Why on earth do speaker wires sound different?

[MrGongGong]

I knew that word was going to boomerang back!

I couldn't think of the right term 'rasp' or something of that ilk is better. It was a couple of years ago but those there the things that stuck in my mind.

Ok

why do HiFi folk talk about "interconnects" when everyone else involved in recording, music production, electroacoustic music etc calls them leads ?
What other kinds of leads are there ?
Ones that don't "interconnect" ? actually I have a few of those here with me, they aren't connected to anything at the moment !

[Nevalti]

I don't want to divert the thread into the minefield of interconnects but, as an aside, I had never found much difference between the (decent quality) interconnects I had tried until I was loaned a pair of Chord Chorus 2 a couple years ago. Even I could hear a marked difference with the Chorus 2, especially on the brass and cellos which had an extra brilliance and 'texture'.

In my case it was the Chord Chameleon Silver (even cheaper) which made a significant difference. Others seemed to make far less difference. I'm now mainly using Supra EFF-1 balanced interconnects which I thought at first gave me a big improvement - but now I think it is fairly minor really. The advantage remains though that I don't have to worry about keeping the balanced cables away from the mains leads etc.

I suspect that whatever difference various interconnects make is very system dependant.

I'm sure that is true and maybe our different tales support that. I can see no reason why it would not also be true with speaker cable. If someone does NOT have revealing speakers, they should not expect to hear much difference - and visa versa if differences actually exist. They do.

[mangerton]

I think one of the points about legality might have related to the professional qualifications of the poster. I have done wiring myself in the past, but I am not qualified to do much other than change a light bulb under current legislation. I'm not even sure if I can legally change a switched socket these days. I have one with 2 outlets, and the switch on one socket doesn't work. I have the replacement ready to go.

Google for "Part P", which came into effect in 2005, I think. Legally, I think anyone can do a like-for-like replacement, so your switched socket change should be OK. (Turn the power off first!)

More useful information on usenet at uk.d-i-y.

Part P relates only to England and Wales. In Scotland we're still allowed to kill ourselves and burn down houses.

[Dave2002]

I don't want to divert the thread into the minefield of interconnects but, as an aside, I had never found much difference between the (decent quality) interconnects I had tried until I was loaned a pair of Chord Chorus 2 a couple years ago. Even I could hear a marked difference with the Chorus 2, especially on the brass and cellos which had an extra brilliance and 'texture'. I suspect that whatever difference various interconnects make is very system dependant.

Maybe there should be another thread to deal with this. One reason I mentioned it was because personally I found that leads (please notice Mr GG) to connect between amps, CD players etc. have much more effect than loudspeaker cable. Perhaps all of these connections are very dependent on the equipment being connected, including speakers. If you didn't notice a difference for some time, then there may be quite significant variation. One other reason for mentioning this is to confirm that the effect is real - at least as far as my perception and reporting of it goes.

[MrGongGong]

If you take a screwdriver and open up your amp , CD player, pre amp etc
have a look at the size of the leads inside ........ on esoteric hi spec hifi are they significantly bigger ?
I know that hefty PA amps have suitably chunky insides
but most of the domestic kit i've looked inside is fairly flimsy

Surely (as said before) this is significant ?

[Nevalti]

............... One other reason for mentioning this is to confirm that the effect is real - at least as far as my perception and reporting of it goes.

I certainly agree that the effect is real but why? The signal being carried in minute so surely it is not a function of cable size. If, this time, it is a function of materials used, why can't that also affect speaker cable?

[Gordon]

Second instalment:

Mmmmm. Not sure I agree with that but..... 'perfection', to me, is that which gives a convincing illusion of reality and is free from annoying 'errors', for want of a better word, that keep reminding me that I am only listening to reproduced sound. For pop music, which is virtually all electronically created, in one way or another, we can have little ideas what it originally sounded like so it is less important BUT a live concert should still sound like a live concert and not a sanitised one with the audience engineered out. I know... that is my opinion only; I am the observer in that instance.

Agreed. See below for more.

Going back a few posts however, IF we can measure everything that we hear, at a live performance, we could, theoretically, make a perfect reproduction of it. So maybe we do have an objective measure of perfection.

Theoretically perhaps. But what is “everything”? Everything you hear comes to you through two ears only. So let’s sit you in a good Hall somewhere and put a microphone in each ear and record the outputs at the best resolution we can. Then let’s play back those recordings [unadulterated] into the “best” pair of headphones we can find. That comes close to putting “everything” back in your ears. Is that any kind of perfection? If so why do we not get rid of speakers etc and record “everything” this way and use headphones? Once you move away from this model the wet gets in everywhere.

Perhaps a bit of a generalisation. People sometimes call me an audiophile, I think it is some sort of insult, but the technology behind the sound is largely a mystery to me; I just love listening to music and I hate having it spoilt by distractions from the very system that I am using to listen to that music.

