Do Audiophile Cables Matter? Here's PROOF!
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- Do Audiophile Cables Matter? Here's PROOF!
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Here's my experience:
I participated in a cable test in a shop a couple of years ago that included the administrator actually announcing which interconnect cable was used as they changed... a totally UN-blind test! The cables being used varied in price from around 30 bucks to 2000 bucks for a one meter pair. Literally everyone could hear that the $2000 cable was dramatically superior!! BUT, at the end it was revealed that the cables were never actually changed. The $30 cable was in place for the entire test. ;)
In addition to the above, I have participated in and administered blind testing of RCA interconnects on several occasions. In these tests no one ever consistently correlated/identified RCA interconnect cable changes/sound quality regardless of the type of music/equipment used.
So, I have to admit that re exotic cables I'm pretty much in the "it's snake oil" camp! ;)
i believe it, they always harp on about data etc. etc. if there is a difference it should be measureable with instruments. why have i never seen the measured differences? science doesnt lie. science doesnt operate on belief its simply measureable facts. ah yes im betting the demo show's the differences between shielded cables is all another gimmick. i wonder if he knows theres royalty free music that you can play anytime you like. th-cam.com/video/H-8bXR-nXC0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=KissAnalog pretty sure this vid shows the test he is doing. btw the gentlemen in the vid is an electric engineer and designs power supplies. funny thing is the scientist in the vid addresses the test he just did lol.
I agree! All wire sounds the same when used for music signals.
It appears so logical that the electric signal conducted is always precisely the same. Thank you for confirmed my thought.
Expensive cables are scams, even if they are beautiful.
That video is also a scam.
Yes, you are right. A lot of these cables cost a few Dollars to produce and are sold for US$1000s of Dollars with ridiculous claims. Of course you need snake oil arguments to make people pay with such insane margins. I've also gone through many professional blind tests being official qualified member and had to get my hearing tested by a professional audiologist every year. Yes, forget about power cables, short distance RCA cables, optical cables, and even speaker cables at short length, as long as they are of decent quality. Obviously cable length matters and I wouldn't use a thin cheap speaker cable if the length was 50 feet as it would cost on the damping factor and perhaps some loss of dBs. Getting the noise floor to a minimum doesn't cost expensive cables also.
And this video is completely unprofessional. Come one, using some Pioneer tuner set to a given frequency of 105MHz The ENERGY of captured RF is so tiny that it wont affect any power amp with near 0 Ohms output impedance. NO, if he wanted to be credible he would use an actual setup and use an RF transmitter in the room and measure the amp output with some 1kHz (an other) sine wave if there was any effect of that RF signal causing any change. Nobody wants to do proper blind tests or proper measurements on this topic because they already know they will fail. If FM radio signal capturing was such a big issue, why do they not consider the topic in their internal speaker wiring and cross-over filters where the two wires are not in proximity and antenna effects can be much bigger?
Snake oil works well on cowboy boots.
It really is amusing how Danny refers to people that follow scientific principals as flat earthers while providing pseudoscience "proof" like this. Not unlike the many "flat earth proofs" out there.
Yeah, it is kind of ironic that it is the opposite of what you'd think. Those guys have a preconceived belief system and refuse anything that contradicts their beliefs.
@@dannyrichie9743Sorry to say, but I really think it's you that the irony is lost on. Belief defies scientific explanation, such as trusting on faith the biased opinion(usually based on expectation, group confirmation and in this case pseudoscience) of others. These opinions never stand up to scientific evaluation.
Danny Richie says the dude that wants to sell the idea rf that range far beyond human hearing (megahertz) really influences cables.
You’re not scoring points at all, perhaps just stick to building speakers
@@MichelLinschoten Sorry if that one is hard for you to get your head around, but that stuff really does effect the sound, especially on front end gear and digital signals. And I enjoy helping other reach higher levels of performance with their systems at every aspect.
@@dannyrichie9743 How does it effect the sound ? Please explain how it's even possible.
The question is "Do cables matter?" I guarantee you that I have the answer. It is YES. It matters. How can I be so certain? Easy. Because I know EVERYONE commenting on this is NOT using "zip cord" for speaker wire or RCA cables from the dollar store. The difference between those $40k cables vs Amazon Basic cables is the performance of your audio rig. Just like a Toyota Corolla will not benefit much from premium race fuel and high performance tires, a McLaren will not perform at it's best with regular fuel and retreads.
I use 9ft. 16 ga. extension cords for speaker cables. Resistance, capacitance, inductance are all measurable characteristics of electrical conductors, including speaker cables (and electrical extension cords). Get yourself some nice new 16 ga. cloth-braid extension cord, tin the exposed copper wire ends with solder, connect cord to speakers and receiver/amplifier, and enjoy!
And enjoy the noise? No thanks.
I bought some monster cables for my media setup. When the store could not sell them for the 300 bucks they asked I got them for 80. The connections are great Im happy I am happy on my studio unit I have HD extension cord I tinned the end put on banana plugs and the're fantastic I thing all tolled 28 bucks or so
Noise .... ???? @@dannyrichie9743
The tighter the twist, the smaller the wavelength of noise a twisted pair cable can cancel. Any fairly well twisted cable will eliminate noise of consequence to the audio band.
It would be interesting to measure the cables on a LCR tester, I would hypothesize that the higher capacitance on the braided cables (more pairs braided, more surface area on conductors in close proximity to each other) is shorting out the RF. I would bet if you whack a .001uf ceramic across the rf input it would also null out the RF signal without being something that would significantly impact frequencies within the audio band. No doubt in my mind that the cables will measure different as you are trying to explain, im just questioning if we were to simulate higher capacitance would that also have a similar effect.
When cable manufacturers start giving proper measurements I will buy them. Until then I believe thick copper to be the best.
I'm sorry that your world is flat as well.
Ahh yes the one believing in magical cables without measurements is the educated one. You can't pick when you believe in science and when you don't.
@@marcusm5127 To be fair, in most cases you probably don't even need thick cables, but I doubt that's what Danny meant.. :-)
I hear a difference on the cables that I’ve changed.., I don’t go by measurements... I try them and listen.., I check my opinion with giving my wife a blind test.....
Best results so far are with power cables..
@@tigertiger1699 ahaha mate, you should do a standup comedy
The tuner caught my eye immediately. Looks like a pioneer tx7500. Fantastic. Got one new back in the 70s when they were worth having, because FM stations still offered quality music well recorded and transmitted. Around here, there are no good FM stations anymore, so I sold it recently, in its original box with manual.
rtel123 looks like my TX9500 mk2 . Got one boxed in a back room, lovely example of old Pioneer kit.
@@kjbunnyboiler TX8500 MK2
I'm curious about "low mass" connectors making such an improvement, but the full length tin plated copper leads on all the cross over components are twisted together in a mess and gobs of tin/lead solder are applied. Seems kind of contradictory.
I'm not going to discount the possibility that speaker wire may make a difference in sound. I worked with one technician who said his ears were so fine tuned that he not only could tell the difference in audio cables, he could tell the direction the copper was drawn when the cable was made. Myself and the rest of the shop had all they could do to not laugh out loud.
Most of my life though, I was employed in the computer or Information Technology field.
I did work for awhile as a professional audio technician. I've also built my own amplifiers and speakers. I can't say with absolute certainty, I have heard the differences in proper speaker wiring, but the fact is I don't have the same test conditions, or the listening room as he has.
You have done yourself somewhat of a disservice in this explanation. I don't want to be mean here or suggest you don't know your business.
My point is this test isn't correct. Sure, an unshielded, unterminated pair of wires can pick up Radio frequencies. Even doing twists throughout the length of that black cable can slightly attenuate picking up high frequency magnetic waves. The comparison of microvolt signals to a standard 1 watt @ 1 meter (2.83 volt) speaker sensitivity test would show you the tiny 10 to 50 microvolt signal you picked up is thousands of times weaker. This translates to well below human hearing threshold for sensitivity. No doubt though, once you connect the speaker wire to an amplifier and the other end to an 8 or 4 ohm speaker, even that radio wouldn't be picked up.
Going further into your presentation, yes line noise can affect the quality of sound from an amplifier. It not only gets picked up, it gets amplified.
Do I doubt your word that the best speaker wire will improve quality? No & yes. From what you say and experience in your hearing test lab, you may be right. From this tuner test I would say, I would have to say your findings are suspect.
It seems like the real take-away here is actually not the cables themselves at all, but rather the fact that twisting the wires (in this case weaving them) can actually have some limited beneficial effect for canceling out noise on those cables. Now, we also know that this can vary based on the number of twists per foot. The same principal of signal crosstalk cancelation is employed in computer networking cables as well. UTP cable (Unshielded Twisted Pair) Ethernet cable does a certain number of twists per foot internally for the purpose of eliminating or canceling out signal crosstalk where the single flowing down one strand in the cable has the potential to interfere with the signal flowing down another strand in the cable right next to it. So, if you want your cable to act as a filter rather than an antenna, there appears to be a benefit to having a certain number of twists per foot among the wires that make up that cable to help accomplish that.
