If You Had Two Amps...

Chu Gai · 10-07-2004, 06:45 AM

or some other components (CD player, preamp, whatever) and knew that they were God's honest (or whatever your favorite deity is) identical except that one component was most definitely sensitive to the cable that connected it, which would you buy and why?

PaulDA · 10-07-2004, 07:17 AM

I'd buy the one less sensitive to the cable with which it's partnered. Who would voluntarily ADD a potential problem when it could be avoided as easily as this? Besides saving the hassle, the money not spent on the cable could be spent on some movies or music to enjoy with your brand new amp. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

This assumes the amps (or other gear) in question are identical in price as well as performance.

Shane Martin · 10-07-2004, 09:19 AM

Whichever sounded better to me based on my own criteria.
If they sounded identical, I'd buy the one that is cheaper. If they cost the same and sound the same, then I'd buy the one that is prettier. If they look, cost and sound the same, by that time hell has frozen over anyway.

Get 3 people into a room and we'll all pick up something different. This is why personal experience with something is very important. We all have different criteria

Sam A · 10-07-2004, 10:58 AM

chu, cmon, thats like if you had 2 cars and one used tap water for gas or one used gas for gas, which would you choose? if you are trying to get a concensus from people as to how much priority or value they put on thier cables, ytou should know the outcome. youve shared your views in many a thread on this topic.

Chu Gai · 10-07-2004, 01:57 PM

Nothing to do really with cables Sam. It's more like designing a piece of equipment that intentionally or unintentionally that is actually cable sensitive. Allow me to give an example.

Let's say we have an amp that because of the way its designed, is sensitive to capacitance. Now that capacitance could well be from speaker load at a particular frequency or it could come from some braided wire you've cooked up. If you switch out the wire with a fairly low capacitance type, say run-of-the-mill 12 gauge, the amp behaves properly. If you toss in the higher capacitance cable, depending upon matters, the amp will go into some sort of mild oscillation with audible consequences.

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Brad_Harper · 10-07-2004, 02:27 PM

Any component that doesn't consider what type of load it is going to be driving (or could drive) shouldn't be sold to the public. It just comes down to responsible engineering and testing. That is what the iron ring is for.

Zobel networks on amp outputs should compensate for speaker and speaker wire loads. High input resistances should make input cable impeadances insignificant. All amps should use these tried and true designs.

ChrisKula · 10-07-2004, 02:38 PM

The Iron ring is a nice and all but it is the person wearing it that can be the problem. There are a lot of bonehead engineers out there (eg. IKEA furniture designers).

Sam A · 10-07-2004, 02:58 PM

Chu, you misunderstood me. Im saying that those who put a higher priority into cables will [I know its an overgeneralization] purchase or 'cook up' funky cables, therefore, as you said "the amp will go into some sort of mild oscillation with audible consequences"

"There are a lot of bonehead engineers out there (eg. IKEA furniture designers). " AMEN TO THAT!!! and to wonder why the masses like it, .. oh, its cheap shit.

Chu Gai · 10-08-2004, 08:03 AM

That is awful stuff isn't it? All those Scandinavian sounding names on stuff coming in from China. Go figure.

Kevin C Brown · 10-08-2004, 07:33 PM

Marketing!

I work in the semiconductor industry. Originally, companies in China would be named such that it was easy to tell they were in China. Now with all the fear about outsourcing, etc, they are getting smart and naming them with European/US sounding names.