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Where is the Arrival Point of Audio Cables Cable Asylum

Where Is the Arrival Point of Audio Cables Cable Asylum

Ozhan Atalay

Majority of the audiophiles are agreed that one of the most critical factors in a hi-end system is the connection cables. There is no doubt about it. Different cables provide different testing and enjoyment. A good sounding cable in a system may not sound good in other system or a good sounding cable may not sound good if one of the units is replaced. Good is also relative to each person, that's why I believe that it is not possible to pretend one cable betters then the other if both are good cables.

As a person who changed so many cables, I would like to share my own judgements with others. My aim is not to offend anybody or to break somebody's heart but humbly contribute to the craziness of cable industry, contribute to consciousness and prevent buyers to be abused.

Some cable producers use the thinnest wires to eliminate skin effect. Some uses thicker ones to eliminate DC resistance. Some prefers silver due to open and rich sound, some finds silver sounding thin, un-natural and they use pure copper to achieve body. Some uses platinum, carbon and other stuff, some combines them or alloys them. Some producers attach importance to shielding, some are against to shielding but use braided designs. Some uses ribbons, some uses litz (various independent insulated wires). Almost all pretend their design as the best in the world.

Above list can be enlarged. This situation at least for me is the clear evidence that THERE IS NO COMPROMISE ON CABLES FROM THE ENGINEERING AND THEORY POINT OF VIEW.

Following me, the cables, particularly the interconnect cables are the most degenerated and misleading part of the audio industry. The biggest income ratio in audiophile word is generated by the cable industry. An amplifier that consist of various elements, labour, engineering, design, (consists of good silver cables too) can be purchased to 5.000 ? but a poor interconnect cable costs 2.000 ? or more. Most of the brands are imitation of the other. They provide various colours, thickness and nice appearance and pretend to be the best one in the world at list in their price categories. I found 137 different interconnect producers (listed below). Unfortunately the human nature of "how expensive or how big, the better is" belief, guides one to misleading. Such belief motivates the first sales, and followers continue by thought that "if the other purchasers are idiots!"

One thing should be considered that I never mean such cables are not bad sound; actually they are mostly the good ones. Problem is a % 1 better sounding cable is sold to % 1000 price of the other. After the promotion and acceptance of a very reputable cable, another one comes to market even by the same company to claim to be better and price is 3 times more. Price increase in cable industry is going geometrically by the crazy multiples.

Last year, Stereophile made feature with Caren Sumner, the president of Transparent Cable. I picked up below sentence;

"Up to last year, the thickest cables and the biggest boxes on cable were on demand. If the cable was thicker or the boxes on the cable were bigger, the perception was such cables should sound better. So they sold in better quantities. But nowadays WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is more involved in it and the wives don't like to see bigger and bigger things corrupting home decoration. As a matter of fact, we tend to produce thinner cables and smaller boxes in future."

At least such sentence gives clear leak that the product is not thicker or bigger due to technical aspects but due to marketing technique.

I was curious one day to break the box of my M..T interconnects to look inside. There was a very simple coil occupied only 1/10 of the box. I also broke the same brand power cord's box and realised only two ferrite rings that sold to 50 Cents each at the electronics shop. Another story is that ; a cable producer makes actively shielded cables. If you break the solid protected shielding unit, you see one resistor and one capacitor that can be purchased to 1 $. The price you have to pay for that unit is 420 USD. You may think it is proprietary or invention but it is not. The concept was built on the design of Pierre Lourne's DC Polarised Shielding Technology and used in professional audio industry for years.

According to me, a cable should be listened enough and alone prior to purchasing. If the critical listening is done with other people, physiology factor will act and people would tend to choose the most reputable one. If the difference is subtle, it should be thought again. Before coming to conclusion, other audiophiles should be called for critical blind testing. Cables should be tested without knowing which one is in connection. If blind test is done, every party should make careful and realistic observations. If they don't have clear tendency, it will not be logical to buy that cable.

One friend brought me a well known digital reference cable that sold around 1500 $. My cable was also a reference cable but reasonably priced (Illuminations D-60). We were three people and listened both of the cables properly. The other two immediately observed that the other cable was much better. It did not make the same effect on me. Mid sounds, vocals became softer and more natural but the bass became so slow and muddy. The energy and the slam at treble were gone. So it was and exchange but not additional. I had a feeling that physiology factor was in mission. I wanted to make blind test. My aim was not to degrade the other but just to find the answer why I did not hear the same thing with them. We made a blind test. Eventually both of them were decided and agreed on D-60. The discussion was over.

? Why they had the tendency to choose the most expensive or reputable one !

? Forget about it was worse, assume that they are the same, why the other cable cost 10 times did not clearly bit the other.

? May be my system was not enough revealing to stimulate that cable but if this is the case, I would pay 1500 $ unnecessarily as agreed by my friends.

Such cable producers generally target the people that don't have any problem with money. Such people are basically located in New York, Far East, Hong Kong, Japan and such places.

