I’ve owned Kimber products for years now, and they’re worth every dollar. Audioquest, Nordost, and others are on the same level. When you reach a certain price point, I think it’s just personal preference and what you’re willing to spend. I don’t know many people that would connect their McIntosh 1.25kW mono blocks to their Sonus Fabers with 18awg lamp cord from Walmart. Just sayin’
I've been looking for a video like this for a while now. I'd like to see Audioquest or Kimber or another one of the "good" cable companies do a video, maybe more like a documentary on how their cables are made, tours of the factories etc.
"Capacitors affect the signal passing through them in a way invisible to distortion measurements." Several writers have advocated passing pulse signals through two different sorts of capacitor, and subtracting the result, claiming that the non-zero residue proves that capacitors can introduce audible errors. In fact such tests expose only well-known capacitor shortcomings such as dielectric absorption and series resistance, and perhaps the vulnerability of the dielectric film in electrolytics to reverse-biasing. No-one has yet shown how these imperfections could cause capacitor audibility in properly designed equipment. "Passing an audio signal through cables, PCB tracks or switch contacts causes a cumulative deterioration. Precious metal contact surfaces reduce but do not eliminate the problem. This too is undetectable by tests for non-linearity." Concern over cables is widespread, but it can be said with confidence that there is as yet not a shred of evidence to support it. Any piece of wire passes a sinewave with unmeasurable distortion, and so simple notions of inter-crystal rectification or "micro-diodes" can be discounted, quite apart from the fact that such behaviour is absolutely ruled out by established materials science. No plausible means of detecting, let alone measuring, cable degradation has ever been proposed. The most significant parameter of a loudspeaker cable is probably its lumped inductance. This can cause minor variations in frequency response at the very top of the audio band, given a demanding load impedance. These deviations are unlikely to exceed 0.1 dB for reasonable cable constructions. (eg inductance less than 4 uH) The resistance of a typical cable (perhaps 0.1 Ohm) causes response variations across the band, following the speaker impedance curve, but these are usually even smaller at around 0.05 dB. This is not audible. Corrosion is often blamed for subtle signal degradation at switch and connector contacts. By far the most common form of contact degradation is the formation of an insulating sulphide layer on silver contacts, derived from hydrogen sulphide air pollution; the problem seems to have become worse in recent years. This typically cuts the signal altogether, except when signal peaks temporarily punch through the sulphide layer. The effect is gross and completely inapplicable to theories of subtle degradation. Gold-plating is the only certain cure. It costs money. A switch with gold-flashed contacts can cost five times as much as the silver version. "Cables are directional, and pass audio better in one direction than the other." Audio signals are AC. Cables cannot be directional any more than 2 + 2 can equal 5. Anyone prepared to believe this nonsense won't be capable of designing amplifiers, so there seems no point in further comment. "The sound of valves is inherently superior to that of any kind of semiconductor." Doug Self
Tubes are better. Analog is over 192k if the analog is a 12 inch 45. Coupling caps do sound different. Ask me how I know these things...............................
Hi Peter - one reason that one end of a cable may be better plugged into one component than another could be to do with shielding. The sound may be different if the shield is connected with the source earth rather than sink earth. But for a two-wire connection I find it harder to believe as a physicist. Nevertheless, the crystal structure of the conductor may well play a role (I'm pretty sure it does, otherwise why is OFCC so important for us?) so the answer may lie in this aspect. After all, most of the signals are tiny and we have to ensure the electron gas travels optimally in order to have the most "faithful" reproduction. So I'm confident that the way the wire is drawn/grown and subsequently annealed and perhaps cryo-treated cannot be ruled out. And let us not forget, only the most revealing of systems will make it possible to discover the most subtle of differences. If one's system is a hodge-podge of boxes just using the supplied cables with no regard to clean power (makes a HUGE difference) optimal speaker placement, room optimisation, best signal cables, best possible loudspeaker cables, loudspeaker decoupling from the floor (another HUGE difference) then it will not be possible to discern the differences. Ask me how I know in over 50 years in this hobby. Best, Rob in Switzerland
I'd like to conduct double blind testing with speaker cables. Take high quality components, end to end. Take a set of $10,000 Kimbers and other "high end cables". Say, a group of 10 different cables, including one set that were homemade, for around $40-$50 in materials. Let's see if the manufacturers could recognize their own cables. Or could even recognize that there was a homemade set in the bunch. I doubt they would ever consent or participate, because it would destroy their credibility. I'm sure Kimber (and the like) use high quality materials and their products' construction are top notch. But this "super cable" BS is just that. BS.
+Theball Player I would imagine that 10/10 would not notice the difference between a high end cable and bell wire. Their cables do look nice, but who watches the cables when listening to music??
That cable braiding machine is downright mesmerizing. I could watch that for hours on end.
Me too. I want one of those machines! 🙂
I use Kimber Cable and Audioquest a lot in my system. For me they produce the best results
I’ve owned Kimber products for years now, and they’re worth every dollar. Audioquest, Nordost, and others are on the same level. When you reach a certain price point, I think it’s just personal preference and what you’re willing to spend. I don’t know many people that would connect their McIntosh 1.25kW mono blocks to their Sonus Fabers with 18awg lamp cord from Walmart.
