most overpriced but popular speakers? (1 Viewer)

[Edwin_C]

And what is the actual change in any audible parameter (frequency response, distortion, noise, etc.) that this makes? What if I don't "tangle up my speaker wire" in a coil?

EMI - electro-magnetic interference. more advanced speaker wire takes in less EMI. hence, less distortion and noise. more advanced speaker wire also uses less resistive material, compared to the typical speaker wire that uses nickel and copper. less resistance = better frequency response = more power lost to the wire. you don't have to tangle up your speaker wire in a coil, all you have to do is run it near the power lines.. and you have mutual inductance along with emi.

copper oxidizes when exposed to air for long periods of time. the exposed area then becomes more and more resistive. but you probably already knew that.. since you are the genius that you are.

see all this crap that i'm saying right now? this is the same reason why seperates are better then receivers. so then, do you deny the inherent difference between seperates and receivers?

your posts are all based on your own ignorance. educate yourself on electromagnetism before you try and argue.

-edit- i meant less power lost to the wire

 

[RobertR]

more power lost to the wire

How much power?

 

[Edwin_C]

ignorance is bliss, is it not?

this is the most childish debate i've ever had. just admit that you have no prior knowledge of physics nor do you have the capabilities to fathom the logic behind the design of the high end speaker wires.

you want to know how much less distortion it has? run 100 ft of cable to your speakers and use a mic. use 100 ft of the cheap crap aside 100 ft of expensive crap. measure the THD using your nonexistant computer, and there.. you'll have a measure of "how much."

you want to know how much better of a frequency response it'll give you? again.. run a mic.

how much power you don't lose? this one'll be easy. get your nonexistant digital multimeter out, and measure the resistance of both ends of a 100 ft wire.

now, before you go on with some more ignorant comments... 100 ft is a length where you'll start noticing a huge difference. 50 ft is still measurable. under that, is dependant on the conditions through which you run the wire.

you say that you can't notice the difference.. well that's great, that's just you. so since you can't notice the difference, nobody else in the world can and the difference must not exist, right? that's how it must be. shoot, i believe in God, therefore, everybody in the world must believe in God. i'm an engineer, therefore, everybody in the world must be an engineer. i'm a man, therefore, everybody in the world must be a man. see the faults in your logic? your referring to this as if it can be reasoned through your own experience; trying to make something that's relative into absolute. how you perceive things is relative, and your judgement on your perception is relative. the flaw isn't in the cables, it's in your head.

as for the quote from rahe - a 1 cm wire made of gold will have practically the same resistance as 1 cm of wire made of copper. why? because the instruments we use aren't fully accurate. they're not sensitive enough to measure the smallest changes in impedance. tho they do exist, the instrument won't be able to give an accurate measurement unless it's meant to measure down that low.. which in that case, would be extremely expensive and still inaccurate. even the "expensive" digital multimeters you know of have internal resistance which makes it so those instruments can't measure a change in resistance well enough. you want to test the true change in resistance for a short length of wire? run a constant wattage through the wires while they're inside a calorimeter and measure the change in heat with both the wires. plug them into a few equations and differentiate... tada! you have the difference in resistance per 'whatever measurement you chose for length' for the 2 wires.

 

[CurtisSC]

Getting back to overpriced speakers.

Those willing to try some of the internet direct companies, and compare to them to some of the traditional brick and mortar brands, will start thinking that even some of the "fair" priced speakers are overpriced.

 

[RobertR]

how much power you don't lose? this one'll be easy.

Much easier than you have any clue about. 100 ft. of 12 gauge wire would introduce a 0.34 dB loss into 8 ohms. 100 ft. of 8 gauge wire ("high end" wire doesn't get thicker than this) would introduce a loss of 0.14 dB, a difference of 0.2 dB. Again, you claim this is a significant difference without a shred of supporting evidence.

