Re: Cables again. For Arny, et al.

On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 07:22:36 -0800, nebulax wrote
(in article <fqegns01dfi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):

> On Feb 20, 7:32 pm, Steven Sullivan <ssu...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> nebulax <nebu...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> I think it's been repeatedly proven that sonic differences CAN be
>>> engineered
>>> into cables, and the specialist cable makers have been doing that very
>>> thing
>>> for years. What irks me about the whole business is that the most
>>> 'neutral'
>>> sounding cables are the most expensive!
>> 
>> What on earth makes you think that? Or are you using the word
>> 'neutral' sarcastically?
> 
> No, not being sarcastic. For example, Cardas has an interconnect they
> call Neutral Reference, which goes for around $525 a meter, whereas
> their entry level Crosslink cable goes for $105 a meter. What
> determines which cable is more 'neutral'?

Cardas' marketing department.

> Well, I guess that's hard to
> say, because you would have to have at least one cable as a reference.
> I don't know what a neutral cable would sound like (hopefully like
> nothing), but I have heard some rather un-neutral cables, and they can
> do weird stuff to the signal.

For interconnects try a piece of generic coax with a tin RCA soldered on
each 
end. For speaker cables, try a length of 14 AWG zip cord. 
> 
> In my experience, the cheaper cables get the more 'colorful' sound.

In my experience and in many double-blind listening tests, there is no 
difference between the sound  of  the cheap cable sometimes thrown in the
box 
with a new CD player or VCR and a three-thousand dollar pair of Nordost 
Valhallas. 

> Some of the weirdest sounding interconnects I've ever heard were entry
> level Monster cables (Interlink 400, I think), that were bloated on
> the low-end, artificial in the mids, and rolled off on the high freqs.
> I can only assume they did this 'engineering' on purpose for those
> consumers who really want to hear something different in their system.
> Granted, as bad as some audio gear sounds (80's vintage cd players,
> anybody?), that sort of coloration could be a blessing!

OK, now would you like to tell us just what magic technology it is that 
Monster employs to make a difference anywhere in the audio spectrum big 
enough to hear? 

Such purposeful fiddling with the sound would require capacitance and 
inductance values so large that they would require a a big box in the
center 
of each cable just to house them.

IOW, the possibility of a piece of wire having enough capacitive reactance
or 
inductive reactance to affect any but the very highest frequencies (above 
20KHz) is nil. It's physics that determine these things and you are
talking 
about a cable employing several series and several parallel filter
circuits 
requiring large value capacitors as well as resistors and possibly even 
inductors of at least several microhenries to effect. Such filters alone 
would cost more than any cable in the Monster Interlink 400 series.

In other words it's the known principles of of electronics engineering
that 
determines the effect on a signal by the conductor carrying it, and while 
even a bend in a wire can affect the transfer of signals at very high 
frequencies (like 2 GigaHertz), there is practically nothing one can do at

audio frequencies to affect the wire's effect on the signal at all except
to 
maybe make a poor connection and that would likely cause distortion if 
anything at all, and certainly wouldn't affect the frequency response.
Like 
someone else said here recently, You could use a couple of lengths of 
barbed-wire fencing between your preamp and your power amp, and baring any

hum or interference pick-up (such an arrangement would be un-shielded),
there 
would be no difference in the sound between the barbed wire and the 
aforementioned $3,000 Nordost.