Marvey's Cable Rolling Adventures

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

  1. uncola

    uncola Friend

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    loaner tour :p put your money where your mouth is ;)
     
  2. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Sure - I'm game. (Seriously). Merry Christmas!
     
  3. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    Thanks Marv, Im a sceptic toward cable but I guess ill have to try the Pangea in my system. will order a pair and report back.

    I broke my lifatec spdif cable recently and switched to my cheap plastic spdif and honestly I struggle to hear any difference and I may even prefer the plastic one.

    I know that many do not hear a difference with usb cable: whats your view with usb cable Marvey?
     
  4. Maxx134

    Maxx134 Dunning–Kruger effect poster boy

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    Oooo boy...
    you opening another field of discussion lol.

    I think interconnects,
    and headphone cables,
    and short internal wiring,
    and USB cable...
    They all have different conditions, parameters, and goals..
    So necessitate different approaches.
     
  5. loplop

    loplop Acquaintance

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    I hate cables. I have the defective audiophile nervosa gene, and it's flared back up massively as of late.

    I am fairly new in the headphone world, but have been into hifi speaker-based systems for decades. From the first time I heard Audioquest cables in my own system back in the late 80's, I began taking some care in cable selection. I moved through AQ (still have some original type 4 in use from 1993!) to MIT (anyone remember the hateful "termination network boxes?") to Nordost to Audience AU24. Liked the latter a lot, but the price annoyed me, and when Audience created their "e" version which was an "undisclosed treatment" for 2x the price I got pissed.

    For some reason that touched off a real nerve--I suspect that cables are probably the highest-margin products in the entire audio industry, and I simply have this visceral reaction when I see cables priced in the K's and 10s of K's. I know, that's my own failing... anyway... I began searching for a more reasonable alternative, and settled on Analysis Plus. Really good value, and great sound. I've used them for about a decade. I've used a variety of Copper Oval-in, Solo Crystal Oval, Silver Oval, and always liked them. I even cabled my live audio recording rig with AP cables. I'm still using analysis plus cables in my main speaker-based rig.

    Fast forward to now, and my somewhat recent move to headphone-based listening, My headphone rigs have started to get more complex, with more boxes, requiring cabling. I've been raiding my hifi cable stash, and have been relatively pleased to find some OK combinations.

    However, I recently created multiples of complexity in my late-night bedroom listening setup. I was simply using my ifi iDSD BL, no interconnects needed. I thought "I want some tubes up here" and wanted to check out the entire ifi micro stack, so I added an iTube2 and iCAN SE. All of a sudden I now need 2x interconnects, and since the cluttery look exploded and I decided to get the ifi iRack to tidy it up, I now have them stacked within inches of each other... my 1-2m audiophile interconnects look ridiculous. I can't abide by that ridiculousness, I need short cables, and simply have none. The stock ifi cables (that come with the iTube2, etc) aren't pleasing to me. I was hoping the upgraded cables bundled with the iRack would do the trick, but although they are better than the stockies, they're still too warm & veiled... Normally, I'd just buy analysis plus and be done with it. But it seems a bit silly for me to spend $500 on 2x copper oval-in's when that's 1/3 the cost of the entire stack.

    So my nervosa has exploded like an atom bomb as I try to talk myself into the "upgraded" ifi cables and keep rolling in my audiophile detritus to positive effect, re-starting the nervosa cycle... And I haven't even replaced the stock blue USB A cable... oh, the horror of the nervosa cycle.

    I hate that in my "real job" (decades in IT) I would never add a network drop with anything other than some garden variety networking cable, yet in my audio world I'm not satisfied with a cable that for a foot costs what 1000ft of CAT6e costs. WTF. I hate that I like expensive cables.

    I hate cables.
     
  6. Minbeo

    Minbeo New

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    Belkin gold usb cable + Ironlung jellyfish power cable do make my system sound better, i'm not kidding :D i must have been using some god awfull cables before.
    You can get both these cables for under 40$ so totally worth a try, expensive cables are only for when your existential crisis kicks in.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2017
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Belkin Gold USB is better than some expensive audiophile USB cables. Been saying this for years, going back on HF.
     
