Mogami Platinum Cable

[TimothyGroovy]

Anyone tried this before? Any input?

I'm now using Evidence Audio Lyrics cable.

 

[treebranch13]

I have a Mogami cable and I find them to be one of the best cables out there. The bass response is tighter and flatter than monster and many other leading brands. But if you are willing to pay that much for a cable I would suggest you check out Zaolla cables at bayoucables.com, I have not had the chance but I plan to buy Zaolla in the near future to replace my mogami.

 

[PSPookie]

Hey guys, I have a magic rock that keeps tigers away.

Interested?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Hey guys, I have a magic rock that keeps tigers away.

Interested?

But... does it keep cable capacitance and self inductance away? How about triboelectric effect?

If not, no thanks.

Cables do sound different. Try some and see.

If you can't hear a difference then just buy the cheapest cables you can find and bask in your lack of fidelity (mediocrity), and buy yourself a lollypop with the money you saved on the cable.



(that was about as asinine as your comment)

 

[matskull]

I heard really good comments about those cables, I'm also interested in hearing some more.

 

[PSPookie]

In double bilnd tests subjects could not conclusively tell the difference between Monster cables and coat hangers.

I at least know the rock works 'cause I don't see any tigers around. It may also work against tribbles as you suggest.

The only relevant factors in cables (as far as fidelity goes) are good connection and wire gague . Beyond that, copper is copper. I'm certain that your $100 instrument cables sound better to you, but I am suggesting that may be due to a "golden ears" effect.

I know if I paid that much for an instrument cable I too would be certain that it sounded better.

If you want to convince me of the superiority of your cable you will have to address durability or some other factor. There is no hard science to support their claims to superior fidelity.



*Woo-hoo 1000th post!

 

[jmac]

I'm now a believer in the mogami platinum cable. I participated in a cable test at Bass Specialties. The Mogami platinum cable had a significat advantage over the other cables. I don't have the best ear so for me to hear that big of a difference says a ton to me. If I hadn't been then I would never had belived it.

 

[Ampeg SVT]

I just bought a gold one from GC for $23 thanks to a free $25 gift card

 

[Pilgrim]

Cable = Cable.

Good quality cable of ANY kind with good connectors works just fine.

 

[Derek the Cello]

In double bilnd tests subjects could not conclusively tell the difference between Monster cables and coat hangers.

[...]

If you want to convince me of the superiority of your cable you will have to address durability or some other factor. There is no hard science to support their claims to superior fidelity.

Not true. Those often cited tests always have to do with stereos (esp hifi) and has little do to with bass as the tests are done with low impedance signals. In a passive instrument, everything in the signal path establishes an RLC style circuit. If you just have a passive bass going into a preamp (amp head), this is very simple. If you know the pickup's inductance and the capacitance of everything involved, you can tell where the resonance frequency is located. Having two pickups at the same inductance wired in parallel halves the inductance, thus raising the resonance. The problem is that most pickup manufacturers don't give a Henry rating (or have internal capacitance/eddy currents), and most cable manufacturers don't give a capacitance rating Try using a really short cable and a really long cable of the same brand - the relevant difference is in the capacitance. This is why some speaker cables will sound horrible when used with instruments.

This is not to say the lowest capacitance sounds the best. Some people prefer different resonances over others, hence market popularity for overwound pickups, etc. Everyone will have their own preference for where this resonance should be, which explains why they prefer some cables over others. The problem with this is that it will be different from bass to bass, especially with pickups of varying inductances.

Properly buffered in-instrument preamps make this irrelevant, so it'd be "golden ears" in most of those cases.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

In double bilnd tests subjects could not conclusively tell the difference between Monster cables and coat hangers.

Did you ever actually READ that test? Or are you just quoting hearsay? This was a post on a message board, not some scientific test, or even a test done by a magazine.

Invalid Link Removed

We gathered up a 5 of our audio buddies. We took my "old" Martin Logan SL-3 (not a bad speaker for accurate noise making) and hooked them up with Monster 1000 speaker cables [ed. Monster Ultra Series THX 1000 Audio Interconnects] (decent cables according to the audio press). We also rigged up 14 gauge, oxygen free Belden stranded copper wire with a simple PVC jacket. Both were 2 meters long.

...Unknown to me and our 12 audiophile buddies, prior to the ABX blind test, he took apart four coat hangers, reconnected them and twisted them into a pair of speaker cables. Connections were soldered.

