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do cables make a difference in sound?
- Thread starter Gord_oh
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Bryan R. Tyler
TalkBass: Usurping My Practice Time Since 2002
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- May 3, 2002
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- Reviewer: Bass Player Magazine
They sound different because different circuits, preamps, and transistors are used. If you've got a 3-band EQ attached to your cable, then sure it could alter your mids. Otherwise, the parts within the cable can't add to your sound. They can attenuate your signal, which is taking away from what is normally there, but they don't add or boost anything. There's no electronics in your cable.
If you use a blue sharpie on a Barry White CD, you can impregnate entire villages.i hear a blue sharpie will make your cd horny.
"With a green Sharpie?"
Not exactly a Sharpie. There is a paint pen (I actually tried this), that you run around the edge of the CD. It's called 'Audio Prism CD Stop Light'. Audio Prism makes power conditioners, and pre-amps, maybe amps by now. It contains a flat green (I think Latex) paint. The theory is, that the flat surface absorbs defracted laser beams that are bouncing across the surface of the CD, and spilling over the edges. It seems to work with recordings that were done in digital originally. They're a little clearer. Nothing Earth shattering, but my sister who has no music in her life picked it right out, and I didn't give her any hints, honest to God. Doesn't work at all with anything else, even digital remasters.
Tweaks, especially expensive ones, should be eyed with suspicion. These markers are cheap, so big deal.
To the young skalawag who reminded me that my ears are 55 years old:
As have my other components, they have been trained, maintained, and are working just fine. To you I say "Thank you for your concern, and the check your parents gave my daughter for babysitting you last Saturday bounced".
Not exactly a Sharpie. There is a paint pen (I actually tried this), that you run around the edge of the CD. It's called 'Audio Prism CD Stop Light'. Audio Prism makes power conditioners, and pre-amps, maybe amps by now. It contains a flat green (I think Latex) paint. The theory is, that the flat surface absorbs defracted laser beams that are bouncing across the surface of the CD, and spilling over the edges. It seems to work with recordings that were done in digital originally. They're a little clearer. Nothing Earth shattering, but my sister who has no music in her life picked it right out, and I didn't give her any hints, honest to God. Doesn't work at all with anything else, even digital remasters.
Tweaks, especially expensive ones, should be eyed with suspicion. These markers are cheap, so big deal.
To the young skalawag who reminded me that my ears are 55 years old:
As have my other components, they have been trained, maintained, and are working just fine. To you I say "Thank you for your concern, and the check your parents gave my daughter for babysitting you last Saturday bounced".
OK, now I get it.....you're trying to pull our collective leg.
Good one! Now I can just laugh with you.
I gotta say though, you really had us going!
Phwew....sharpies and premium cables.....yes, a joke. Good one on ya!
No, no, no. You cannot make a CD "a little clearer" by altering the way the laser interacts with the disc. Anyone who buys this for a minute (or even thinks that it could possibly work) has no grasp of how audio information is stored on and retrieved from CD. Either the bits retrieved from the CD match what's on it or they don't. If they don't match, it's an error, and if there's an error, it would just as likely be a high order bit, which would cause an obvious glitch in the audio, as a lower order bit, which would cause a more subtle altering of the analog stream out of the D/A converters.
The reason I used this example is that it is an unambiguous, easily provable instance of wrongheadedness in the audiophile community which was capitalized upon by opportunistic sellers preying on the gullibility of their customer base. But thanks for helping me make my point.
"OK, now I get it.....you're trying to pull our collective leg.
Good one! Now I can just laugh with you.
I gotta say though, you really had us going!
Phwew....sharpies and premium cables.....yes, a joke. Good one on ya!"
No, I'm not pulling your leg.
And I never said anything about premium cables. As I DID say, I have purchased cheap cables ($40 for a pair of interconnects, and about the same for power cords), that have worked very well.
"No, no, no. You cannot make a CD a "little clearer" by altering the way the laser interacts with the disc. Anyone who buys this for a minute (or even thinks that it could possibly work) has no grasp of how audio information is stored on and retrieved from CD."
I don't think it's a matter of how the laser interacts with the disc, initially. I think it must have something to do with the laser spilling over the edges, and gumming up some of the other works. Can't say for sure, but the only time I hear any improvement is with originally-digital recordings, and it's not much.
"The reason I used this example is that it is an unambiguous, easily provable instance of wrongheadedness in the audiophile community"
Fine. If it's so easy to prove, then prove it.
When you have tried what I'm talking about, and don't hear anything, then you can tell me it's all in my head.
"OK. Thats it.
Rabble Rouser of the week award goes to vespian1
well played sir."
Thanks, but I really wasn't trying to raise any rabble. I really wasn't.
All I ask is that, if possible, you try things yourself before making judgements. You can't tell how something is going to sound by what you see on paper, or pre-conceived notions.
Good one! Now I can just laugh with you.
I gotta say though, you really had us going!
Phwew....sharpies and premium cables.....yes, a joke. Good one on ya!"
No, I'm not pulling your leg.
And I never said anything about premium cables. As I DID say, I have purchased cheap cables ($40 for a pair of interconnects, and about the same for power cords), that have worked very well.
"No, no, no. You cannot make a CD a "little clearer" by altering the way the laser interacts with the disc. Anyone who buys this for a minute (or even thinks that it could possibly work) has no grasp of how audio information is stored on and retrieved from CD."
