Why cables matter video by loudspeaker guru, Danny Richie

Puma Cat

Puma Cat

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Danny Richie, one of the best loudspeaker designers in the industry has a great video, with data, on...why cables matter.

 
I know when I replaced the stock power cord on my Oppo 203 with a left over from the stereo Shunyata cable the picture became sharper and clearer. That was before I got a dedicated AC line for the HT.
 
The cable debate will never end :-)
I have also listened to systems that lost their musicality when filtered/shielded cables where added. (holding back)
But also listened to very good results when adding filtered/shielded cables (blacker background, etc)

It is all very system/environment dependent.
 
imprezap2 said:
It is all very system/environment dependent.
Click to expand...

No. In my opinion it depends on the geometry of the cable and how the shield is apllied.
Paul (from PS Audio) says why (and from my experience his totally right)


YouTube


Every cable should be shielded!
 
I asked my friend who’s been an engineer for 40 years what he thought of the video. Here’s his response:

“All that YouTube Video is showing is how much FM radio signal is picked up by his speaker cables. This is of no importance as to how they sound. Unless you live right by a high power FM transmitter you need not be concerned with this. Many other factors are more important that shielding for a speaker cable. I know of no one using shielded cable for their speakers. If one wants shielding they should use coax like the kind used to connect a TV to cable TV company, or a radio transmitter to an antenna, as it is inexpensive and easy to find. The issue with it is that it has high capacitance per foot, more than regular speaker cable, and it could cause the power amp to oscillate and cause problems.”
 
Mike said:
I asked my friend who’s been an engineer for 40 years what he thought of the video. Here’s his response:

“All that YouTube Video is showing is how much FM radio signal is picked up by his speaker cables. This is of no importance as to how they sound. Unless you live right by a high power FM transmitter you need not be concerned with this. Many other factors are more important that shielding for a speaker cable. I know of no one using shielded cable for their speakers. If one wants shielding they should use coax like the kind used to connect a TV to cable TV company, or a radio transmitter to an antenna, as it is inexpensive and easy to find. The issue with it is that it has high capacitance per foot, more than regular speaker cable, and it could cause the power amp to oscillate and cause problems.”
Click to expand...

Whoa, easy Mike, we can only handle so much science and common sense at one time !
 
Mike said:
I asked my friend who’s been an engineer for 40 years what he thought of the video. Here’s his response:

“All that YouTube Video is showing is how much FM radio signal is picked up by his speaker cables. This is of no importance as to how they sound. Unless you live right by a high power FM transmitter you need not be concerned with this. Many other factors are more important that shielding for a speaker cable. I know of no one using shielded cable for their speakers. If one wants shielding they should use coax like the kind used to connect a TV to cable TV company, or a radio transmitter to an antenna, as it is inexpensive and easy to find. The issue with it is that it has high capacitance per foot, more than regular speaker cable, and it could cause the power amp to oscillate and cause problems.”
Click to expand...

Okay, just provide some counterpoint for a friendly discussion and some info in the interests of accuracy.

None of the speaker cables that Danny used are shielded. I don't why the engineer brought this up; it's a non sequitur with respect to the context of this simple demo. All Danny was doing was demonstrating very simply that different cable geometries and construction will have a demonstrable and measurable on impact on a cable's susceptibility to noise (in this specific example, RF noise as FM radio). Furthermore, Danny never stated or recommended people use shielded cables for loudspeaker cable, so I don't understand why this engineer went off on this tangent.

As someone who spent his entire career as a professional scientist, I encountered a large number of scientists and engineers who were quite closed-minded (ironically enough) in their belief systems as the result of their "training." One of the corollaries I've formed in a career that spanned more than 40 years is that the more education and training a scientist or engineer has, oftentimes (but not always or with all scientists), the more closed-minded they are. They become close-minded because they think they know everything there is to know in their domain of expertise. They in fact, lose the top 3 critical attributes for a good scientist: 1) being open (and open-minded) to new theories, new experiments, and new observations 2) being scientifically skeptical 3) asking the question: "Why is that?"

Some examples where scientists tightly- and long-held beliefs turned out to be completely incorrect, or that reductionist science has no explanation for...these are FACTS.

1) The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology states that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. This is incorrect. Howard Temin and David Baltimore demonstrated this with the discovery of reverse transcriptase in retroviruses, for which they won the Nobel Prize in 1975. Needless to say Francis Crick, who established the premise of The Central Dogma was not happy about this. In fact, he told Howard Temin at one point to "knock it off."

2) Only proteins can catalyze biochemical reactions. I remember sitting in a graduate protein biochem course as a young scientist just out of University, and the full professor stating unequivocally only proteins can catalyze biochemical reactions. I raised my hand and asked, "Don't you think RNAs could catalyze biochemical reactions?" He harrumphed and bellowed, "No! Only proteins can catalyze biochemical reactions!" Well, 13 years later, Thomas Cech won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of....catalytic RNAs.

3) Generation of antibody diversity. Back when antibodies were discovered, it was discovered that organisms that make antibodies could generate extremely specific antibodies to what is effectively an infinite number of compounds, aka, antigens. Emil von Behring and Paul Ehrlich discovered antibodies in the 1890's, but immunologists worked unsuccessfully for the better part of a century to understand how an organism with a limited number of genes could generate antibodies to an infinite number of antigens. It wasn't until 92 years later that molecular biologist Phil Leder published his seminal work on the genetic basis for antibody diversity. Bottom-line: the origins of antibody diversity were not elucidated by the immunologists, but by a molecular biologist. Who could think out of the box.

