Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

If that £10k had included an appropriately-sized anechoic chamber for him and his hi-fi, then I would have thought he'd done quite well.

When it comes to the question of "How much should I spend on hi-fi?", (subject to a person's hearing and the proposed room), the answer to that Q. - which has always seemed appropriate to me - is that it's simply another example of the Law of Diminishing Returns - and probably exponential, too.

Al.

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Agreed: and it does get somewhat depressing after a while. :(

Al.

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Audiophiles have pumped up the prices of some parts we'd rather use to keep original equipment going.

In retaliation, we laugh at their antics.... it seems fair.

But laughter is a very powerful weapon, so we need to be careful.

I had it put to me this way: Hitler had a far nastier fate planned for Charlie Chaplin than he had for Churchill, if he ever laid hands on either of them. Churchill had only had planes bombing him and his armies, but Chaplin made a film lampooning him and set people laughing at him.

Well, that's the theory, but as soon as the 'scientific' explanations start I still collapse in giggles. I just can't help it.

David

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Because there isn't such a point.
The nonsense quoted in this, and several earlier threads (new nonsense is being hatched as we speak) is just that. However, many of you will spend multiples of what I'm prepared to spend on audio equipment (skip finds excepted) to exactly the same end, i.e. enjoying recorded music. It's all a matter of expectations divided by budget.
Unlimited budget = unlimited gullibility, as in every single walk of life.

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Also those with the limitless budgets are infinitely attractive to those who want to exploit their gullibility. Positive feedback in full runaway mode.

David

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I get the impression that people just get carried away with a component and take it so far that other people just laugh.
Getting carried away with an earth wire can run to dipping the end of it into a coal bunker as I have shown in post#11. The name in green used to go to a web site that sells the coal bunkers.
Getting carried away with speaker cables ends up with them set on little pylons.

You can go through all the components in a set-up and go too far with each one of them.
Anyone remember that link to wooden capacitors?
https://www.dhtrob.com/projecten/elna1_en.php

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

This is precisely the reason I only use Andrews brand one inch Heliax for my speaker wire !!!! N.B. I DONT use the supplied silicon grease to attach the connectors though !!! I have found the sound becomes sticky.

Joe

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Fine on the Andrew Corporation heliax but it does tend to limit your choice of connector.

I'n surprised the extreme hifi world hasn't latched onto the APC-7 connector. Anything with those looks and such a price ought to sound wonderful.

If Bi-wiring, use APC-2.4 for tweeters - they go up to 40GHz

David

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Quote :

If buyers of any goods and services are happy with the outcome and consider it money well spent, the happiness they derive is a just reward for their expenditure, and that goes for audio equipment just as much as any other equipment. I recently noted that a Mullard OC81 used but tested 'white jacketed' transistor sold for £41.00 on an auction site. I don't know what the 'white jacket' signifies, but it clearly meant something to the bidders. Unquote

The white sleeving is used to match the silicon heat transfer grease inside the case, as per the photos.

It wasnt me !! I havent sold any :-D

Joe

( PM me if you need a couple) (( free ))

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

If these devices were offered on a 'money back if not satisfied' basis, I suspect the psychology might change somewhat. It would certainly be interesting to see if any remained about which these was a consensus of unexplained but nevertheless beneficial effects.

I remain open-minded about these things, having experienced unexpected results of simple and apparently nonsensical actions, such as moving an amplifier from a shelf to a table.

Sometimes, psychoacoustic effects are inexplicable - I have heard astounding stereo imaging from an Amstrad music centre which I was repairing, when the soundstage suddenly snapped into place for no apparent reason, and I was 'in' the concert hall, despite the otherwise poor reproduction.

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

It's yer eigentones, innit?

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

It's yer paradigm shift!

Your attention shifts from listening to the equipment to listening to the music. The equipment vanishes and your head fills in anything missing. If only the audiophiles understood that they don't need new equipment, they just need new heads.

Psychoacoustics is made up of 90% psycho and 10% acoustics.