 

[Edwin_C]

Actually, I've already given you a measured figure of 0.028 dB at 20 kHz, yet you ignored it, and apparently claim this is audibly significant.

your figure isn't notable. why? because the length wasn't given. 0.028 db at 20khz at 1 mm length won't be the same for 200 m length. also, he didn't note if that was the largest point difference. you act as if the 0.028 db difference can be noted as a scientific finding, yet another act of ignorance on your part.

you can't measure something that's non-linear with referential to materials that are. 0.34 dB loss? that's bs. the lower frequency range "pushes and pulls" on the wire less then the upper frequency range would. hence, the lower freq range would experience less resistance, in theory.

and what happened to your other arguments? hm? every post you seem to post up a completely different argument, while not defending a single one of your past ones. inconsistency...

 

[Eric_Strickl]

Can you tell the difference if you don't know which wire is being used?

Why is that so hard to believe?? It’s not like I am traveling to the moon, creating nano tech, making a nuclear bomb or cloning a human. It's just cable!! Now if you said can I tell the difference between 2 cables that are both very high end I might have some trouble as the differences are more subtle. It is very easy to tell the difference between radio shack cable and any high quality cable. Keep in mind that high end cable works best with high end gear. If you have a Kenwood receiver and some best buy bought speakers I imagine there isn’t much of a difference. Which leads me to ask you what is hooked up on both ends of your 20 gauge 15 cents a foot cable???

 

[mark alan]

Edwin,

would you mind giving us your scientific creditials so that we can properly appreciate your opinions?

Also, can you explain what the coating is on high end wiring which blocks magnetic forces? I thought that only gravity affecting magnetic waves.

The moving of electrical energy from one end of a wire to the other is not that difficult, and all the fancy words in the world is not going to make somebodies product any better.

 

[RobertR]

$418 Type "T1" Biwire vs. 16 Gauge Zip Cord 4 / 10 = 40% - 1
Type "Z" Biwired Speaker Cable vs. 16 Gauge Zip Cord 70 / 139 = 50% - 7
$990 "T2" Speaker Cable vs. 16 Gauge Zip Cord 16 / 32 = 50% - 2
In the first test, five specialty interconnects from AudioQuest, MIT, Monster Cable, H.E.A.R., plus Belden cable with Vampire connectors were compared to a $2.50 blister pack RCA phono interconnect. Listeners used Etymotic Research ER4 in-ear phones driven by the headphone jack of a Bryston 2B power amplifier.
The next three tests are the data from Tom Nousaine's "Wired Wisdom: The Great Chicago Cable Caper", listed on the ABX periodicals page.
The Type "T1" cables were compared on a system including an Sumo Andromeda power amp and JS Engineering Infinite Slope speakers, by the system's owner. He chose his own program material and had no time limit.
The Type "Z" cables were tested on the system of a high end audio shop employee including: Snell type B-Minor speakers; Forte Model 6 Power Amp; and an outboard DAC. He used his own program material selected to show the differneces he expected.
The Type "T2" cables were compared on a system including a Denon DCD-1290 CD player, and Accuphase P-300 power amplifier, and Snell KII speakers

No "Kenwood amps" or "best buy" speakers mentioned. $990 speaker cable was chosen 50% of the time vs. 16 gauge zip cord. In other words, the results are indistinguishable from pure guesswork.

 

[RobertR]

Taking an equally
realistic distance of say 100 feet, and driving 8 ohm speakers,
this would give a wire resistance at low frequencies of .06 ohms
per thousand feet, or .012 ohms for this cable, a low frequency
loss of .013 dB. A cable resistance at 20 kHz of .06 ohms, or a
loss of .05 dB relative to low frequencies. Quite a dip in response.
I am certain that the effects from moving your head an inch or two
must be lots less than this, so certainly it would be glaringly
obvious to anyone without tin ears. (said with a sarcastic tone,
in case it isn't obvious)

In actuality, the factor for decreasing the resistance of a wire
would be given by the formula:

2 * ( S^2 * exp(-R/S) + S * ( R - S ) ) / R^2

With this more accurate formula, the ratio becomes .16361 of the
DC resistance, rather than the .18306 from the approximation.
This is roughly equivalent to 6 gauge wire, .3952 ohms per
thousand feet. So at 20 kHz, our cable resistance would be about
.08 ohms, or a loss of .07 dB relative to low frequencies. Somewhat
greater than the approximation.