4) Collapse of the Quantum Wave Function by a Concious Observer. Physicists cannot explain the collapse of the quantum wave function by a concious observer in the classic double-slit experiment (using a laser as a light source). Using a computer to "watch" (or record) the double-slit experiment does not result in the collapse of the wave function. The fact that a conscious observer collapses the wave function has been demonstrated to a statistical rigor of 5 Sigma (same statistical confidence that was used to confirm the identification of the Higgs boson). Reference here: YouTube

I could provide many more examples, but the above should suffice to make this point:
There are many things that are "real" that reductionist science got completely wrong, or cannot explain.

Including why an Audio Research D76 or a Dyna ST70 sounds better than a Crown DC-300. :P

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."– William Bruce Cameron

Cheers, gang. :)
 
Puma Cat said:
" One of the corollaries I've formed in a career that spanned more than 40 years is that the more education and training a scientist or engineer has, oftentimes (but not always or with all scientists), the more closed-minded they are. They become close-minded because they think they know everything there is to know in their domain of expertise.
Click to expand...

Touché!
I wouldn´t say better and never so reasoned. :inconspicuous:


From my experience (doesn´t mean nothing except to myself), all cables benefit from a good shielding.
Im my speaker cables i have doble shielding (yes it was an improvement from just one).
But, as Paul from PS Audio says, it must be well done.


Not a definitive opinion but, in power cables is mandatory the earthing.
Not so necessary in speaker cables (a good distance from the conductors could be enough).

Cheers!
 
Stephen, good post, point taken .......

It still doesn't diminish the fact that there is plenty of snake oil out there in the cable biz, case in point, Audioquest's HDMI cable BS from a few years back.
 
Mikado463 said:
Stephen, good post, point taken .......

It still doesn't diminish the fact that there is plenty of snake oil out there in the cable biz, case in point, Audioquest's HDMI cable BS from a few years back.
Click to expand...

Oh, I agree with that. Can you say "quantum tunneled"? LOL. FWIW, I bought an AQ Carbon Firewire 400 cable some years back to connect my HD with my music files on it to my Mac Mini, being sold a bill of goods by my local dealer that using it to connect the HD to the Mini would be "audible". Nope. Waste of a hundred bucks or so...I still have that useless cable, come to think of it.

My point was pretty simple: there a number (if not lots) of things that we know to be "real" that cannot be measured, or that reductionist science cannot explain.

One of them is the sensation of being stared at, for example.
 
The only thing that video was good for is showing you which type of speaker cable will give you the strongest signal strength on your tuner when used as an antenna. There is zero correlation to how these different types of speaker cables when used as speaker cables will sound in your system vice being used as antennas for a tuner.
 
Oh, this is a great audio subject. I'm no expert but the guy in that video looks sad.
They need smiling people to talk about audio (and video) cables ... IMHO. :)

Regarding shielding; when I had my last cathode ray tube TV (Panasonic GAOO), I was also using a surround sound system for watching movies built around it. I had a center channel speaker. I experimented with it below and above the TV. It was a shielded speaker, with the three drivers in it covered by a metal sheet cup (behind, over their magnet).

* @ the end, back then I prefered it above the TV, and aiming exactly @ the main sweet listening position.
Plus, for multichannel music listening it synched better overall, more involving "musically" (you wanted to dance).

I have shielded (triple) cables for my subwoofers, and unshielded interconnects and speaker wires.
I never measured any because I don't have a measuring tool kit.
But to my ears it's all fine...I'm happy enough to remain simple and calm.

I like balanced cables, even when all audio components aren't all balanced from inputs to outputs. Shielded for not picking up radio and TV tuner transmissions, and unshielded RCA when no radio interference around.

Stay safe, wear a mask in public. ...Shielded if you are in an hospital, unshielded if you are on your bike outside up the mountain's trails

...
 
mep said:
The only thing that video was good for is showing you which type of speaker cable will give you the strongest signal strength on your tuner when used as an antenna. There is zero correlation to how these different types of speaker cables when used as speaker cables will sound in your system vice being used as antennas for a tuner.
Click to expand...

You know who did that demo 40 years ago? Julian Hirsch at a NY Audio Society (when they met at a Synagogue in Flushing, Queens) meeting where he proclaimed that the only thing that the “new” Monster Cables were good for were as tuner antennas. He then hooked them up to a tuner to prove his point.

I was sitting next to Harry Weisfeld and I asked Julian what he thought about VPI bricks. Julian damn near had a coronary.
 
That too was a silly demonstration. Any wire will act as an antenna when hooked up to a tuner.
 
I thought it was an interesting video.
It showed that different cable geometries can produce measurable differences.
It however does not prove that these differences are detectable in an audio system.
 
jadedavid said:
I thought it was an interesting video.
It showed that different cable geometries can produce measurable differences.
It however does not prove that these differences are detectable in an audio system.
Click to expand...

Thank you for helping make my point.
 
And here I thought you guys would be more intrigued as to why the quantum wave function collapses in the double-slit experiment only when viewed by a conscious observer. :P
 
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