Cables with BNC Connectors/Adapters Are Generating A Superoir SQ

[2glory]

Joachim,

Sorry I am sure some where you have stated what BNC wire you got. Can you pleases repeat what you have that sounds so good and I will order it and report back.

Thanks,
Gary

[christoffe]

Joachim,

Sorry I am sure some where you have stated what BNC wire you got. Can you pleases repeat what you have that sounds so good and I will order it and report back.

Thanks,
Gary

Hi Gary,

The cable is identical to Brians RG142 ("Solid Silver-coated Copper Clad Steel Conductor"), see Reply #100 http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3026.msg32357#msg32357

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Joachim, "identical" or the very same (bought there). I mean, I don't recall that you bought those (there). What I do recall is that you had some laying around in a stowed away box.

So ?

And I say this for a reason. More tomorrow ...

Peter

[christoffe]

Hi,

the cable is from H + S, type K_02232 T and is not in production anymore. From the datas we can see the construction.

The "D" in the table is for "double braid screen", the "K" for "high temperature", and that cables have a double screen always at H+S.

Joachim

[PeterSt]

... and the Strand-7 is for 7 stranded wires ...

I'd say.

Please don't compare cables this way, because all is different (in my view) and they thus will sound vastly different.
Of course I am in the process of learning myself !

Peter

[PeterSt]

Of course I am in the process of learning myself !

Without a decent analyser for it, all is a bit guessing and about empirical exploration, but at least we know this is not about voodoo and snake oil. And if no differences could be heard because so poor anyway ... but the opposite is true.

So easy to say (by me) : "It is only about proper termination". Well, maybe it still is, but it can also be about how well the cable has been put together. But anyway, the "maybe" has become a "very maybe" for me, because there's just more going on.
And snake oil it is still not.

What possibly now starts to be a problem (as I see it) is that these cable manufacturers are not all of the same "production quality". I put that between quotes because I see a relation with specifications and to what more or lesser degree they are met. This "to begin with" because next is the production process itself. And, if we buy a random e.g. video cable why would it be the very best ? Your video will play all right, and whether the picture shown could be better because of a better production process ... we won't be able to see that.
But hear we do everything.

The above paragraph tells about how obtaining "one cable" from "one manufacturer" may not be able to tell us real merits. But of course we also can not obtain 10 the virtual same cables from 10 manufactures and try a bit.
So in my view the most worth while would be "judging" the manufacturer and how well he performs to specs, whether he possibly manufactures MIL (military) spec cables, how decent all looks for data, etc. And for example, that L-Com is not that.
Hey, maybe we start to see the difference with audio cable manufacturers now.

Anyway, outside of production quality it will also be about specs at least I myself don't know too much about (yet). So for example, and I don't know whether someone in here told about it or that I read it somewhere else, but any coating of a core (like silver coating upon copper) also acts as a dielectricum. Not that I say that it is specifically good (or bad) but it is one, and a cable with such coating will "be" different than one without it. All further specs should be the same but you can bet that manufacturers will be so easy on their job that a 50 Ohm cable with - and one without that coating may not have different specs on the cable sleeve while it should because otherwise the 50 Ohm impedance will be molested. (that extra dielectricum changes the impedance)

Also see next post.

[PeterSt]

In chronological sequence :

So I started out with my common 75 Ohm coax with (Neutrik) RCA connectors. Self-made and nothing special or it must be the ground-before-signal connectors. Btw, VJ (vrao) has the same.
Never noticed not explicitly judged a strange balance, although when I'd listen to Windows 7 today then for 100% sure the balance is totally wrong ( compared to Windows 8 ).
We will soon see that any (un)balance is about about the interlink ...

In came the random ("no examined spec") 50 Ohm cable.
Btw, Mani has the same, but he does not have the same BNC-RCA adapters. 2Glory (Gary) has the same too - possiby also the same adapters.
Balance seems better throughout. But careful, because is this the cable, or is this the properly terminated cable. Anyway the difference is enormous and I can hear that technically it is better. So think "better connection".
Could I live with this cable ? I think so. Would I go back to my original 75 Ohm cable ? Most probably not, but I need more days in order to possibly get disturbed.