But this was for a 100 foot cable. If we assumed a more
reasonable 25 foot cable, the droop would become only .02 dB or
so.

In a somewhat more serious vein, since I stuck all the damn gauges
into a spreadsheet anyways (including the odd ones, why I'll never
know), let's see what useful information can come out of this skin
effect nonsense. Let us assume that a .1 dB droop is acceptable,
and use that as a criteria for selecting cable size. All
calculations done for an 8 ohm impedence at the speaker.

Wire Feet for Feet for Feet for
Gauge .1 dB droop .1 dB loss .1 dB loss
at 20 kHz at low freq. at 20 kHz

4 45.0 116.3 32.4
6 35.5 73.1 23.9
10 27.8 45.9 17.3
12 21.6 28.8 12.3

So we have losses ranging from 0.013 to 0.1 dB at 20 kHz, a difference YOU claim is a big deal. Wrong.

 

[Eric_Strickl]

No "Kenwood amps" or "best buy" speakers mentioned. $990 speaker cable was chosen 50% of the time vs. 16 gauge zip cord. In other words, the results are indistinguishable from pure guesswork.

Good to know you go off of what other people say rather than your ears.

 

[Frank_S]

Lee said,

Let's see, here is a list of bad speaker values:
Polk speaker before the LSi series
Bang & Olufsen
B&W up to around $5K
Klipsch (honky as hell)
Definitive Technology (anything but definitive)
Bose (given)
JBL
Pioneer Elite
Boston Acoustics
Westlake Audio and most other "professional" monitors
AvantGarde horn speakers (I have never heard these sound good even with a $100K of electronics)
I disagree with Paradigm and Thiel since they have great sound and Thiel's are very well constructed. The new line is the first line I have really liked but it is superb.

Lee, I assume you've done plenty of listening regarding these loudspeakers. As you know the accompanying electronics and room make a huge difference in evaluating loudspeakers so I guess you had all of these in your listening room at one time or another?
I own B&W N804's and for $3,500 I don't think they're overpriced. My front end is primarily a modded Rega P3 with an EAR 864 tube preamp. I power the speakers with both tube(EAR534) and SS(Aragon 8008BB) amps(passive bi-amp). Music is my primary media source at the moment and I've spent countless hours with speaker placement and lately I've been extremely happy with the results. I believe if you could hear my system with a nice slab of vinyl, you'd be impressed.
My weekly ritual is to visit my local hi-end analog store where I can play material on any of their megabuck systems. It's fun listening to your favorite tunes on systems you'll probably never own but it gives you a sense of how your own system measures up and I can say for certain that mine is very satisfying.
I must say to be fair that my accompanying electronics add
up to over $12k so the N804's are well taken care of.

 

[RobertR]

It makes no mention of the listeners

So, having had your "Kenwood Best Buy" claim demolished, you now claim that people with Snell, Sumo, and Accuphase equipment don't have sufficiently good ears.
This is ALWAYS one of the fall-back positions of wire believers: "Ok, so other people don't hear the difference, but MY golden ears can".
And then they promptly refuse to participate in the same sort of test.

 

[Edwin_C]

So we have losses ranging from 0.013 to 0.1 dB at 20 kHz, a difference YOU claim is a big deal. Wrong.

wow... congratulations, you proved me wrong! you gave a mathematical explanation that you couldn't devise yourself, and you failed to realize that it was ALL theoretical.. i'm in deep awe. if everything performed as it would ideally, then everything would be perfect. engines would never heat up, because none of the energy would be converted to heat. your amplifier would be perfect, and would sound no different from a high-end amplifier. most of all, the 2nd law of thermodynamics - entropy - wouldn't exist.

also, that little test that whoever devised.. is incorrect in theory also. why? he didn't take into consideration the fact that speaker wires act similar to a low-pass filter. speaker wire doesn't have to absorb sound energy to attenuate it, it can quite easily "reflect" it. but you probably already knew all this, you being the supreme all-knowing that you are.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