Thank you for that. Is there a way to hear if there is any noise in my system. If I turn it on but don’t drop the needle into a record I don’t hear anything through the speakers. Is it that simple?
No.
Blind testing seems like a proper way and since the system has such a low noise floor it may be a good test bed. I changed my speaker cables in my system and my son immediately picked up a change but I think it may have been related to the better speaker connectors rather than the wire itself. I don’t know what it was but it did sound clearer and more open - voodoo maybe but that was my personal experience. My concern with the measurement only crowd is regarding if the right measurement(s) are used or even exist. I mean to say we observe or perceive things everyday where there are no measurements that you can point to in order to validate the observation.
Yeah, it's usually the engineer types who believe in measurements by machines and others who simply believe that they have noticed differences by changing various cables in their systems. Personally, I think that various aspects of wiring/cable do have an impact on ultimate sound quality coming out of a speaker system. It's really just a question of how much of a difference and if that difference is audible. The other problem is the virtually infinite possible combinations of cable/equipment that can have unique interactions. Synergy between equipment like amplifier and speaker is one such example that I have personally experienced in very clear ways.
I would be all about an even deeper dive. I am working on my ascent to decent cables. I just need to learn how to get what is good, not what is expensive, because I am poor. Ha ha.
I learned a bit about this noise-floor issue. I use my computer as a source. I had gotten a high quality USB ethernet, then through 25 feet of Cat 5, then through yet another USB. Not only did it work, it immediately sounded better. I could hear the lack of noise, though I hadn't noticed the noise before. It was almost like a loudness filter, because I could listen at much lower levels and still hear definition.
I don't want it to be this way, but it just is, and I want BETTER. . . I'm an avid DIY man, and would like to create my own cables, if I can do it, but how to test. Your method with a tuner is an interesting one, and seems like a nice way to do some testing, though likely incomplete.
Benjamin Anthony, please share when you find a solution if you don't want to start cable manufacturing, i.e.
@@azharzaidi3264 I actually ran across an improvement, by strange and horribly ugly experimentation, before.
I was using 16 ga "zip cord", run parallel with 12 ga 3 conductor, outdoor-type extention cord.
The zip cord is longer than the extention cable, and wrapped around it, loosely. This sounds better than either bu themselves. I will not say it is great, though.
Point to take - Never listen to me! LOL
Just braid some cables together and hook up a descent connector
The signal on a USB cable is digital data, not audio. Digital data does not become an audio signal until it passes through a DAC Digital to Analog Converter. The only way to add noise to the audio while it is still in digital form is to change the digital data that is converted to audio without changing the digital data that controls the transmission of the data between devices, which is not likely. Were you using the DAC in the computer and sending analog audio to your headphones or your amplifier, or were you connected to the DAC in your amplifier?
@@paulsebring6930 Actually the digital signal is very fragile and more effected by RFI and EMI than just about anything else in the chain. All that noise still has to be handled in the D/A conversion process. So there can be and is a huge amount of difference in USB cables.
Standard purity for copper cable is 99.95%. Braided cables (not braided wires inside the cable, not braided shield outside the jacket) add more resistance, inductance and capacitance (i.e., Z= R+jX). The less resistance, inductance and capacitance the better, keep wires short and separated. Although braided wires eliminate cross talk but you could do the same by separate the right from left speaker wire channels by couple of inches. That is, don’t run left and right channel wires parallel if not shielded, thus eliminate mutual inductance. Radio frequency and EMI are insignificant, plus speakers wires do not amplify those signals.
I still want to go into the listening room.
I don't know why I didn't think of this until now. Another reason this demonstration isn't valid is the tuner 300Ω antenna input is a balanced differential input. Most amplifier speaker outputs are unbalanced. Twisted wire will NOT shield against EMI on an unbalanced input. If the speaker wire is sending EMI back to the amplifier negative feedback loop as proposed, the amplifier output is an unbalanced input. Only the capacitance of the cable, which is higher than standard cable because there is more dielectric and more wire surface area than standard cable, allows the expensive cable to act as a low pass filter. You might be able to duplicate the effect of the expensive cable with an inexpensive parallel capacitor at the amplifier output, but I wouldn't recommend that.
To shield against EMI on unbalanced cable requires shielded coaxial cable.
Human hearing at absolute best is stated as being 20 - 20,000 Hz, yet you are testing a length of cable passing the 100
MHz band of an FM signal? Totally irrelevent.
The test was to show this effect as it applies to cables in general, not just speaker cables. And the FRI signal does affect everything in the signal path so it isn't a matter of whether we hear the signals in the mHz ranges but how it affects the ranges that we do hear. Totally relevant.
If, as Danny says, resistance doesn't matter, only RF noise filtering is important, should we buy expensive cable, or should we just buy 22 guage speaker wire and wrap it around a ferrite collar? The ferrite collar would choke out all the RF noise to pass the FM antenna test. Speaker wire resistance does matter, it is easily heard and measured, and speaker manufacturers specifically recommend large gauge low resistance speaker wire. Speaker wire resistance affects nominal 4 ohm speakers more than it affects nominal 8 ohm speakers.
It matters but only if and when it becomes a limiting factor for the amount of current applied. It doesn't alter sound quality.
Audio cables are one of the biggest moneymakers in the industry. I have yet to hear a difference that justifies the price. I am talking about cables exceeding 100.00 a pair.
This episode of GR-Research is badly contrived. The response of a 300 ohm RF input in the FM broadcast band to attached cables bears no resemblance to their use as speaker cables. I postulate that the response of the tuner's VU meter is simply a function of the VSWR on the cables. The parallel lines and twisted pairs have an RF impedance of about 100 ohms, so they are matched fairly well with the 300 ohm input, and signals will pass. The interleaved audiophile cable's RF impedance is much lower, 30 ohms or less, so the VSWR is higher, and less signal can couple into the receiver. An audio amplifier's output impedance is not 300 ohms, so we can draw no conclusions about this test.
Mr. Richie keeps bragging about the low noise of his reference audio system, and he is apparently giving credit to these cables. So why doesn't Mr. Richie connect an audio analyzer to his amplifier's output, and swap this collection of speaker cables in and out, as he did here, and show us how the noise floor of his amplifier goes up and down. Surely, this is the acid test. Show us a demonstrable improvement in performance that audiophile speaker cables make in your audio system, where they are being used as speaker cables, and forget this irrelevant test where speaker cables make poor FM antennas.
In the research I’ve done, and I mean probably well over 40 hours, speaker wire should be gauged to size just like electrical cords for tools or anything that draws voltage and amperage. Example, you use an electric tool that has 15 amp draw you should use a minimum of 12 gauge extension cord for up to so many feet, any longer distance then the gauge of the wire should go up, or should I say down to 10 gauge. If your only running the saw 20 ft from the source, yes you can use a 10 gauge extension cord, but it’s overkill. Anything less, as in 14 or sixteen gauge wire at longer distance and things heat up and it’s hard on the saw, not enough amps running through cord, to much resistance. Same with speaker wire, gauge the wire to the distance at which the speakers are from the source. To small of wire, problems start, and things can ‘break/melt/fry’, blown speakers or who knows what. A lot of even higher end receivers come with speaker wire, it’s sometimes 14 or 16 gauge. Would a company give you the wire if it wasn’t good enough? When I did my wiring, recommendation from my brand of receiver when I called they said 14 gauge that came with it is good. So I did an experiment, I set up a sound meter for volume and had a couple guests listen as I tested. Now this is only for volume not for what some would say quality sound, highs, lows, clipping, etc. I started with recommended wire that came with receiver, 14 gauge, sounded good, then 16, and sound dropped a little, then back to 14 and it improved. Went to 12 gauge and sound did not go up but also we could not tell any difference in quality from any of the wires. If you can get the volume, you should be able to get the quality with the correct sized wire. Any more is overkill.
Total BS. The act of attaching the cable to a low impedance load (amplifier or speaker for example) insures that any RF is shorted out. Love everything else that you do Danny.
If that were true then they would all sound the same. Yet clear audible differences are still present.
@@dannyrichie9743 So you don't agree that an amplifier output is low impedance or that speakers are low impedance ? Or do you disagree with the fact that low impedance will short out any RF ? Have you ever measured the output impedance of an amplifier (typically > .1 ohms). What kind of voltage are you expecting to see on a 1m aerial with the conductors on a near dead short ?
Be honest...
I challenge you to hook one end up to a power amp and redo the test.
@@TeslaNick2 I'm saying that if the low output impedance of an amp nulled the effect then why is it still an audible effect.
