What would you guys pay for a cable?

[guadixman]

cjarchez,
If I decided to go commercial I would definately not go down the marketing hype road but would sell by reccomendation - it's how I operated as a builder in the UK. However even in construction as in hi-fi, there are plenty who will pay for b/s. I had a mate who had special overalls made that all his workers had to wear and his vehicles also looked very smart and you know what - plenty of idiots would pay a lot extra so that they could boast to their friends.

Making sets to send out - yes I'm about to do that, I have promised a set to a young American (parents are multi-millionaires) and he already pays plenty for big name cables. Get a good reputation on Head-fi and your away.

I'm still left with the problem of buying Eichmans at a reasonable price.

Switchcraft make very good silver/plated connectors that are very cheap but what's underneath the plating.

I just checked the 100m drum of sat. cable that Angela brought back from the UK and a welcome surprise. It would appear that the FT125 has gone back to having copper foil instead of aluminium mylar film as the first sheild. I say appear as this could be old production as opposed to new. Just visit a Maplin store and ask to see the sat. cable - easy enough to see if the first sheild is copper or aluminium mylar.

I repeat again that only very good equipment will reveal differences in cable performance or equipment that has been modified as my Bada has been.

Without the many caps and resistors that were changed, I doubt if I could have noticed any real difference with i/cs.

There were some awful carbon power resistors that I changed for Welwyns - forget it, the Mills are way much better.

All the many changes I made increased clarity and it was only after all these changes that differences in i/cs became so clear - that's why I'm always banging on about neutrality.

Open up virtually any piece of commercial equipment and look at what they use - you will be shocked at how cheap and nasty a lot of components are.

Many Chinese amps and so on boast about using WIMA and Solen caps - just getting rid of this rubbish for decent caps will make a huge difference. Yes I know you can bypass Solens and make them sound better - I prefer not to use band-aid but rip out and replace with something much better.

So, I'm not prepared to send out cables for trial if they are going to be used on bog standard equipment - simply a waste of time.

No one has answered my questions about the space-time construction of audio signals or how they travel from A to B in a conductor - is there no one with contacts in a uni. electric/engineering dept. who can help.

Also no one appears interested in putting their hand in their pocket to buy a couple of metres of this sat. cable to try out what I have suggested. If you don't like or have access to quality silver/plated copper than use copper or silver and use cheap connectors. If then you do hear a difference, lay out for some Eichmans.

Indeed is there no Aussie who could get in touch with Eichmans and ask how they can help me to buy a certain no of sets of connectors for this trial at a commercial price rather than retail. After all if it's a success they will sell more of their product in the future - I have to say that I don't hold out much hope of success. I rather expect them to have the same stupid mentality as UK companies.

[andy]

guadixman,

I will certainly give your interconnect a try, i played with somthing similar last year to great result but ended up using maplins double sheilded audio cable instead.
I used cores from cat 5 cable through the sat cable and it worked very well, sound was very good and i now use the cable from my tv, i hadnt removed the core wire from the sat cable so it is a bugger to bend!

When i am next at my nearest maplins i will get some of the cable and will ask a jewler friend for some silver cable, get some copper cable and play again.

See what happens

Andy

[guadixman]

Andy,
thanks for the corroboration, you need to remove the centre conductor and the only way I know how is the way I have described.

Why not try removing the polyethylene cover on the Cat5 wire, this way you would have a direct comparison between sheathed and bare wire and I'm sure others would be interested to know your findings.

If you have a B&D then you will know it has a horizontal v cut out of the plywood but it is'nt enough to hold the sat. cable firmly, that's why you need to make those wooden formers.

Today or tomorrow I shall change the signal wiring inside my Bada to replicate the i/cs.

I'd prefer to use cotton sleeving as dialectric- can anyone on this forum help me out here. I need about 2 feet in total. failing that I shall use teflon tubing.

[andy]

www.hificollective.co.uk, have cotton sleeving in stock though expensive

[guadixman]

Hi Andy,
yes and the Vishay Z foils from them via Charcroft in Wales are 3 x the price from Texas Instruments.

[andy]

lol

[rowuk]

Dec 1, 2009 20:21:44 GMT @sandyk said:

Dec 1, 2009 15:52:16 GMT PinkFloyd said:

No no....... the electrons grow a lot fatter inside a larger cable and when they come up against the single copper strand they've got to squeeze through, one by one.... just like fat people who eat too many burgers being forced down a chimney with a large stick ;D

Mike
Seeing you are thinking of making a better cable, at a good price, I will give you a very cheap alternative, that is guaranteed to sound better, at a very minimal cost.
1. Take the existing 10 foot headphone cord, and with your sidecutting pliers, chop through it at the 5 foot mark.
2. Reterminate the cable coming from the headphones in a new decent quality connector, of the same size as the original plug (3.5mm or 6.3mm)
3. Plug it in and sit closer to the headphone amplifier !

Now for the more technical side. The cable capacitance has been halved, and the HF will be improved. Coupling between channels has been decreased, and the soundstage will be improved because of better channel separation. Also less inductance, and less ohmic resistance in the leads.

