Shock result - interconnects sound the same!

As an interconnect test I soldered up a short adapter (4cm) with a male phono,
two female phonos and a jack plug.
This allowed me to take a mono source and feed it directly to the left channel
of a sound card, while also sending it through the interconnect under test to
the right channel of the sound card.

The source was Donna Summer's 'Bad Reputation', which has a lot of treble.
I would have used Abba's 'The Day Before You Came' but I get a bit emotional
listening to that which might spoil the results.

Using Goldwave and comparing the source directly with the source passed through
the oldest, cheapest interconnect in my junkbox revealed that the difference
peaked at -57.9dB. After taking the difference and maximising it, it sounded
like the original, with more noise and a grainy effect to the treble.

If anyone can hear anything at 58dB below the music level he must have
better ears than me.

I haven't yet calibrated the sound card, i.e. balanced the two channels
but these preliminary results suggest that the squirrel is nuts.

--
Eiron

There's something scary about stupidity made coherent - Tom Stoppard.

In article , Eiron wrote:
As an interconnect test I soldered up a short adapter (4cm) with a male phono,
two female phonos and a jack plug.
This allowed me to take a mono source and feed it directly to the left channel
of a sound card, while also sending it through the interconnect under test to
the right channel of the sound card.

I've been wondering why so few people seem to have thought of this. I did the
same thing myself with some fancy cables lent to me by a colleague who seemed
convinced that they made his system sound wonderful, but with one of his cables
in one channel and one of my own bog-standard ones in the other channel, the
"stereo" image of a mono source was pin sharp in the middle with no splashes to
the side whatsoever. I listened using loudspeakers and headphones with the same
results.

It was only because my colleague is a professional sound mixer that I even
entertained the notion of bothering to try this at all. I've no idea what could
have happened when he swapped cables to make his system sound different, and it's
rather worrying that someone doing his job might be "hearing" differences that
aren't there. Apparently even the people that mix the original material are human
too, so where does that leave objectivity?

Rod.

Hi,

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
om...

It was only because my colleague is a professional sound mixer that I even
entertained the notion of bothering to try this at all. I've no idea what
could
have happened when he swapped cables to make his system sound different,
and it's
rather worrying that someone doing his job might be "hearing" differences
that
aren't there. Apparently even the people that mix the original material
are human
too, so where does that leave objectivity?

This happens more than I would like to admit. I worked as a live sound
engineer, and on a few occasions I've reached out to a large mixing desk,
tweaked
a knob or fader to make a small adjustment and later realised I'd picked a
channel
that wasn't connected to anything. Do that a few times and you start to
realise the
meaning of 'expectation bias' and the value of controlled listening tests.
Any sound
engineer who claims to have never done this is probably telling porkies.

It comes in handy sometimes though - on more than one occasion musicians
have
asked me to do something stupid with a monitor mix while they are on stage.
You
look them straight in the eye, grab an unconnected knob and start to twist,
then
raise your eyebrows in a sort of 'is that better?' gesture from the side of
stage. Often
they'll give you a happy nod and smile. If you don't get the nod, then
there's
probably work to do.

Regards,

Glenn.

"Glenn Booth" wrote in message
...

It comes in handy sometimes though - on more than one occasion musicians
have
asked me to do something stupid with a monitor mix while they are on
stage. You
look them straight in the eye, grab an unconnected knob and start to
twist, then
raise your eyebrows in a sort of 'is that better?' gesture from the side
of stage. Often
they'll give you a happy nod and smile. If you don't get the nod, then
there's
probably work to do.

Regards,

Glenn.

Sometimes it is wise to leave one empty channel strip at the end
of the console at which the producer sits. One then gets to mix in
peace:-))

Iain

In article ,
Roderick Stewart wrote:
It was only because my colleague is a professional sound mixer that I
even entertained the notion of bothering to try this at all. I've no
idea what could have happened when he swapped cables to make his system
sound different, and it's rather worrying that someone doing his job
might be "hearing" differences that aren't there. Apparently even the
people that mix the original material are human too, so where does that
leave objectivity?

If he's a 'pro sound mixer' does he concern himself with which cables to
use for work?

I've been in that field for many years and the only 'difference' I can
remember was how much better star quad was at rejecting interference in
difficult situations. And of course 'handling noise' for hand mic cables
or boom use. Non of which should apply to domestic interconnects.

The only times I've found a difference was when using long leads to and
from a Quad II to a tape recorder - easily explained by the high output
impedance. And doing the same with a pickup cartridge. But never with the
standard low impedance outputs of today's equipment.

--
*Some people are only alive because it is illegal to kill.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
Every concert sound mixer has his preference for cables. I know of none
who choose them for their sound.

Yup.

Mechanical integrity and reliability are the key factors.

Yup.

A cable problem, epecially a mic cable, during a concert recording is
the concert-master's worst nightmare. A wise concert rigger uses only
ten lines from twelve, leaving two spare on each box.

Given that most snakes will have at least one circuit down. ;-)

--
*We waste time, so you don't have to *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Iain Churches wrote:
It was only because my colleague is a professional sound mixer that I even
entertained the notion of bothering to try this at all. I've no idea what
could
have happened when he swapped cables to make his system sound different,
and it's
rather worrying that someone doing his job might be "hearing" differences
that
aren't there. Apparently even the people that mix the original material
are human
too, so where does that leave objectivity?