@@dannyrichie9743 Danny, you aren't showing us that this antenna effect affects the sound. Just implying it and saying that it does. I am not a flat earther just someone with a lot of skepticism based on 50 years of electronics, audio and physics training and experience. I'm more of a show me rather than tell me guy.
@@dannyrichie9743 Might that "audible effect" be atributed to anything else rather than to RF interference?
What gets me is that in most speakers, the internal wiring is often standard run of the mill electrical wire, and sound is only as good as the worst component and often thats internal wiring or the crossover components and board. Maybe if you got some ultra sensitive speakers youll notice but i think for most people its not an issue at all. Sure if youve upgraded everything to top standards and wanna pay for the last 1% of performance its might be worth but otherwise not so much, in my opinion
that is what i always thought
Yes, exactly! A fact lost on most ppl..
A lot of people were very dismissive of this video and some have good points but there’s a very valid point here as well! The one significant difference between cables is noise rejection! He’s not the usual audio cable guy talking about silly differences between fancy expensive cables! He’s even showing a clear example in a fairly short cable!
I would love it if you could do a video on how to make these cables.
th-cam.com/video/8jEzBfp_d1I/w-d-xo.html
@@neilhunter6096 So all I need to do is place an order for a 10,000 foot run :)
I used this recipe and am happy with the results. I am a little dubious about how much better they are than zip cord. But it is very cheap and kind of fun and you have a sense of accomplishment once you're done
diyaudioprojects.com/Power/Low-Inductance-DIY-Speaker-Cables/
There are many experts at plaiting - most of them are Mums. ('Moms' in US...)
@@biomandanman Ha ha, well, all I thought you wanted to see is one of these braiding machines at work!! They look incredible don't they?
This is just about the first time I've ever not watched one of these all the way through,and I watch any old crap.So this proves that speaker wire can be used as an aerial,as can a screwdriver,a curtain pole,some chicken wire,brake pipe or even a coat hanger.How about a blind test with a speaker connected to an amp with RG58 or similar RF co-ax so the listeners don't know what type of cable they're listening to?
Also don't forget (maybe you don't know) that analogue FM receivers gradually reduce the treble response and blend the signal to mono as the signal strength reduces.This would explain the difference in sound quality.
Good video Danny! I give you credit for not deleting it after all those comments below!! Hahaha! I have a few question here: can you run a signal like white noise using regular cables vs $2000 cables (including power cable) through a digital EQ? So we can see what frequencies are picking. Thanks man!!!
testing antenna effect on speaker cable ? I can understand if you test it on input cables .. what would the signal do to a speaker ? Even if you consider its interfering with the feedback in the amplifier , it would be rejected in the FB network anyways with any decently designed circuit.
I must admit I do Hear a difference with speaker cables. It's not subtle but quite pronounced. Once upon a time I had a pair of Roger Studio 1s connected to an A&R Cambridge. Rated at 30 watts per channel. The front end was a rega planar 3, with an ortofon Concorde cartridge. For a long time I had the speakers connected using QED 79 strand. The sound was very dark, muddy and the mid base swamped the higher end. A friend of mine had some single core cable, which were physically separated by an inch all along the cable. In actual fact it was 3 single core conductors per channel. I only used two on the conductors per channel. This made a profound difference to the sound. The bass tightened up significantly. and for the first time I could hear what the speakers could convey at the top end. I was really amazed at the sound of these speakers. It's character changed completely. More dynamic, more agile. I could really appreciate Stanley Clarke bass guitar as he played it.
When you heard the difference, did you change all the wire inside your sources and speakers or just the wire connecting the two?
Forget AB testing. Someone explain to me why we can’t simply test using microphones? Get a pair or high fidelity reference headphones, use microphones to record the sound that comes out of them, change cables (or whatever you’re testing), and then use software to compare the output. What’s wrong with that approach? This should be the only test cable companies need to do to prove their product is superior.
Just slap the word "research" on something and claim oneself an expert. LOL! When your lab equipment is an old receiver, you might want to evaluate your ability to "prove" anything. This is cringe-worthy. Gibberish... just ridiculous.
Sometimes the simplest things can be done to illustrate differences. Even easier is to make listening comparisons, but that isn't hard to demonstrate over the Internet.
I'll admit I lost faith in the cable claims when I saw some that said "this end toward amplifier --->", which just seems silly to me on many levels. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I have have the basics of EE from my academic days and I've spent a lot of time in copper rolling mills as well. Not that I know everything, but so far I'm still in the "I'm not convinced" camp - but still willing to listen and learn. Copper crystallinity? Oxygen saturation? Skin effect? I actually have access to a bunch of silver-plated copper if I wanted (and a bunch of 16-carrier braiding machines too), but I am not convinced that it would be worth my time and whether I'd hear a difference. I totally get how a split "T" would pick up the most "noise" at higher frequencies and very low current (such as RF signals around 100 mHz) but I've having trouble translating this to my home system that runs at much lower frequencies and much higher current than an FM antenna. I bet the biggest issue is that the speaker wires act as transmitters to mess up the sound of the signal cables... ? I'd be thrilled to learn more from a science/engineering aspect (and even better, how specific aspects of the cable affect specific aspects of the sound), I think that would help more to sway me. I'd like to learn more Danny!
Yes sound is generated by alternating signals meaning polarity changes (plus and minus) take a 30 Hz signal half of it is POSITIVE and NEGATIVE and then they switch (positive becomes negative and negative becomes positive) just like the power coming from the wall (60 (Hz) cycles a second at 120 volts peak to peak so a towards amplifier (or towards speaker) makes no difference AT ALL
The reason for polarity matching is for phase difference (both are to push and pull the same way) this is educational purposes if you know this already great if not then I hope you learned something new definitely not meant to insult anyone's intelligence for sure LOL
If you bent your antenna into a fractal shape it would be even better than it was. Another important discovery thanks wholly to the psychedelic experience!
The discussion at the end regarding shielding, you were talking more about noise from your local energy supplier rather than picking them up from the 'airwaves'. Are they actually analogous as you implied? I.E. Will the shielded cables actually not reject radio noise, and will the braided cable actually filter power supply noise?
Hi,
I hope this message finds you well, healthy, and most importantly ... Happy!!!
I'm just a looky-loo that stumbled upon your video out of curiosity and not only do I appreciate the knowledge you've shared, but also your patience and perseverance, as I can only imagine the "crazies coming out of the woodwork" your subjected to. Just remember Buddy, some people also really believe the Earth is flat too, and there's no defense to that insanity except accepting it's crazy, meaningless, and not worth your time. That said, I was curious about something. Please forgive my ignorance if the answer is glaringly obvious to anyone educated n the matter, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Would a wireless connection between the output component and speaker completely eliminate the problems you've addressed here, and if it did, would the "quality" of the sound be equivalent to that of the best wired option? If that makes any sense at all to you, it'd be very interesting to hear about the how and why of that answer ... even for the "CCOOTWW" crowd to concoct a new conspiracy theory about 😂 I'm well outside the status quo, so I'm quite aware that I'm a bit "different", but I thought it'd be a possible opportunity for a follow up video for your channel as well, so maybe my question could help too, as off the wall odd as it may be, I try to be optimistic .... mostly. 😉 Who knows? Maybe I'm a natural born audiophilic engineer and that was a killer question? ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
Gimme a shout, Holla back atcha Homie, or just leave me a message like normal people, if ya get this and feel like Droppin' Science, Kickin' some Kah-Knowledge, or just sharing the answer 😂 I'd dig hearing about it. I sincerely appreciate your valuable time.
Much love!!! ✌
ϻя.ƹ
When Danny says "hey let's twist one up," he doesn't mean what you think he means.
Indeed, ... that last one in particular was quite the Hog Leg, ... just sayin'
@@FOH3663 I call BS on this....Does FM INDUCTION really have a lot to do with the NOISE floor OR, as I understand it, equipment related. The CHAIN is only as strong as the weakest link. So, if your equipment NOISE is much louder than INDUCTION noise, this video is meaningless, IMO. If you have a $50K system, small improvements like "rejection of FM noise or induced voltages may be worth going after. FM frequency is MUCH different than music!
CLEAN Power is more likely the culprit. I run my amps 220V and that helps somewhat and cleaning this up is very difficult; especially if you have large AMPS.
If you can afford to needlessly waste money on expensive cables that's fine as long as you don't complain about not having enough money to feed your family and take care of the ones you love. No need to fight about ridiculous tests that show no proof of what's actually going on in a complete system during practical use. Just do whatever you want and can realistically afford if overly expensive cables is your prerogative. If you cannot afford the overly expensive cables, don't buy them - if you do, and later can't afford one of life's necessities...well then ya got deeper problems, brother.
Who says they have to be overly expensive?
Cable must be 54 inches the width of FM wavelength and also oriented correctly north-south for optimum signal reception. Up as high off the floor as possible- and also....