Alex

Hmmmmmmm,
that is a compelling argument for active headphones with the amp in the can. Direct coupling of the voice coil to the amp eliminates cable capacitance and coupling. Then we only need good line level interconnects to the phones, and a power supply cable.

[guadixman]

Surprise, surprise,
re. the cotton sleeving, Soundlabsgroup (Australia) have exactly what I am looking for but no surprise that's it much cheaper in Australia than from hi-fi collective.

2mm unbleached cotton sleeving @ A$ 3.64 (export price) per metre. If you use 24AWG or smaller for signal wiring this has to be worth a try.

[andy]

Back to the original question, i would pay up to £60 if i found the cable to be worthwhile, and that is £60 for the parts.

I can see no point in paying someone elso to solder some plugs onto a bit of wire, that is somthign i can do very well!!

andy

[guadixman]

Andy,
those who are willing to modify and generally do things for themselves are probably 1 in 200. I know many who are not builders, who have built their own homes and very well they have done - would you, if not, why not? - ergo same goes for making cables.

It's very easy to forget this. I know many moan about how difficult it is getting to source parts and so on but on a French ex-pats forum there is a Scots guy who has moved from France to Spain (unbelieveable but true, wait till his problems start and they will).

He moaned about how it all goes dead in the winter in the French countryside and how all the restaurants close. When I asked him if he was willing to keep open a business and lose money - he did'nt reply. I also asked him if he was a city dweller - again no answer.

Point I'm making is that it is easy to fall into the trap of looking at things from your own narrow perspective.

How much is something worth - as much as someone else is prepared to pay for it. I see properties for rent here that I saw 3 years ago when I first visited this area - the idiot owners would rather keep the property empty and make nothing, remember a percentage of something is an awful lot better than a percentage of nothing.

Many have made the point before that the MP3 generation are happy with the lack of quality because they simply have never heard anything of real quality - ergo they will never get into modding and as sure as eggs are eggs, suppliers will gradually begin to dissappear.

Our only hope is the enormous home markets that are appearing in places like China/India and indonesia. I do hope that the Chinese will destroy Eichamns markets with copies because they are just taking the piss with the prices they are charging.

I have a friend who is expert in injection moulding and a reasonable price for their bullit plugs should be approx. £20 per set, not £63.

[andy]

I was only answering the question 'what would you guys pay for a cable'!

I was saying from my own narrow perspective as that is what was asked!

I have no problem with others paying for a ready built product. I am looking at buying a car, though i wont be getting the parts and building it myself (i will be stripping out the stereo and fitting one to my spec!)

Sorry if i touched a raw nerve..

Andy

[Deleted]

I havn't tried making anything involving great care and attention, as guadixman describes. I've only selected a good quality, noiseless microphone cable and used reasonble quality plugs.

These I've found to beat commercial offerings under a ton, but I have snagged Nordost Blue Heaven i/c s for £50. At that money they are good value and are quite comfortably better than my own. I'd be rather less keen to pay the retail price though

So as with all things there is a balance to be struck. Can you make something better and cheaper than commercial products?
Yes = go for it
No = buy ready-made but get a good price

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2010 11:20:51 GMT @guadixman said:

Andy,

How much is something worth - as much as someone else is prepared to pay for it.

That is exactly the problem with cables. They charge as much as anyone is willing to pay, so there is an element of mistrust involved.

If I offered to come and play some music for you, live, how much would you pay me? You would have to find out about me and check to see if you like the noise I make (assuming that I still work in the same field).

In other words, you may well be working in the dark which is exactly how many hi-fi people work. They rely on (very often) unreliable reports to judge whether a piece of wire is worth something on the region of £150 - whatever.

There is the problem with these cables. They are expensive and bought on the advice of others for what I feel would be a minimal change. There must be a point in the price level where it would be a better idea to buy another headphone? ... or buy a switchable impedance adapter which can be used with any headphone?

Andy has probably considered this in his £60 reply. Beyond £100 there are some pretty decent headphones out there that would make bigger changes.

The guys that I work with all debunk the cable stuff and and tell you to forget it. It's a waste of money. They work in the audio business too. So who do you believe when you can't even try before you buy too easily?

Ian

[PinkFloyd]

If I offered to come and play some music for you, live, how much would you pay me?

I think you'd have to pay ME Ian

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2010 15:27:10 GMT PinkFloyd said:

If I offered to come and play some music for you, live, how much would you pay me?

I think you'd have to pay ME Ian

Don't you want me Pinky? Don't you want me oh ......?

Anyway, a crowd up there would only be three including you wouldn't it, now the neighbours have been taken out!!

I'd connect with high quality wire if it helps.

Ian

[PinkFloyd]

Jan 23, 2010 15:59:46 GMT @iancraig10 said:

Jan 23, 2010 15:27:10 GMT PinkFloyd said:

I think you'd have to pay ME Ian

Don't you want me Pinky? Don't you want me oh ......?

Anyway, a crowd up there would only be three including you wouldn't it, now the neighbours have been taken out!!

I'd connect with high quality wire if it helps.