Fair enough. I am no audiophile ie someone whose hobby is HiFi and who spends a lot of time and money on equipment and tweaking etc, But I do like reproduced sound to be clean and free of major distractions. I am tolerant of low level impairments that a true audiophile would consider to be ”totally unacceptable” or other such terms eg “awful”, “intolerable” etc etc. It is less to do with having good ears and more to do with what you do about what they tell you.

I have tried some 96 & 192/24 downloads (which is actually what I meant by HiRes) and I could hear no obvious benefit. I did not buy and listen back to back with a 44.1/16 version of the same recording because I have read that the 24 bit and 16 bit versions are generally mastered differently. That renders a simple comparison rather meaningless. Maybe I can make my own down-sampled copy and try again some day.

Apart from FLAC and the like most downloads are lossy formats like MP3, AAC etc. I have similar experience regarding 96/24 etc but some here will disagree with us; anyway because they are often compressed it confuses the issue. The mastering issue is a bit confused although nowadays I think most digital masters are made at at least 96/24LPCM or the DSD equivalent [multichannel] even if they end up at 44.1/16 WAV/LPCM stereo. What we don’t know for sure is which source do, say, iTunes or Amazon use? I suspect they simply rip CDs but I may be wrong. Pristine audio offer FLAC as well as MP3 but their sources are usually old LPs rather than the latest masters. Beware of remastering though between versions of a given item.

No. The 320kbpsAAC R3 stream is obviously a huge step up from the dire offerings of DAB and the BBCs 128kbpsAAC streams but it is noticeably inferior to CD. At least the R3 stream is not actively annoying like most internet stations and DAB is.

There is another thread here somewhere about compressed formats. I don’t want to go there yet again, we’ve done it to death too often. I have to say that I do not find DAB [R3 at 192] as bad as some here do; I find the dynamic range issue more disturbing [see other thread] as well as the relative speech/music balance.

[MrGongGong]

Theoretically perhaps. But what is “everything”? Everything you hear comes to you through two ears only. So let’s sit you in a good Hall somewhere and put a microphone in each ear and record the outputs at the best resolution we can. Then let’s play back those recordings [unadulterated] into the “best” pair of headphones we can find. That comes close to putting “everything” back in your ears. Is that any kind of perfection? If so why do we not get rid of speakers etc and record “everything” this way and use headphones? Once you move away from this model the wet gets in everywhere.

.

We don't just use our ears to hear
I've played underwater music in swimming pools with profoundly deaf people, used resonance boards etc etc etc
Don't your trousers flap when you have epic bass ?

[Gordon]

We don't just use our ears to hear
I've played underwater music in swimming pools with profoundly deaf people, used resonance boards etc etc etc

Quite so MrGG!! Hence my query what is everything? Keeping things simple never works. If we get some auditory sensation through our skulls for example doesn't that vibrate our brains too and, if that is so, doesn't the weather - ie air pressure - affect that process?

Don't your trousers flap when you have epic bass ?

Ah!! So now we have to wear audiophile trousers too!! I'm sure I prefer wool/polyester mix to chinos

[Nevalti]

....Everything you hear comes to you through two ears only. So let’s sit you in a good Hall somewhere and put a microphone in each ear and record the outputs at the best resolution we can. Then let’s play back those recordings [unadulterated] into the “best” pair of headphones we can find. That comes close to putting “everything” back in your ears. Is that any kind of perfection? If so why do we not get rid of speakers etc and record “everything” this way and use headphones? Once you move away from this model the wet gets in everywhere.

No, it certainly isn't that simple. Our ears, our ear lobes, our skulls, our finger tips, lungs and other organs etc tell us far more, in the real world, than those headphones would be capable of simulating. In the real world we can tell with amazing accuracy where in space a sound comes from. We can identify incredibly small variations in sights, smells, touch and sounds - possibly beyond what we can measure or perhaps even think about measuring. I can for example feel guns firing many miles away on Salisbury Plain but I can only just about hear a LF 'crump'. A microphone and headphones would probably miss those guns completely even though I am very well aware of them because of minute clues that my body gives me. A bat can perform some amazing feats even with its tiny little brain. Although we can't echo-locate an insect, we can also do amazing things with sound and, with our big brains, we probably have sensitivities we are not consciously aware of. Precisely how we can locate things, I have little idea, but we can and that tells us very clearly that there is far more information arriving at our brains than a dummy head and a pair of headphones will ever provide. 'Perfect' reproduction would have to go way beyond that.

In part illustration of this, did you hear on the news recently that a team of scientists set out to disprove the 'myth' that the full moon affected people's sleep. Much to their surprise they found that the full moon does actually have an effect on the sleep of the majority of us. I'm sure they thought they had measured all relevant factors but they then proved themselves wrong. It just goes to show the wisdom in keeping an open mind.

