A fresh approach to cable analysis


Here’s an interesting idea that I wish someone would do. Start a YouTube channel in which you take full range of power cords, interconnects, and speaker wire ranging from cheap to top-of-the-line and carefully dissect them and expose how they are constructed and with what. In the past, we have been through all the arguments about measurements and subjective evaluation, and that gets us nowhere. I think, looking at the physical construction of these chords, which I assume almost no one ever does, especially on the more expensive ones, would produce some surprising results and really be hard to argue with. I’m sure manufacturers would hate this idea, but I don’t think there’s any way legally that they could challenge it. 

bruce19

Now the sky's the limit what cable manufacturers claim for their products. 99% of audiophiles fall for the advertising hype, making selling wire a lucrative business! In the old days everybody used used Radio Shack gray  Switchcraft cables and nobody complained.

@bruce19 

...and carefully dissect them and expose how they are constructed and with what.

That will not tell us the purity of the metals used, nor how the metals are conditioned.

Do they go through a super-annealing process?

Are they oxygen free?

Are they mono-crystal?

Are they frequency tuned, via an extruding process for specific, physical, geometrical measurements?

Are the cables designed to minimize skin effect?  Different frequencies travel along the metal in different paths.  Ideally, you want the entire signal (all of its frequencies) to arrive with perfect timing (not even picofarads apart).  Low frequencies are attracted to the perimeter of the metal.  Better signal cables conduct the voltage with better linearity.

Better cables have better dielectrics.

And the cable's terminations is yet another engineering and construction topic for discussion.

Dissecting cables will not reveal the above engineering properties.  And all of the above contribute to how good your revealing stereo will sound.

In the past, we have been through all the arguments about measurements and subjective evaluation, and that gets us nowhere.

I respectfully disagree.

Just because cable deniers refuse to acknowledge reality, and keep digging themselves deeper holes, does not mean that we get nowhere.

Allowing the propagandists to go unchallenged, and not expose them for being propagandists, would be a win for the propagandists.  So these discussions serve an important purpose.

The cable deniers are, virtually without exception, those who never demoed the cables that they are bashing.  Shining sunlight on that deception is key to ensuring that people looking to learn do not get conned by the cable deniers that never listened to what they claim is snake oil.

@seymour-krelborn 

Just because cable deniers refuse to acknowledge reality

What 'reality' are you talking about? I haven't seen anyone provide ANY factual reality that verfies the claims made. Wouldn't you think the manufacturers of these expensive cables be proud enough to back their grandious claims with something real? Maybe they could show how they test them and why they sound better. They don't. That's reality.

It will be like dissecting frogs, not too much difference unless a absolute anomalies is found. 

Wire, especially signal wire, only show real difference when electron microscope images are compared

 

A platform like YouTube is not need to discover grain structure belonging to a formed wire. 

 

Haven't posted in a long time. Hope I don't step on any toes :)

First high end cable I bought was a Cardas Hexlink. This was about the same time I started opening up and modifying my power amps.

My power amps where Counterpoint sa12's. I was able to talk to Mr. Elliot and we somehow got on the subject of interconnects. Boy did he laugh.

The vast majority of capacitors in EVERY piece of audio equipment is wound with tin foil. Let me repeat that. Hundreds if not thousand of feet of tin foil. But it is zero crystal.:)

The fun part of this hobby is trial and error. We all suffer with a need. Our systems allow us to satiate that need.

I miss Audiogon. Decades ago I had a lot of fun here, or is that hear?