Producers also follow up, sales volumes of most expensive electronics and penetrate their cables accordingly. They assume that "a person who spends 350.000 $ for an amplifier will never use a cable of 500 $"

My thoughts are not to offend cable producers, if there is a demand, somebody has to supply with no doubt.

I wanted to design an interconnect cable for my own curiosity. I am not an electronic an. I used my all theoretical knowledge as a hobbyist and made a DIY interconnect cable. I pretend my cable is at the same class with the reference cables sold up to 1500 $. It will cost you around 50$ plus the Plugs that's all. Difficult to make but it is worthy. Hearing is believing. I shared the entire steps with you. Give it a try DiyE.htm. You must use the best available connectors and silver solder but not the budget ones. That cable cost me 200 $ together with Home Grown Audio's LOK RCA Plugs or WBT Top Of the lines.

How come that cable worked extremely well, for me better than the others ! I had no experience, no production plant, no engineering, research and development but it works. May be the answer is hidden in somewhere else, may be the other cable producers use the same method, design, listen, if works, claim and sell

February 2004 Ozhan Atalay www.nonamehifi.com

LIST OF CABLE PRODUCERS

1 Accoustic Zen

2 Acoustic Research

3 Acrotec

4 Alpha Core

5 Analysis Plus

6 Apex

7 Apogee

8 Argento Audio

9 Audience

10 Audio Magic

11 Audio Note

12 Audio One

13 Audio Tekne

14 Audioquest

15 Aural Symphonic

16 Aural Thrills Audio

17 Ayre

18 Bear Labs

19 Bel The Wire

20 Better Cables

21 Black Mountain Cable

22 BMC

23 Bogdan

24 Canare

25 Cardas

26 Celtic Silver

27 Chang Lightspeed

28 Chord

29 Clarity Lab

30 Coincident

31 Concierto

32 Creative Cable Concepts

33 Crystal Clear Audio

34 DH Labs

35 Dimarzio

36 Discovery Cable

37 Dunlavy

38 Echochrome Cables

39 Ecosse

40 Elco

41 Electraglide

42 Empirical Audio

43 Ensemble

44 Esoterika

45 Fadel Art

46 FIM

47 FMS

48 Granite Audio

49 Gutwire

50 Harmonic Technology

51 Hms Cables

52 Home Grown Audio

53 Infinity Audio

54 Ixos

55 Jena Labs

56 Jm

57 JPS Labs

58 K A S Audio

59 Kharma

60 Kimber Kable

61 Krell

62 Lat International

63 Lieder Cables

64 Linn

65 Luminous Audio

66 MAC Wire

67 Madrigal Audio Labs

68 Magnan

69 Magwire

70 Marigo

71 Mas

72 MIT

73 Monster Cable

74 Moon Audio

75 Music Metre

76 Naim

77 Nbs

78 Nirvana Audio

79 Nordost

80 Oehlbach

81 Omega

82 Orbeck

83 Outlaw

84 Perpetual Technologies

85 Primo

86 Prisma Cables

87 PS Audio

88 Pure Note

89 Purist Audio Design

90 Red Rose

91 Revelation Audio Lab

92 Ridge Street Audio Designs

93 Rosinante Audio

94 Scott Nixon

95 Shunyata

96 Signal Cable

97 Silent Source

98 Siltech

99 Silver Audio

100 Silver Dragon

101 Silver Sonic

102 Silversmith Audio

103 Sonance Audio Video

104 Sonic Frontiers

105 Sonic Link

106 Stan Warren

107 Stealth Audio

108 Straight Wire

109 Synergistic research

110 T. G. Audio Labs

111 Tara Labs

112 Tekline

113 Tg Audio Lab

114 Tice

115 TMC

116 Tone Audio

117 Transparent Cables

118 Tributaries

119 Ultralink

120 Vacuum Reference

121 Vampire Wire

122 Van Den Hul

123 Vantage Audio

124 Verastarr

125 Violin by Concierto

126 Virtual Dynamics

127 Wasatch Cable

128 Wicked Cables

129 WireWorld

130 XLO

131 Yamamura

132 YBA

133 Z Cable

134 Zocore Cables

135 Z-Squared Audio

136 Zu Cable

137 Eichmann
About the Author

Ozhan Atalay
President - NonameHifi High End Audio Pages

http://www.nonamehifi.com

NonameHifi provides audio and audiophile pages High-End audio components HiFi audio equipment for sale, free classifieds,used audio, electronics and audiophile pages

hello, need interconect + speaker cable advice, system is krell 250/2 cd, krell 300i, canton ergo 900 speakers

running nordost blue heaven xlr with chord oddasy bi wire speaker cable, finding issues at the high mid range, harsh and a little bright when played above 30% volume. the rest of the sonic range is great being krell the bass and low range is fab, need a cable that will lend its self to a more sweeter sound remove the harshness.. any idears?? thank you for your help...

It is extremely unlikely that your problem is with the speaker cable. More likely to be a problem with the speakers or the amp.