David

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I doubt that very much! In fact, for the type of people we are talking about, that's the nub of the problem; they are not open minded, they want to hear an improvement, so their brain tells them that they can. Otherwise, if they did the sensible thing and together with a mate or two performed some blind testing (ABX preferably), they'd soon find out that there is no difference, or at least, they cannot hear it. No, these people are a 'type', their one goal is the pursuance of 'perfect sound'. Sadly, as we all know, that doesn't exist, and sadder still, a lot of these people simply do not have the 'ears' to differentiate anyway. Just as there are brain surgeons, there are studio engineers and experienced audio equipment designers, and just because the 'layman' possesses a pair of lugholes, it demonstrably doesn't equip him to be an expert on sound and sound systems. Neither does reading and digesting hifi mags by the truckload. But people do, and they hang on every word. They can't be cured, seriously. Hey, there's people out there making money out of all this, say no more!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

So that's what the 'P' stands for on the selector knob of my Mission Cyrus One amp! Wondered about that... I sense a new marketing idea here.

!0% dodgy drapes, soft furniture, badly positioned speakers and flat, hard perpendicular walls, surely?

Next time you're in the shower, start humming gently about Middle 'C' (256Hz) and sweep downwards as low as you can reasonably hum. There'll come a point when you hit resonance and, depending on the 'Q' of your bathroom, will peak over a narrow band. That's what's happening to your audio in a typical home environment.

I've been wanting to share this for years, and now I have the chance! But I expect everyone knows anyway...

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I tend to use headphones because of that and they drown out the kids. Bought a pair of HD25’s about 12 years ago. Seems to be the best compromise without having to rearrange the furniture which is non negotiable.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I am still an audiophool, BUT I use copper wire ( mostly) and common sense.

My Golden ear amp will be my last, I am hoping it's my "Crowing Glory" sic.

Joe

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Russell has hit one of the audiophile nails on the head.

Anyone who can afford to spend tens of thousands of pounds on chasing a Holy Grail of audio reproduction would be far better off spending much of it on treating their room acoustics, or building a listening room designed for the purpose.

But then, no doubt, the hi-fi world would fill up with unqualified snake-oil "acousticians" to relieve them of their money...

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

They already exist. My old landlord was one.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

True enough but it's all about what's in the head as most people suggest-if you perceive it...it's real8-\ As I said in post 15, it's not just about audio equipment. People spend £3k on a TV when £300 one is much the same or a fitted kitchen that is so impressive they don't actually use it. The Audio irony [although I'm not sure if it still applies] used to be that when you were old enough to be able afford the Sports Car or Hi Fi it was too late. In the case of the audio it's further complicated by hearing loss which might mean you can't hear half the frequency range you've bought expensive cables to [allegedly] achieve:wall:

Dave W

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Going to a concert, dinner afterwards of course.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

That brings up a good point actually. How does the reproduction magically improve between the original recording done by a nicotine and alcohol intoxicated producer with a pair of cheap monitors on his head and the super-duper pile of audiophile gear?

Edit: actually back in my youth, when I was part of an 80s goth band (don't ask), we were at a studio and there was a relatively well known band there as well. Turns out the final mastering was done afterwards in some guy's basement council flat in Chalk Farm with some old salvaged kit from another studio and a hell of a lot of beer. This band was respectably involved with Pink Floyd's producer. We sucked for reference and never made it past pub band status.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Oooh, concerts are dangerous. Someone could ask them what they thought of it and put them on the spot for judging a performance and speaking intelligently about it.

Recorded music is much safer. They can buy magazines which tell them what to say about it, thereby removing all risk of saying something wrong.

David

Oh, yeah, :-)

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

And yet ... and yet ... in the end this involves people spending their own money and getting pleasure in return. Given the well-established fact that people's experience of sound can be significantly enhanced by their beliefs about it, the fundamental questions as I see it are

1. Are there levels of pleasure that can only be delivered by misleading people ? If the truth is that all CD transports, DACs and electronic amplifiers (I've deliberately excluded speakers) which reach a certain, actually quite affordable, standard will essentially deliver music in the same way, then there's no mechanism for delivering more pleasure by selling more expensive equipment (=taking money) which doesn't involve making misleading claims about it.

2. If the above is true is it still wrong to mislead people and right to deny them the pleasure ? The 'small picture' is that they will have parted with their money in return for pleasure and what's so bad about that ? Perhaps the 'bigger' picture is that by encouraging them to reject conventional science in this case, where it doesn't matter (much), they're also being encouraged to doubt science in general where it sometimes does matter (health issues, climate change, wasting of natural resources etc).

