Author Topic: The discerning audiophile's choice of proper speaker wire. ($35,000 for 2.5m)  (Read 39097 times)

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Offline Zucca

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Then again he was a law student and I was an EE student.

We EE can save and improve this planet. It's not a joke, we have a lot of responsability to stop those scammer sharks idiots. That said against stupidity there is no real treatment, yet.
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Can't love what you don't know. Zucca
 

Offline MrMobodies

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We EE can save and improve this planet. It's not a joke, we have a lot of responsability to stop those scammer sharks idiots.

It is a land of milk and honey for the scammers.
They are already making beeswax fuses.

Quote
That said against stupidity there is no real treatment, yet.

There is some form of treatment depending on how you apply it.

1. Subjecting the Audiophools to a hearing test on such frequencies that they claim to hear.

2. Getting Dave to tear the cables apart an analyse it but who would be foolish enough to spend all that money on one in the first place to save the sanity of the these Audiophools.

3. We could ask the so called scammers if they would like to send their cables in to Dave for a tear down to prove that they are not scammers but I doubt it. They are likely to refuse and stick under their slithery proprietary bullshit excuse just like how the Master Built cable of the first poster of this thread slithers about in the picture.

4. Stick it on that Audigoon website and the likes.

Here's a joke: Managing to steal them for a teardown wouldn't be a bad idea as they are possibly not worth anything anyway especially when they have the China Export logos showing on them.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Also in an average transceiver, the zobel network can be used to absorb all the RF on the speaker wires to stop it getting back into the audio PA. Basically it presents a low impedance to RF. This can make some wild and unexpected noises, particularly with cheap crappy low stability LM386's etc.

I almost hate those chips, I fail to understand why they are still so popular when there are so  many better alternatives.

There's nothing wrong with cheap and simple amp chips. It's just they are only good for applications with a local/internal speaker. They aren't meant to run with long cables.
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Offline floobydust

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Also in an average transceiver, the zobel network can be used to absorb all the RF on the speaker wires to stop it getting back into the audio PA. Basically it presents a low impedance to RF. This can make some wild and unexpected noises, particularly with cheap crappy low stability LM386's etc.

The Boucherot cell does work for differential-mode RF picked up by the xover inductors, within one channel.

But I find stereo loudspeaker wiring makes an excellent dipole antenna for common-mode RF, between the two (L and R) channels.
If you ever scope or RF spectrum analyzer on the loudspeaker outputs, you can see a lot of RF there, more so with MOSFET output stages.

This is the only science I have, as far as audible changes occurring with different audio cables and wiring.
I observe say AM radio station 680kHz with one set of cables, and another set of cables shifts tuning to between local AM stations and less RF interference is seen and heard as mostly "grit" or rectified/demodulated AM roaming around.  Not a lot of designers poke around for RF in audio designs.

The fix I use is clamp-on ferrite cores, instead of spending silly money on cables.
 

Offline CJay

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I almost hate those chips, I fail to understand why they are still so popular when there are so  many better alternatives.

There's nothing wrong with cheap and simple amp chips. It's just they are only good for applications with a local/internal speaker. They aren't meant to run with long cables.
Absolutely, there are plenty of nice, cheap, simple amp chips, my gripe is with the LM386 and its variants, they are nasty, unstable and noisy, there are many more small, cheap and modern amp chips that  perform better, are easier to make stable and require fewer components to work well.


 

Offline MrMobodies

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I was looking on Ebay for some more distribution sockets of a smaller size that I can mount under my desk.

Looks what I come across:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audiophile-Power-Mains-Distribution-unit-8-way-US-sockets-Excellent-condition/153268297455
Audiophile Power Mains Distribution unit 8-way US sockets Excellent condition
£350




Aircraft grade aluminium chassis with Gaofei rhodium-plated connectors.

