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First DSD now cables. You may want to have someone start your car Mark! I am ……. unavailable!
Audio manufacturer Van Alstine has written extensively on subjective vs objective in audio, and cables. Hs writing on this topic is worth a read. Here is my non-EE interpretation (consult him for the better informed ‘skinny’:
Cables, being a passive item, cannot PRODUCE anything. However, they can REproduce high frequency oscillations produced by an ampifier (or preamp) that is sensitive to load characteristics. Basically, in this case anyway (as I understand it) ,the amp is oscillating and the cable is merely passing the oscillations through.
Frank Van Alstine is at most of the major audio shows,Mark; drop in and introduce yourself. He’s got a lot of insight into the particular topic.
Kimber Kable Timbres appear to be a newer version of Kimber interconnects that I had in my system some years back. They are basically a unshielded design as far as I can tell and the version I had gave me hum problems when used in different locations in my system. Could the ultrasonics you see be caused by some outside interference due to the unshielded design?
It certainly could.
I looked at these files a couple days ago. I did not get 100% nulling upon reversal. There was very, very little left. I aligned them to the nearest bit, but minor clock drift prevented total cancelling of the signals. Noticed the issue with Kimber. I also noticed if you looked at the FFT of the silence just before the music some cables showed 50 hz hum and others didn’t. The van den Hul showed by far the most hum probably because it has 5 ohms resistance.
Not that these differences were enough to explain the prose written about the sound differences. There simply is not enough difference in the files for that.
Thanks Dennis.
Ok Mark,
Here is a question which maybe you could answer.
I can change the sound of my high resolution stereo system by placing AAA magnets on the interconnects and/or speaker cables. No one has addressed how magnetic fields affect cables. Here is my take. (I secure AAA magnets with the + end toward the connection with electrical tape) .
Magnets clearly change the sound. They appear to decrease shrillness at the expense of dynamic range in a direct proportion. A few magnets make the musical presentation more listenable, but too many and the sound becomes diminished in both treble and dynamics. It is an odd phenomenon which is not currently described to my knowledge.
I thought you should know – I have no physics explanation.
Best,
Scott
Magnetism and electricity are very closely related. So it’s not big surprise that you can affect the sound of your system with magnets place in close proximity to your cables…and especially around low level signals (before the amplifiers). If the changes (which are always going to distort the accurate signal) are pleasant to you ears, then keep doing it. However, a great recording playing in a great system should eclipse the magnet modified rig.
I believe that the ultrasonic frequencies in the Kinder Kable are the result of external noise. From the next to last paragraph in the article, “Also worth noting is that the non-shielded Kimber and the Van den Hul with its relatively high shield resistance were somewhat sensitive to external noise sources such as fluorescent or energy saving lamps.” If you zoom into the fade out at the end of the file, it is especially easy to see the noise. Some of the other files show some noise, but not nearly as much as the Kinder Kable. For example, the Wireworld_Plat file shows occasional hum.
You’re right…it makes no sense to ignore proper shielding.
Kimber claims that their braided design alleviates the need for shielding. That was not my experience with them. I found my 1 meter sets of PBJ’s to be highly sensitive to hum pickup. Bought them after they received glowing reviews in all the major magazines in 1993. Another time I got burned by listening to the Golden Ear snake oil peddlers. 🙁
First of all Dr. “M” – thank you for removing a lot of the “haze” I’ve had about the whole deal of High Res downloads. Your frank and honest work will be saving me a ton of money! My main question about that subject is whether putting a 16 bit/44.1 CD into a “larger high-res envelope” causes an harm (other than to my wallet)?
As for “audiophile cables”, I’ve, for some time, have had a very nagging feeling about having to spend a high (if not VERY HIGH) percentage of a bought component’s price on a connecting cable(s) to make that component sound it’s best. Envisioning myself as a quality audio component maker, after spending years of research and development on my creation with the goal of bringing that product to market at the best quality and performance level (at ANY price point) – I would be totally embarrassed to find out from “others” that my component “absolutely” needed an expensive cable to perform to the capacity that I had in mind! As if NONE of my R&D when into making sure that any cable that the end-user would use would let all of that hard work go down the toilet! It seems, at the very least, I would “warn” the end-user to steer clear of these “inferior” cables to make sure my hard work would shine through…. I will be seeing you at T.H.E. Show this coming Friday (5/29) to shake your hand for letting me leave that event with a lot more $$$ than I would have. : )
Upconverting CDs to larger bit buckets doesn’t do any harm but doesn’t help things either. Even Neil and Ponomusic don’t do it. As for cables, think about the care that equipment makes take in their designs…internally they use good cables but not the major audiophile brands and they properly design the power supplies to avoid needing power conditioning and expensive power cords.
See you this weekend.
I think cables can “change” the sound but (in most cases I suspect) not necessarily because they’re revealing more information. As has been suggested above, some cables can alter the sound of a system because they are introducing unwanted noise, or, in the case of speaker cables, interfering with the output stage stability.
Hello Mark
Thank you for eliminating the mist over the cost of cable quality.
Very helpful info.
Cheers
Alphonso Soosay