Personally I draw the line at misleading people. Not only would it leave a bad taste in my mouth but my professional body (the Institute of Physics) could, in principle at least, chuck me out if I were caught bringing the subject into disrepute ;). But I hesitate to go out of my way to attack their beliefs. Some of them seem genuinely happy as a result of them and who am I to ruin that. It would be like saying there's no Santa Claus. Or no (reasonable) chance of winning the lottery.

VB

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Perhaps "acousticians" & "audiophiles" are at the opposing end of the 70's Hi-Fi nuts but amongst that crowd were genuine but less savy everyday people who, for the first time, had to run the gauntlet of the high street Hi-Fi shops, run by spotty faced, fascists with only one aim, that being to humiliate the poor innocent sod whilst relieving them of their hard earned money. Such stores as Lasky's comes high on the list.

And the sketch by the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" team caught that perfectly.

Full Sketch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/DvswW6M7bMo

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Not necessarily. There is a considerable aesthetic aspect to equipment that owes nothing to its claims of audio performance. You can legitimately and justifiably charge one or two orders of magnitude more for something that looks and lasts like fine jewellery, compared to an equivalently-performing functional item of zero aesthetic merit and modest durability.

I spent years in professional audio judging by specs, measurements and performance, but still value looks, feel and build quality very highly. It would be a good thing if makers and vendors of boutique HiFi would emphasise these aspects as of value in their own right, instead of making suspect claims about their benefit to the sonics.

I can accept that there are people in the world whose 'understanding' of physics differs from mine, and would happily leave them to work out their own fate. Except that they cannot be ignored, because they keep buying-up and parting-out my favourite toys in search of scarce components to feed their metaphysical addiction. Thus I am obliged to try and convince every one of them of their folly, to safeguard my interests. I'm not making much headway...

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

So it may be an example of a 'win-win' situation, then? The people who manufacture the equipment are kept employed; the advertising people who dream up spurious pseudo-scientific claims for the aforementioned equipment won't go short of a bob or two; it keeps a select band of retailers 'in on the act' in business...

The punters who wish to be one up on their chums and who purchase said equipment are happy because the serious money they have 'invested' in all this nonsense makes them feel good about themselves because it's obviously the best money can buy, innit? It says so on the Interweb and in the Hi-Fi magazines in W. H. Smith so it must be right.

But isn't it the same with watches? And cameras? And bicycles? And art (art being defined as 'what you can get away with'). And guess what? The magazines who publish articles about the benefits of all these 'must-have' consumables are kept going too, funded and nudged by the advertisers mentioned earlier. Why spoil a good game of tin whip by throwing a few facts and scientific evidence around?

Everyone's a winner, baybee... :)

Re: 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Eeeeh, eignenvalues (resonant frequencies) and eigenvectors (mode shapes) - that takes me back ;D

I got Permanent Head Damage trying to 'do things' to those with signal processing and secondary sources, once upon a time. I like your bathroom experiment - I used to suggest it to students. Also relevant and bathroom related - my kids got some bathtime whistles whose pitch changes depending on the amount of water in them (which changes the length of the 1/4 wave air column). It's a funny demo to play one while tilting the thing through a range of angles. The pitch of the fundamental doesn't shift at all, which is a nice finger in the eye for walls-out-of-square critical listeners (though - that is one way around flutter echoes, before someone gives me the finger back again ;D )

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

While no doubt sometimes the case, the example I cited wasn't, I think, down to Eigentones or paradigm shift!
I was listening (more accurately, simply hearing without much attention and with no expectations) nearfield within my large, cluttered workshop, which has no prominent resonances. What caught my attention wasn't the music but a round of applause. The phenomenon was sudden, short-lived and unexpected. It seemed possible to locate individual audience members, and the shape and size of the hall were remarkably clear. I even noticed when a door was opened at the rear of the hall, simply by the change in acoustic. A genuinely astonishing experience which lasted perhaps 30 seconds before collapsing back to the expected vague and amorphous effect. Something fell into place briefly, whether physical or psychological, completely unexpectedly. If it could have been be analysed and recreated, there would be a fortune to be made.
When I used to do small PA jobs, one of the first things I would do was to stand and whistle / sing a gliding tone at various points in the hall. Just like the bathroom example, this quickly demonstrated any resonant frequencies to beware of.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Thanks for the "Not the Nine O'Clock News" link.