[ mind the chronological sequence and the described judgements not taking into account next day's experiences ]

Waiting for other cables to arrive, I created a set of 93 OHm (RG62) cables from old networking stuff. The cable is not produced any more. Should be metal of some kind, copper coated.
Now THAT brings a change. OMG. How such a cable is ever able to do that - I really must learn a few things.
So this became the bad-ass cable. What I notice from it is possibly too rough highs, or IOW not very refined. But the bad-ass factor ... wow. I judge the balance as superb and not heard before like that.
Can I live with this cable ? The jury is still out. Most probably yes. But maybe not after longer listening. BUT : Could I go back to either the 50 Ohm or orginal 75 Ohm described above ? NO-WAY. So I twisted myself into a problem already.

Next in turn was the L-Com RG142 solid core copper - silver coated cable. 50 Ohm.
Brian (boleary) has that.
Well, don't ask me where differences can be implied because of different systems, but after 10 minutes someone said to me "don't cables need breaking in ?" and my response was : the hell with that, if it sounds this bad then it can only get worse. Out with those !!
Yes, really so. This is a cable with NO balance anywhere, and what it does it does totally wrong. Remember, in my system but with the notice that the amplifiers are fairly much the same as Brian's. So, strange.
Highs make you lave the room, and it is the first time that I noticed that interlinks too can imply standing waves. All buzzes and does and ... brrrrrrr
This cable, coincidentally or not, doesn't look right either. However, notice my remarks about the yes/no additional dielectricum which this cable has (as L-Com tells) by means of silver on copper. This could imply the way too thin cable, hence the sleeve which is maybe 1-1.2mm only (by eye) and which is of transparent material. But I say : most probably this is not a 50 Ohm cable at all and all is messed up (also having in mind that it's RG142 which it does not comply to (see earlier posts about this)).
So would I ... ... no, never.

Then there was the RG213 L-Com in my sleeve. At least that looks like "something". 50 Ohm again.
Nobody has it, as far as I know.
Whether this is official RG213 I did not investigate, but I think the AWG 13 (!) could be strange, plus that this seems very-multi stranded (like 100s). But I'd need to cut it to be sure.
Well, from this cable we can learn a few things (or at least I think I can). Balance is back and the most apparent is the again more refined highs, compared to the 93 Ohm cable. And what a relief compared to L-Com's RG142.
Could this one be in between the no-name 50 Ohm first BNC-tried-one and my self-made 93 Ohm ? That was what was on my mind. Later though I started to think that this was much more towards my original 75 Ohm (RCA) cable and that it didn't show anything really special.
At the end of the show we started to be annoyed. This cable just *has* something annoying, and it is in the highs. After careful listening I was sure to hear smear.
And this is how I don't like stranded cables. That is, I always envision that some of the signal goes right through the individual strands, and other parts hop over to adjacent strands and imply propagation (time) errors (the hopping over takes time).
So can I live with this cable ? No.

With my own knowledge that we're still at the beginning of this all, tonight my 93 Ohm will be back in. What I need to do is observe whether these highs are too rough to live with, or whether they are not rough at all and I am just not used to it.
In comparison the orginal no-name-BNC is a baby and that one won't make it any more, so if this 93 Ohm won't make it either I'd have to revert to my original 75 Ohm.
But I won't do that easily and instead I will be investigating cables with perceived similar properties, but just a small tad different to see whether I can squeeze out the more refined highs while the bad-ass-bass remains. This means again go-Google and find 93 Ohm cables to begin with.

Peter

[boleary]

Never a dull moment around here.  Last night my wife and I went to see Steve Gillette at the Lansdowne Folk Club. His biggest hit was Darcy Farrow recorded by Ian and Sylvia in 1965. Though near 70 years old his voice is still incredibly pleasing to listen to. The show was great and afterwards I had to hear several of his songs with my L-Com RG 142's. Sounded better in my listening room than live. My wife and I both agreed that the live sound was a bit muted compared to the sound of our "system." Probably the result of the guy operating the sound board at the live performance having too much wine, there were two empty bottles on a little table next to him.

