I won a Virtual Dynamics Power 3 Cable

[Munjibunga]

Nah they save that for the $3000 version with the 'Magic Pixie Dust Thermobonded Cable Shrouds (tm)' They 'lift another veil between you and the music'.

That's oxygen-free magic pixie dust thermobonded cable. And it's much thicker. And thicker is better. At least that's what an old girlfriend of mine once told me.

 

[A9X]

My view is that every part of the signal chain affects the sound... the question is how much....

No argument that there is potential for signal degradation from cables. As they're passive devices, they can only take away from the information passing through them.

Signal cable: directly in the signal path, carrying a wideband dynamic signal.

Power cable: Static 50 or 60Hz signal, varying current. Theis then passes through a power transformer. An EI core, especially as they get larger, are wonderful low pass filter and compared to even a very modest (ie cheap crap) tube output transformer. We used to use big isolation transformers in measuring labs for this reason. Then it gets rectified, then turned into DC by being run through a massive low pass filter - the power supply caps. Here, there'll be DC, a small amount of ripple and left over hash from the rectifier switching transients. This DC is then modulated by the power amplifier to produce the V and I supplied to the speaker.

There's never been an even close to statistically significant test dome on signal path cables under controlled conditions and with a prefectly repeatable signal source - something a bass player playing live definitely is not.

Do you get my skepticism now?

As this particular cable is solid core it's not gigging material as it will or harden and fracture easily.

 

[BassyBill]

Us mods have had a couple of posts reported in this thread on both sides of the argument. By all means, give it your best shot when trying to prove your points, but please, let's not make it personal guys, okay? Thanks.

Bill

 

[amos]

I'd be interested in seeing a true blind ABX test. Then I'd place a little more weight on the results.

-Mark

+1. If I paid $28.00 for shipping for a power cable, I'd want to hear something better, for sure.

 

[amos]

You can blame this piffel on Perrier. They managed to convince consumers that water in a bottle was somehow superior to tap water, just because it cost more. That opened the floodgates, if you will, to all sorts of products that claim to be 'better' based only on the fact that they cost more than reasonably priced alternatives.
BTW, the best selling bottled water brands are Dasani and Aquafina. People pay twice as much for this water as they do for the same quantity of gasoline. Guess what? They're both tap water.

Coke and Pepsi's source is tap water. But yes, fundamentally, still water from the tap, after the filtration processes. However now I am having problems seeing how this relates to the OP...

 

[A9X]

Us mods have had a couple of posts reported in this thread on both sides of the argument. By all means, give it your best shot when trying to prove your points, but please, let's not make it personal guys, okay? Thanks.

Bill

Make a good technical argument. Otherwise, it's all hot air.

 

[Psychicpet]

Make a good technical argument. Otherwise, it's all hot air.

the whole point is that it's NOT an argument, the guy merely posted his thoughts/insights about a piece of frigging gear he got.

but I'm now guessing that there's a lot of hot air else where around TB that needs to argue and feel as though it's the right "Hot Air"

jeez, thanks for the initial write up Cam, it was a good read. as for the rest of the thread... it's been a good read too

 

[KJung]

FWIW, myself and a friend have reliably detected sonic differences between a Monster cable and my homemade cable which uses Mogami wire and Neutrik connectors. I found the Monster somewhat rolled off in the highs, possibly due to higher capacitance. If I had the proper measurement tools, it would be interesting to try to quantify these differences empirically.

My view is that every part of the signal chain affects the sound... the question is how much....

I'm one who hears virtually no difference among high end cables. HOWEVER, there is definitely some voicing going on with the Monster Bass Cables.... horrible cables... as you mention, they seem to have something built into that cable that rolls off high end, thereby making it seem that there is more 'bass' coming through. A simply horrible sounding cable IMO (the other Monster cables sound fine).

For the power cable, pretty funny. However, all the OP has to do is have a friend come over and do a blind test. Just have the friend switch the two cables with the OP's back to the amp while he's playing. The friend should somewhat randomly switch the cables (i.e., keep the same cable attaches on some trials and switch back and forth on others, keeping a record of the OP's comments on tone). My guess is, about twenty 15 second trials (10 for each cable, again randomly swapped) should be enough to determine if the OP really does hear any difference.

This is how I went through my blind testing of some high end cables (Monster Bass, Tara Labs, George L, etc.) a while back, and the Monster Bass was the only 'significant' difference (i.e., the only cable that I could reliably identify as 'different').

 

[MikeBass]

I'm gonna make a power cable out of this:

Big stuff huh? Thats my hand holding it.

It's designed to carry 480v at up to 30,000 amps.
That wasn't a typo, I said 30,000 amps.