Great but what's the price difference between the cheap and expensive cables here?
This is not about the merits of audio cables by it self but the method of comparing so sorry, you lost me here. I like your pure approach to loudspeakers but using RF to compare audio that is like the proverbial apples and oranges. If you go to the Audioholics TH-cam channel, there is a lot said about this subject and specifically that impedance matching which is so important to RF does not play a role to audio. After all you are connecting an amp with a very low impedance to a speaker with 8 ohms (or rather a frequency dependant impedance). That in the RF world is a big No No. So I could come up with an RF generator and matching networks and show a whole load of interesting stuff but it is not applicable to audio. This is the issue if you try to cater for technical and non technical people at the same time on a subject that is highly technical and abstract.
I hope you can come up with an other one, I will forget about this video and come back for something else. Full disclosure I bailed out at 3 minutes and 56 seconds because there are so many interesting videos competing for my on-line time that this one does not cut it.
You spent more than 4 minutes texting and editing your comment.
By bailing early then you missed the lesson.
Also the website you sighted is one of the greatest distributors of dis-information on this subject.
@@ericjensen9091 That is still less than half the time of the complete video, plus I engaged in a dialogue about this subject.
@@dannyrichie9743 Once I knew that speakers where being compared with RF, there was no value for me anymore.
Regarding Audioholics, I think I learned more there than on this channel though I find this channel also interesting because I am open to different points of view and agree with a lot that is being said here, just not everything.
@@hugobloemers4425 Maybe you should have watched the rest of it if you really are open to different points of view.
Funny how you don’t want to start trouble , but you’re desperate enough to dedicate a video to proven them wrong.
You’re showing us that some cables are better shielded against rf. Rf is in the megahertz, the rest you sell here is utter stuttering garbage.
You should stick to what you actually know, building speakers.
The braid of the cable would be awesome to see so we could duplicate it. I know that would probably be the end of a cable but I would definitely be willing to send some Patreon money to you to helping for the cable. Your work is so sound I can’t help but think your blowing people’s minds with your factual tests. Please don’t stop making videos I love to learn 👍🏻👍🏻
Zeos did a video making a nice braided cable cheap recently
I don’t believe they are the same thing
Well yes danny's has 18 wires and zeos's has 8. Also no core piece. But they are similar and zeos does a reasonable job of showing how to make it cheap.
Actually 24 but surprisingly the angle they cross is important and it is not 90 deg.
I’d say there has got to be a very complex braid to render the wire so dead to noise. If it wasn’t than all speaker cables would be makes like this.
If you think cables DON’T sound different you’re correct.
If you think cables DO sound different you’re also correct.
Can you recommend specific cable brands/ models that you think are good value? Maybe even diy?
I am a budget audiophile and don't put a lot of stock in expensive cables. I do put stock in using good wire, good connectors and good assembly of them. SO I went cheap but it had to have the above so I went with ones by Worlds Best Cables because it uses Canare L-4E6S, Star Quad, Audio Interconnect Cable and Amphenol ACPR Gold RCA Connectors. Z Reviews has been using them as well.For speaker cable I went DIY with Canare 4S6 Star Quad speaker cable and bananas. ends being about an 11 AWG cable, nice and thick and good flexibility. SO my whole system is wired with Canare wire which is a professional/recording/touring brand of wire. Mogami would be a good choice as well..
If your component’s power supply is properly designed, it will already filter out all that junk present on the AC line.
Not all of it, and standard cables like the zip cord can pick more of it up.
I agree that zip cord and unshielded cables can (and do) pick up EMI/RFI and that harmonics are present on the power line, but if your gear’s power supply-either linear or switch mode-doesn’t filter it out, then something is wrong with the gear’s power supply design.
@@ebkesq72 I have yet to hear ay gear not benefit from A/C power conditioning.
Adding a better wires wont make an already efficient system better unless the current wires are under-performing.
I’ll grant there might be a difference between different constructions of cable. Simple physics can show that a single unbraided cable is more likely to pick up noise than braided cables. But beyond that, what would be picked up is not audible.
You are correct in that simple physics can show differences, however your conclusion that it would not be audible is speculation. That fact that it is audible has also been proven many times.
If the RF noise getting into the speaker cables would make an audible difference then why when I connect nothing but a speaker cable to my speaker can I not hear this noise? If it's after the amplifier the noise will not be Amplified and will not be heard. Now before the amp is a different story and thats why those cables are shielded. I used to like your videos but I don't think i can watch after what you just said in this video, if your cable is "filtering" out any audible noise at all then it must be filtering out some of the actual audio signal unless your cable has some type of computer processor hooked up to tell the cable to filter out electronic noise but not filter out audio signal lol your nuts if you believe this.
Not a problem. I can only educate the willing.
@John Lastname : Well said, reasoned. @Danny Ritchie : ad hominem, really disappointing. I unsubscribed.
@Greg Hastings No one is trying to fool anyone here. Just trying to teach the truth. Sorry if the truth runs contrary to your beliefs.
Of course they matter, but not in the forward way most people think. RCL forward with typical speaker cable values? IMHO this is BS.
But reverse: As a part of a low resistance complex load they have a HF-footprint on the feedback line of the power amp, no matter if there is only a 6dB Zobel network or a 12dB coil plus Zobel network between the output terminal and the first feedback line resistor. Every different cable has its own footprint, related on how sensitive your amp is.
Come on people… when you disconnect your cable, the music stops. If you use a cable as thin as a spider web you may start getting some sound through but im sure it would suck. If you use a well designed filtered cable you will get pure sound through. - No sound. - Some sound. - Pure sound.
Cables are critical in creating a decent signal. The ‘Snake oil’ conspiracy cracks me up!
This is amongst the most stupid attempts to prove differences that I have ever seen.
Who cares how a cable behaves at 104 MHz, in a totally chaotic environment for high frequencies? Ever adjusted some rabbit ears? If you have, I guess you know how unreliable any experiments with high frequencies are. You move your arm up, and everything changes....
This has nothing to do with audio, only with ignorance.
I was trying to be more kind about it in my comment but I guess that makes us both flat earthers at this point in time.
Stupid attempt to prove differences? It definitely shows differences.
There are a TON of variables that need to be considered before a test like this is relevant. The length of a cable determines which frequencies will excite it, for example, which is why antennas are a specific length.
I’m also not sure how RFI in the MHz range has anything to do with audible frequencies?
Anyway, I’m not taking a side in the main argument, just pointing out that this test is probably not relevant.
Danny, I think people are confused when you use the term "noise" as being something like hiss or distortion you hear as unclear, indistinct conflicting sound which covers up the music. When you say "noise floor" I think of very quiet sound, even though you meant something else. Here is an analogy that works better for me. If you listen to music at 2 to 3 AM in the morning your stereo sounds better because the EMI pollution around us is much less. Think of a lake of water early in the morning with no wind. The reflection of the moon and stars are perfect in the water. As the wind picks up, just like it does later in the day, the "noise" or waves on the water indirectly distort the reflections on the water making the picture reflected on the water less crisp and distinct. The water is like EMI noise pollution. Over the last 40 years EMI pollution has increased exponentially. Not sure as to weather EMI is sufficient coming in over speaker wire to make a difference, but the current of the music going through the wires can create it's own EMI that would be stronger.
I see a tremendous amount of comments saying RF/EMI interference won't affect speaker wires, I don't think that's the point of this video. I think he's pointing out the diffrence in general across all types of wires throughout your entire chain. so many people insist that cables make no difference at all, "snake oil" if you will. I don't think the point of this was for everyone to run out a buy $800.00 speaker wires if your still using Interconnects off the clearance rack at walmart.
Perhaps a PT.2 where Danny uses varying grades of RCA inter connects
You are correct.
That is correct. BTW, the AC wiring insider your house is an excellent antenna for RF.
Would love the very technical talk. and yes yhe materials and how they are used are a big difference,
Yes lets go down that rabbit hole :D
I can't hear MHz and I know my speakers can't reproduce it.
But it does have an effect on signal. Here is another example? th-cam.com/video/ER_lqNFckxY/w-d-xo.html
I use a DIY twin twisted solid core WF100 co-ax "Ubyte 2" cable on my OTA Quad 57'S because it has low inductance giving a flat frequency response in my system. I have tried Monster cable, Nordost & several others since 1984 all sound different in my system. 25 years ago I explained my understanding of skin effect to an expert at a large A frame computer show he suggested it was acting as a inverted wave guide however only pertinent above audio frequencies.
Wonderful, but would like explanations of wire constructions and purity differences u didn't want to tackle...
I just meant I wanted explanations of braided vs twisted vs flat speaker wire and also silver vs silver plated vs different copper purifies! I think a deeper discussion of insulators would be great also. Does he sell his favorite speaker wire?
