Insanely expensive AudioQuest cable promises big sound for audiophiles

Shane McGlaun - Slash Gear


http://i.imgur.com/Em25Lbx.jpg

Audiophiles have been known to spend big money on products that seem a bit out there to the average user. For instance, they will spend thousands of dollars on amplifiers with old school vacuum tubes when the non-audiophile can get an amp for a fraction of that price. A new audiophile product has landed and this time it's an insanely expensive Cat-6 Ethernet cable.

The selling point for this Cat-6 cable appears to be a notion that your junky network cables that came with your WiFi router are killing the sound quality of your MP3s. This cable promises to fix that for the steep price of about $10,500. The cable is made by a company called AudioQuest.

The RJ-45 connectors on each end of the cable aren't normal plastic, they are made from silver. Apparently, some puffery from the company making the cable claims the cables are directional. The cables also have lots of insulation promising to generate an electrostatic field.

That field claims to reduce energy storage and non-linear time delays to a minimum. Other audiophile brands have been making expensive cables aimed at audiophiles for years that have dubious benefits. I'm curious if this cable actually delivers benefits over cheap cables. What do you think?

wow :shock: i'm all for good music but really don't think my ears ( :fu: everyone ) could tell the difference

$10,500? :rofl:

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Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks

Shane McGlaun - Slash Gear


http://i.imgur.com/Em25Lbx.jpg

Audiophiles have been known to spend big money on products that seem a bit out there to the average user. For instance, they will spend thousands of dollars on amplifiers with old school vacuum tubes when the non-audiophile can get an amp for a fraction of that price. A new audiophile product has landed and this time it's an insanely expensive Cat-6 Ethernet cable.

The selling point for this Cat-6 cable appears to be a notion that your junky network cables that came with your WiFi router are killing the sound quality of your MP3s. This cable promises to fix that for the steep price of about $10,500. The cable is made by a company called AudioQuest.

The RJ-45 connectors on each end of the cable aren't normal plastic, they are made from silver. Apparently, some puffery from the company making the cable claims the cables are directional. The cables also have lots of insulation promising to generate an electrostatic field.

That field claims to reduce energy storage and non-linear time delays to a minimum. Other audiophile brands have been making expensive cables aimed at audiophiles for years that have dubious benefits. I'm curious if this cable actually delivers benefits over cheap cables. What do you think?

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First off there has been plenty of evidence that monster cable is a BS waste of money, dont see how this is any different. And the real question here, is if you're an audiophile what the fuck are you doing with MP3's :roll:

dingdingding.....you might as well try feeding mustard to a cat, no self described audiophile is going to listen to MP3s....and no halfway intelligent audiophile is going to spend any extra money on a fuggin network cable that makes zero difference in the transmission so long as its got the right amount of twists per unit segment of cable. (i.e. basically the difference between cat3, cat5, and cat6.) your speaker cables and connectivity are one thing, but the network cable is an entirely different segment of the hardware model and will have absolutely zero difference wrt your sound quality, and very likely your network throughput also.


it depends what you're doing, what you need. where are your wires running, what are they running next to, are they next to nothing, or are they next to power supplies that kick out a bunch of juice and are going to saturate ya with EMFs unless you have a good shielded cable?

I was lucky that the yeti left us a spool of really nice belkin mic cable, braided jacket w heavy coating outside, and double twisted pairs inside - you can bet your ass that makes a difference in sound over a cheap wire with a thin jacket and paper around a small ground that isnt even a sheath which provides a lot of cable strength as well as contributes to the shielding.

:facepalm:

I'm with Porky...if your source file is shit, cables made from the finest gold poured and cast within Pavarotti's asshole won't make a difference.

Hell, I just got a remastered album from 1976, lossless flac files and the difference is enormous...

I'm looking forward to getting to remastering certain old shit, because I'll be capturing it through that neve board and running it through that Burl B2 Bomber :drool:


I still gotta find printed circuit boards so I can build those outboard amps for that board.

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Originally Posted by FBD

I'm looking forward to getting to remastering certain old shit, because I'll be capturing it through that neve board and running it through that Burl B2 Bomber :drool:


I still gotta find printed circuit boards so I can build those outboard amps for that board.

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http://i.imgur.com/wSK47aX.jpg

An interesting read from a few years back: http://www.audioholics.com/audio-vid...-cable-science

Contains several links to acoustic experts and other studies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF0M07U7SqQ


mad scientist indeed, because Dave Grohl would pay someone a handful of g's to work on his board, but mine I do it all meself.

only difference between his board and mine? his is I think 48 tracks, mine's 24....he's got 48 aux channels, I have 4.... and I think his board has 8-12 masters, I have two. otherwise, close to identical signal chains :woot:


so I want to solve that problem of only having 4 auxes and 2 masters - that means I can only record 6 simultaneous tracks from the board, which is a bit limiting for a 24 channel board. I I've been pouring through the schematics for those 33411 amplifiers and I'm going to design something a little more flexible than what exists - input and output transformers have a resistor value that sets a gain boost....so whatever's wired in there you're kinda stuck with. in these 33411s I am going to replicate, I am going to give 'em two 6 position selector switches so that I can vary the gain boost from 3 to 18db on both the input and output, as well as have my output volume for it. (gain drives the circuit a little harder so isnt quite the same thing as just turning the volume up.) I also have figured out where I can wire in an analog vu meter in the signal chain.....so my 33411s are gonna be built to the max :tup:



and that big 2" reel to reel tape machine you see in there.....that's what the Burl B2 Bomber analog to digital box is designed to replicate, the "tape saturation." that has its own input transformer to push at so that the digital conversion can be as hot as can be :datass:

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Originally Posted by Oofty Goofty

An interesting read from a few years back: http://www.audioholics.com/audio-vid...-cable-science

Contains several links to acoustic experts and other studies.

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yes

Summarizing what these fellows are saying about cable affects on audio performance:

Unstable esoteric audiophile amplifiers that are overly sensitive to cable properties are the real culprits (I think a lot of this is overlooked in considering these things, but 'unstable' is an amateur and derogatory usage of the term here and would only be used by someone who poo poos audiophile stuff in the first place. Someone that would take a look at a Manley Neo Classic and say there's no possible way it should be that expensive :lol: )
Any effects from cable properties are so system specific that there is no general solution to improve sound quality with cables (yeah in other words know your gear
There will be no difference in properly designed cables below 2 meters (6.7 ft) length irregardless of amplifier/loudspeaker combination this is a big one because most of the "weird effects" only come out at the longer lengths.
Using the shortest, lowest impedance cables possible is the only universal way to minimize effects of cable electrical properties (summing it up)




That said, any good guitarist I know who is particular about their sound will absolutely notice the difference between a good and a shitty cable.

I used to work at an audiophile shop for a brief moment in time, and at Radio Shack installing car stereos and generally what FBD says is true.

BUT, if you go to the dollar store and get your cables there, then that stuff can sound very shitty indeed. I went cheap on the audio cable between my digital box and the stereo amp, and it sounded OK, but the stereo imaging was not great, and the distortion level was audible if you cranked up the sound.

I replaced it with just-barely-a-step-up stuff and man, what a difference. I'm re-watching stuff on Netflix and the surround sound is so much better.

EMFs ;) even a little more shielding can go a long way sometimes!