‘Muh 8n UOCC’, ‘Muh silver’, ‘Muh [Insert random exotic material]’. Nobody checks those claims as far as I know.
I have contacts in some of the most advanced labs on the planet for commodities because I work in the 2nd largest petrochemical cluster in the world. (Think Bureau Veritas, SGS, Saybolt, AmSpec, BASF, Exxon, Cargill, Glencore etc.) I asked a few if they were willing to check the composition of a cable.
They flat-out refused. Too much of a hassle apparantly.
If you have a University close by maybe they have a lab that can help. There is a YouTube video with a dude getting interconnects checked. Sadly I don’t remember the channel😖
Yeah, there’s gotta be some serious grifting going on in the cable space. I imagine it makes the drivers stuff look like child’s play. It’s a seriously “trust us bro” situation, and people just lap it up. Why not, when you can’t measure it without insane equipment (electrically… of course you can’t measure it auditorily if we’re not talking crazy differences in the cable impedance). Sorry, don’t want to derail this into another cables argument that are the scourge of every audio forum
As far as I am concerned, there’s only two things that actually matter in cables: Does it conduct correctly and does it have appropriate impedance for the application?
By conduct correctly, as long as the signal passes without significant distortion then it’s good. This means that it’s built correctly (no weird disconnections or bad solder joints, no reversed polarity on one side, etc) and they can be made of copper, silver or any number of metals and metalloids provided the signal comes through. I do not think that anything short of a room-temperature super-conductor could make a difference in the transmission of electrons. Hell, I don’t know that we’ve ever proven that oxidation adversely affects it in an audible way provided that the contacts themselves are clean.
By impedance, it’s the old “1/8 rule”; basically your cable should measure resistance at 1/8th (or less) resistance than the transducer to prevent unwanted alteration of the audio signal. In a single-DD, BA or Planar driver this matters far, far less than a hybrid. Most decent cables will measure somewhere beween 0.7-1.0 ohms resistance in my experience. Some rarities like the Yongse Ruyi Rod measure up to ~15.1 ohms (I personally measured this after someone on youtube made a video), making like a cable with an in-built bass adapter. It’s a fine cable but one needs to know that it will change how a hybrid sounds based on the resistance.
You honestly shouldn’t need a chemical engineer or metallurgist to prove what any bargain basement or amateur electrician could prove with schematics and basic math. Everything else is prose and fluff IMO, and no one has managed to prove otherwise in some ~70+ years of audiophilia, neither in the headphone space nor in speakers and PA.
Edit: Nice looking cables have an aesthetic appeal though, and should be treated like any other jewelry IMO. Don’t expect real-world differences but if it makes you feel better then just be happy with it, placebo is worth as much as anything in this hobby (as long as it doesn’t break your wallet and you spend the money where it really matters first).
btw i wasnt trying to attack you or anything XD i was genuinely asking. Rn my candidates are down to Odyssey, C4, Myer D62. Maybe Volume S too. I will wait out this year first tho probably. We are still in january, who knows what these companies have in store for us this year!
I think It was d41/pa02 where the bad ba driver argument first came. Some ppl still defended it saying its pretty good, I don’t hear bad ba… etc. I have demod a few of these new breed sets and say with certainty My arcadia sounds league above all of em. if you are ok with slightly bad looking faceplate Kz would smack them to pieces. Why would you pay $160-$250 for overpriced sets. the drivers arent bad per say its just kz uses them in their $30-$50 sets. If they are using good drivers they can just come out and say that na.
I have gotten cynical over the yrs. I’d caution you to stay away from Myer audio, juzear, NiceHCK, Pual… etc brand. Most of their sets are overpriced
both great choice, volumeS too, Although its just 1DD+2BA. Their tuning is absolutely on point. I own studio4, RSV, Twilight and you can say I have faith in that brand. At the samee time I do have Mest2 & Indigo from unique melody, and I despise what they have become.
Ah, that looks interesting. I’ll give that video a watch later tonight. Also, I almost got confused. Waterloo is about a good hours drive away from me and to my knowledge there is no university there. Then I saw it was the Canadian Waterloo.
@yogurt@Sonofholhorse
For me it isn’t so much about how a cable measures or wether a cable changes the sound, but about what the actual materials used are vs those the seller claims are used. If you pay for a cable that supposedly has expensive exotic materials in it, but in reality it is just a basic copper cable then that is a scam. It doesn’t matter if it measures the same or not.
already recorded vid.
Any predictions for example Mystic 8 bracket?
Sets like mystic got a double bye week.
semi finals are a 3way to prevent certain sets from predictably running through the bracket
i wasnt aware of this. Thanks for the heads up! I thought they are fine since most reviews I saw of their products have been pretty good reviews. Tbh KZ considering their past I wouldnt really trust them too but at least they sell their stuff at cheap I guess
Yep I think the Odyssey is interesting for me since most the reviews really enjoy it for the musicality. The Volume S is interesting because of the impedance switch. I saw people liking the low impedance mode but the graph of the high impedance might align with my preference more actually since I enjoy more engaging set than laidback sets.
Is summer sale that nice? compared to 11.11. I’m thinking abt coping the Volume S since my GF is from China and she can get it there for 60-70 bucks cheaper for me. Somehow can’t find Ziigaat at all in China, maybe they use different name.
The deuce did for me atleast provide me with the kind of sound that I wanted and liked in the budget that was friendly to my pocket in a relatively difficult period for me.
I also feel you in regards of parting with things, I still keep around so much of my old stuff even when they are completely redundant, heck I kept around a completely bust up football boot that i wasnt even using for years, until I finally caved in and let it go a few months ago. I still feel i lost a piece of me there xD