Beautiful the mint condition on that Pioneer receiver, I had a Monster cable bought in 1982 caliber 8 awg something like that, one day a friend was selling me a Transparent cable The Wave which was the cheaper with network and after hearing it it took me 30 seconds to ask him if I could pay them in 2 days, I kept those cables because I heard the improvement in clarity and bass punch, people must understand is not the same the sound of a n1 vs n6 cooper grade.
All this test has done is prove how good or bad those cables work when used as an antenna. How they work as speaker cables with both ends terminated and voltage driving the speaker is an entirely different thing. You need blind testing under controlled conditions to see if people can actually hear a difference, and that's where things usually fall apart for cables making a difference.
Ohhhh... You're one of those people. Hahaha
@@jason4547 Yes fortunately.
@@garyl5128 My people.
@@jason4547 One of those that actually wants to test it properly?
This is why I don't trust GR-R. You demonstrate a speaker wire can act like an RF antenna (which I agree, it can and does), and THEN claim the induced noise affects "the sound" without connecting these wires between an amp and a speaker. Gary correctly points out THAT would the REAL test of whether the induced noise is "audible" or not.
I didn't get very far into this experiment before I had to ask, "Why don't you just test for cable effects by identical signals nulled at the ends of a sample? We engineers do this all the time when looking for very small signal differences due to inequality. The resulting difference is the contribution of the sample cable. Big difference = not so good cable. The standard used could be an agreed essentially lossless bit of conductor.
Also, for the cognoscenti, we don't care a wit about what the sample can conduct; we care a lot about what it changes.
Null testing is a thing.
This should be up voted
yep. Audiophiles and recording engineers don´t have a lot of overlap in knowledge ;) demistify the vodoo
We'll have more on this subject as time permits.
@Dave Reite It was a great illustration of just one of the aspects of the differences of various cables.
@@Raumweiter - I would think that on average, most recording engineers are also audiophiles. That alone ought to make a difference in the results which are supposedly heard.
I want to see these cable gurus run a double blind ABX test. They can use their own cables. I'm open minded. If they can show they can identify a statistically significant difference in those conditions, then I'll believe them. Until then, I remain unconvinced
I have a great deal of skepticism as well. My mind goes back 40-60 years ago pertaining to the power of the amps, composition of the drivers, and composition of the cables. Have our ears improved along with the testing equipment? I understand annoying hmm & feedback but the cost of some of these cables according to the test equipment is negligible.
Many did and you can hear the difference. Not in every setup though. At the end the difference exists regardless on some beliefs.
@@miroslavkelekovic2507 No, they did not.
ABX on a oscilloscope and you still wont find anything.
we did a blind test with several cables , one had a key as part of the conductor and no one could tell the difference
So, RF coupling affects the noise floor, and how you can hear the decay of instruments, correct? Just plug your cables into a speaker, but don't connect any amp. Then you have the RF at the speaker input. What will you hear?
The sound of positive thinking.
I don't hear anything through my tin foil hat that protects my brain from RF noise.
The sound of one hand clapping.
Where’s the technical talk?
Where's the beef? 😁
I guess you'd be shocked to find out that most recording studios where your music was recorded and mixed use pretty standard cable. It's not dirt cheap cable but it's not $30 a foot. Probably a couple of dollars a foot. And you should see the mass of wires behind some of those consoles.
and trought a bunch of "cheap" electrolitic capacitors, uggly silicon based op amp and noisy carbon film resistors ha ha ha xD
Belkin, Canare, Mogami, mostly.
I had read that most recording studios use active loudspeakers: active biamplified speakers with active crossovers. That would totally eliminate passive crossovers and speaker wire. That would probably not apply to all the music that has been recorded over the years.
@@paulsebring6930 For pro audio we use symetrical connection. So WE have no issues with emi even at long câble length.
this just proves that we are a bunch of monkeys which repeats that what we have heard and come to a conclusion about. Same story about people who learn something, like, they dont use expensive cables in the recording studio, and that that music was never mixed for audiophile system. Now, you think you are smart and have got 1 up on the rest with selecting your theory based on one practitioner who has come to this conclusion then run around and tell everyone how your mindset works on the matter in that the recording is not mixed for an audiophile system. And while you may be quiet right, the point it, for whatevery system you migh have at your home, hifi or high end, everything makes a difference and its not about your thinking and resort that makes out the difference and your so very strict knowledge about what is bullshit and what is not decided upon one theory of some coffee drinking theorist, who has probably never heard a high end system and comes out and spits out theories about that things does or does not matter.
The same shit for the opposites, they have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and go preach about some theory which has come to their attention. We really are a bunch of monkeys. Some for the money, some for their own right to be right. If there was even one company who knew how to make good sound, if they had the fact on what made good sound they would have made it long ago. The business is to make you think that you are right, then to be confident in your beliefs, so that they then can bend you over and keep you as a disciple of their theory so that their theory manifests itself as the truth in this world.
Seems to me this demo is completely irrelevant. All it shows is how good the cables are as radio antennas. The cables would behave completely different when one end is connected to an 8 ohm or less impedance at one end and the other end is connected to a very low impedance output of an amplifier. It's like determining how fast cars would do in a drag race by measuring the rpm of the tires while the cars are jacked up and the tires are spinning in the air.
Good analogy and they will behave different under a load, but the RFI and EMI issues are not at all irrelevant. There can be quite a bit of an impact on the sound.
@@dannyrichie9743 Maybe if your house is next to an FM transmitter .. but irrelevant at speaker level.
@@rhubarb99999 If it were irrelevant then adding an element like ERS paper on the cables would have no effect. But in reality, it does. So you better rethink you're belief system.
@@dannyrichie9743 I think it's you who needs to rethink your beliefs. I posted this to the guy in the video and I will say it to you and ANY one who believes this snake oil crap! (I still say SNAKE OIL. I will challenge you to come to St Petersburg Fl. Bring your stereo and speakers. I will go to home depot and buy wire and solder connection to them to fit your equipment and we can do a blind listening. I still say you will not be able to tell the difference PERIOD!!! Oh yea no one selling that snake oil has yet to take the blind challenge, Are you game!!!)
@@universe9496 We've done blind test out the wazoo. You damn near have to be deaf not to hear the differences. But keep telling yourself the world is flat enough and you will truly believe it.
Now plug any of those cables into your speakers, with your amp disconnected/off. Do you hear anything? That's how much of a difference there is. None.
Exactly my thoughts, the noise emanating from my speakers with just the speaker wires connected is deafening!
!
I have tried some on loan from much more well heeled friends. For my ear/brain combo all that really matters is a very basic level of quality (essentially OFC).
After that my opinion is atmospheric pressure, barometric pressure fluctuation, and relative humidity have a greater potential for impact. I could see the former having a demonstrable effect but the latter two... well...
His friends did hear FM radio at home
@@aman-mn5kc ????, they heard fm stations being picked up by the speaker wires and transmitted to the speakers?
so without an fm tuner their low quality speaker wire was able to extract the music from the ~ 90 MHz carrier signal.....amazing
@@ziggy1ful
The silent treatment from my wife after I tell a bad joke, is the most deafening.
Whether the cables improve sound quality or not, this is a terrible "experiment" to prove anything. I'm pretty sure my speaker response rolls off long before 88 Mhz anyways. And an RF signal through an 8 ohm load produces approximately 0 watts of power anyways.
yep , i was thinking something similar, we are talking minute levels of energy which will produce negligible response in the speakers....
@@Lauren080508 You guys don't get it. What is noise? It's not hiss or hum that you hear, it's degradation of your noise floor. Since you aren't aware of what affects your noise floor, just keep on rocking with whatever compromised cables you have.
Unfortunately I don't think this is wholly accurate unless there is a load on it completing/closing the circuit. Opened ended wires act as an antenna based on the length and twist index and available frequencies to cause ingress.
Unfortunately I don't think this is wholly accurate unless there is a load on it completing/closing the circuit. Opened ended wires act as an antenna based on the length and twist index and available frequencies to cause ingress.
It's a completely relevant test. It demonstrates the effect of an increased noise floor, which can effect the perceived sound quality.
Danny, the ability of a speaker wire to pickup electromagnetic energy is of no consequence to audio because neglecting other factors, the audio information riding on the RF carrier must be detected (demodulated) to recover the audio signal. The signal strength meter only shows the RF carrier level which cannot be heard unless there is something to detect the audio signal riding on the carrier, either a diode in the case of AM or a frequency discriminator in the case of FM, neither of which is part of an amplifier or speaker. To prove this, put the cables between an amplifier and speaker in the usual fashion and listen for noise without playing anything. If you can't hear and measure anything different with the different cables, there is no audible or measurable difference between the cables. The reason that the big cable showed less signal strength is because it has some additional capacitance and possibly also inductance which acts as a filter, but this is of no consequence in the application as I just stated. Also, while noise can be radiated or conducted, the potential for noise from the power wires being conducted to the speaker wires is nil, because of the filtering within the power supplies. If it was being conducted through the power supply, it would result in clearly measurable and potentially audible results depending on the amplitude of the noise at the amplifiers output, degrading the signal to noise measurement.
Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse.
Also any wire will pick up RF. The wires you are using are opened ended, it needs to be terminated as it would be in the circuit. Put an 8 ohm resister across the open ended wires and redo the test. Your 4th wire measure the capacitance and you may find it reject the frequencies in the 100 MHz range.
@@rf0022 Yes, any electromagnetic field will induce a voltage in a wire. And you are also right that the terminating impedance will affect the voltage across the wire, but the tuner does terminate the cable with either 300 ohm or 75 ohm impedance depending on which antenna terminals Danny used. And also the extra capacitance and also possibly inductance in the 4th big cable is why the voltage is reduced. None of this matters however because the audio modulated on the FM carrier cannot be detected as there is no such mechanism in the amplifier or speaker. This was a faulty demonstration of any influence of RF energy affecting the sound of a speaker cable. The only way to demonstrate if there are any differences between speaker cables relative to their capacity to pickup RF/EMI is to use them in the usual fashion between the amplifier and speaker playing nothing and listen for anything different between the cables.
I dont believe the RF was the intent of this experiment. The point was rather you believe speaker wires are all the same. Danny demonstrated this beautifully.
The "best" speaker wire had almost no absorption of bled noises.....kind of like a filter of unwanted signal. Danny is correct to show the wires are not the same when it comes to insulation from bled noises.
@@billjackson3257 that's pretty deep. I will never think of Radio Frequency the same
Btw.. ever see "they live" or "1984"
While it's interesting to note that the different cable geometries can result in measurable differences in RF signal capture (all the antenna engineers just said "well duh!"), the test rig did its measuring here with a circuit specifically designed to receive those signals at the modulation frequencies. Just because an unterminated wire pair can capture RF out of the test environment (act as an antenna) doesn't mean that the signal will have any significance when applied in the actual circuit use case. The voltages involved between an amplifier output and the detected RF signal is likely on the order of 3 or 4 orders of magnitude (or more), and that RF signal is orders of magnitude above the ears ability to hear. There may be secondary effects on the circuitry of a poorly designed amplifier, akin to oscillations outside the audible range loading the circuit devices and affecting their performance on audible signals. Different amplifier topologies will also react differently (e.g. class D amplifiers of necessity employ filters to remove aliasing that would also wipe out any of these rogue RF signals.) In the end, it comes down to how you define whether something "matters". Just connecting random copper lengths to an RF input is barely the start of a proper test rig. If the assertion is that this specifically should be applied to speaker wire, at a minimum you need to have both ends attached to the typical terminations (amplifier output stage and speaker input - likely crossover components but ultimately a transducer voice coil). Only then are any measurements realistic and potentially of concern.
I was wondering the same thing - how an unterminated pair of wires work as an antenna is a completely different thing to being used to conduct voltages in a complete circuit to drive a speaker. These tests don't prove those cables make any difference to how the speakers will sound. The only way to know is for blind testing in controlled conditions. Floyd Toole has done plenty of research into how people rate speakers in controlled conditions, and when people can see a speaker they will give different results to when they can't. The same goes for cables.
@@garyl5128 It's why Julliard stated having blind judges during auditions.
This is actually my new fav audio cringe/hate watch channel. Idk how someone so clearly brilliant and passionate about technical audio science could spout this stuff day after day with a straight face. But ultimately I’d do the same thing to increase hate comment interactions and owned an audio store to profit off the wealthy suckers while they guzzle down all the yummy yummy snake oil straight from the snake oil source💀
Maybe you should have followed the link posted below the video: th-cam.com/video/ER_lqNFckxY/w-d-xo.html
Yeah the voltage in speaker wires is so high, that effect from these interferences really doesn't affect that much to the output. It is like you scoop water from a river with a teaspoon. It really doesn't affect the total flow. Case is different with 1vpp signals with active speakers. There the signal cable insulation and cable quality really matters. And this is the main reason I naturally prefer passive speakers over actives.
My cables sound so good i got rid of all my other hifi gear! No speakers, amps, Dacs nothing just cables!
Yeah, but in that sort of case you know that you have to match the cables to the cosmic background radiation, otherwise you will have terrible audio quality!!!!!
Also, listening to those cables on the 6th Tuesday of the month at 3:pm helps too, Hugely!!
Hahahahahaha ...
Make sure to pull your cables out and away from the walls.
@@oldaudiograndpa1055 Yes, and consider the gravitational mass effect of nearby ferrous metals in carpet tack strips and flooring/framing nails on the cable.
So.....you are proposing that the RF energy floating around pretty much everywhere has an effect on the analog audio signal carried by a speaker cable? Uh....I don't know if I am buying this theory. Yes this demonstration does prove that some speaker cables make good FM radio antennae's while others do not. The audio signal is a bit different from RF energy. I am not saying that cables do not matter even though I have not been able to hear any significant perceivable difference myself. I am not convinced by this parlor trick. It proves nothing about differences in sound. Proof would be if you can show a difference between input and output of an audio signal over different cables. I have yet to see anyone provide this sort of proof.
No parlor tricks here. The demonstration was real and highlighted just one of the differences in cables. This one was just easy to show. And the proof is in the pudding, as they say. There are clear audio differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 well it would be foolish of me to outright deny that there are differences in audio signal transmission between cables. However there is a clear lack of evidence and your demonstration proved nothing related to actual transmission of an audio signal. An FM carrier wave at 104 MHZ is not going to have an effect on the audio signal. They are two completely different things from a physics point of view. As I said already "proof" would be demonstrating a measurable and significant difference in output of an audio signal between two different cables. However I am hesitant to dismiss the lack of measured differences to mean you don't hear a difference because we may just not be measuring the right things. Interesting video and I meant you no disrespect by calling your demo a parlor trick. I just feel like many folks that do not have a background in electrical/RF engineering would be sufficiently confused to believe you actually proved anything other than some some speaker cables are better antennas than others.
@@JHuffPhoto You're thinking about this. I like that. The proving that cables are different in one aspect (being an antenna or filter) doesn't prove an audible difference, but it does prove them different in that regard. And that does effect the signal transfer. The real test is to perform listening tests and comparisons to know if there is an audible difference. I've done this a LOT. However, that still doesn't prove anything to the nay sayers. So proving anything to the masses is tough.
@@dannyrichie9743 I have learned that it is never wise to simply dismiss someone's experience outright. However I do have a few questions. Ok so you say that the RF rejection characteristics have an effect on the transmission of the audio signal. How would you explain this effect (in technical scientific terms) and measure it in a scientific way? An effect that is at -130db from the signal level will likely not be audible so how would you propose to measure this effect and determine the level relative to the input signal.
@@JHuffPhoto Good question. I don't have the means to measure it, but it is pretty easy to hear on a good system. And some things that we do are just really tough to measure.
This is not proof, all he’s doing is showing how to use a standard wire as an antenna. Don’t mean you can hear the differences in cables
You are absolutely incorrect, but thanks for felling the need to post your opinion.
I will argue that in basic systems, it is more difficult to hear differences between cables. However, if you have a high end, revealing system, the differences are pretty obvious. It's not voodoo. I understand not wanting to spend major money on cables; I am the same. I build my own cables for a fraction of the cost and yes, the differences are outstanding compared to the monoprice cables I used to sport. Instead of turning a deaf ear, you might want to listen to Danny. He knows what he's talking about and you can learn a lot from him.
@@LunarLightLtd1 Nope. I own a pretty high end system. I used to have Kimber 8TC speaker cables and had lots of noise from my speakers. Speaker cables were not responsible for this. It was a ground loop coming from my pc's power supply that once managed to break, my system went dead silent. Afterwards, I've changed speaker cables to lower priced Chord Carnivals and also went XLR all the way. I can't hear noise even if I stick my ear to the tweeter. So, myth busted..!!
@@nicholasstathopoulos8192 we're talking about two completely different things buddy. Ground noise and shit in the signal won't magically disappear with good cables. It's still being conducted on the line. Good cables will prevent other distortions from being radiated or conducted from rf, emi, and the like. So, myth not busted, we're discussing two different things.
It demonstrates the effect of an increased noise floor, which can effect the perceived sound quality.
Ahahahah how are you going to reconcile the fact that these cables arent inside the amp, assuming for example a wired tube amp / or God forbid PCB traces, so they loose the signal AND THEN the last wire from amp to speaker make up? It's like down sampling and then upsampling.
I think the "square" Earth globe says it all..........
A definite improvement over flat earth, yes?
I’m a flat earth believer but I still believe in speaker cables making the difference in sound.
