Comments for Audio/Video Cables: The Science and the Insanity at http://www.hometheaterhifi.com , comment 1 to 47 out of 20 comments http://www.hometheaterhifi.com Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:55:36 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2962 So some rich guy (mostly guys) wants to spend more money on his hobby. I doubt the rich guy is going into this with his eyes closed. And as long as the seller is not making fraudulent claims, why is everyone getting so upset? The harm, if their is any, is limited to someone who can afford it. It is a different story with mid-priced products like Monster sold to average guys for whom this is a one-off purchase. Caught up in the emotion of making a major purchase, many consumers place too much faith in the advice of salesmen. I think that $100 Monster HDMI cables represent a far bigger swindle than $10,000 Nordost Valhalla interconnects. There might be some harm when Joe Moneybags buys Valhallas, but it is pretty subtle. From an economic standpoint (I am an academic economist), the potential harm is that resources that might have gone to some other greater good have been diverted to making the Valhallas. How much better off would we be if those greedy cable makers were hard at work designing, oh, Apple iPads or whatever? Probably not much. - David D Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:40:26 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2942 As one comment has already pointed out, have a look at what the speaker and component manufacturers use,especially the higher end ones. This will give you a good indication of what good quality and good sounding cable is like. My suggestion is to buy well made 12g speaker cable and short lengths of interconnects with tight fittings. By all means pay what you want, but you will get great sound and vision without going all high end. Spend the savings on music or movies and enjoy. - James M Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:55:22 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2930 The concept of "how much you should spend on cables" has been beaten to death on every A/V website. The general advice is to spend 10% of your total A/V budget on cables. - JEJ Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:17:13 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2927 The average Joe or Jane goes down to Best Buy, and for those people to buy expensive interconnects hurts them. The high cost of the 'fancy' interconnects they get pressured into buying means that too much of their budget goes to interconnects, ad so they buy an inferior TV, or Amp, or DVD/Blu-ray player, or particularly inferior speakers. The degradation of sound or picture from the inferior components will NEVER be fixed by the fancy cables... The high profit margins on the interconnects earns them a lot of attention by the stores who sell them. How do we educate the average HT buyer to choose interconnects that are appropriate to their purchase? I posted advicet on my website - how about you folks? - David Gibbons Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:47:21 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2920 I believe you're really preaching to the choir on this one. But, good for you anyway. Back in 1991, The Audio Critic published some no nonsense technical articles (Numbers 16 & 17) about the reasons cables can "sound" different. Sounding different does not make a cable better though, and too many audiophiles treat them as tone controls. For those interested, here's the link: http://theaudiocritic.com/cwo/Back_Issues/ - Norm Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:02:40 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2917 It's just like with orange juice: it all comes out of the same tanker-ship and only later they add some extra flavours. There are many cable-companies but only a few cable manufacturers. The companies order their wire here, and they ask to put something extra to make it look more fancy. In general you get the same copper at the DIY store. That wire comes from the same factory. That extra flavour can cause a 5% better sound experience in the long run. But $2000 buys you the best tweeter in the whole world, that will make a 300% difference. - Arjan Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:59:11 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2913 " ... Apparently, there are such things as liquid cables. Here is the link: http://www.teoaudio.com/ But, it is not mercury in the cable. It is a mixture of gallium, indium, and tin. Gallium becomes a liquid at just above room temperature, and Indium/Tin Oxide is used in liquid crystal displays. ..." I did not say such cables used mercury. I provided an example of a metal that is liquid at room temperature, because at first glance the concept is a bit alien to most people. " ... there are cables made of liquid metals (metals that are liquid at room temperature ... an easy to grasp example of such a metal is mercury) ..." - some guy Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:50:39 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2909 "Speaker cables, especially if running near any other wiring, should probably be shielded." Wrong, obviously you need to do some very basic research. This is novice information that you should know about. - Walden567 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:25:10 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2908 Has anyone made speaker cables out of the Daburn FEP ribbon cable? How did you terminate them? What were the results? To put things in prespective, I don't believe in megabuck interconnects, speaker or power cables. My experience has shown there is a point of diminishing returns and in some cases the more expensive cable degraded the sound of my system. So I like to experiment a little. Hence the question about using the Daburn for speaker