Flanders and Swan wrote a brilliant song about this (Song of Reproduction) 60 years ago in 1957: some things never change!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fJmmDkvQyc

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

This is true. But those features appeal to a different group of people. I was thinking of people whose pleasure comes from the sound they hear (in their heads, of course) but I didn't make that clear. They're the ones whose pleasure would be denied to them if their beliefs were convincingly debunked and/or ridiculed.

Then there's the group of people who pay way more than an item is worth in performance terms for yet another set of reasons - rarity and the pleasure of owning something old. There's nothing 'wrong' with us is there ;D !

Cheers,

GJ

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Some would ask why I am building somebody else s amp design. I have designed and built many amps ( I cant remember how many) both vacuum AND sand, and even ventured into modern mosfets for a time.
WHY ?
I used to own a small audio manufacturing business. I am NOT a brilliant engineer by any means, BUT I am extremely proud of my output transformers. Also my toroid design.
I just happen to have an abundance of brand new, unused big fat output transformers, AND as it happens, a fairly large ready made supply of power toroids. Add to this a couple of hundred weight of passive components.
I have retired from working mostly, except for a few repairs here and there for beer money.
WHY will I build the Golden ears amplifier? I still love building stuff. I still build model aeroplanes ( yes balsa and tissue style) BUT I dont fly them.
It keeps me off the street, and I derive huge pleasure from drilling and filing and soldering, then desoldering after discovering a better layout. At the end of the day, my kids will have a stonkin' amplifier to listen to, ( or do rock festivals with ).
I have a seven watt amp at present that I have displayed here, and I almost dont use it at all.
I still love my construction projects though!!!.

To keep on topic, I use "modest" cables for inputs and outputs, BUT to buy anything that isnt directional or oxygen free copper is nigh on impossible these days. So speaker cables are about 4mm cross section, and after years of break in I still cant hear them, even if I jam them into my ears. These cables are perfectly silent!! :laugh1:
Input cables are "matching" being OFC and directional.
The speaker wire was about $1 / mtr
Screened input cable about $2/mtr. I did try using twisted pair telephone cable but it hummed alarmingly, so I still use my hot pink directional input cables. These cables also dont make any sound :laugh2: BUT they did stop the hum.
One thing I did do that was audiophoolery was to change the arm wires in my SME3009. I used Van den Hull cable. Cost about $50 for a half mtr. It DID improve the sound though, and yes I wasnt being deluded.

Joe

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

No, but with a decent graphic equaliser (or just tone controls) you can quite easily boost the upper frequencies to lift them to a level 'that you perceive' as being correct given your now limited frequency range. In fact I am confirmed believer in the judicious use of tone controls as no two studios' playback (monitoring) systems have the same frequency response, not to mention the mixing engineers' tastes, etc etc. That's fine for me, but audiophools sadly believe that such audio tools belong to the devil and drastically degrade the sound. Just another phoolish belief, their loss!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

To be fair, what you would be attempting to do would be to travel in time. My ears have lost some of their treble response, so my experience of The Clash's records now is duller than it was when I saw them live in the early 80's. But if they were to perform now (hypothetically of course, given that Joe Strummer is no longer with us) my ears would be just as dull at the live gig as they are when I use them at home. So I wouldn't need tone controls to reproduce (my) current reality accurately.

You've also hinted at the wider question of whether an 'accurate' hi-fi system matters, given the processing that the audio signals go through before we get our hands (ears ?) on them. In the early days of stereo the point was made quite often that the job of a hi-fi system was, first and foremost, to create an illusion. It may be that a strictly accurate system doesn't do that as well as one which in fact distorts the signal somewhat. If I fancied an evening listening to music at home then my first choice mght be to invite these ladies round, make some space in the living room and have them sing to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OguVb3uSZTs. Sadly they're busy and I probably couldn't afford them even if they weren't. So I have to use two speakers and some electronics to try to create the illusion that they're there. That requires my brain to fill in a lot of gaps. That might be easier for it if the electronics and speakers have modified the signal to suit my brain's particular abilities. I was struck by dseymo1's account of exactly this experience. His brain suddenly created an acoustic 'image' that previously hadn't been there. Do you recall the craze, a few years ago, for those visual images consisting of a page covered in a highly repetitive pattern of what looked like tiny abstract shapes and colours ? When you first saw them there was nothing else there. But if you stared for long enough and you were in the right frame of mind a vivid 3D image would suddenly snap into existence, created entirely by your brain. I suspect that our brains are having to work pretty hard to create a 3D sound image using only the waves from two speakers. I therefore wouldn't be surprised if what an engineer would call a 'distorted' signal could sometimes do a better job of supporting the brain in that effort.

