New amp and speakers
 

In article , Glenn Richards
wrote:
David Looser wrote:

opinions are divided on this group but it does make a difference.
I love that!, "opinion is divided, but I'm right"

Heh, ok, posting written rather quickly... but you get the idea.

In your opinion of course.

In my experience, yes, speaker cables do make a difference to the sound.
As do interconnects to some extent. Seems that some people can hear a
difference and others can't - just like some people (myself included)
have perfect pitch and others don't.

Alternatively - as repeatedly discussed here and elsewhere - some people
say they can hear a difference, and other don't. BUT AIUI when comparison
tests have been done, based solely on the sounds, those who say they can
hear a difference generally show no sign of being able to do so on any
reliable basis. OR they simply refuse to even put their claim to such a
test. I lost count years ago of how many people had popped up here, made
such a claim, and then refused to put it to such a test. So leaving us with
their claim presented as an article of faith.

This does not, of course, mean that speaker cables can never make any
audible difference. Indeed, there are situations where there seem good
reasons to think it will.

Just that the evidence indicates that people often think a change of cable
made such a difference, when it probably didn't. Generally too many other
mechanisms for producing a perceived 'difference' to tell why from the
kinds of poorly done 'comparisons' people often use as a basis for what
they say.

BTW I'm currently working on comparing loudspeaker cables. Investigating
out one or two aspects I can't recall being dealt with before in any
detail. All being well, results will appear first in HFN in coming months.
:-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
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New amp and speakers
 

"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
...
David Looser wrote:

opinions are divided on this group but it does make a difference.
I love that!, "opinion is divided, but I'm right"

Heh, ok, posting written rather quickly... but you get the idea.

In your opinion of course.

In my experience, yes, speaker cables do make a difference to the sound.
As do interconnects to some extent.


But can you hear the difference when you don't know which cables you are
listening to?, that's the question.


David.

New amp and speakers
 

David Looser wrote:

But can you hear the difference when you don't know which cables you
are listening to?, that's the question.

Probably. A while back I got my friend to hook the DVD/CD player up to
the amp via two analogue connections (the DV79 has two sets of analogue
outputs), one with freebie patch cables, the other with Chord Cobra III.
Tried 2-3 CDs, swapping between inputs, and yes, I correctly determined
which one was which. The freebie one sounded flat and lifeless.

Not a double blind test, granted, but enough to satisfy my curiosity.

--
Squirrel Solutions Ltd Tel: (01453) 845735
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/ Fax: (01453) 843773

Registered in England: 05877408

New amp and speakers
 

Don't forget some decent speaker cable - opinions are divided on this
group but it does make a difference. Audio Innovations Silver Bi-wire at
£5/metre is good, or if you can run to it Chord Rumour 4 at £20/metre.
I've used both, had the AI stuff originally and upgraded to the Rumour 4
when I got the Arcam AVR250 amp.

--

Lots of snips.....

Remember when I bought my Quad ESL63s many moons ago, at the height of the
comics cable controversy.

Mr Walker gave his opinion: "The most important matter when considering
speaker cable is that they should be long enough to reach between the
amplifier and the speakers".

I'm not really a great fan of Quad products through bitter experience,
particularly of their legendary service department, but I do like some of
their definitions - a good amp being "straight wire plus gain".

Oh - and that bit about "all properly designed amplifiers when used within
their operating limits will sound the same" - er, why was the 405 power amp
replaced by the 405/2, with not much in common apart from the cabinet?

GMack

New amp and speakers
 

"Geoff Mackenzie" wrote in message
...


Don't forget some decent speaker cable - opinions are divided on this
group but it does make a difference. Audio Innovations Silver Bi-wire at
£5/metre is good, or if you can run to it Chord Rumour 4 at £20/metre.
I've used both, had the AI stuff originally and upgraded to the Rumour 4
when I got the Arcam AVR250 amp.

--

Lots of snips.....

Remember when I bought my Quad ESL63s many moons ago, at the height of the
comics cable controversy.

Mr Walker gave his opinion: "The most important matter when considering
speaker cable is that they should be long enough to reach between the
amplifier and the speakers".

I'm not really a great fan of Quad products through bitter experience,
particularly of their legendary service department, but I do like some of
their definitions - a good amp being "straight wire plus gain".

Oh - and that bit about "all properly designed amplifiers when used within
their operating limits will sound the same" - er, why was the 405 power
amp replaced by the 405/2, with not much in common apart from the cabinet?

GMack

The original 405 didn't provide enough current for anything other than
nominal 8 ohm loads. It struggled a bit even with 4 ohm loads. Given that
a nominal 4 ohm loudspeaker is allowed to go down to 3.2 ohms, and many go
below that, Quad felt they had to provide more current capability, hence the
405/2.

This is entirely consistent with "all properly designed amplifiers when used
within their operating limits will sound the same", the original 405's
operating limits were rather too limiting for real-world loudspeakers,
especially in Europe, which favoured 4 ohms much more than the UK did.

If you take a 405 or 405/2 and use them on, for example, 11-15 ohms LS3/5As,
I would very much doubt there could be any difference in sound, but with,
for example, Mission 770s, which were quite popular at the time, I would
expect the 405 to struggle, whilst the 405/2 would be OK. You may not have
been aware that QUAD published a modification to the 405 which turned it
into a 200w/4ohm mono amplifier by paralleling the two channels. I built a
few of these to use with Mission 770s and KEF 104/2s and they worked very
well.

S.

--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

New amp and speakers
 

Glenn Richards wrote:
David Looser wrote:

But can you hear the difference when you don't know which cables you
are listening to?, that's the question.