cables. - JBK Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:04:33 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2895 Put me in the mostly, but not completely, skeptics camp. I am educated (and I use that term loosely!) in physics, but have spent most of my career designing and manufacturing custom precision electronics. I concede that this does not indicate I know "squat" about audio. However, I do believe some of my experiences may be applicable. I am not attempting to address any one issue in detail, but wish to provide a few random musings (some obvious, some possibly wrong). Power cords: They should be adequate to handle the current (must are). They should have quality connectors (most do). If the power cables are going to run anywhere close to other wiring or equipment, twisted shielded pairs are preferable, perhaps necessary. Keep them as short as possible. Some of the claims I see for power cords are beyond my level of understanding. For instance, how can a power cord help deliver a huge demand for instantaneous current when the AC signal is crossing zero?? Power conditioners: I want some type of line surge protection for all my electronic equipment, including phones, computers, etc. Surge protection and high frequency filtering is a good thing, and possibly regenerating AC power if one suffers significant voltage distortion and/or variations. (My personal preference might be to use paramagnetic transformers, but they are expensive, heavy, and not particularly pretty.) When told about all the evil phenomena that can creep into my system without perfectly clean power, megajoules on demand, etc., I wonder what the hell is the power supply in the equipment supposed to do? Cables: Interconnect cables should be shielded. Balanced pairs should be twisted and shielded. Keeping the runs as short as possible is as important, if not more so, than any other thing. ( I'd probably choose a 1/10" paper clip connection over a 10' $10K masterpiece.) Terminations of wires to connectors should use gas-tight crimps for reliability. Good quality, gold plated connector pins are recommended (I don't know enough about silver plating to comment). Do not make too sharp a bend in cables. This can disrupt the shielding and even separate the insulation from the wire, which is disastrous in impedance controlled coaxial cable. I have auditioned cables, and must confess, I cannot tell much, if any difference among many samples. Maybe I just don't have that Golden Ear, (or vivid imagination?). I don't buy junk, but don't see the need for extremely expensive cables, either. (P.S. It's probably a good idea to clean connectors occasionally, but with good, tight fitting contacts, this should be rare). I wonder if cable auditioners take great pains to keep all other parameters fixed (cable lengths, cable routing, etc., not to mention the glasses of wine...)?? Speaker cables, especially if running near any other wiring, should probably be shielded. Maybe not so much for what they might pick up (this part of the system is low Z) but what they may radiate. They should have a low enough impedance to handle large currents demands. I'm not sure how you can match any cable perfectly to a speaker, since it's Z wanders all over the place. The entire outside of any electrical chassis should be grounded. I would hope that manufacturers take great pains to make this so, but with so many panels anodized, painted, etc., I wonder if this is true. Unfortunately, this is difficult to check unless you scratch through the coatings or open the chassis and check from the inside! (Screwheads don't count!) If cables cross close to one another, try to keep them at right angles to one another. System grounding is a big deal, but often very little can be done about it. This is because each piece of equipment is designed independently from the rest of the system, and must meet agency approvals, etc. This is a subject unto itself, as I have found ground loops a very misunderstood topic. If possible, make sure your safety ground at the wall outlet really has a very low impedance path to earth ground. I have seen people run a separate earth ground from their equipment straight to a buried copper rod in the earth. While this may seem extreme, I would never say you're wasting your time doing it. In summary, I would suggest that proper shielding, grounding, and cable routing play a more significant role in clean sound than does most of the latest, greatest, double mojo, hexihelical wound, superconducting, triple-knotted wonder cables. - Dale DuVall Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:34:02 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2891 "But I suspect that these companies do spend some time and money researching how cabling affects the signal between boxes." NOT. If this was true, companies would be willing to actually publish scientific data to support their work...which they don't. Hell, Nordost is the only boutique company I know of that at least publishes specs for their wire, even though their products are ridiculously overpriced. I'm convinced that most of the cable companies come up with a layout that looks fancy and expensive,then have a marketing department create some BS that sounds scientific to ignorant buyers, and then proceed to price the product at 1000%+ of the manufacturing cost. - Tyler Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:05:36 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2890 I would suspect a very poor design with one of those cables if those measurements are legit. Anyone with any kind of engineering knowledge knows that you would not experience differences of that magnitude between properly designed cables. - Tyler Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:58:51 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2885 See also a discussion in the CAVE (link is shown below), where one of our readers measured the room response with different