[Scroobius]

Just possible that interconnects could be one of the more complex and least understood components in hifi. The i/c's I made up use thin high purity (.9999) silver wire that are cotton covered but really important (allegedly) is that they are drawn in a way that gives an extremely smooth exterior. All these factors (material type, purity, smooth exterior, plastics (i.e. absence of as much as possible) are alleged to make a big difference (but of course that could be marketing BS who knows?). Then add to that reflections and traditional electrical measurements (L,C&R). Things get complex. Previous listening I have done (and posted about) indicated that plastic coated conductors is a bad thing.

I tried 50 ohm coax (of dubious quality) with 50 ohm terminations and it did not sound good to my ears. So just out of interest I stripped the plastic coating from the exterior of the cable. That should not have affected the shunt capacitance in the calculation of 50 ohms impedance but I guess it is always possible it could. Anyway for what it is worth I thought it sounded a a bit smoother but the overall character of the sound was not much different. Well it was worth a try anyway.

Overall there seems to be a lot of "black art" out there in the hifi world of interconnects and not so much hard engineering fact.

It will be interesting to see how this progresses though.

Cheers

Paul

[Scroobius]

Probably the result of the guy operating the sound board at the live performance having too much wine, there were two empty bottles on a little table next to him.

Ha ha from what I have seen there is more chance the "sound guy" is more likely to do a better job after a few drinks than when sober - i.e. either way they do not seem to know what they are doing.

Cheers

Paul

[vrao]

*edit*
I see it 2 Issues over here
1. the impedance of 50-100 ohms may not translate into the audio frequency band.
2. BNC 2 RCA adapter which is of questionable quality. Adding another joint into an already frail audio signal may cause additional issues such as micro arching.

So I'm still with the coaxial cable made by Peter!!which I find reasonably good.

[PeterSt]

VJ,

2. And that is the BNC 2 RCA adapter which is of questionable quality. Adding another jar into it you already frail audio signal may cause additional issues such as micro arching.

Yes. But notice that this is a temporary solution anyway. I mean, when this works for the better, it should only get better again by adjusting the output/input terminals of DAC/Amp.
We're still in stage #1.

Thank you for the feedback !
Peter

[listening]

Intermediate results using the aircell-7 cable: I gave the cable 70 hours burn in connected to an old CD player using a sequence of different music pieces, pink noise and white noise in endless loop. So hopefully it was burned in.

The cable is partly for the better and partly not. I'm not shure yet if I will like it. Some impressions:

There is a wider sweetspot
There is a bigger room
Mid bass and lower bass are a lot better - drums and string bass benefit from it.
The high frequency area shines, is not agressive but snappy too if necessary (cymbals).

I'm not happy with the midrange yet. Female voices sound well but male voices got some hush tone.
The big band is not always an orchestra but sometimes a conglomeration of instruments.

What's next?

New positioning of the loudspeakers
Trying an Aircell-5 cable additionally which has got a solid OFC core  http://www.ssb.de/pdfs/Aircell_5.pdf
Listen to the music 

It's a new and fresh experience and as Peter said it's only the beginning ...

Georg
   
 

[brunok]

Could you not record some piece(s) of music through the NOS, through a preamp.  Swap out the various different cables and A/B the sound differences that are recorded to at least hear the differences between the cables. Might save time.

brunok

[PeterSt]

Hi there Bruno,

For me, personally, that would not work anyway because for some situations it really needs listening longer (like many days) in order to find the anomalies (similarities hence not-neutral enough actually). Otherwise the differences are pretty clear right in seconds. So this is nothing like "hey, do I hear a difference perhaps ?". It is only that most often a "change" in itself seems to be for the better, while almost always it is for the worse in the longer term.

Otherwise I wondered through which cable I would listen to those recordings. Haha ...

Thanks !
Peter