Square Earth??? No Balls! ;-)
@@jogmas12 That actually makes loads of sense.
@@matilija I have done my due diligence on the research into both, the earth is proven flat and the right speakers cables can make a difference
I send all my cables to a to a ancient temple in Tibet. The cables stay with monks for 3 weeks The monks meditate and pray with the cables. This makes A huge difference In sound quality and it also offers me a more emotional connection with my cables Which also results to better sound It's a very spiritual experience you should try it.
I also have friends that are flat earthers And since the Earth is flat they use flat cables and they elevate these cables off the floor using petrified wood blocks this creates the famous plateau effect Which they say dramatically improves sound quality.
LOL!!
HaHaHaHa
My cables are delayed, still on backorder due to corona.
@ReaktorLeak OMG thank you so much for the tip. I just put some of my wives clear quartz healing crystals on my cables one crystal for every foot of cable.
I am truly blown away at how crystal clear the sound is it's simply amazing.
Hahahahahahha hahahahahahha
I totally agree with you about the general behavior a cable can have, acting as a filter or antenna.
But as a engineer of electronics, I widely disagree with the testing setup you chose to demonstrate potential effects of loudspeaker cables on your stereo:
For your video, you connect the cables to the antenna input of a tuner. Off course, the tuner input stages, used to deal with those very low antenna voltages will pick up the noise as any antenna signal.
And, yes, twisted or even shielded cables will result in lower input signal to get amplified by those FM input stages.
But in real life, we do connect those cables into the output of an amplifier, from there going into the speaker. Both power amp-out and speaker in-are low resistance (4-16 Ohm for the speaker, and most often a fraction of this on the amp output). This will shortcut the high frequencies with such antenna-like low voltages completely if the amp is built properly with a grounded housing.
My conclusion and experience:
if anny noise from the air creates noise in your system fed-in from the speakercables, something is wrong with the amp - and, yes, it can happen with cheap gear or a damage in the electronics.
A totally different thing, not adressed by you here, is that twisted cable designs can positively impact cable capacity and inductivity, resulting in finer details getting to the speakers more accurately. But also here, I doubt the extreme promises of the audio accessory industry and the dealers, lurking for some extra revenues. And what nobody tells us is the fact that complicated twisting makes the effective cable lengt go up by a factor, resuling in higher Ohms between amp and cable - not a good thing at all!
Looking at the speaker cables at large concerts (huge speaker arrays and power amps), they mostly use non-twisted but very large diameter cables, made from good copper, connected with the professional Speakon plugs that provide extremely good connection with the amp and the speaker terminals. What makes those cables a bit more expensive than the "Wallmart telephone string" is the shere diameter and the highly ruggedized and flexible and robust outer hull.
Some years ago I spoke whith a nice sales guy of a famous German cable company, seeking for some advice. In a nutshell, he told me "Yes, we also produce some of those multiply twisted loudspeaker cables just because we have the machinery for it. We sell those cores to different companies that finalize the cables, attach some golden bananas, and sell it for incredible prices to all those idiots in the market that would better spend their money to improve their room acoustics."
Exactly.. All well said..
"we're not going to listen to it"... Literally the only test that actually matters for audio
The only test that only means something to you and has nothing to do with what the quality actually is.
@@lazyh-online4839 lol k. If listening to the audio isn't your ultimate test on sound quality then nothing more needs to be said.
He's attempting to illustrate his point in a visual manner, as people tend to believe seeing is believing. His point being cables act as either filters or an aerial, with regards RFI transmission and affecting the noise floor. So, he's SHOWING you WHY cables can make a difference. Out of the 4 shown, which one would people probably choose? Which would *sound* THE BEST?
@@stephenfurley1025 simple answer, double blind testing accounting for the ability of the listener to properly and subjectively hear the music to determine if there are truly ANY differences that are audible. Yes, thereay be some rf interference but the question is does it affect the audio in any audible way and any properly done double blind tests and analyzing sound with a microphone that can pickup noise far outside of human hearing has demonstrated and PROVEN that no, it's not. All he's doing in the video is demonstrating that there is an effect, he isn't demonstrating if the effect is audible or meaningful in any way.
@@RoseGold823 I never said that it wasn't, but if you're trying to find out if the differences are truly audible or just psychological then you need to make sure you're doing it right. If you're doing it for your own home and your own system then that's absolutely fine to let that psychological bias take hold of your ears. I never said there was anything wrong with that, simple fact is that as I've said in many comments on this video psychology does go into how things sound to you and if it helps you feel like the sound is better then it's up to you if that "sound" is worth it. I'll never fault anyone for buying these products.
The difference is, hearing is only telling you how it sounds to YOU. It doesn't answer the question about actual subjective sound quality outside of how your brain changes the signal coming from your ears or how it sounds to people who don't have a psychological response to price tag or marketing. The ultimate test would be to listen, but properly, with double blind testing. What "sounds good" to you and what actually affects the quality of the vibrations leaving a transducer are two completely different things. Both can be determined by listening and you sound pretty stupid for not realizing this.
If you can repeat the same with a 8 ohm resistor connected to the other end of the cable, and show the same results, that would be amazing....Or you connect an open cable to a speaker and you can hear something from the speaker. Show me.
I'm the first to acknowledge there are subtle differences between cables. However, this isn't the way to measure those differences, and even then, just because you can measure the difference it doesn't follow that you can hear the difference!
Especially with the limited hearing of age 50+ listeners.
Yes. A listening test is always best. There may in fact be audible differences to some ears. Especially those of us without much frequency loss yet. Due to age or misuse.
@@MR.ROBOTVOLTRON with the expensive cable always sounding best.....when you know it's the more expensive one.
@@michaelwildsmith4446 Haha, yup. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that copper cables are described as having a warm, rich sound while silver is described as cool and analytical. Nothing to do with the appearance of the metal at all. Nope. /s
I like the video, but would it be better to connect the cables in the system to the speakers and turn up the volume too 10 and listen for noise Obviously without a signal source, and then compare the cables..
Regards
Well I wasted 20 minutes of my life watching this in the hopes of someone actually showing a measurable difference in speaker cables. Noise floor my eye. If it made a dramatic difference it would be easily measured by a spectrum analyzer. I've tried using my AP system 2 > -120db noise floor, nothing. If you are a true believer, I challenge you to do a true double blind cable test between the supposed worst cable and best cable. If you get 100% correct I will be convinced. I am not saying there are no differences, there may be, only that the differences are very, very small and no one has yet devised a method for measuring these differences in a meaningful way.
Damn, judging by the comments, avoiding creating a big controversy did really work out well... 🤣
I've got 64 year old ears, so I used 2.5mm twin and earth domestic power-cable for my workshop speakers. My music sounds beautiful coming from my 1972 Goodmans Magnum K2's. No clicks, buzzes, hum, RFI or anything like that, just lovely music.
May i ask if you use two wires on the plus or the minus? I was thinking of doing the same with the garden type because they are very flexible and very cheap I could use also extension power cable also very cheap and flexible
Nice to know I'm not the only person using vintage speakers in the workshop, I get a choice between Mission 720'a and TDL RTL3's :).
Different cables sound different if you believe they do. If you don't believe it, you won't hear it. I need say no more.
I presented this idea as a reply to another comment: A more significant test than RF pickup on unterminated wire would be very simple. Since the amplifier output impedance is very low, disconnect the speaker wire from the amplifier and short the leads together. The speaker wire that produces the least amount of audible noise through the speaker when not connected to an amplifier and the leads shorted is the best speaker wire.
An inductor would produce the best result, but make the worst speaker wire. The entire premise of this video is absolute garbage.
LOL!
@@mdocod in deed. This snake oil relies on the very subjective nature of human hearing , and that's why they can never pass a double blind test
I had to give up when you got to the 'rf on the mains gets through...'. Hmmm. You say that an inductor attenuates HF. The x-former is a very large value inductor, so what is the attenuation of RF as it enters your system through a traditional (non-SM) PSU?
Oh, have you considered testing a nice lab-standard Faraday cage for your listening room to eliminate pesky RF.... should be not much more than your 'reference' cables 😉
Or putting a tinfoil hat on 😂😂
Sorry not convinced, if you contact the chipset cable in the world to loudspeaker with out any amp connected you will not hear anything coming from your speaker , no noise no radio station, there is noise on the cable but you will not be able to hear it
At all it is simple not significant when you listen to music, inter connects are different because what they pick up is amplified a lot but speaker cable , sorry no
In my experience and likewise for thousands of others, it is very easy to hear the effect of the noise on the system.
Yes there is noise on any system but not because of speaker cables , they add noise but it has a so small that it will be no be possible to hear , it will be like hearing a man talk from 50 miles away , just do the experiment disconnect your cable from the amp and see if you can hear anything at all
@@dedyvideo You are speculating on it's audibility. I'm speaking from experience.