I guess all this thread proves at the end of the day is
that like Bungholes, We all have OPINIONS... And that is
ALL we have.
You can't prove to me a 10 thousand dollar a meter cable
sounds better than a Lamp Cord, I can't prove to you that
it doesn't.
You think your speakers rock and 10 other people think they
are over priced.
Opinions, Opinions, And More Opinions..
There is no best speaker
There is no best wire
There is no best Amp
And guess what? There NEVER will be...
If we all liked the same thing... Yaaaawn.. If we all liked
the same woman.... (Sure would make it interesting how she
would fit us all into her schedule..)
I like what I like, I could care less what you think about
what I like and vice versa.. Hey I bought a Corvette and I
think Ferrari's are junk.. I can drive my car across the
country without it breaking down (try it with a F355 and
see if it makes it..) But the guy in the Ferrari doesn't
care now does he? I may think it's overpriced because my
car will outperform it for 1/4 the price.. He may think my
car is trailer trash too... But honestly in the grand scheme
of things... WHO FREAKIN CARES! here we sit arguing
about our toys.... We should take a moment to think about
how lucky we are to even have these frivelous items.. They
certainly aren't "needed" we have them to pass the time and
to blow money.. There are some people out there that would
shake thier heads in disbelief over all of it..
So enjoy what you have and who cares what the next guy
thinks about it

 

[Jaime B]

Edwin_C:

Don't waste your time convincing the skeptics about the huge differences speaker cables and interconnects make on high-end equipment.

You and I well know it is a multi-million dollar industry with so many different manufacturers, I lost count! Audio magazines have done hundreds of shootouts and everyone concurs - different cable designs with different geometries, shielding (polyethylene, polypropylene, teflon, cheap vinyl, etc.) and materials (long grain OFC, silver, copper w/silver plating, etc.) make huge sonic differences! Audio enthusiast, like you and I (and millions of others) pay for the audible differences we hear with our pockets.
Someone with a $300 receiver is best served with lamp cord, both economically and psychologically.

When was the last time anyone saw Krells, Audio Research, Rowlands, Levinsons, BATs, et al. hooked with 12 gauge Home Depot speaker wire?

You don't need to the a physicist to prove your point, just your ears!!!

'nuff said! Skeptics rejoice, there's enough multi-strand, cheap copper wound, vinyl shielded zip wire made in this Country for all of you!

JaimeB

 

[CurtisSC]

Brett....great post...thank you.

Jaime....looks like you just wanted to throw fuel to the fire.

 

[RobertR]

he didn't take into consideration the fact that speaker wires act similar to a low-pass filter.

Actually, he clearly DOES know this. The "high frequencies" in question that don't pass are far above 20 kHz. Reproduction of 100+kHz frequencies is irrelevant.

 

[Edwin_C]

You can't prove to me a 10 thousand dollar a meter cable
sounds better than a Lamp Cord, I can't prove to you that
it doesn't.

sure i can. listen to that cable at a run of 2000 feet with strong emi, and you will notice a difference. my whole argument is that the difference, subtle as it may be, is notable and in certain cases audible. you may not be able to notice the difference in regular day-to-day listening, but that doesn't refute the fact that the difference exists.

speaking of which, who's the one that came up with those calculations?

i'm guessing S is the conductivity, which it would have to be if you're trying to calculate the resistance.

S^2 * exp(-R/S) + S * ( R - S )

S^2/m^2 * constant + S/m * (ohm - s/m)

first of all.. you can't subtract R from S, the units don't match up. secondly, if you could.. you can't add the first and second portion, once again.. units don't match up.

this person's "equation" is inaccurate. if you want to figure out the theoretical resistance, you'd need the cross-sectional area and length. resistance isn't independant of the 2.

so this means... everything that was said, can't be taken seriously. oh yea, and i excluded the R^2 because that's irrelevant to the numerator working out.

 

[Jon Musil]

I personally would like to see a real world test on a modestly priced HT system (say $2,500 - $3,000 without a TV) running with premium cables/interconnects VS the same set up with standard or blister pack cables/interconnects.

Then..... I'd like to take the price difference on all the cabling/interconnects of the premium setup and spend that amount on upgrading the components of the standard connected system and redo the test!

Care to speculate as to which would be the better system and therefore the better money spent?

Jon