If you notice the jacket is "fishnet".
The cable runs so hot, it has to be watercooled. (it can get hot enough to melt itself into a big ugly messy lump- copper and all).
Crimp on massive copper lugs, cover it in a larger jacket that has a wall thickness about 1/4" thick, seal the jacket on and it's ready to go.
So much for water and electricity don't mix eh?!?? (trust me, too long and boring to explain!!)

Oh, BTW, I work for a companry that designs custom cable and custom cable assemblies for the automotive robotics field.
We do everything from draw the actual raw copper, group and twist the strands, jacket the strand (making a "conductor") and grouping the conductors to make a cable.

I design cable and also do 3D design.
Oh yeah, one more thing. we also have a pro audio division.

I've posed this question to the engineers in that division a bunch of time.
I get the same answer, "C'mon.........are you serious?"

Now I could loose most of you with the total responce, but it basically goes like this:
In a perfect environment, like a lab, then yes, there "may" be a difference.
At home- basically none.

Now, there is a difference between the "zip" cord that is common to a hardware store replacement lamp cable and your "standard" cable. Just not in the audio spectrum that our lovely bass amps & cabs are able to reproduce.

Or heck, I'm gonna modify my amp to plug this baby in to the back!!!

The connector alone is $250!! Cable is about $18 a foot.
Trust me, the VD cable is not going to be better insulated, or conduct power better than this stuff!!!
The first cable is roughly, for a 20 foot one (we don't make them that long) but if we did, it would be in the area of $1900 I would think.

 

[greenboy]

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[Stuggi]

Snake oil deluxe if you ask me since a wire is only as good as it's worst part, so as long as you don't use a cable that's worse than your house wiring, you won't hear any difference.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

the whole point is that it's NOT an argument, the guy merely posted his thoughts/insights about a piece of frigging gear he got.

He chose to post his impressions/beliefs/conclusions on a public forum. He had, and has, every right to do that. And other posters had, and have, every right to tell him why they believe he's probably deluding himself. As long as people adhere to basic rules of courtesy, I don't see why either of those things should be a problem.

When you post something, you put it out there for people's reactions; otherwise, you would have kept it to yourself. Once you've done that, you can't control what reactions you get. You can't demand that you only get agreement or reinforcement. To Bassflute's credit, I don't think he's done that for the most part.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

FWIW, myself and a friend have reliably detected sonic differences between a Monster cable and my homemade cable which uses Mogami wire and Neutrik connectors. I found the Monster somewhat rolled off in the highs, possibly due to higher capacitance. If I had the proper measurement tools, it would be interesting to try to quantify these differences empirically.

My view is that every part of the signal chain affects the sound... the question is how much....

Wiithin the signal chain there can be significant differences between cables, and as you noted they are primarily due to capacitance. That fact has been ackowledged since the 1930s. But there is no correlation between cost and capacitance.

HOWEVER, there is definitely some voicing going on with the Monster Bass Cables.... horrible cables... as you mention, they seem to have something built into that cable that rolls off high end, thereby making it seem that there is more 'bass' coming through. A simply horrible sounding cable IMO

If Belden or Mogami produced a cable of that sort, with capacitance so high that it acted as a low-pass filter, it would be deemed 'defective' and never sold to the public.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Anything in audio can be measured if include blind testing as a measurement method.

I think this is an important point that is often underemphasized. Too often, this kind of debate is framed, mainly it seems by some in the golden ears crowd (not pointing the finger at anybody currently in this thread), as if it's a fight between ears and machinery, with one side supposedly being those sensitive musical sorts who can hear things beyond the reach of mere mortals and the other side being those who can't hear the difference between a tuba and a fart (if there is one, that is) and know only what they can see on their little dials. I'm exaggerating of course, partly for a little levity, but you know what I mean.

But in fact there's no dichotomy between using your ears and approaching things scientifically. It's less about the measuring tool you use than about your approach to measuring. Your ears are perfectly good scientific measuring tools if you construct your measuring method sensibly. You could argue, actually, that if the goal of the test is precisely to determine whether something is audible to a human being, human ears are not just an acceptable measurement device but perhaps the perfect measurement device for that purpose.

The catch is just that you have to design your listening test right--that is, so as to reduce user error and test bias. We all know how this should be done, and that's by a double-blind test; not one of the arguments I've heard against this approach for these purposes has ever made a lick of sense to me.

 

[asad137]

The catch is just that you have to design your listening test right--that is, so as to reduce user error and test bias. We all know how this should be done, and that's by a double-blind test; not one of the arguments I've heard against this approach for these purposes has ever made a lick of sense to me.

