. But the speaker wire and interconnects still bothers me abit. I wish, (except for what I believe I hear), there was real scientific proof. Any one feel different or want to add something to clarify?? http://www.audioholics.com/FAQs/Audioquest.html
 
I am not an Audioholics fan at all...just my opinion...

You can look at all the measurements (Capacitance, Inductance, and Resistance) figures, all the marketing hype rah-rah, you can read all the reviews of others and professional reviews...but in the end it is really up to you, your likes and preferences for the type of sound you are looking for.

You will need to perform the following:

1. Determine for yourself - Do different cables sound different? - This requires getting different product (cheap and expensive to the point of your budget) putting them in your setup and listening.

2. If you hear a difference - Which cables do you like the sound of better? What are the cables made of, what connector do they use? Does the cost make a difference for you? Are higher priced cables that much better than a cable half the cost? Is the cost versus performace worth it to you?

3. Buy the ones you like better...Does not matter what anyone else says about them, it is what you like.

Addendum: When looking at cables you should keep in consideration Silver, Copper, and Silver Over Copper type cables, as each can sound different in your system.

I have tried many IC's and speaker cables and for my setup and room I have the following in my setup:

Less expensive but an excellent performing product: DH Labs (Use for HT)
My Preferred cable (IC and Speaker): JPS Labs (for 2 Channel) I bought all of my JPS Labs cable used or with trade-in to save on the cost.

Dan
 
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I would recommend spending your time on placement and your money on room acoustics.

These two will have orders of magnitude greater influence on sound quality than any cable ever will.

Cable should be looked at only if there is an obvious question about some interference or other imbalance.

Room acoustics is again the biggest influence on the ‘sound’. All else is a distant second.

I’m constantly amazed that people with obviously untreated rooms will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on other parts of the system in search of improvements and ignore the room.
 
JonFo said:
I would recommend spending your time on placement and your money on room acoustics.

These two will have orders of magnitude greater influence on sound quality than any cable ever will.

Cable should be looked at only if there is an obvious question about some interference or other imbalance.

Room acoustics is again the biggest influence on the ‘sound’. All else is a distant second.

In complete agreement with Jon!!!
 
i agree as well. One well placed bass trap provides an order of magnitude improvement over any set of cables.
 
dangerous new find

I think I am swayed by what many here are saying, however what is the deal with the big problem of windows, blinds, (and those rectangle traps behind them, do they help)?. Is the glass a poor reflector or just one that needs coverings. Is it blinds open or closed flat or angled or...Any ideas?
thanks for other replies.........
 
audioraptured said:
I wish, (except for what I believe I hear), there was real scientific proof.
To really answer your question, no...scientific proof will not tell you if a cable will sound good or bad in your setup. You may find a cable with low Capatictance, Inductance, or Resistance may sound best, but then again another with the same measurements may sound different. It is trial and error to find the cable you like.

Room Acoustics is the least known aspect for most audiophiles and has the potential to improve your sound. A single bass trap will not make drastic changes in bass improvements - if any at all. Ethan Winer and Glenn Kuras can attest to that. Multiple bass traps is the way to improve your bass. Both of these idividuals visit the Acoustic Forums over at Audio Circles, and I believe the Asylum. Ethan has a forum where he is the moderator. So stop by these places and start to read and read and read, and you will get the idea on how to start out and try to improve your room. And BTW, it does not have to look like a recording studio with some of the products from Real Traps and GIK Acoustics, while the Auralex stuff gives that recording studio look.

For bass trapping...Start with them on the wall behind your speakers, in lower corners and upper if you can. At a minimum do the lower corners up 4 ft, and if you can, continue right up to the ceiling.

Most do not want their rooms to look like recording studio's - or at least the better half's don't want it to look that way :D But as you have seen from my testing, trial and error, I have improved the sound of my room with some of the Auralex Acoustic products. For < $300 worth of investment, I have done many placements and tests and like the results I have obtained

Dan
 
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dangerous

DTB300: Thanks, this sound encouraging and a bit easier than buying and switching out interconnects.
What's the concensus on glass windows and blinds behind your ML's ??
 
If you are really interested in doing some treatments with the guidance of a person in the know, contact either Ethan at Real Traps, or Glenn at GIK Acoutics. They will be more than glad to discuss your situation with you over the phone and make some recommendations.

Check out the costs and products at both web sites and make your decision on who to call. Both have great products and many great things said about both of them and their service - so you cannot go wrong choosing either.

