Moving cables around killed dynamics for days anyone else experience this?

I recently purchased a new RCA interconnect cable from a buyer on E-Bay to go between my pre-amp and my amp. Reason for this is that I have identified that particular cable as a potential "weak link" in my system, and want to see how big of difference a new (better?) cable makes in the overall sound of my system. The existing cable is a $20 mono-price cable.

The cable arrived, I swapped it out, fired up the system, and immediately I could hear a negative impact compared to what my system sounded like before.  Bass was not as low, and the high's not as bright.

1) Based on what I have read in this thread, should I suffer through a week or so of listening to see if "burn in" of the new cable makes a difference? 

2) The new homemade e-bay cable was $20; shielded cable, quality end connectors, it looks like a good quality cable.

3) I'm tempted to purchase another cable, something a little pricier from a regarded cable manufacturer / supplier, someone that has a good return policy, so that I can try another cable and see what kind of difference it makes. 

So should all cable changes be given adequate time for burn-in before a cable's sound can be judged?

Apparently: the definition of, "aural acuity" even escapes some geniuses.      As with EVERY sense; abilities/sensitivity levels vary, widely.      ie: Some are born with perfect pitch and others, tone deaf.      The first can’t be taught, or- the second, corrected.       Some will wrestle with the concept.     I couldn't care less!

audiozenology:

The evidence does not support your position. Trained listeners of no particular experience or skill, other than no hearing defects, are better able to detect differences than untrained listeners and though they want to think they are, most audiophiles are not trained listeners. One of the more successful training methods is rapid A/B switching to illustrate differences, something many audiophiles refuse to participate in.

In my experience, the people certain audiophiles make fun of, the ones you claim "can't hear", the "propeller heads", who have far more actual diverse experience with a variety of systems, not only can "hear", but understand far better what they are hearing and are much more likely to point out an issue if one exists. But feel free to keep believing what you want to believe. I know I am willing to test my claims day in and day out, but can others say the same?

Nassim Taleb:

What's a IYI?

Intellectual Yet Idiot: semi-erudite bureaucrat who thinks he is an erudite; pathologizes others for doing things he doesn't understand not realizing it is his understanding that may be limited; imparts normative ideas to others: thinks people should act according to their best interests *and* he knows their interests, particularly if they are uneducated "red necks" or English non-crisp-vowel class.

We report. You decide.

Paulcreed,  when you read what I wrote below, I want you (and everyone else) to understand that I am not implying you are lying or dishonest. I am going over all that you have wrote and trying to understand what is happening, and why. I am not going to tell you you were imagining things that the system seemed to "collapse" after swapping cables. I am going to work from the position that that is absolutely what happened. I am just not going to accept that it is anything to do with the cables (unless they or the connections are faulty).

My personal opinion, based on a lot of experience and knowledge is that something is "broken", and/or there is a design flaw in some of your equipment. 

1) It could be a poor connection that is impacted by movement. ICs can have seriously poor connections before it is obvious they are broken. Poor soldering and soldering debris can make a parasitic connection between pins/conductors that can impact performance in ICs as well, and would be affected by movement. You also noted an external cross-over. This would be my first guess.

2) My second guess is a bias issue induced by turn on / turn off of the equipment, but potentially by simply connecting and disconnecting interconnects while the units are on. This could be from an equipment fault or a design fault. By bias, I mean an operating point of your amplifier, but also DC bias across a capacitor (which is still an operating point). This can especially be an issue with DC floating grounds. Turning off/on the amplifier, even disconnecting and reconnecting cables, can induce a DC bias across capacitors. One would expect with input impedances that are low, at least w.r.t. to capacitor sizes (i.e. 1uF into 100K ohms) that the bias will quickly disappear, but I am working from the broke/design flaw angle. Fully differential and pseudo differential circuits will work just fine with a reasonable amount of DC bias, but that can change their sonic character.


When you first set your system up, you seemed to be quite happy with it, even more when you got your acoustics, then you seemed to start hating your system. That sounds like something is broke to me. Given you just moved, it is a reasonable conclusion as well. It sound from your other post you have some extra equipment. I would swap out equipment related to the cables you are swapping out including the cables and see what happens.


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This is what you said about listening to your system before and after letting the cables settled in a few days:

There is no bass and boring, highs are okay but life is gone from system. So I flipped everything back the way it was still sound horrible. Ran everything 24/7 for a couple days still no go. Let it run a couple more days dynamics are back and bass is full big and has tone again and enjoyable to listen to.

This is what you posted w.r.t. this system (which is your small room system), perhaps a day, or maybe hours after you installed it.

After all I have read over the years how bad a square room and chair up against wall is I was very surprised how good it sounded. Speakers totally disappeared, that was big concern. I wanted to try the most bass dominate recordings I could think of so I put on Herbie Hancock Head hunter and Allison Krauss/Robert Plant Rasing Sand first. The bass is fairly tight but there can definitely some boominess with the bass but it's not bad at all. I did not find it to be overly bright which was a little shocking, I think the copper foil Jupiter and Miflex in Preamp and speakers may have helped. I was very happy with highs very airy and detailed with out being fatiguing in the slightest.  I do have rear firing tweeters, I did notice it was very sensitive when turning the dial vs the previous room.

So with a new system with cables that would have had little time to settle:

• "surprised how good it sounded"
• bass is fairly tight
• did not find it to be overly bright
• very happy with the highs ... very airy and detailed without being fatiguing in the least

Contrast that later with:

This is now making sense why every time I try to change things up to improve sound I get discouraged and can't enjoy listening to this system. I told my son yesterday I'm thinking of selling off this system or throughing it in closet that I just can get it to work right and don't even want to look at it anymore. I get mad at it and leave it alone ( I still leave it on 24/7) for 4 or 5 days come back and it sounds great.