Sonic differences in Interconnect fact or fiction?

[Andrew Pratt]

This topic often gets the geekers and tweakers all fired up hotly debating the merrits of both sides and inteligent debate can be fun and a learning process for both sides. My point with this post though is to tell you what I've discovered twice now with my IXOS interconnects. Several moons ago I was the lucky winner of these cables which are a braided weave of three cables. One's intert and is there simply to facilitate braiding the two signal carrying cables. According to the IXOs web site there's advantages in have thing cables cross each other at 90 degree angles as apposed to running parralel to each other. Anyway I'm not going to debate the merits of their approach to that of other companies what I do want to say is that it works. Back when I first got them I took them over to a friends place where he, myself and another HT nut played a little game of guess the cable. What we did was using a Pioneer DV-09 DVD player as a CD player we connected two sets of analog interconnects to the dual set of RCA jacks and connected these to two different inputs on his receiver. Neither myself or the other guy knew which cable was on which input. Now playing a few different CD's the difference b/t the IXOS cables and his Audioquest's was very apparent. We could both pick out one cable from the other and correctly identify it over 9 times out of 10. Anyway going into the test I was a skeptik (science background) but I also didn't disbelieve that there weren't differences. That night I heard for the first time that there were differences in interconnects at least. Ok fast forward a few months to last night. Just before christmas I added a HK 5800 5 channel power amp into my HT. There was a bad solder joint on the IXOS cable so I couldn't use it to connect my pre amp to the HK so I used one of my other "lesser" cables until I fixed the IXOSs. Well the results were rather disapointing listening to music with the HK in the mix was dull and it didn't have any life to it esp on the high notes. Last night I sat down and fixed the IXOS cables and installed them back where they belong. In a word I was made a believer again. I have a CD with a song called the hunt that has some really cool bells and wooden instruments being struck at during the intro. At several points in this intro it sounds like someone is standing about 4 feet behind you striking an empty wine bottle with a metal stick. anyway with the old cables this sound was there but wasn't very prominent. After the i reinstalled the IXOS cables everything came to life and I'm now much happier. For awhile before i installed the IXOS I was seriously considering powering my mains with the denon again to see if it would add the detail back or buying a brighter power amp..I'm now not so sure thats needed, well not urgently anyway

[AndrewM]

I'd consider myself a geeky tweaker, although it's not hard to accept the fact that cables will make a difference, yet most people won't accept the fact. Let's break it down, nobody will argue which is better between say a set of Wilson, JM Labs, Sonus Faber, Avalon or Krell, Levinson, Spectral...and the respective low end. Why are some better than others, they don't make the same compromises that the low end people do. They use better components, better construction methods, apply some science to the design, etc. It's not hard to make interconnects, go to Radio shack and for about $10 you can make as many as you want, or for $10 you can outfit your whole home theater with speaker cables. Do you think the level of quality in that $20 setup is the same as the guy who buys $15k Kimber speaker cables, and $10k of Interconnects? Another problem is that if you have good cables now, and want to upgrade, doing a blind quick and dirty A/B test will not be a good way to compare, as the differences will be so subtle that you would say that it isn't worth the extra $$$. A friend of mine who is very big into 2-channel music once did an A/B test with his lower cost pre-amp (I think it was around a $500 unit), and his friends $4000 pre-amp. They both agreed that the sound difference was very small and that the smart buy was the cheaper unit, however a month later the guy with the expensive pre-amp had to go out of town for a month, so he lent the pre-amp to his friend to replace his lower cost unit. After listening to it for a month, and then putting the cheaper unit back in, the differences were very apparent the sweet sound just went away and now sounded dull and flat. So he went out and bought one of the more expensive pre-amps. So what was not so obvious when they did a quick A/B test became blatantly obvious when you've lived with it for awhile.

Maybe that's part of being an Audiophile, going to extreme lengths to get the best possible sound. Everybody loves good sound, everybody that's heard my setup has given me compliments on it, but when people learn that I've spent more on speaker cables than what they paid for their Home Theater in a Box and DVD player, they shake their head and mention words like insane, whack, crazy..etc. Just wait till I dampen my CD player with a couple bags of oatmeal (I've heard of people doing this).

Andrew

[migliore]

Cables GOOOOOD, napster BAAAAAD! Oops, thought I was james hetfield for a minute there

Rob




Reviews and System

[JonMarsh]

Luv dem Silver Sonics!

There's no difference at all between different cables, other than cosmetics, as long as the system is turned off. Power it up, another story.

Happy weekend, everyone!

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Lexman]

Well put John. I always put it like this:

It's the synergy of the system that matters most, and the cables are an integral part of that system. Do you want to put some cheezy cable on that is made so poorly that you don't know if it will fall off, or clamp down so tightly on the female that you actually pull it apart when you try to pull it off? Or worse, you actually seperate the female connector from it's base! I actually had that happen once with a RS gold cable. However, it was on a RS video switcher box that this occured. I took that cheap piece of crap back. Another story.

Lex





<A HREF="http://www.catcables.com" <IMG SRC="http://www.htguide.com/lexman/other/sm_logo.gif"

[JonMarsh]

Even some not so cheap gear can have problems that way- at lot of the Japanese Pre-pros have PCB mount RCA's with skimpy shells- look at the difference between the connectors on a 9000ES or EDP9ES versus an SCD777ES. I've pulled them out once inadvertantly with some CARDAS connector equiped cables, which have a snug fit, and are of heavy construction, so they don't give a lot. Haven't figured out how to upgrade a unit like that, though. It's a bear.


-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Jehan]

I too was quite skeptical about this whole thing, but after switching my front soundstage to IXOS cables I noticed a difference (not earth shattering over my previous Monster XP stuff) but noticeable... Definately something that I will keep in mind in the future.

[John Holmes]

Like many others, cable was a hard sell for me. After I changed from Monster XP to MIT (up front) the debate was over. The XP is good, but the MIT is better.

And I'm sure that there are cables that are much better than the MIT. One day I will be lucky enough to own them




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Andrew Pratt]

Looks like Lex should go after IXOS for sponsorship Seriously though I am impressed by the differences they made in my system and I'd love to try some of the silver cables one day.

[John Kotches]

Well, if you want to try some outstanding silver ICs that won't break your bank account, take a look at Homegrown Audio.
http://www.homegrownaudio.com

Their Silver Lace is worth an audition, and I find them to be competitive with cables at at least twice the price.

So, there's one suggestion for you

Regards,




---
Editor, PC/Home Theater
Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity
My Home Theater
NEC LT-150 specific page.

[MRWILLL]

I use Monster's REF series M1000 (10 foot runs to seven amps). As long as the cable keeps unwanted noise out, I feel its doing it's job. The same goes for spk cable.




STOP!!...LOOK!!...LISTEN!!
DVD...Hear it from the people who
mixed and mastered it "LEXICON".

[Westly197]

Has anyone used AR Pro cables? How do they measure up? I recently saw a set of 1 meter cables that cost $14,000 (CES). You can also get a set for about $0.50, so one can see the price range is huge. I think the IXOS are about 3 times the price of the AR's (I actually like the AR's better then the monster cables, but have not done any A/B testing). I your opinion, do you think there would be much of a difference in the AR's, Monster, & IXOS ?




- Wes

My Home Theater