Playing around with cables is fun (at least for me). It is surprising how much differences there are at both ends of the cost spectrum.

If you just want to try some stuff out yourself you can pick up some Auralex pretty cheap and do some trial and error with placement. It was fun for me and I got some nice results.

Dan
 
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DTB300 said:
I am not an Audioholics fan at all...just my opinion...
Dan
And neither am I, Dan. Wouldn't scientists benefit from having an open mind, and treating science as an open subject, where not everything is known yet, and let alone can be defined by known measurements?

JonFo said:
I would recommend spending your time on placement and your money on room acoustics.These two will have orders of magnitude greater influence on sound quality than any cable ever will. Room acoustics is again the biggest influence on the ‘sound’. All else is a distant second. I’m constantly amazed that people with obviously untreated rooms will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on other parts of the system in search of improvements and ignore the room.
Jon, I'm with you 100%!

audioraptured said:
What's the concensus on glass windows and blinds behind your ML's ??
audioraptured, am not sure about consensus, but I'd worry about how reflective glass is. I encourage you to search for my post linking to Stereophile's experience with using acoustic traps and panels with MLs. Based on that experience, Gayle Sanders himself changed his mind in the direction of favoring absorption of the back wave of MLs.
 
jfm said:
audioraptured, am not sure about consensus, but I'd worry about how reflective glass is. I encourage you to search for my post linking to Stereophile's experience with using acoustic traps and panels with MLs. Based on that experience, Gayle Sanders himself changed his mind in the direction of favoring absorption of the back wave of MLs.

i use absorption panels from gik acoustics behind my ml's to absorb the back waves and am quite happy with the sound.

gik has a new corner base trap which you can get for just $129 for a short time.
http://www.gikacoustics.com/product_info.html
 
dangerous news

jfm: thanks, read the Stereophile and went to the Jan 19th post of yours, and got started with musicplayer articles. Sure is a lot to consider and try to re-arrange, (read WIFE approval), but the traps look like a better way to travel. Thanks DTB300, I do remember the post you did with the interconnects was great. the WB your system is beautiful...........thanks man
 
jfm said:
audioraptured, am not sure about consensus, but I'd worry about how reflective glass is. I encourage you to search for my post linking to Stereophile's experience with using acoustic traps and panels with MLs. Based on that experience, Gayle Sanders himself changed his mind in the direction of favoring absorption of the back wave of MLs.
Reflection will cause the sound to bounce around the room more, creating more of the comb effect to the sound - cancellation and excetuation of frequencies. I believe there needs to be some absorption to cut down on this comb effect, unless the room is very dead sounding.

First reflection points and/or the back wave treatment has been done by some of us, and as you pointed out by Gayle with rear absorption. While the rear absoption helped with the sound in my room, the first reflection points made more of a difference. Bass trapping along with my SMS-1 helped with low end taming - better detail and less boom.

I my room and setup, I have tried both absorption and diffusion and I opted for absorption.

Dan
 
audioraptured said:
jfm: thanks, read the Stereophile and went to the Jan 19th post of yours, and got started with musicplayer articles. Sure is a lot to consider and try to re-arrange, (read WIFE approval), but the traps look like a better way to travel.
The Musicplayer articles have some very good information. There is also an Acoustics forum over at Audio Circles and the Rives Acoustic forum over at the Audio Asylum. Between the three places there is a wealth of information to plow through.

If you can swing it, and you want to go with GIK (they seem to have the best price for what you are looking for), talk with Glenn about your situation and get HIS opinion on what he would recommend.

Dan
 
A single bass trap will not make drastic changes in bass improvements - if any at all.

Dan[/QUOTE]

Incorrect. I bought two GIK four inch panels and moved one behind by sub in the corner. One panel resulted in a three db drop in a bass peak at around 90 hz. according to before and after measurements with my Velo SMS-1 EQ. While I agee that full room treatment is much more effective, I challenge anyone to show any measurable difference in response with a cable product.(ruling out MIT and Transparent, which incorporate EQ into their design). I dare say it cannot be shown. IMO cables are the most overpriced, overhyped product in audio. There is no price limit that reviewers will pause and say, this is ridiculous. The Absolute Sound recently reviewed some $10,000 short speaker cables and reluctantly declared them to be worth it! Absurd. I used to be against blind testing, but expensive foolishness like this has convinced me that it is a good thing. I have been in this hobby for thirty years and I remember the controversey when thousand dollar cables first began to show up. Twenty years later, the manufactuers have concluded that if the consumer will pay $1K, why not charge $10K or maybe $25K? I know we can all decide these issues for ourselves, but like the original poster, there are many new listeners who read the constant cable hype in the magazines and forums and wonder maybe this stuff is the missing link to make my system sound great. Reality is that if you have competently designed and terminated cable from any manufacturer, you have that job covered. If you want to spend time listening to various cables, thats fine, but the differences in cables, if any, are dwarfed by room acoustics and speaker response. Deal with these two issues and you are most of the way to great sound. Last step is to get enjoyable, well recorded media to listen to. :)
 