+1

Asad

 

[Bryan316]

The connector alone is $250!! Cable is about $18 a foot.
Trust me, the VD cable is not going to be better insulated, or conduct power better than this stuff!!!
The first cable is roughly, for a 20 foot one (we don't make them that long) but if we did, it would be in the area of $1900 I would think.

Dude, Mike, I've always wanted to rig up some rediculous power connection, like running a standard power cable through a huge 1-1/2" hydraulic fitting for fuel trucks. THIS.... looks Spinal Tap Awesome! Send me one. I'll buy you BEEEEEEER...

 

[KJung]

I think this is an important point that is often underemphasized. Too often, this kind of debate is framed, mainly it seems by some in the golden ears crowd (not pointing the finger at anybody currently in this thread), as if it's a fight between ears and machinery, with one side supposedly being those sensitive musical sorts who can hear things beyond the reach of mere mortals and the other side being those who can't hear the difference between a tuba and a fart (if there is one, that is) and know only what they can see on their little dials. I'm exaggerating of course, partly for a little levity, but you know what I mean.

But in fact there's no dichotomy between using your ears and approaching things scientifically. It's less about the measuring tool you use than about your approach to measuring. Your ears are perfectly good scientific measuring tools if you construct your measuring method sensibly. You could argue, actually, that if the goal of the test is precisely to determine whether something is audible to a human being, human ears are not just an acceptable measurement device but perhaps the perfect measurement device for that purpose.

The catch is just that you have to design your listening test right--that is, so as to reduce user error and test bias. We all know how this should be done, and that's by a double-blind test; not one of the arguments I've heard against this approach for these purposes has ever made a lick of sense to me.

+1... even a single blind test would be fine. Double blinds are key if the tester has a lot of interaction with the subject. With just switching cables, a single blind would be just as valid IMO and IME. And, they are fun to do.. really tests your ears and assumptions!

 

[A9X]

I think this is an important point that is often underemphasized. Too often, this kind of debate is framed, mainly it seems by some in the golden ears crowd (not pointing the finger at anybody currently in this thread), as if it's a fight between ears and machinery, with one side supposedly being those sensitive musical sorts who can hear things beyond the reach of mere mortals and the other side being those who can't hear the difference between a tuba and a fart (if there is one, that is) and know only what they can see on their little dials. I'm exaggerating of course, partly for a little levity, but you know what I mean.

Absolutely not the only cases. There are some of us who love music and have some engineering behind us to try to figure out, exactly why we're hearing what, technically and psychoacoustically, so that we can make reasonable decisions as to what can be achieved and why. For examplr, you'll never hear me saying that an amp with 0.001% THD is automatically better than one with 0.5%. What is the spectrum? How does it change with level? Why? There have been plenty who've reseasrched this before me: Shorter, H Olson, L Olson, Cheever, Geddes and Lee to name some. However, as I explained above, there are some very good reasons why there will never be an audible difference between power cables, and I forgot to include amplifier PSRR and NFB.

Saying there is an actual rather than perceived difference is akin to saying you've developed some gizmo to add to the fuel line of your SUV that will allow you to get 200mpg.

If the OP want's to use this cable fine, I don't care. I'm far more cocerned others will take some flower prose posted about perceived differences to be fact and actually spend money for something like it, rather than spending the money on some change that will make an actual difference.

 

[Bassflute]

FWIW, myself and a friend have reliably detected sonic differences between a Monster cable and my homemade cable which uses Mogami wire and Neutrik connectors. I found the Monster somewhat rolled off in the highs, possibly due to higher capacitance. If I had the proper measurement tools, it would be interesting to try to quantify these differences empirically.

My view is that every part of the signal chain affects the sound... the question is how much....

well put.

Cheers,
Cameron

 

[tombowlus]

Tom Bowlus - if you like, pm me, I'll send it to you, try it with your IP's cabs, your Sadowski head, a bunch of basses, anything you like. Keep it for a month or two, but you HAVE to send it back. Give us your full, unbiased report. Blast it and me out of the water - call us idiots for believing in this trash. Give her.

I'll pay shipping to your place, do your review, but you HAVE to send it back, at your expense. What do you think?

Well, I'd love to give it a whirl, but you see, I don't have one of those handy dandy flame resistant suits!

FWIW, I have auditioned some expensive power cables in the past, and with bass/PA gear, I heard no difference. With home audio gear, my experience was that so long as the cables made good contact (and not all of them did), the differences were either non-existent, or negligible. I will say, though, that I did hear a benefit to using dedicated AC lines (nothing else on the circuit).

Tom.