cables, and found a difference that can be seen on graphs. Hello!!! Has anyone tried this before? Can the proof that cables make a difference be this simple? Criticisms (valid ones) anybody? http://cave.hometheaterhifi.com/group/cables/forum/topic/show?id=3396734:Topic:9439&xg_source=msg_group_disc - JEJ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:14:14 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2884 Apparently, there are such things as liquid cables. Here is the link: http://www.teoaudio.com/ But, it is not mercury in the cable. It is a mixture of gallium, indium, and tin. Gallium becomes a liquid at just above room temperature, and Indium/Tin Oxide is used in liquid crystal displays. - JEJ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:10:39 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2872 " ... I have a few questions for those arguing in favor of high-end cables (or for that matter, anything beyond well-made basic cables ..." I am not arguing "for" high-end cables. I am arguing that they have a right to exist in the marketplace, and that if no-one bought them, they would soon go away, as the free market pretty much insures they would. As for all cables being made the same way, there are cables made of liquid metals (metals that are liquid at room temperature ... an easy to grasp example of such a metal is mercury) that, obviously, cannot be extruded by dies. Since the main premise of the article is about the price, not the material, I suggest they be included as well. - some guy Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:13:36 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2866 I have a lot of expensive audio equipment. I've justified and rationalized my audio expenditures. I like what I have. Would I have desired to spend less - yes... But the market always balances out. Sellers always sell for the most they can get and buyers always pay as little as possible. And the reality is always somewhere in between. Mercedes is a good example. Mercedes is generally considered to have the best engineering in the automotive world - and perhaps their most expensive cars are the best engineered. Everything else in their product line benefits accordingly. What we perceive as good value varies greatly. The more personal the experience is, the easier it is to rationalize. Audio is very personal. And for each and every one of us who are bitten there will always be a certain disconnect about pricing. We spend on audio what we will and not as we should as with other things. We all agree that the included cable in the box sucks because you can't get something for nothing (even though the cost of the cable is buried in the price - so it isn't really free). Why should cable cost $1 per foot or $100 per foot or $10,000 per foot? The "real" cost is always a moving target, depending on the vagaries of the perception of value. What we choose to connect the gear is always ancillary (and some would argue the gear is also ancillary). We supplement because we can. We think it works better somehow. Start the rationalization. Beyond what works is simply smoke and mirrors. And we have all taken the blue pill... - Vilip Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:19:45 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2865 Once the coils of wire and the extrusion die are set up, the cable is mass produced. - JEJ Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:30:18 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2864 RE: Ferrari Comments By nature, for low unit volume runs the manufacturing process will differ from high unit volume runs. The economics of automation are not favorable until a minimum unit threshold is achieved, typically in excess of 100k units. All this to say, in addition to the supporting evidence from the video, that Ferraris (or Bugattis, Rolls Royces, Bentleys, et al) are not manufactured in the same manner as your average Ford. The unit cost correctly would include COGS, SG&A and Depreciation. At every point a Ferrari has a higher cost, which results in a price that is an order of magnitude higher than mass manufactured automobiles. - Andrew Yang Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:58:35 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2863 So do we think the expense is based on what the market will bear? Certainly these ultra-expensive cables wouldn’t be manufactured if nobody wanted them, however if the markup is so great, it’s not like these cables are made and sit around using up valuable capital? Ferraris are made to an extreme limit and therefore valuable and pre-ordered for a couple of years. They could almost ask what they want? - Piero Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:05:07 +0100 http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/technical-articles/786-audiovideo-cables-science-and-insanity.html#comment-2862 Though off topic, if you think that a Ferrari is built the same way as any other car, you haven't really watched a tour of the factory before: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6457427583913966018# It's in Italian unfortunately (I've seen a tour on Discovery HD before), but while parts are machined like other car companies, they are then hand inspected, polished, and tuned, in addition to fully assembled by hand, the fabric is all stitched by hand, and there is a fantastic amount of work that goes into each of those cars. Yes, it's on a small scale, but it's also done in such an exacting way, you know where your money has gone. I can't talk about how cables are made, as I've got no idea about that, but watching that video will give you a better idea of how much work goes into a Ferrari. You'll also see some gardens in the plant, that was done to keep the humidity at a better level for working on them, and was friendlier than just adding humidifiers. - ChrisHeinonen Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:19:25 +0100