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attyonline said:
Incorrect. I bought two GIK four inch panels and moved one behind by sub in the corner. One panel resulted in a three db drop in a bass peak at around 90 hz. according to before and after measurements with my Velo SMS-1 EQ. While I agee that full room treatment is much more effective, I challenge anyone to show any measurable difference in response with a cable product.

And I NEVER stated that an IC would make more of a difference than Bass Trapping. So no need to quote me, yet turn it around and reference cables as the comparison. I have stated before (even in this thread) that room acoustics are one of most ignored issues of an audiophiles sound problems or issues.

While the ONE trap did reduce your 90Hz peak, it only addressed that frequency point - based on your reply. 3dB down at 1 frequecy point is not a DRASTIC change as I stated in my post: "A single bass trap will not make drastic changes in bass improvements". Again ONE trap will not solve a rooms bass issues - you need multiple - as you agreed to. When talking about a single bass trap it needed further details for proper direction - as you then stated in your reply. That is what I was referring to as "incorrect" - my apologies for not having more detail in my post too.

Most rooms will have many more areas to be addressed with regards to bass trapping that a single trap can address. Check with Ethan or Glenn, as they are the Room Acoustic Experts. You will get 100% agreement from them on multiple bass trapping solutions.

Remember the user who stated this thread was initially asking about scientific proof on why cables can or could make a difference, which I addressed. IMO cables do make a difference, but it is up to each of us to determine how much they make a change (if any), and how much to spend, or not, on them. There are no stats, measurements, or figures that can prove how a cable will interact with a system. This has been discussed to death on many audio forums.

Dan
 
Well, you left out part of your quote which is most pertinent, "or any at all." This implies that one bass trap makes no difference, which in my case is just not true, and the difference was measurable. The OP listed a link which rejects cable company claims and takes the position that if you can hear it, you should be able to measure it. That statement makes great sense to me, esp. in light of $10,000 speaker cables from one company, with more from others no doubt in the pipeline. If there are no ways to correlate sound differences with measurements, I am skeptical that the differences exist, which leads to the dreaded blind testing protocol, which most audiophiles abhor. Sound differences can be measured and have been done so by speaker makers for decades. This is not cutting edge science. My opinion for the OP is there is no valid evidence that cables sound different, so your time and money are best spent elsewhere. :)
 
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Attyonline / Dan, Just logged on from Mt McKinley, Akaska and had to respond. It's amazing how this whole cable / interconnect issue gets so many peoples "you know what in an uproar" I just recently chimed in on the cable forum over at the "asylum" and was damn near accused of being a terrorist !!

Anyway I agree with both of you, cables have different properties, but in no way can the sometimes five figure price be justified. The accoustic room treatment is truly the "overlooked" area.
 
Nice to see ya Dave. This forum has always been civil IMO cause of the type of members we have. I respect everyone's opinion and give my own for what its worth. Its not politics, security, food or medical care so our differences in opinion are not that important in the big picture, so I do my best to keep it all in perspective. :)
 
DTB300 said:
Reflection will cause the sound to bounce around the room more, creating more of the comb effect to the sound - cancellation and excetuation of frequencies. I believe there needs to be some absorption to cut down on this comb effect, unless the room is very dead sounding.

First reflection points and/or the back wave treatment has been done by some of us, and as you pointed out by Gayle with rear absorption. While the rear absoption helped with the sound in my room, the first reflection points made more of a difference. Bass trapping along with my SMS-1 helped with low end taming - better detail and less boom.

I my room and setup, I have tried both absorption and diffusion and I opted for absorption.

Dan

Another thing to consider with the rear waves is diffusion or Abfusion (as RPG calls it). This is the horizontal specular dispersion of the rear wave, this keeps it from coming back at the panel, and also does a bit of a time domain shift in the reflected sound.

Behind the rear speakers, I think it really makes the biggest difference.

Behind the fronts, I might consider Abfusion. I.e. a diffuser with some high-frequency absorption properties. See PRG’s products.

Something to check out as well.
 
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