2.1 speaker system

Always the same article by jealous people:

Cables don't works
Digital works better than analog
Tube doesn't works

Pfff...no comment

All i can tell you is that all you need is to plug the cable (on a good system of course)and listen 10 seconds to understand.
I would not tell it if it was not true.

There are even more expensive and better cables.
There's no limit in the absolute's quest.

I return to long hours of musical ecstasy and let you to your prog metal, your computer and your sets of plastic boxes...

Have a good night to all and a good day for the others.

I won't officially weigh in on this debate, but to give you an idea of which side I might take...

in recent years I went from this guitar amp:



to this one:

It has always been my opinion that audiophile equipment is prohibitively expensive and often much much more expensive than it is worth.  I would consider myself an audiophile, except that my stereo, while large, is mostly cheap and second-hand components.

now, on to the cables.  It is true that power cables add a certain amount of low-level noise into the system, which can, conceivably, interfere with overall sound reproduction.  however, this is only really important in areas where the power supply (i.e. what comes to your house from your neighborhood grid) is dirty and full of noise.  Unless you have known harmonics in your supply, paying out the arse for expensive cables really isnt worth it IMO.  but hey, if you notice a difference and youre willing to pay, i am in no position to contradict.

GoldenSpiral wrote: It has always been my opinion that audiophile equipment is prohibitively expensive and often much much more expensive than it is worth. I would consider myself an audiophile, except that my stereo, while large, is mostly cheap and second-hand components.now, on to the cables. It is true that power cables add a certain amount of low-level noise into the system, which can, conceivably, interfere with overall sound reproduction. however, this is only really important in areas where the power supply (i.e. what comes to your house from your neighborhood grid) is dirty and full of noise. Unless you have known harmonics in your supply, paying out the arse for expensive cables really isnt worth it IMO. but hey, if you notice a difference and youre willing to pay, i am in no position to contradict.

The noise is also generated by atmospheric pollution (i mean the pollution generated by all electric devices of the house). Al devices are polluted themselves.

I'm not the only one to notice a huge difference.
I talk "a posteriori", while Mike and you talk "a priori".

In Mike's article, they always talk about the importance of listening tests. This is the only point that i agree.

I don't know how they made their tests to get such conclusions that :

-Digital is better than analog
-Cables don't work
-Tubes are not better than solid state

We do listening tests all the time:
We try with A cable.
We replace A cable by B cable.

If the difference is not obvious, we'll perform blind test. But most of the time, we don't need.

Tony was shocked that we're are abble to spend 500 or 1000€ for a power cable (or interconnect, it's the same)

The people ready to invest such amount of money in a power cable are the same abble to invest 15 000, 30 000€
or more for the whole system.

While the average guy spends 15 000€ or more into his new car, we prefer invest it into our first passion: music and its reprodution.

Now i can't understand that you have doubts about a 1000€
cable efficiency. That's hard to believe at first.

Of course, everything must stay proportionated, and to invest 1000€ into a power cable suppose to have a very transparent system, with, let's say, a 5000€ preamp.
It would have no sense to invest so much into cable and have an entry level preamp at the same time, for example.

There are also cheap power cables which works (like the 50€ ones i use currently).

There are much traps in hifi, i can quote you many so-called high ends very expensive products acclaimed by some critics, but which actually doesn't works;

Beside that, you have the real good produts which allow you to reach the musical nirvana.

Things like that:










And as you like digital, here's some good:


Teac drive


Goldmund converter




Edited by oliverstoned

"The point is: I don't hear any ground noise on my system ... no harmonics or anything. Even the washing machine which is in the room next to my system doesn't result in anything audible on my system, even when I turn the volume know WAY up."

Hé hé, you made the experiment...

It's because your system is not transparent...

And that's a paradox: cause more your system is transparent, more you hear all!!
Including things that degrade, such as unpure power.





Edited by oliverstoned

oliverstoned wrote: "The point is: I don't hear any ground noise on my system ... no harmonics or anything. Even the washing machine which is in the room next to my system doesn't result in anything audible on my system, even when I turn the volume know WAY up." Hé hé, you made the experiment... It's because your system is not transparent... And that's a paradox: cause more your system is transparent, more you hear all!! Including things that degrade, such as unpure power.