And the point of this wasn't just to show a difference on speaker cables. These same differences take place with all the cables in the system.
@@johhnyappleseed9989 We've done the side by side comparisons. We've even used average listeners as test subjects, and the differences are easy to hear especially with tube connectors.
@@johhnyappleseed9989 how do you know?
FM is broadcast in Megahertz (1,000,000) range, amps put out hertz to kilohertz (1,000). I fail to see how my stereo will pick up interference from a frequency it can not receive.........
As a graduate from EE, I have to say the conclusion of this experiment is highly unjustifiable. Yes cheap cables pick up interference but does it matter? That interference can be measured by instrument doesn't mean it can be heard by human ears. First, if the frequency of the interference is outside the spectrum perceivable to human ears, it doesn't matter at all. For example, if the interference frequency is 100KHz, human ears cannot hear it at all. Second even if the frequency of the interference is within the spectrum perceivable to humans, is the strength of the signal strong enough to be perceived by human ears? If the signal / interference ratio is higher than 85-100 dB, the interference can be ignored totally.
Man, there are a lot of ignorant people posting here, and you are one of them. Why do you think they make balanced cables or shielded cables?
@@dannyrichie9743 I can definitely tell you I am not as ignorant as you are. Those balanced cables or shielded cables make sense only for small signals such as the input for pre-amplifiers. Although the noise strength is small, the gain of the pre-amplifier is large and after the amplifier, the noise level can be too much. Yet after speaker cable, there is no amplifier. The noise picked by speaker cables is added to the speakers directly. There is no amplification at all to the noise picked by speaker cable. The noise is just simply too weak to be applied to speakers for people to hear.
This test only shows how much RF noise is picked up by different cable geometries, nothing more, nothing less... This test doesn't show anything about how a cable in and of itself affects the sound quality of the music signal flowing through it, this test ONLY shows how much different types of cables can pick up additional RF noise. While this IS one relatively minor aspect to consider in finding a good cable, there are many other, even more important cable "qualities" to consider first.
One question to ask here though, is if the braided cables act as filters of high frequencies, then (theoretically at least), wouldn't those same cables slightly attenuate the subtle details of the highs in the music signal passed through them, at least of the musical harmonics above 20KHz or so?... The frequency harmonics of music from 20KHz to at least 40 or maybe 50KHz or so still add some life, depth, and realism to the overall sound and tone of certain musical instruments for example, and that has been talked about for decades in the hi-fi audio industry, so you wouldn't really want a cable that filters out any of the high frequencies would you??... Any thoughts on that?
As per your first paragraph, correct! It was to show just one aspect of the cable. And the braided cables can filter out some of that RFI without effecting the audio signal and everything that we want to be maintained.
Isn't the FM signal neglectable small compared to the speaker signal?
If your amp is sensitive to RF coming in on the speaker leads you have bigger problems than speaker cables. My dad had an old Fisher tube reciever that picked up the neighbors linear amped CB. I slapped a 1pf cap on the speaker outputs and that went away. I suspect that those braided wires are acting as tiny capacitors.
That is total bullshit. Not across the speaker terminals. It wouldn't do a damn thing.
@@dalemcgaffey4272 Actually it did. My suspicion is that the almost 30 year old crossover had some going bad in a non-linear way. We could hear the noise on the headphone output, but only if the speakers were on. Disconnecting either conductor caused the noise on the headphones to stop. This was not common mode noise. Never saw the like of it again though and it has been more than 30 years. One of the speakers made a much larger contribution to the problem, like 20db more than the other. The speakers were a miss matched pair of AR 10" 2 ways.
No, they are acting as antennas.
@@jdrissel What you were experiencing with the Fisher receiver and the neighbor's linear amped CB was the RF being picked up by the speaker cables and getting into the receiver's RF sections and being detected and amplified. Similar to a crystal radio that doesn't even need a tuned front end but just detects the strongest AM signal and has enough power even to drive an earphone. I was into CB and ham radio back in the 60s before converting into an audiophile. The 1pf cap was enough to kill the RF signal enough to not be a problem.
@Mdmchannel auto corrupt strikes again. Sorry for any confusion. When I posted that it was 1 picofarad in its abbreviated format. I had to backspace and un-correct it when I typed it and apparently it was auto-corrupted sometime after I submitted it. This makes me wonder about the admissibility of anything posted online. I don't have to wonder about posts here. This is at least the third time a comment of mine has been auto-corrupted.
I just watched the best speaker cable for a FM antenna test at a certain frequency between 87 MHz and 108 MHz. Why not run a reference audio signal from 20Hz to 20KHz and look at it on an oscilloscope? -16 dB of FM signal may produce a signal on a FM tuner (it is demodulated and amplified) but will not have an effect on a speaker cone and BTW RF signals are hitting your speakers all the time even when there are no wires connected.
I have witnessed how expensive cables sounded better to the seller and owner but not to the guy that wasn't willing to shell out the cash. However I will agree there are proper cables for a particular application and should be used as such. I am in lockdown on Christmas Eve trying to entertain myself, already had enough to drink and eat.
I think what all this boils down to is CABLE ARCHITECTURE. If you took notice Danny used a variety of cable from straight wired zip chord to increasingly complicated braided multi-stranded, multi-cored wires. What happens as you increase the complexity of the cable is a reduced noise floor, because the braids act as a faraday cage on the neutral, which is where most of the noise tends to be.
In my own recent experiments making RCA, and speaker cables I have found a profound difference when the signal wires are shielded by the neutral, that is, wound as close as possible to 90 degrees around the signal wires. Results were a much reduced noise floor, cleaner, clearer, sound, more detail and nuance.
For all the naysayers I suggest you actually build your own cables before you criticize Danny's findings. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get stellar results if you DIY, either. I have been utilizing Steeve Reeve's designs, in particular his RCA cabes, and his speaker cables with fantastic results. He explains the engineering behind the design in easy to understand terms. Check them out here. DIY Speaker Cables - The "HELIX IMAGE" Speaker Cable
I have recently had to plug my entire sound system to a new electrical circuit because my preferred "convenient "circuit was far too noisy .Even buying a circuit regulator did not help(though I don't know if that was my fault for buying too big a wattage device?)
Do you think that Helix Image cable would resolve the problem?
@@johnh539 Not sure if it will help? Sounds to me like you have more serious issues than just the RCA cables themselves. Make sure you route all power cables away from sources, and also keep them separate from your rca cables. Make sure equipment is grounded if it need be, and also keep sources like pre amps away from power amps. Think long and hard about separating cables and making the back of your equipment with cabling and the like as tidy as you can. Hope this helps?
@@karlcotleanu486 thanks for your advice. I have never understood grounding Hif where do you ground to , can I attach it to the metal flames of my furniture?If I have separates do they all have to be earthed to different 'say Frames 'or do you form a loom and ground them as one?
In my house the lamp cord is dead quiet too.
Yours too? This must be some kind of mass hallucination, I mean some guy on tube has just proven that cables are riddled with a previously undiscovered audible rf using the vu meters on an old receiver-you can’t argue with that!
Cables do make a difference! But I think there's a cut off point! If you are spending thousands on cables you're being ripped off. Just my opinion! ;)
Agreed! It's a racket.Cables are good for fine tuning.The big player here is source.Ìt seems to cable manufacturers have found the Philosopher's stone, and now turn Copper into Gold!
@Chris Kay I love how people just say stuff based on.... well, nothing. Just 'cause you think that. Ever test various cables? Or read any White Papers? Or easier still, just talk to someone who designs this stuff, or at a minimum understands it? The greatest thing about ignorance is that it can be replaced with knowledge. There is, unfortunately, no known cure for stupidity....
@@shodan6401 The point is that, even if cables do make any kind of difference, that difference is so small that it is actually highly disputed by many who work in the field of sound reproduction. So his point is, even if that small difference does exist, the cost required to achieve it, is prohibitive for about 99% of audiophiles. Of course someone as stupid and pretentious as you just wouldn't understand that.
@@shodan6401 Any opinion can only be based on your own experience! As I said I think cables "do" make a difference! Especially speaker cables! Switching from 2.5mm cable to 6mm cable i.e lower gauge cable made a " night a day " difference to my speakers!
You have to look at your system in points of quality restrictions. That can be your source, amp, cables, internal parts, etc. I wouldn't recommend anyone spending $5k on a pair of speaker wires if they're using bad old gear and crappy speakers. Yet I also would not recommend lamp cord being used by someone with expensive gear. I recommend trying different gear until you find your happy place. Then enjoy your gear.
Record 2 different cables, then sum the 2 signals out of phase. This should show any differences.
If they do make a significant difference , why don't you replace all the internal wiring in your speakers with it ?
Really good question.
You'd also need to open up your amp and redo the wires in there.
@@redstang5150 And all the circuit board connections.
He does