  8. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    I wish they made a 3ft version, though.
     
  9. Gemini

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    Belkin Gold Series Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Cable - 6ft

    I just ordered a few from Fry's. They're on sale for $4 with free shipping.
    It'll be interesting to do a comparison with the $99 "audiophile" USB cable that LH Labs threw in for some backers of the Pulse Dac a few years ago.
     
  10. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    for the first time in my life, I decided to explore IC's.
    I have cardas quadlink 5c and cardas neutral reference with me. The quadlink 5c seem to have removed any pervious hardness I experienced with utopia. since I went from my radioshack IC to Quadlink 5c, I cannot find any hint of hardness that seemed to occur before. im skeptical, but it seem to have helped quite a lot.
     
  11. uncola

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  12. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    DAC is Schiit yggdrasil. it has two separate outputs so I get to connect two different IC's into my headphone amp, the Pro Ican which has 3 inputs. by the turn of a switch, I can A-B test, so in half a second, I can switch between cable A and cable B.
    [​IMG]forum image hosting

    Honestly, im scratching my head here.

    I have 6 interconnects here, ranging from 500$ to 100$ retail value.
    Cardas quadlink 200$
    Cardas neutral ref 300$
    Audioquest Water 500$
    Analysis plus one oval 100$
    Kimber hero 100$
    MIT2 100$
    [​IMG]forum image hosting

    I cannot distinguish any of them accurately.

    they sound so close to each other that its a bit ridiculous to try to describe the difference.


    I will try harder for a couple of weeks, but right now, I have to really try to hear differences and I dont. they basically sound exactly the same. bit dissapointing.


    just for fun, ill throw in couple of 1$ IC's and see if they also sound exactly like the high ends one, I bet most will.
     
  13. bixby

    bixby Friend

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    yes, I owned three of your cadre of ics and agree the differences are not bigly. :)
     
  14. Johan

    Johan New

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    anyone used
    Gotham GAC-4/1
     
  15. winders

    winders boomer

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    Okay, I have read the entire thread and I must admit I am a bit more confused now than I was before reading it!

    I will soon be building my 2 channel system and will need to buy at least 2 pair of XLR interconnects. Currently, I have a pair of 1.5 meter XLR interconnects from a company called "Amplifier Surgery" located in Illinois. The cables use silver plated OFC copper and appear to be well made using Neutrik connectors . They seem to work well and are not expensive at $89 per pair. Note that he can make the same cables using OCC copper cables (no silver) for the same price.

    I think the one solid thing I got out of the thread is that Pangea Audio makes nice sounding XLR cables. Oh, I also got that Marvey does not like silver anything in cables.

    So, I am interested in trying XLR cables made with no silver to see if there is a difference, good or bad, compared to the XLR cables I have. I like having 1.5 meter cables as they give you flexibility in component placement in a rack. That length shouldn't be an issue for XLR cables, should it?

    The final question is should I go with Pangea Audio using "Cardas Grade One Copper" on 1 or 2 conductors or the Amplifier Surgery using OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) copper on all 3 conductors? The Amplifier Surgery cables will be less expensive by about $40 per pair. Or do you think it make no difference?
     
  16. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    FWIW I tend to hate anything silver plated copper, but I'm fine with (or even prefer) real silver.
     
  17. Cakecake

    Cakecake Guest

    in market for some speaker cables.

    blue jeans way to go?
     
  18. cskippy

    cskippy Creamy warmpoo

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    Blue Jeans Cables are good quality for the money. It all depends on how much you want to spend. I would say BJCables and Pangea are both good bang for the buck. Monoprice on a budget.
     
  19. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    If I was you I'd call up my local pro audio store and ask if they sell Mogami speaker wire by the foot. You can get them in a variety of conductor sizes.
     
  20. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    best bang for the buck?
    van den hull skyline hybrid
     

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