·      Hand-wired with solid core copper wire
·      Gaofei rhodium-plated contacts standard IEC inlet (10 amps at 230 volts)
·      4 pairs for US mains socket outlets Gaofei rhodium-plated
·      Dimensions (WHD mm) 328 x 90 x 125
·      Maximum load 2300W at 230V

You'd find that anywhere.

https://www.hificollective.co.uk/power-connectors-gaofei-iec.html


The IEC connector only costs £27 excluding VAT and $18 on Ali express
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Rhodium-plated-Gaofei-GF-RHO08I-IEC-AC-Inlet-socket-audio-grade/1158165466.html

Don't know what those US sockets are doing in the UK.

https://www.solidrop.net/product/gaofei-rbl-d20a-red-copper-rhodium-plated-ac-20a-power-receptacles-wall-outlet.html


They only sell them on Ali Express for $32.20 a piece.




The wires looks the same as ordinary solid core.

That is something that you can build yourself for tiny fraction of the price.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2018, 09:38:07 pm by MrMobodies »
 

Offline bd139

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Somewhere in China there's a guy who just bought himself a Tesla after selling those for a year :-DD
 

Online xrunner

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Aircraft grade aluminium chassis with Gaofei rhodium-plated connectors.

I love rhodium.

I really love it - it's the coolest element ever!  :clap:
I told my friends I could teach them to be funny, but they all just laughed at me.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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I almost hate those chips, I fail to understand why they are still so popular when there are so  many better alternatives.

There's nothing wrong with cheap and simple amp chips. It's just they are only good for applications with a local/internal speaker. They aren't meant to run with long cables.
Absolutely, there are plenty of nice, cheap, simple amp chips, my gripe is with the LM386 and its variants, they are nasty, unstable and noisy, there are many more small, cheap and modern amp chips that  perform better, are easier to make stable and require fewer components to work well.

Never had a problem with 386s, where did you get yours from? Of course, I got mine from the real Radio Shack store.
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Offline Cyberdragon

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Quote
Looks what I come across:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audiophile-Power-Mains-Distribution-unit-8-way-US-sockets-Excellent-condition/153268297455
Audiophile Power Mains Distribution unit 8-way US sockets Excellent condition
£350

Those are trippy blue sockets, wonder where those came from.
*BZZZZZZAAAAAP*
Voltamort strikes again!
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Offline CJay

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Never had a problem with 386s, where did you get yours from? Of course, I got mine from the real Radio Shack store.

I've had them from RS Components, Farnell, Maplin, the local electronics shops (used to be blessed with three in my small home town) and I may even have bought them from the UK version of Radioshack, Tandy, at some point back in the mists of time.

To defend the chip a little, I've never managed to burn one up in anything I've 'designed' but I've seen loads in kits, homebrew and even commercial stuff that have had problems.

They serve a purpose and are cheap but there are plenty of more modern parts that perform better, are easier to use, less prone to oscillation, deliver more power (if it's needed) and have nice features like DC volume control...
 

Offline bd139

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I’ve let the smoke out of a few. They still work while it’s coming out which is impressive.  :-DD

Main problems for me are the hiss (unless you apply one of the little tricks people worked out)  and the distortion. It sounds horrible. Fine for things like radios where the sound fidelity is crap anyway but not audio applications of a any kind.

They make reasonable “power opamps” though for low frequency stuff. I’ve used two of them to drive a motor for example.
 

Offline CJay

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I’ve let the smoke out of a few. They still work while it’s coming out which is impressive.  :-DD

Main problems for me are the hiss (unless you apply one of the little tricks people worked out)  and the distortion. It sounds horrible. Fine for things like radios where the sound fidelity is crap anyway but not audio applications of a any kind.

They make reasonable “power opamps” though for low frequency stuff. I’ve used two of them to drive a motor for example.

Not convinced about  LM386 being OK for radio, I don't see why you'd want to add more noise or make it sound worse when it sounds pretty bad anyway?

As for power op-amps, which ones are you using?

I've casually looked around for a replacement for the L165V, I miss that chip, it was a really good all rounder and sounded pretty good as a simple audio PA.
 