Those were SPEAKER cables, not instrument cables. I'm not sure how he would have twisted the coat hangers without them shorting out, so the whole thing might be a hoax. However, if insulated, coat hangers are about what you want for ideal short speaker cables. A heavy solid conductor.

But certainly not a cable between a passive source and a high impedance load. And they shouldn't have been using interconnects for speakers. Never use an instrument cable for speakers.

And the coat hangers wouldn't have sounded as good for a long cable run. Multi conductor wires are more efficient due to the skin effect.

So on top of everything else, that test was flawed from the start. They should have been using some Monster speaker cable to do the test, not interconnects. Me thinks these audiophiles don't know much. But anyone can write about anything these days. It certainly wasn't scientific.

I at least know the rock works 'cause I don't see any tigers around. It may also work against tribbles as you suggest.

No, you only know that you haven't seen a tiger. Have you tested your rock in a locations known to have wild tigers? Try it in India and then get back to us.

The only relevant factors in cables (as far as fidelity goes) are good connection and wire gague . Beyond that, copper is copper. I'm certain that your $100 instrument cables sound better to you, but I am suggesting that may be due to a "golden ears" effect.

OK, then explain why. Don't just make a statement, back it up. Why does wire gauge matter? And if wire gauge matters, why not the insulator between the conductors? Why not the number of conductors in the wire? Also the coat hangers were not made from copper. So then why should wire material matter?

If copper was copper, all pickups would use the same gauge wire with the same insulation... but they don't. Formvar sounds different from plain enamel for example. Why? Dielectric constants. Same reason why different styles of cable insulators make a difference, as does the distance between the center conductor and the shield.

I know if I paid that much for an instrument cable I too would be certain that it sounded better.

You know that? How so? Have you tested your theory? Was it a blind test?

Using the same logic, cheap basses should sound as good as expensive ones, as long as you don't know the price.

If you want to convince me of the superiority of your cable you will have to address durability or some other factor. There is no hard science to support their calims to superior fidelity.

I don't want to convince you of anything, except that you have made your mind up based on a lack of information. That doesn't explain why when trying 4 or 5 expensive cables, that they all sound different.

Also show me where there is no "hard science" to show that different cables will operate differently. And do you use "hard science" when you choose what strings to put on your bass, or what amp to use?

I told you some of the "hard science" behind cables, but instead of looking up triboelectric (an effect known to hard science, and probably soft science as well) or any of the other things I mentioned, you chose to illiterate it as "tribbles".... so basically you stuck your fingers in your ears and went; "na na na nee"

They recently did some tests at Bass Player and [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], and the testers said the same things. At bass player they clearly liked some cables better than others, with certain basses. And many of these cables were about the same price, so it wasn't a matter of liking the more expensive cable.

Here's a review from Bass Player on the Evidence Audio Lyric

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

For the record, I use a Spectraflex cable. It wasn't over $50. I used to use a Monster, and had it for 20 years, until it started getting noisy (triboelectric effect). I think the Spectraflex sounds just as good as the Monster. But I wont say it sounds as good as XYZ, since I didn't A/B it against more high tech cables.

However... I have tried many of these high end cables, A/B'ing them, and they do sound as claimed. And since I didn't buy any of them, I guess my perceptions weren't biased, based on your theory of placebo cable sound.

What you have is preconceived notions based on misinformation about things you never really looked up. It doesn't make sense to you, based on your current knowledge, so of course if can't be true.

Just take your favorite cable to a place and try it against the expensive cables, and then see if you hear a difference. "Hard science" usually involves doing the tests.

 

[PSPookie]

No, you only know that you haven't seen a tiger. Have you tested your rock in a locations known to have wild tigers? Try it in India and then get back to us.

Nope. I sure haven't. That was kinda my point

If copper was copper, all pickups would use the same gauge wire with the same insulation... but they don't. Formvar sounds different from plain enamel for example. Why? Dielectric constants. Same reason why different styles of cable insulators make a difference, as does the distance between the center conductor and the shield.

How many linear feet of wire are in a typical pickup? Are you saying that the instrument cable and pickup wire serve the same function? I was unaware that so much signal was being generated in my instrument cable

Using the same logic, cheap basses should sound as good as expensive ones, as long as you don't know the price.

Some do.

I told you some of the "hard science" behind cables, but instead of looking up triboelectric (an effect known to hard science, and probably soft science as well) or any of the other things I mentioned, you chose to illiterate it as "tribbles".... so basically you stuck your fingers in your ears and went; "na na na nee"

...

I used to use a Monster, and had it for 20 years, until it started getting noisy (triboelectric effect).