Cheers,

GJ

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

There are actually some really good spin offs from the Audiophile industry.

Although original brand audio tubes have gone up in price, which is really annoying for those restoring vintage gear and trying to make it period correct, there were not enough valves to satisfy demand. As a result a number of valve making factories have cropped up worldwide, that otherwise never would have. Some of the products are actually pretty good.

For example a while back I bought some new manufacture Tung Sol 6L6G's and some Ruby brand 5U4G rectifiers, and after subjecting them to a number of scientific tests in my lab, I was delighted to find they are every bit as good as RCA's original parts. Not only that the prices were very reasonable, unlike the originals.

Also some good quality high voltage electrolytics and non electrolytic caps have been made recently too.

So maybe like many things, there could be a silver lining to the Phoolery.

It has created a renewable valve resource.

If only the same thing could happen with CRT's. Hmm.. I'm sure I read somewhere that if you wire a monochrome CRT gun up as a triode amplifier it gives an amazingly clear picture of the sound, sort of bringing it into focus and illuminating it with a P4 moonlight like sound color.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

True. And we shouldn't forget the guitarists either. In the darkest days for valves (late 70s, early 80s ?) what valve manufacturing plants there were were kept going by the demand from owners of valve guitar amps.

Cheers,

GJ

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

You seem to be saying that your reduced upper frequency hearing capability is something that can't, or more to the point, shouldn't (!) be 'fixed'. I have a test CD (Hifi News & record Review) that has test tone frequencies on it, and anything above 10k I struggle with. It's proof (if I needed it) that my upper hearing range has degenerated. The fix is simple, I just boost the treble control a tad until I can hear those frequencies once again. It's not rocket science, it doesn't have to be 'correct' to the dB, just enough to make the music sound nice again. Depriving yourself of good hifi on the basis that if you were to see a live band (live band sound normally leaves a lot to be desired anyway!) the sound would be wrong to you, seems pointless to me! Just boost your treble control a tad and all those cymbals and lovely higher harmonics will be there for you to enjoy. Yes, technology does enable you to travel back in time; hearing aids, tone controls, spectacles etc etc. Clearly, we're all different, I accept that, but I'm just not 'getting' your way of thinking, a kind of self imposed denial of using audio tools to correct for a perfectly normal degenerative human hearing problem. Will you also deny yourself hearing aids if your hearing degenerates to such an extent? I'd wear them tomorrow if needs be, just like I now wear specs 24/7. Hey-ho, like I say we're all different!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I neither said that it can't or that it shouldn't be altered. But it is true that folks who want their hi-fi to do what it says on the tin (reproduce with high fidelity) wouldn't approve of altering the signal in any respect (other than amplitude, and the Fletcher-Munson curves mean that serious listeners take a position on that too). These days with digital signal processing it is possible to do a lot better than just boosting the treble control a tad. A good friend of mine has hearing aids which have been programmed, as far as possible, to restore his detailed hearing sensitivity to that of a much younger person. He's delighted with them - mostly, he says, because he can now distinguish birdsongs again when he's out on a country walk :). They mean he doesn't need tone controls on his hi-fi either, although personally I approve of them if there's nothing better for getting the hi-fi-plus-room behaviour closer to optimum.

There is something better of course. I've just acquired one of these https://www.minidsp.com/products/min...minidsp-2x4-hd along with its matching calibrated mic. All I need to get now is that rarest of things - a round tuit !

Cheers,

GJ

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I've got a similar thing, and it works a treat, again, with its calibrated mic. http://www.music-group.com/Categorie...EQ2496/p/P0146

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Wow! This page feels like home! Thank you so much, David!

I use an alloy of gold, silver and palladium for all phono jacks and I use solid 4mm silver busbar with Teflon insulation for speaker cable. I can't understand people who use multi-strand cable as it obviously messes up the frequency response.

Unfortunately, the alloy degrades after a month of so and I have to replace the jacks but the improvement in sound quality is astonishing. No smearing or jumping of signal for me and no horrible 'capacitance' in my cables.

