Marvey's Cable Rolling Adventures

Discussion in 'Modifications and Tweaks' started by purr1n, May 7, 2016.

  1. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    Dislike actually isn't very helpful here. What @zerodeefex is doing is explaining his dislike: you're signal to noise ratio isn't very good. Take your comment, it appears you have experience with several cables, but the only takeaway I can get is that you like Mogami cables. Why? And why should I care? Posts aren't about as much about your journey as it is about helping the community.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I thought he said he didn't like Mogami and preferred the stock HD650 cable? I'm so confused.
     
  3. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    Haha, exactly.
     
  4. tdockweiler

    tdockweiler New

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    You should have read my post about that more slowly if it made no sense.
    I actually don't know where you got this from because it was pretty clear when I re-read it.

    Here's what I wrote:

    "Mogami and Canare wire for an HD-650 cable is strangely worse sounding than the stock HD-650 cable. I think the stock HD-650 has a much lower capacitance."

    I think it's because Mogami and Canare in general are too warm sounding and makes the HD-650 seem too muffled sounding.
    Mogami is great as an interconnect cable, but when I make an HD-650 cable it's just warmth overdose. Why? Not sure exactly. Maybe higher capacitance?
    I think there is a reason why back in the day people always loved silver cables for the HD-650. I think it's because of a super low capacitance (which isn't always good IMO).

    Sorry if you guys don't like my rambling writing style. That's fine. Yes, it's somehow all over the place, but I'm not going to change and make a TL;DR version.
    I'm not writing a book here and not going to go and edit my post 20 times just to please everyone.

    Yes, perhaps it was a bit long, but I was taking a break from work and that tends to happen sometimes.
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Mogami capacitance for each of of their bulk cables is listed on their website. The capacitance is listed in every way possible. Hot to ground, hot to cold, etc. You should probably say which one you used. Some of the Mogami I've used has super low capacitance.

    I also haven't found any correlation from capacitance to warmth of cables. The rolloff from cable capacitance isn't anywhere near audio frequencies.
     
  6. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    temp ban for you for not figuring this place out before mouthing off to an admin then continuing with the crap posting below.

     
  7. tdockweiler

    tdockweiler New

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    You're right, that would have been helpful. This was back a long time ago when I was new to making cables. I've had others say Mogami and Canare was a bad choice for their HD-650s too, but some might love it. I think their most common Starquad variety of cable has a higher capacitance. At least higher than the stock HD-650 cable.

    Very low capacitance wire always sounds thinner/brighter/clearer and more "analytical" to my ears and the higher capacitance wire more warm/muffled sounding. I've experienced this almost every time I made a cable. Most likely it had something to do with the gear I was using it with. My first DAC was the HRT Music Streamer II and that was warm sounding to begin with. Could be just some randomly weird coincidence.

    This is why I never use a very low capacitance wire with a K702, Grado or Beyerdynamic headphone. Just one bad experience after another.
    Silver cables on a K702 is just plain awful. I don't know how anyone could stand it. I don't think I was a believer of cables making a difference until I heard the K702 with silver! Cat5 reminds me of silver plated copper wire. Don't ask me how :D
     
  8. tdockweiler

    tdockweiler New

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    LOL I wasn't even remotely rude to anyone. Where are you getting all this?
    I see not much has changed from the Changstar days, but that's OK.
     
  9. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Actually this place is totally changed from Chang but we do want to maintain high quality posting. You are treating each of your posts like an email draft to yourself with all the useless shit and maybe one salient point in the whole f'ing thing.

    If you had:

    1) introduced yourself in the new member thread
    2) didn't have a history of waxing idiotic that we had respected members WARN us about (this isn't a blog and we don't know you)
    3) taken the time to get to know the place before being a dill weed
    or
    4) been more mindful in your posting so others could glean some kind of benefit from it

    you wouldn't get a temp ban.

    For the rest of you: one of the meet organizers just pulled out for personal reasons, Marv is busy as hell, and I'm working crazier hours than I expected at a new job so we're testier than normal. This grumpiness won't affect the rest of you.
     
  10. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    Cable preferences are very equipment dependent. What works for you might make my system sound like crap. I prefer the sound of copper(more neutral) over silver. Hybrid silver+copper is fine(U shape), just not pure silver(overly crisp).