That's ridiculous. What you're saying is that a good hifi system is meant to pollute the source signal with static from the power line?

hahaha. Maybe just don't inhale enough mushroom substances to understand that theory. I always thought that the amp is meant to amplify the source signal with as little change to it as possible.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

oliverstoned wrote: "I always thought that the amp is meant to amplify the source signal with as little change to it as possible." That's it. And as a good tube amp in a good sytem is far more transparent in the highs, it reveals all.

My washing machine is not a part of the signal. Even the best amp in the world can not "reveal" things that weren't even in the signal in the first place.

Of course if your amp exposes its tubes like the one in your sig, it's obvious that it picks up all kinds of static interference. That's why sane amps have a metallic "cage" surrounding the circuitry.

Edit: LOL ... so the amp manufacturers make amps that are more vulnerable to interference and sell that as "increased transparency" ... while in turn the cable manufacturers sell you cables with built in low pass filters that remove the high frequencies again.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

oliverstoned wrote: "My washing machine is not a part of the signal. Even the best amp in the world can not "reveal" things that weren't even in the signal in the first place." Devices are polluting themselves electrically. And it simply degrade the sound. Do you contest it?

No. It's funny ... you're always modifying my statements so that they get a slightly different meaning. And you are combining your answer with new statements that are even more confusing than the previous ones:

"Devices are polluting themselves" ... what is that supposed to mean? "Devices are polluting each other" would be something that I would agree with. But as I said, countermeasures can be taken against that - and devices like the one in your sig which expose their circuitry like that are simply more affected by electronic interference than others.

"And it simply degrade the sound" ... yes/no. In case of the interference being in the audible frequency range, it simply results in a noise that you don't want to have in your signal ... but it leaves the rest of the signal completely unaffected. It "degrades" nothing.

Reminds me of what I read yesterday on www.audioholics.com. A very recommendable website! They are sort of in the middle between the "rationalists" and the "audiophile maniacs".

oliverstoned wrote: So you somehow contest that power issues may affect the good working of a device. That's interesting.

Not at all. Where did I say that?

What I'm saying is this: Power issues rarely ever affect the working issues of any modern amp (even low cost) so that the noise/pollution can actually be heard. This is not due to a lack of "transparency" in low cost amps which somehow filters out the noise or fails to reproduce it. It is simply due to the capabilities of the power supplies of the amps. The power supply converts the alternate current (ac) to a stable direct current (dc). In this process any instabilities are removed, except for some rare circumstances such as defective cables or devices in the same building, or trouble at the power plant. But these circumstances are VERY rare. It's certainly nonsense to spend huge amounts on cables and power supplies to filter out noise that you couldn't even hear in the first place.

 

^ One Word:

Scam.

at least from a scientific point of view. Sorry! If you really believe that $20,000 cables will make your system sound better ... go ahead.

Read this 10 page article:

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/intercon nects/truthcablesinterconnects.php

It is a very balanced article. The author is not just bashing the cable industry ... he is looking for proof of the ability of expensive cables to influence the sound ... and he finds some. But he is also coming to the conclusion that most of what some manufacturers of really expensive cables say is simply not holding up to objective testing.

I really had to smile when I read his description of a test where people were supposed to tell the difference between cables. A really expensive audiophile system was set up and technicians showed the cables to the test subjects and then played something. Most people really thought that they heard a difference between the really cheap cables and the really expensive ones. The funny thing is: The technicians didn't really switch cables ...

This shows that the human belief system is not rational at all. See this interesting article: http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/belief.html.

Think about it: When a normal person (meaning: not a technical expert) goes to an audiophile store and a sales person shows a really expensive hifi system and talks that person into buying it ... can that person then be objective about the system? I mean, admitting that it doesn't sound much different than a cheaper system would mean that that person acted foolishly. It would imply that that person was wrong all the time when listening to music on that system, thinking that it sounds superior. To protect oneself from the painful experience of being wrong, the human brain tries to maintain the illusion of an audible difference. It's the same with politics, religion, astrology and any other aspect of our daily lifes. The more we like something, the less rational we are about it. We can try to keep rational, but it is very hard.