I don't think it's a matter of how the laser interacts with the disc, initially. I think it must have something to do with the laser spilling over the edges, and gumming up some of the other works. Can't say for sure, but the only time I hear any improvement is with originally-digital recordings, and it's not much.
"The reason I used this example is that it is an unambiguous, easily provable instance of wrongheadedness in the audiophile community"
Fine. If it's so easy to prove, then prove it.
When you have tried what I'm talking about, and don't hear anything, then you can tell me it's all in my head.
"OK. Thats it.
Rabble Rouser of the week award goes to vespian1
well played sir."
Thanks, but I really wasn't trying to raise any rabble. I really wasn't.
All I ask is that, if possible, you try things yourself before making judgements. You can't tell how something is going to sound by what you see on paper, or pre-conceived notions.
This is getting way too old. If you don't believe it, try it. Then we can talk about what you don't believe.
Cheers to you, and Happy 4th.
Cheers to you, and Happy 4th.
No, no, no. You cannot make a CD "a little clearer" by altering the way the laser interacts with the disc. Anyone who buys this for a minute (or even thinks that it could possibly work) has no grasp of how audio information is stored on and retrieved from CD. Either the bits retrieved from the CD match what's on it or they don't. If they don't match, it's an error, and if there's an error, it would just as likely be a high order bit, which would cause an obvious glitch in the audio, as a lower order bit, which would cause a more subtle altering of the analog stream out of the D/A converters.
The reason I used this example is that it is an unambiguous, easily provable instance of wrongheadedness in the audiophile community which was capitalized upon by opportunistic sellers preying on the gullibility of their customer base. But thanks for helping me make my point.
again sir. WORD
I proved it already. The pits on the CD are illuminated by the laser and picked up by a detector. It's a string of 1's and 0's, and it's an unambiguous copy of the digitized audio file from which the disc was produced. Any deviation from that sequence of bits is an error, and in the digital domain, if a single bit error occurs, then it is just as likely to be in a high order bit as in a low order bit. A high order error produces an audible "pop" in the audio, and a low order bit has a more subtle effect.
The laser picks up the bits sequentially, one at a time, and the detector has no way of knowing if a bit it is handling is a low or high order bit, so if an error occurs (and the only way digital information can be interpreted differently is by way of an error), it is (as I said) just as likely to be a "pop" as anything subtle.
Look, I can't teach you all about digital electronics in a forum post, but if you were to do a little research about how this stuff works, you'd realize how silly the whole green paint scheme is.
And by the way, I did try it; the (mis)information came out before I went back to school and got my BSEE degree, so I didn't know any better at the time. I didn't hear any difference, but even if I would have, it would have been in my head, and that's a fact.
You talk ad nauseum about how others don't know what they are talking about, but there is clearly a gap in your knowledge of the principles of digital audio.
"And by the way, I did try it; the (mis)information came out before I went back to school"
You tried it with what?
As I said, the only time I or my tin-eared sister heard anything was when I used it on a recording that was done in digital originally, and it was no big deal.
The resolving capabilities of the system you're listening through come into play also.
You tried it with what?
As I said, the only time I or my tin-eared sister heard anything was when I used it on a recording that was done in digital originally, and it was no big deal.
The resolving capabilities of the system you're listening through come into play also.
all music regardless of what they were recorded on digital or analog when mixed down to cd is 16bits. this is a compressed copy of the original file. not only that but i record everything digitally and there is no difference in quality. digital information is stored in the disc the laser reads this information and no amount of paint or markers is going to make it sound better. don't believe me look it up. there are scores of sites dedicated to teaching people about this. and there is what is called redbook standard that companies that make cds must adhere to, so all cds are going to sound the same.
Not even oxygen-free markers? Or bass-aligned bit burning to enhance the bass tones? How would you know unless you tried it?
There's no convincing the Kool Aid drinkers.
"and there is what is called redbook standard that companies that make cds must adhere to, so all cds are going to sound the same."
"Perfect sound forever"?
Forgive me. That was the claim made by manufacturers of CD players (namely Sony) in the 80s, at the dawn of CD tech. Starting price...............$1000, for a player they wouldn't have the nerve to ask $50 for now.
The quality of the sound reproduced on CD is predominantly dependent on the original recording. You can't reproduce sound that isn't there to begin with, but you can try to clean up what is there, if necessary.
"Perfect sound forever"?
Forgive me. That was the claim made by manufacturers of CD players (namely Sony) in the 80s, at the dawn of CD tech. Starting price...............$1000, for a player they wouldn't have the nerve to ask $50 for now.
The quality of the sound reproduced on CD is predominantly dependent on the original recording. You can't reproduce sound that isn't there to begin with, but you can try to clean up what is there, if necessary.
I tried it with one of the green markers that started the whole misguided furor. I worked at a high end audio shop at the time, and I got one from the owner.
It makes no difference whatsoever whether the content of a CD came originally from an analog or digital source when it comes to the decoding of a disk. It's digital, and in the digital domain a bit is either a 1 or a 0; there is no middle ground. If the material extracted from the CD by the player diverges from the file that was imprinted on the disc in any way whatsoever, it's an error, and there is no way that an error can improve upon the sound produced from the decoding of a digital file. The best a CD player can do is to convey those 1's and 0's to its D/A converters exactly as they are on the disc.
And the resolving capability of your analog reproduction system has nothing to do with anything. There is no difference there to resolve.
I reiterate: If you understood a bit more of how digital audio works, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
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