Offline bd139

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LM386 is only "ok" on HF where the noise floor is pretty high anyway. Adding more noise and distortion to the audio chain doesn't really make it much worse than it already is. When the JRC clones appeared, the cost benefit of the noise reduction of a better part wasn't really worth the trade off.

Some of the cheap TDA series amps work reasonably well as power opamp, particularly TDA2040. That has decent open loop gain of around 20 up to 10MHz (not bad for an audio amp!), are virtually impossible to blow up and don't have any phase inversion problems. I tend to use an MJE3055 / MJE2955 pair and a TS922 driving the pair as a follower however because they are useful independently as well.
 

Offline LapTop006

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Don't know what those US sockets are doing in the UK.

For people who want worse connections?

One of the nice things about UK sockets is, unlike US sockets, plugs don't tend to fall out and connections are generally much more solid. Australian plugs are mostly decent, as are some of the europlug variants.

At least for US folk (and others that use that plug, Japan, Canada etc.) the low voltage and often bad connectors does (sadly) justify some level of upgraded power connections, although of course that stops *WAY* below many of these things.
 

Offline cdev

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I totally agree. The AC power plug we have here in the US is not the best. It would make sense just as a short term fix, to invert it at least so that if a plug was not in all the way some conductive item falling from above would hit the ground first, and perhaps not bridge the contacts. At the very least the outlets should recess the plugs into the wall a bit more. That would be a backwards-compatible change.

So, since audio modules were brought up, what are people's opinions of audio amplifier modules that can be used to make a quick, basic audio amp for a work area?

 I may build it into a panel with some other stuff like a quick and handy power supply.

« Last Edit: November 28, 2018, 02:56:28 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline CJay

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I totally agree. The AC power plug we have here in the US is not the best. It would make sense just as a short term fix, to invert it at least so that if a plug was not in all the way some conductive item falling from above would hit the ground first, and perhaps not bridge the contacts. At the very least the outlets should recess the plugs into the wall a bit more. That would be a backwards-compatible change.

So, since audio modules were brought up, what are people's opinions of audio amplifier modules that can be used to make a quick, basic audio amp for a work area?

 I may build it into a panel with some other stuff like a quick and handy power supply.
I like them, cheap and easy to use, the ones I use on the bench are TDA7297 modules, I've got a few TDA2030 modules too, I use those to replace fried audio amps when the original chips are obsolete.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AC-DC-6-18V-TDA7297-Digital-2x15W-2-CH-Audio-Stereo-Amplifier-Board-Module/292429885226?hash=item44162def2a:m:mOmOGx-4zbpjwlQ_843UrKg:rk:5:pf:1&frcectupt=true

They need a bigger heatsink but work well enough as supplied if you don't turn up the volume too much.
 
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Offline mnementh

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LM386 is only "ok" on HF where the noise floor is pretty high anyway. Adding more noise and distortion to the audio chain doesn't really make it much worse than it already is. When the JRC clones appeared, the cost benefit of the noise reduction of a better part wasn't really worth the trade off.

Some of the cheap TDA series amps work reasonably well as power opamp, particularly TDA2040. That has decent open loop gain of around 20 up to 10MHz (not bad for an audio amp!), are virtually impossible to blow up and don't have any phase inversion problems. I tend to use an MJE3055 / MJE2955 pair and a TS922 driving the pair as a follower however because they are useful independently as well.

Jeez bd, you pop up on the most interesting threads; now there's a whole 40 minutes of my life I'll never get back, all just because I made the mistake of trying to find a post of yours from a few days back...  :-DD

What I find hard to believe is that nobody here bothered to follow the rabbit-hole down to this shamelessly opportunistic website, which "product" was used to provide "supporting evidence" of the quality of these cables in the original article.  :palm:


https://www.thecablecooker.com

WARNING!