    Anyone in need of a new avatar? :D
    [​IMG]
     
  11. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    While I'm not a massive subscriber to the more extreme forms of cable woo-woo, I do have to agree- really bad cable choices can certainly have a surprising effect. I tried a pair of those amazingly thin Linum MMCX cables (I think it was the "Music", but I'm not sure) with my SE535. Good grief, the effect was.. noticeable. You'd certainly be able to pick it out from the stock Shure cable in a blind test.

    It sounded incredibly thin, sibiliant and tinny. I was going from my Mojo to my SE535, and honestly, the sound reminded me a bit of the old free wired Apple earbuds, but with more extension upwards. Really unpleasant- though interesting that there was such a difference.

    It's a shame, I would have bought them on the spot for how light, fine and pliable they were. I was quite excited about the material technology angle. However, it wasn't a good combo, at all- never heard those IEMs sound that terrible. I'd be fascinated if someone could offer a useful non-wild guess suggestion as to WTF was up with the pairing.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2016
  12. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    Cable related / Funny lol story:

    Youtuber tells people not to spend money on expensive RCA cables as it's placebo effect/buyer convincing themselves on purchase(buyer's remorse) and cables don't matter at short distances etc:


    Doesn't like the short length Schiit PYST XLR Cables(@2min:20sec):


    Proceeds to buy $500 Audioquest XLR with Battery thingy and recommends them:


    #The Irony / #Buyer's Remorse

    Edit: Guess he might have gotten the cables for free or something?
    https://www.amazon.com/Audioquest-Elements-Water-Analog-Interconnect/dp/B00KX8J4VU/
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2016
  13. uncola

    uncola Friend

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    so normally I'm an objectivist but I decided to get one really nice cable just to confirm cables do nothing.. kind of like a super straight dude banging one gay dude a year just to confirm to himself he's straight. and it improved my sound in every way :( granted I didn't level match and A/B test with my old bluejeans cable speaker cable.. but it was dramatic enough that I didn't feel a need to waste my time. this is probably a trap many find themselves falling into but it's so much better.. f**k. feel free to begin the mockery

    grover huffman empress speaker cable
    [​IMG]
     
  14. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    I've never liked that channel either. Dude is constantly asking for review samples from manufacturers, etc. to a point that I've seen it across multiple platforms. He's a user here (same handle as his YouTube channel).
     
  15. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Nah. I concluded long ago that cables aren't a belief system, but their pricing relative to one's personal value equation most certainly is. I'd never seen that empress cable before. How is it normally terminated?
     
  16. johnjen

    johnjen Doesn’t want to be here but keeps posting anyways

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    As I'm re-discovering, a portion of the benefit that cables can bring, is in the metallurgy itself.
    Certain mixes of metals work well together while others don't.

    Case in point was when I made my power cables and used 3 different metal coated plugs (copper, gold, rhodium) using the same design and wire type.

    The rhodium was the best.
    And a ways back I changed the 4-pin XLR connector on my 800's from silver to rhodium and the change was immediately apparent.
    I then went one more step and changed the 3-pin XLR connectors on my IC's to rhodium as well and, again, the change was immediately apparent.

    But depending upon the existing setup (the metals already in use) the SQ can also go sideways when experimenting with variations of different metals.
    IOW there can be a learning curve involved.

    JJ
     
  17. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Ah, so here we have the exotic hifi cable. Normally hidden from the world in a secluded audiophile lair, it emerges in these rare moments out into the wild. Observe as it spreads out its bright plumage, an irresistible siren call as it seeks out a mate. Such is the life cycle of a hifi cable, appearing ever so briefly to propagate, then disappearing back into their burrows. Much like their human counterparts however, once a hifi cable has reached maturity it is evicted from the nest to find a new home. Thus the circle of life continues...
     
  18. uncola

    uncola Friend

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    grover offers low mass banana plugs or spades but recommends bare wire.. he solders on a 14 awg copper solid core wire a few inches long for you to U bend around your binding post, which is what I did
     
  19. johnjen

    johnjen Doesn’t want to be here but keeps posting anyways

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    One aspect that I have learned is to make the contact patch between the binding post (or screw head etc.) and the wire as large as possible.
    This usually entails either flattening the wire where it contacts the binding post's pinch zones, or using a spade lug, or ring connector to increase the size of the contact patch.

    Just a thought or two.

    JJ
     
  20. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    All the duplex receptacle shootouts I read said rhodium plated is always brighter than silver. I'm surprised you are saying rhodium is better with the 800. I would have thought it would be overkill.
     

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