| 04mdx4sq |
We are an Audioquest dealer and after a couple of teaser visits from our rep and a road trip visit by company president Bill Low, I finally got to hear the new Horizon interconnects. Absolutely amazing falls short of how good these things are. For you guys familiar with their line, we did a shootout between Horizon and Cheetah (formerly second only to Sky). I always thought the Cheetahs were great cables, they use the DBS system and are perfect surface silver and are well constructed. The reference system we were using was Mark Levinson CD, Classe preamp and monoblocks, and B&W 802D speakers.
These cables will go through a very select dealer network, so if you have a dealer in your area, check them out in a few weeks. Or if any of you ever get by St. Louis, I would be happy to spend some time doing some listening with you. :D
sorry for the poor camera phone pic, but this is one impressive RCA connector! |
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| hondacuraworld |
I'm going to be in the market for new interconnects soon myself. I want to upgrade from the XLO's I have now, and was thinking about Nordost. I had Jean-Marie Reynauds, but they were the worst sounding pieces of trash I'd ever heard.
Personally I'm running a Blue Circle CS Integrated amp, Rega Planet CDP, and Living Voice Auditorum series speakers. I've got a Manley Stingray coming that we got from our friend Albert Manley as well. Audio gear is fun stuff :D
Incidentally, plans for AK Fest 07 are starting to come together:
http://audiokarma.org/ak2007/
Big names are signing up to be in attendance this year, but I can't tell you who they are yet ;) |
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| jhue |
I have a story that will disgust all of you.
I used to work with a guy (actually he reported for me for a while) who had more discretionary income than brains. He bought a used pair of B&W 804s off of Audiogon, and a pair of speaker cables that ran around $1800 for the pair. When another coworker went to his house to listen to them, he found that the speakers had been placed in opposite corners of the room - facing each other diagonally.
The coworker knew enough to reposition them, adjust the toe-in for best imaging and soundstaging, and sit the other guy down in a chair in the sweet spot. The clueless guy sits down, listens a while, and gets this really surprised look on his face as he's hearing things he's never heard before out of his speakers.
He never lived that down. We teased him mercilessly for months after that. He later bought a cheap Chinese tube CD player because it "looked cool", even though the reviews said it was a mediocre performer. |
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| Quill |
I'm squarely in the camp that states a conductor is a conductor, and as long as the gauge is sufficient for the length, and the shielding is adequate for the environment, the rest is money spent on looks, marketing and packaging. This is doubly true when you move from analog to digital signals.
Just my $0.02.
PS - Looking for interconnects, try here: www.monoprice.com |
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| shieldstyle |
I agree with Quill. I laugh when I see SPDIF/Toslink cables with gold connectors, shielding, etc. I use digital when possible, optical when possible.
When it comes to interconnects, I often make my own. Why pay for insane prices on what are actually average cables when you can make better? Working with twisted-pair 18awg quad shield 5-2300mhz currently. No jacks yet, but I couldn't find ones suitable. Phono/RCA could work, but they're poorly designed. Cables probably don't matter much, but shielding matters to me. |
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| jhue |
quote:
Originally posted by shieldstyle
I agree with Quill. I laugh when I see SPDIF/Toslink cables with gold connectors, shielding, etc.
I've got a degree in Electrical Engineering from a decent university, and the second hardest class I ever had to suffer through was electromagnetics (Maxwell's equations, transmission lines, that sort of stuff). I have to laugh in their face when some clueless salesman without a single day of college physics under his belt starts trying to explain skin effect to me. I just have to say, "Dude, shut the ef up because you're making a fool of yourself and annoying the hell out of me."
I build my own cables, and I'm willing to spend money to get good connectors, but I've never found a need to spend a lot on the cable itself. Monster Cable is of course the worst. Last year when I had an immediate need for some HDMI cables (couldn't wait for monoprice.com to deliver) I went to Fry's to see what they had. I was able to find a $12 HDMI cable in a completely different section of the store than where the $90 Monster HDMI cables were kept. I guess the Monster reps don't allow them to put the reasonably priced cables anywhere near the Monster display. M.I.T. is equally bad, the ridiculous pseudoscience behind their designs is laughable to any upper-division EE student.
Oddly enough, I have a friend who was probably a better analog circuit designer than I was (not how either of us have earned a living in twenty years), and he's always telling me about the latest interconnect or speaker cable he's bought. I've never asked him to explain the physics behind the cables he buys. I suspect he wouldn't even try to explain it but would justify their purchase based on his listening tests. |
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| shieldstyle |
HDMI is a good example. Digital signals are either transmitted or not -- poor quality will be obvious with an intermittent or heavily distorted signal. An analog signal can be reduced in quality. TV etc is real-time, so error correction isn't easy, and people saw that in the stuttering in early SPDIF optical cables. Higher quality HDMI cables simply don't matter as long as they're up to specification; if they aren't up to spec, they won't work.
I'm not an electrical engineer. In fact, I'm in the arts. Most of the BS in interconnects can be obvious (dielectric absorbtion, skin effect, etc). There are people trying to clear through it for the consumer, so I'll suggest audioholics.com |
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