Every concert sound mixer has his preference for cables.
I know of none who choose them for their sound.
Mechanical integrity and reliability are the key factors.
A cable problem, epecially a mic cable, during a concert
recording is the concert-master's worst nightmare.
A wise concert rigger uses only ten lines
from twelve, leaving two spare on each box.

This is all true of course, but the cables in question were domestic hi-fi
ones, and my colleague actually was convinced that they made a difference to
the sound of his hi-fi system. Normally I'd have dismissed this as the usual
self-delusion of somebody who has been conned into spending a ridiculous amount
of money on something that hasn't made any difference and wants to cover his
embarrassment, but the fact that he judges sound quality for a living suggested
that just maybe this time there was something real to be investigated. I still
haven't quite decided whether I was relieved or disapointed when the most
objective test I could quickly devise indicated that there wasn't.

Rod.

Eiron wrote:
Shock result - interconnects sound the same!

As an interconnect test I soldered up a short adapter (4cm) with a
male phono, two female phonos and a jack plug.
This allowed me to take a mono source and feed it directly to the
left channel of a sound card, while also sending it through the
interconnect under test to the right channel of the sound card.

The source was Donna Summer's 'Bad Reputation', which has a lot of
treble.
I would have used Abba's 'The Day Before You Came' but I get a bit
emotional listening to that which might spoil the results.

Using Goldwave and comparing the source directly with the source
passed through the oldest, cheapest interconnect in my junkbox
revealed that the difference peaked at -57.9dB. After taking the
difference and maximising it, it sounded like the original, with more
noise and a grainy effect to the treble.

If anyone can hear anything at 58dB below the music level he must have
better ears than me.

I haven't yet calibrated the sound card, i.e. balanced the two
channels
but these preliminary results suggest that the squirrel is nuts.



What differences did you see? Did you also look at phase plots or just
amplitude? My experience is that the audible difference in interlinks is
more in the spatial information than the attenuation of high frequenies. So
with better interlinks you get more of the stereo image embedded in the
recording. More depth and better precision in where sounds come from.
Obviously you would need a recording that has that in it in the first place.
Pop/rock music with a lot of electronic instruments is usually not the best
for this.

On the theory side, many people seem to overlook the fact that the energy of
an electrical signal is stored in the electromagnetic field generated by the
signal (Maxwell's law from the 19th century if I remember well). Most of the
EM field is located OUTSIDE the conductor. For example in an interlink, most
of the EM field is between the inner conductor and the shield, so in the
insulation material between them. In my first year in university (electrical
engineering), I learned that various materials have different effects on the
EM field. Polair molecules respond different to changing EM fields than
a-polair molecules. So a coax with a teflon/PTFE (a-polair) dielectircum has
different characteristics than one with a PVC (polair) dielectricum. Air as
dielectricum is quite nice. Think of helix or foams cables. Capacitors come
with various dielectricums for various applications. So why not cables.

Then there's the magnetic influence of various metals. Iron (ferromagnetic)
wire sounds different that copper (non ferromagnetic) wire. Silver sound
different than copper. Many years ago I did a listening test of interlinks
for a Dutch audio magazine together with a student. We did used nice
stereo equipment for this but nothing over the top. Both of us were shocked
by the difference between
the silver (Siltech) cable and the copper cables. The difference between the
silver and copper cables was much larger than that between the various
copper
cables. A guy in Japan, at the time working for Mitsubishu (I think),
experimented with various metals like tin, (OFC) copper, iron, aluminium,
silver,
nickel. He published the results in the french magazine l"Audiophile in the
80's. I read a dutch translation and the outcome was that basically every
metal had its own sound. I recall that the autor thought that silver sounded
overly brilliant.

When dealing with larger currents (speaker cables), the mechanical
characteristics start to play a role. Parallel conducters push/pull on each
other due to magnetic (Lorentz) forces thereby creating a signal dependant
inductance and capacitance which modulates the signal going through the
cable.

Looking into studies about hearing will probably reveal that the human brain
can detect much more in sounds than the avarage person thinks. The ears are
just the sensor (say the A/D converter in your soundcard) while our brain
does the real thing (like the processor and software that you used in your
experiment). The ultimate goal of good sounding cables is to please our
listening experience, not to produce FFT plots. So use your ears initially
and then try to find out what you hear with measurements.

I agree that there's a lot of BS around cables. But to simply dismiss the
whole matter seems a bit short sighted. Specially since there's a lot of
scientific knowledge to back up certain theories. You just need think and
search outside the audio box. And always remember that the whole chain is as
strong as the weakest link. The weakest link may not be the interlink or the
speaker cable.

Menno

And always remember that the whole chain is as strong as the weakest
link

I always say it's a game of two halves.

Hi,

"Menno" wrote in message
...

dielectircum

What on earth does this mean? Google finds two instances of this
word, both on German websites written in very bad English. I
don't remember it ever arising during my EE degree. Can you
enlighten me?

I'd better save any other comment until I understand what you're
trying to say.

Regards,

Glenn.