Probably. A while back I got my friend to hook the DVD/CD player up to
the amp via two analogue connections (the DV79 has two sets of analogue
outputs), one with freebie patch cables, the other with Chord Cobra III.
Tried 2-3 CDs, swapping between inputs, and yes, I correctly determined
which one was which. The freebie one sounded flat and lifeless.

Not a double blind test, granted, but enough to satisfy my curiosity.

Please feel free to publish a short wav file demonstrating interconnect
differences.

The best way is to use a mono source from CD player to sound card
with the cheap cable for the left channel and the expensive cable for
the right.
And then repeat with the cables swapped over.
Then if there is a difference between cables, it can easily be measured
by loading the wav file into an audio editor and subtracting one channel
from the other.
The difference can also be heard by listening for stereo effects in the
mono music.

And when you've done this and demonstrated that interconnects sound
different
we'll stop calling you a gullible idiot.

--
Eiron.

New amp and speakers
 

Eiron wrote:

Please feel free to publish a short wav file demonstrating interconnect
differences.

Maybe I will. Give me a few days to get around the back of my kit
rack... :-P

--
Squirrel Solutions Ltd Tel: (01453) 845735
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/ Fax: (01453) 843773

Registered in England: 05877408

New amp and speakers
 

In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:


The original 405 didn't provide enough current for anything other than
nominal 8 ohm loads. It struggled a bit even with 4 ohm loads. Given
that a nominal 4 ohm loudspeaker is allowed to go down to 3.2 ohms, and
many go below that, Quad felt they had to provide more current
capability, hence the 405/2.

More to the point, the original IV limiting using on the 405 was
particularly severe for reactive loads - rather common for loudspeakers!

If you take a 405 or 405/2 and use them on, for example, 11-15 ohms
LS3/5As, I would very much doubt there could be any difference in
sound, but with, for example, Mission 770s, which were quite popular at
the time, I would expect the 405 to struggle, whilst the 405/2 would be
OK. You may not have been aware that QUAD published a modification to
the 405 which turned it into a 200w/4ohm mono amplifier by paralleling
the two channels. I built a few of these to use with Mission 770s and
KEF 104/2s and they worked very well.

Perhaps also worth recalling that around this time HFN organised a detailed
set of listening comparisons. The results of which showed that the
listeners couldn't tell one amp from another when all were used with the
same system gain and none were being taken outwith their limits. The amps
tested included the 405 IIRC.


Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

New amp and speakers
 

"Geoff Mackenzie" wrote in message
...


I'm not really a great fan of Quad products through bitter experience,
particularly of their legendary service department,

My one experience of Quad's service department is when I contacted them to
buy a replacement 703 IF amplifier chip, as the one in my FM4 had failed
(well outside the guarantee period) and I had been unable to source it
elsewhere. "Oh" they said "we found the 703 to be unreliable so we've
redesigned the tuner to use a 3053 instead, we'll send you one". And they
did, it arrived in the post next morning, mounted on a little PCB which
fitted into the place on the FM4's board vacated by the 703, and all F.O.C.
Other than that (and a new battery in the FM4 a few years back) my
FM4/44/405-2 setup has worked almost daily for the best part of 30 years
without fault. I guess we all have our different experiences.

but I do like some of
their definitions - a good amp being "straight wire plus gain".

And me. A basic philosophical difference I have with the audiophiles, is
that I see what audio equipment does to the signal as being entirely
negative, the equipment takes away from the perfection that we would get in
an ideal world. The difference between good modern amplifiers and the ideal
"straight wire with gain" is pretty negligible. Audiophiles, OTOH, seem to
see positive qualities in amplifiers, rather like wine buffs discussing
their favorite vintage.


Oh - and that bit about "all properly designed amplifiers when used within
their operating limits will sound the same" - er, why was the 405 power
amp replaced by the 405/2, with not much in common apart from the cabinet?


I don't know where you get the idea that the 405-2 has "not much in common
apart from the cabinet". The 405-2 is just an uprated 405, the architecture
is identical.

David.

New amp and speakers
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:


The original 405 didn't provide enough current for anything other than
nominal 8 ohm loads. It struggled a bit even with 4 ohm loads. Given
that a nominal 4 ohm loudspeaker is allowed to go down to 3.2 ohms, and
many go below that, Quad felt they had to provide more current
capability, hence the 405/2.

More to the point, the original IV limiting using on the 405 was
particularly severe for reactive loads - rather common for loudspeakers!

If you take a 405 or 405/2 and use them on, for example, 11-15 ohms
LS3/5As, I would very much doubt there could be any difference in
sound, but with, for example, Mission 770s, which were quite popular at
the time, I would expect the 405 to struggle, whilst the 405/2 would be
OK. You may not have been aware that QUAD published a modification to
the 405 which turned it into a 200w/4ohm mono amplifier by paralleling
the two channels. I built a few of these to use with Mission 770s and
KEF 104/2s and they worked very well.

Perhaps also worth recalling that around this time HFN organised a
detailed
set of listening comparisons. The results of which showed that the
listeners couldn't tell one amp from another when all were used with the
same system gain and none were being taken outwith their limits. The amps
tested included the 405 IIRC.

Yes, but the operative bit here is "none taken outside their limits". The
original 405 could be so taken fairly readily due to the limited current
capability, and, as you pointed out, the severe IV limiting on reactive
loads. I don't know which test you are referring to, so don't know what the
load was. I recall a similar test being done using Yamaha NS1000 monitors,
you may remember we corresponded about that one a year or two back.

S.


--
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