I recommend you don full close-quarters aggressive-engagement HazMat gear before proceeding; hip waders simply are NOT adequate with the frequency and velocity at which the badunka-dunk is flying over there.:-DD   If you are fully suited-up, I suggest you take a deep dive in the FAQ section; your life will never be the same.  :popcorn:

mnem
alt-codes work here:  alt-0128 = €  alt-156 = £  alt-0216 = Ø  alt-225 = ß  alt-230 = µ  alt-234 = Ω  alt-236 = ∞  alt-248 = °
 

Offline MrMobodies

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A cooker to cook cables.
A device to burn them.
Fuses with beeswax in them.
Cables built by so called masters.
USA built Reference cables from China.

Sounds like an illusion.

What are they on?
 

Offline mnementh

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"A fool and his money are some party..."    :-DD

mnem
alt-codes work here:  alt-0128 = €  alt-156 = £  alt-0216 = Ø  alt-225 = ß  alt-230 = µ  alt-234 = Ω  alt-236 = ∞  alt-248 = °
 

Offline Wan Huang LuoTopic starter

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What I find hard to believe is that nobody here bothered to follow the rabbit-hole down to this shamelessly opportunistic website, which "product" was used to provide "supporting evidence" of the quality of these cables in the original article.  :palm:
Thanks for bringing up the cable cooker. I bolded it in the original post but nobody else did. This stuff is :bullshit:  |O
Quote
Does longer conditioning time mean better performance? Can I over-Cook my cables? Will they be damaged in any way?   
Over-Cooking can reduce the performance, at least temporarily. The characteristics of this are a reduced or diminished soundstage and a dull, lifeless quality to the music. If this situation occurs, merely letting the cables physically rest, and settle, then putting them back in the music system to play for a few hours brings them back to their optimal performance level. Over-Cooking does NOT do any damage to the cabling whatsoever.
:-BROKE
 
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Here's a joke: To be fair there was just too much wankery to read especially for something that slithers around on the coach and I don't want to know where it's been or what has been done to it and they can stew it down on their "cooker" all they want.

Surprise surprise they also discuss it at Audigoons:
Spoilter alert: If your IQ is affected in anyway by reading this stuff better not read the thread or the quote below.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/anyone-own-an-audiodharma-cable-cooker

Quote
Anyone own an AudioDharma cable cooker?
wig802
03-15-2014 4:54pm
You will never hear how good your cables can sound if they're not cooked and demos will seem pointless without a cable cooker.

I've made many bad cable purchases and the cycle was broken a few years ago when a local audiophile friend cooked at least 4 pairs of IC/2 pairs SC and I couldn't believe my ears. Differences between cables are easily revealed...

Every quarter I recharge all of my cables to keep them at their optimum level. This is a piece of equipment that all serious music lovers need...

AudioDharma Cooker? It's more like AudioDrama.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2018, 07:11:08 pm by MrMobodies »
 

Offline Bassman59

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Honestly in this day and age we should have the amplifiers in the speakers (active speakers) and differential (at least) or digital signalling. Then you can run it over wet string.

I've owned a pair of Genelec 1031A active studio monitors for 22 years now. They're biamped with an active crossover. XLR analog in. Attached to the TV is a pair of the KRK RokIt 5 guys, also biamped with balanced input. And I got a pair of the $99 Mackie biamped powered monitors, because I designed a couple of audio things and when testing I didn't want to blow up the Genelecs. (I haven't blown up the Mackies, though.)

 

Offline Bassman59

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They have even got a 15 day trial and return for Audiogoon members
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/synergistic-red-fuse/post?highlight=%2BAudio%2BMagic%2BBeesWax&postid=1289322#1289322
Quote
davidpritchard720 posts
12-29-2015 2:44am

Audio Magic makes the $175 beeswax infused fuse for $175.00.
I can find no information about returning this fuse for refund.

Audio Horizon makes an audiophile fuse. Most are $117.00
They carry fuses up to 15 amps rated.
They offer a 15 day trial and return policy to established Audiogon members.

A 15-day free trial? Hmmm. Let's see what happens when the fuse has to, you know, do its primary job, which is to open in the event of a mains short ...
 

Offline Towger

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I can't help thinking that the bees wax in those fuses is far too yellow/orange looking.   In fact it looks more like ear wax.
 


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