Just sayin’
I agree. In the grand scheme of things, when you look to Cardas and Nordost you quickly realize that Kimber cables are much more affordable.
I really like kimber products
I've been looking for a video like this for a while now. I'd like to see Audioquest or Kimber or another one of the "good" cable companies do a video, maybe more like a documentary on how their cables are made, tours of the factories etc.
Check out Cardas. They have videos on their cables. Cardas, BTW, actually makes top quality copper wires that they sell to other high end cable mags.
I want a factory tour with a associate, if possible :D
Who makes the braiding machine?
"Capacitors affect the signal passing through them in a way invisible to distortion measurements."
Several writers have advocated passing pulse signals through two different sorts of capacitor, and subtracting the result, claiming that the non-zero residue proves that capacitors can introduce audible errors. In fact such tests expose only well-known capacitor shortcomings such as dielectric absorption and series resistance, and perhaps the vulnerability of the dielectric film in electrolytics to reverse-biasing. No-one has yet shown how these imperfections could cause capacitor audibility in properly designed equipment.
"Passing an audio signal through cables, PCB tracks or switch contacts causes a cumulative deterioration. Precious metal contact surfaces reduce but do not eliminate the problem. This too is undetectable by tests for non-linearity."
Concern over cables is widespread, but it can be said with confidence that there is as yet not a shred of evidence to support it. Any piece of wire passes a sinewave with unmeasurable distortion, and so simple notions of inter-crystal rectification or "micro-diodes" can be discounted, quite apart from the fact that such behaviour is absolutely ruled out by established materials science. No plausible means of detecting, let alone measuring, cable degradation has ever been proposed.
The most significant parameter of a loudspeaker cable is probably its lumped inductance. This can cause minor variations in frequency response at the very top of the audio band, given a demanding load impedance. These deviations are unlikely to exceed 0.1 dB for reasonable cable constructions. (eg inductance less than 4 uH) The resistance of a typical cable (perhaps 0.1 Ohm) causes response variations across the band, following the speaker impedance curve, but these are usually even smaller at around 0.05 dB. This is not audible.
Corrosion is often blamed for subtle signal degradation at switch and connector contacts. By far the most common form of contact degradation is the formation of an insulating sulphide layer on silver contacts, derived from hydrogen sulphide air pollution; the problem seems to have become worse in recent years. This typically cuts the signal altogether, except when signal peaks temporarily punch through the sulphide layer. The effect is gross and completely inapplicable to theories of subtle degradation. Gold-plating is the only certain cure. It costs money. A switch with gold-flashed contacts can cost five times as much as the silver version.
"Cables are directional, and pass audio better in one direction than the other."
Audio signals are AC. Cables cannot be directional any more than 2 + 2 can equal 5. Anyone prepared to believe this nonsense won't be capable of designing amplifiers, so there seems no point in further comment.
"The sound of valves is inherently superior to that of any kind of semiconductor."
Doug Self
Tubes are better. Analog is over 192k if the analog is a 12 inch 45. Coupling caps do sound different. Ask me how I know these things...............................
Superb explanation. You are very correct on all your points. Ending it with cable directionality, as you stated is nonsense 👍
Tell Bill Low that.
Hi Peter - one reason that one end of a cable may be better plugged into one component than another could be to do with shielding. The sound may be different if the shield is connected with the source earth rather than sink earth. But for a two-wire connection I find it harder to believe as a physicist. Nevertheless, the crystal structure of the conductor may well play a role (I'm pretty sure it does, otherwise why is OFCC so important for us?) so the answer may lie in this aspect. After all, most of the signals are tiny and we have to ensure the electron gas travels optimally in order to have the most "faithful" reproduction. So I'm confident that the way the wire is drawn/grown and subsequently annealed and perhaps cryo-treated cannot be ruled out. And let us not forget, only the most revealing of systems will make it possible to discover the most subtle of differences. If one's system is a hodge-podge of boxes just using the supplied cables with no regard to clean power (makes a HUGE difference) optimal speaker placement, room optimisation, best signal cables, best possible loudspeaker cables, loudspeaker decoupling from the floor (another HUGE difference) then it will not be possible to discern the differences. Ask me how I know in over 50 years in this hobby. Best, Rob in Switzerland
so ..thats how they do it... sweet.....
I'd like to conduct double blind testing with speaker cables. Take high quality components, end to end. Take a set of $10,000 Kimbers and other "high end cables". Say, a group of 10 different cables, including one set that were homemade, for around $40-$50 in materials. Let's see if the manufacturers could recognize their own cables. Or could even recognize that there was a homemade set in the bunch.
I doubt they would ever consent or participate, because it would destroy their credibility.
I'm sure Kimber (and the like) use high quality materials and their products' construction are top notch. But this "super cable" BS is just that. BS.
+Theball Player I would imagine that 10/10 would not notice the difference between a high end cable and bell wire. Their cables do look nice, but who watches the cables when listening to music??
Watch n see😂😂😂😂😂
KImber is my heroin...
I have lamp cable and I have Kimber Kable speaker wire I here no difference in sound.