I am saving up to buy a solid ruby stand for my speakers as the bass response is a little off at the moment. I think it's the increased humidity with autumn arriving, obstructing the flux density of the sub-woofers.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Well, if multistrand cables smear sound where the strands touch each other in a bundle... and the atoms get aligned as the cable is broken in making the sound less edgy... and people can hear this sufficiently to part with lots of money and it makes them happy, then where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise!

I'm sure I get as much pleasure listening to my workshop radio (EF80 leaky-grid detector / PCL82 amplifier) as they do from their pre-conditioned oxygen-free solid core cables, single-ended triodes (cryogenically treated), all powered via gold-plated mains plugs with silver fuse cartridges. While I have a chuckle at their set-up, they'd likewise have a snigger at mine. And I'd concede that measurements would prove their system is superior! But who cares as long as we're both happy?

GrimJosef and others have made a good point that those who like the 'valve sound' (even if it's just a constant-current load or cathode follower in a sand amplifier), while currently mopping up quite a lot of NOS valves and inflating their price, they have stimulated demand for continuing small-scale production.

I'm waiting for the current trend for magic-eye level indicators to get someone restart build of EM80, EM34, TV4's... now that would be a success story!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I wonder if a previously unexploited method of metallurgical analysis might be possible?
Firstly, a panel of audiophiles is played a standard sample of music derived from a signal which has been passed through each of a range of pure metal conductors. They note how each sample affects the sound. The standard sample is then replaced by the unknown alloy (presumably burnt-in to the same extent). Its effect on the sound should surely correlate with the 'known' properties of its constituents, in corresponding proportions.
Well why not, if there's anything in these claims?

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

They don't do measurements, probably some quantum effect!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

As far as the cable's concerned, I've always been an advocate (in theory) of twin PVC tubes (a bit like twin loudspeaker wire but with the copper all pulled out, and somewhat larger bore, maybe 6mm?) between amplifier and speaker. Then, you fill them with mercury.

No problem with atomic alignment; no problem with strand-to-strand smearing! Liquid conductor continually re-optimises itself!

And to be honest, even with current price of mercury, still cheaper than phool-exotica!

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

The tubes would have to be exactly the same length. Mercury delay lines are, I think, fairly well known. Any difference in the tubes would result in the signal to each speaker arriving out of phase with the other. But then what about the small but surely audible difference in timing between the axis and the radius of the mercury columns...? 8-o:shrug:

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Of course you wouldn't need to bother about cable quality if you linked everything up with bluetooth...

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I thought mercury delay lines worked by sending a sound wave down a long, thin column of mercury?

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I believe there were some radios which used the F bit of an EFM11 in preference to other pentodes as some characteristic or other was better and didn't bother with the M bit. As someone with a load of radios that use EFM11s I wouldn't have anything against a few new ones being made.

Regardless of that, I have often wondered what the "correct" audio is. Nowadays everything is recorded multi-tracked then mixed, equalized, compressed etc. so there is probably nothing available which sounds like what the musicians originally played. So why do you need clever cables etc. when the audio is so messed up anyway?

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

Replying to post 96: They do, but since when have audiophools bothered with facts?

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

I was thinking earlier and I came across the pinnacle of audio experience for me. It was a lowly NAD C340, 521 and some Tannoy Mercury speakers wired with 3A mains flex (from B&Q because Richer Sounds wouldn’t give me any free) and the interconnects that came with it.

A good friend came over and we did some psychoacoustic brain remodelling with a bottle of Smirnoff. This culminated in playing cricket with a poster tube and a rude stress toy with Pink Floyd’s High Hopes on in the background. That sounded absolutely amazing after half a bottle of vodka! Much cheaper than fancy wires even if you do feel like muck in the morning.

Re: Audiophoolery. 'Cable Break In' - I never knew that!
 

You risk opening the can of worms marked 'Listening Tests'. Believe me you really don't want to go there. Really.

Exec summary:

1. No test is the same as extended listening at home where you are neither fatigued nor stressed nor are you troubled by the wrong choice of music or ancillary equipment. And since you are buying hi-fi to use at home no other test is nearly as important.

2. It is not practical to stage a double-blind test over a long enough period to avoid fatigue/stress yet still achieve statistical significance in anyone's home.

3. Audiophile claims are therefore untestable which means they have the status of 'belief' rather than 'science'.

Cheers,

GJ