I understand the concept. Do you? Because your Monster cable statement doesn't make much sense.

I am not an EE. However I did take a number of EE courses while attaining my engineering degree. I would wager that my understanding of these topics exceeds that of most laypeople.

As such I discounted most of the 'scientific' terminology you threw at me because, while those are valid concepts they are not relevant to this application.

Do and believe as you please. If the marketing smoke and mirrors make you happy then feel free to bask in your own ignorance.

 

[SoLongJake]

all the walls of text and theorycraft in the world still don't make expensive cables sound better than quality made cheaper cables.

 

[Marcus Willett]

PM sent

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Nope. I sure haven't. That was kinda my point

No, it was pointless. It lacks logic. It's a Strawman argument, aka the "real Scotsman" argument. It proves nothing, but listening tests have been done on cables, and the testers heard a difference. I cited two such tests of instrument cables, while you sort of cited a sort of test on speaker cables, or in other words, you gave no valid references to back up your idea that there is no real science behind cable design.

A lot of audiophile stuff is nonsense, but this is real world verifiable.

How many linear feet of wire are in a typical pickup? Are you saying that the instrument cable and pickup wire serve the same function?

Linear feet of wire has nothing to do with pickups. They are coils. Big difference. 1000 linear feet of copper wire will not work very well as a pickup or an inductor. It's the turns that make it happen.

A typical cable has far more capacitance than a pickup, and has a HUGE effect on the tone of the pickup. The thousands of turns of the pickup is swamped by the cable capacitance. So yeah, the cable has as great, if not greater affect on the tone of the pickup than the amount of wire in the pickup. Why do you think people have the whole passive vs. active debates? Because when you remove the cable from the equation, your bass sounds totally different. And this is why active instruments are not as affected by cable type.

A passive pickup is a reactive resonance tuned system, and the cable's resistance and capacitance is part of that system. This is why PRS came up with the "sweet switch" they used to use, which was a passive delay line array to simulate so many feet of coax cable.

The length of the wire in a pickup is irrelevant to this discussion. I was talking about wire insulation, and in this case, it has a very similar effect as in a coax cable. The other thing about a pickup is the ground end is much farther from the hot, than in a cable, where you have a rather thin insulator between them.

Two conductors separated by an insulator is a capacitor.

I was unaware that so much signal was being generated in my instrument cable

It's not, but it's affecting the signal in a large way. And the reason is so little signal is being produced by the pickup.

I understand the concept. Do you? Because your Monster cable statement doesn't make much sense.

Of course I do, and yes it did make sense. The monster cable is not made all that differently than the Spectraflex, but that's not to say either is the same as the EA Lyric HG or similar cables.

I am not an EE. However I did take a number of EE courses while attaining my engineering degree. I would wager that my understanding of these topics exceeds that of most laypeople.

Well then you weren't paying attention in class.

As such I discounted most of the 'scientific' terminology you threw at me because, while those are valid concepts they are not relevant to this application.

I second what I just said. And you don't know much more than a layperson, because that's what you are in this area.

As I'm sure you remember, anytime you have current flowing in a conductor (and it doesn't really flow, but for this example that's a good enough analogy) you also have a magnetic field being produced. The magnetic field on the other hand produces current, in this case eddy currents. These currents oppose the original current/field that produced them, in as resistance increases with frequency, you lose high end. Too much resistance and you can lose low end. And this is on top of lose due to high capacitance.

The triboelectric effect is why cables produce handling noise. This is because of the insulator and outer jacket. It's similar to the piezo electric effect. Many of the high end cables have conductive layers between insulators and jackets to drain this charge.

Different insulators have a different affect on the tone. This comes back to dielectric constants at different frequencies, and the number of strands of a conductor is as important as the gauge.

You can look all this up and verify it for yourself.

If the marketing smoke and mirrors make you happy then feel free to bask in your own ignorance.

And do you have proof of that? Or we (and all the pepople at Bass Player, et al) have to take your opinion as fact?

If you do a little research you can actually see some real facts on cable design, as well as scientific tests, with spectrographs, figures, etc.

The other audiophile stuff, like $600 wooden knobs, or a $60 for a quarter once of C34 lacquer to paint on stuff to improve the sound is snake oil.

But your signal have to travel though cables.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

all the walls of text and theorycraft in the world still don't make expensive cables sound better than quality made cheaper cables.

Can you back that up anything? Or are you just talking?

 

[Ívar Þórólfsson]

Sorry guys.

We are not going down this road yet again.

There have been plenty of cable debates here in this forum.