I am no audiophile ie someone whose hobby is HiFi and who spends a lot of time and money on equipment and tweaking etc, .......... It is less to do with having good ears and more to do with what you do about what they tell you.

OK. By those definitions I am certainly not an audiophile. My last speakers depreciated £200 over a 20 year period. I don't think £10 a year is too much to spend. My current amplifiers are worth significantly more than I paid and they will hold their price - so they are even better than free. I have never bought anything, of any significant cost, without thoroughly auditioning it and the competition for an extended period. I find that many highly reviewed 'Best Buy' items are actually amazingly poor.

Some people show a kind of inverted snobbery about music lovers who buy 'luxury' hifi. At the same time, those mockers are probably driving around in Mercedes, Jaguars, BMW, etc convinced that it was well worth buying those cars rather than a Kia even though the size and performance of the Kia may be just as good. The truth is that the Mercedes, etc does do something better. It is often difficult to define or explain why but a luxury car is just miles better than an ordinary car and the same applies to some hifi equipment. The biggest difference is that a luxury car and a luxury hifi do their job effortlessly without intruding or annoying.




Edit: Ah, you mentioned some other factors whilst I was typing.

[Gordon]

Response to #69: see my #68!!

We can identify incredibly small variations in sights, smells, touch and sounds - possibly beyond what we can measure or perhaps even think about measuring.

We can also be fooled by illusions. Mirrors, lenses, mirages, colour TV and printing are classic examples.

[Dave2002]

In the real world we can tell with amazing accuracy where in space a sound comes from.

What evidence do you have for this? I think you only think you can do this.

[Phileas]

In the real world we can tell with amazing accuracy where in space a sound comes from. We can identify incredibly small variations in sights, smells, touch and sounds - possibly beyond what we can measure or perhaps even think about measuring.

This sounds a little speculative.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Interconnects:
Balanced or unbalanced? The only advantage to using balanced leads is to avoid common mode noise, usually case voltage disparities (50 Hz) between the two connected units. This will be heard as mains hum. Now this rarely occurs simply because we connect all our hi-fi units to the same voltage source with short mains leads. So there's no need for this. Except: perhaps in the case of connecting a very low output moving coil cartridge to a phono stage. That's why SME turntable/arm systems and the Chord phono stage allow for balanced connection between the two. (but having said that, making that connection unbalanced in my set up creates no significant mains hum).
As for anything else, why bother? A typical interconnect will be driven by a voltage source with an output impedance of less than 1,000 ohms (good hi fi will be 500 ohms) into an input stage with an impedance of 50 k ohms. A run-of-the-mill 1 metre interconnect will usually have a capacitance of 100 pF, so the 3 dB point is 32 kHz and will be a smooth 6 dB/octave roll-off at higher frequencies. I'd say that was quite inaudible.

Mains supplies.
If you're experiencing serious problems with your mains I suggest you get your supply line-neutral impedance checked. It should be very low (mine's 0.14 ohms, but I've seen values of several ohms!).

Power amplifier supply regulation.
If you're going to drive 4 ohm loudspeakers to 250 watts I suggest you use active loudspeakers! But if not, you should look for a power amplifier that uses a switch mode power supply, not a Mickey Mouse 50 Hz capacitance regulator. Buy a Chord amplifier!

Loudspeaker leads.
The volt-drop on 1.5 mm^2 multi-core cable is 28 mV/m/A (IEE tables). So driving an 8 ohm loudspeaker (does anyone use 4 ohm loudspeakers?) to 250 watts needs a supply voltage of 45 volts, a current of 5.5 A, and if my loudspeaker leads are 10 metres long, the voltage drop will be 1.5 V, a compression of 0.3 dB - again, inaudible.

[MrGongGong]

The biggest difference is that a luxury car and a luxury hifi do their job effortlessly without intruding or annoying.

Or, as Julie Walters put it so memorably in the film Personal Services ......... BCSD

We can identify incredibly small variations in sights, smells, touch and sounds - possibly beyond what we can measure or perhaps even think about measuring.

well unless you are some sort of superhuman I think this is nonsense
If (and i've been in this situation recently) I change the gain of a single microphone in a mix of a 60 piece orchestra individually miked , by 0.2 db I hear NO change at all, BUT i can clearly see it as a measurable change.
Human beings are , in my experience, rather inconsistent in their ability to hear small changes, so many things depend on slight differences on phase, whether you have had a cold in the last month, what you listened to just before , where you sit, how you sit or stand and so on and so on........

What happens when you spend £1000's on a single lead and then go swimming and there is a bit of water left in your ears ?
what about how the speed of sound is variable with regard to temperature BUT not consistently across the whole frequency spectrum and so on and so on