Ian

Tell you what Ian, hardly anyone comes up here but..... when they do.... they get a welcome that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up on end! They have a whale of a time, dancing on the tables and "yeeehawing" and a "whoopin'".... I can PROMISE you that if you wanted to come up here I could make sure the venue was chokablok.... have a think about it

[Deleted]

Here's the line up:

www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mgt/lowres/mgtn42l.jpg

Ian

[guadixman]

Hi Andy,
no raw nerve, just trying to say that all those who get involved in modding/building for themselves are a tiny band (relative to the those who buy hi-fi gear and just listen and would never think about constructing anything themselves - that's the reality.

Ian, I used to hang out with musicians for a lot of years and they could'nt give a toss about what equipment they used - it was'nt the finer points they were interested in and boy how I wish I had had a Uher portable - the incredible music I have heard in bedsits or on the beach.

Take studio monitors - would you want to use them at home, I would'nt - the expression 'bleeding ears' comes to mind.

I've wasted money buying commercial offerings in the past - they look pretty, in fact I think that the only thing a lot of companies do is to try and hunt down exterior mateials to make their cables look nice, sod the sound.

I've seen so many comments on Headfi about how a particular cable does'nt feel nice - WTF are they using them for weird sexual gratification - you don''t 'handle' cables you effing fit them and listen don't you?

But this is the problem with so many products today - never mind how they function - do they look good.

I use New Balance running shoes, they are excellant but don't look flash like Nike and they don't cost like Nike.

As for trying before buying - YES - is'nt that a problem with all musical equipment though. If I did go commercial that's exactly what I would do. However there will always be those who buy regardless because it is the 'in thing' sad but true.

I paid what I thought was lot of money for a pair of Dutch handmade silver foil coupling caps. I did this because my Dutch mate who has very good hearing and who I trust (from experience) urged me to - he was'nt wrong.

Yesterday I looked at what the greedy Dane who owns Audionote charges for his 'silver foil' caps. I have had a personal run in or two with him, I chatted up his sexy secretary everytime I went to buy Tants directly from his factory. They are not actually silver foil but silver mylar - will that stop idiots from buying from him - no way.

All Audionote stuff is way over priced - but the smucks will keep on buying.

Now here's the thing if I know that a particular person does'nt believe that there is any difference in cables I would be stupid to let them try - completely pointless and a waste of my time. All that would happen is that it would re-inforce their mindset - I'll let someone else do that.

[Deleted]

I agree about musicians. Ask them what a headphone sounds like and they just say fine and then go on about the music. The engineer guys I work with are a little more sensitive to it all. They just don't accept cables making a great difference. They wouldn't use near field monitors at home either but they have put me onto some extremely fine gear in the past. (£24,000 worth!!!!) and I nearly did it!!!

I'm always open to anything if it helps. I originally started the thread because I was looking at options for my HD600 and HD650's. I've already tried a Stefan Audio and regret buying it if I'm honest. It may have made some difference to the sound - I'm not really sure any more.

It was too thick and felt heavy and the plugs were sodding ridiculous. If you tilt your head sideways, the plugs hit your shoulders. It cost a lot of money imo for what it did or didn't do and made the headphones uncomfortable to wear. Even the jack plug was off to one side!! Basically, I thought it was a piece of crap with soldered on plugs for the headphone end that were rubbered up over a bulge. Nasty.

I've seen so many people going on about different leads but I will never buy a lead now unless I hear it first. Once bitten .....

I ended up buying a K701!!! (Cheaper than a lead) ;D

Ian

[guadixman]

I could'nt agree more Ian,
so something looks nice -- so what. Yes if it looks nice for me that's a bonus but it's the sound that counts.

I think I shall have to now try and make my own cable for the Senn 650s.

I can't agree with Mike about the 650 stock cable - I bought s/hand a Cardas Blue and for me there was no comparison, Funnily enough using the 650 stock with 600s was a definate improvement.

Not wanting to hijack the thread - where can I buy the specialist plugs for Senns and can someone rec. quality chassis sockets and a jack.

As Mike said a lot of Chinese gear can be improved changing things like this.

[jonclancy]

I can help you out with the cotton sleeving. PM me your address.

Cheers

Jon

[guadixman]

Hi Jon,
I feel a bit foolish I up-ended the Bada completely forgetting the total of wire I would actually need.

Remember I use 4 x 26AWG wire and in the i/cs 4 x return wire as well.

I hav'nt had the Bada up-ended for some time and I saw that I had used only 2 x for return but they were of a larger gauge to compensate for only being 2 x .

Of course as they are not constrained by the size of any dialectric it's un-important. But I still need about 3.5 metres - ouch.

Also may I take this chance to apologize for not aswering the request for photos being a bit of a luddite I have yet to learn this.

Was'nt it Andy that has experimented with FT100. If so, Andy can you post a head on shot of the sat. cable, that's all people need to see - it's self explanatory.

You will all see then the thinking behind this particular sat. cable and which made me think how important it is to keep the signal cable as far as possible away from the sheilding - it is bloody good as sat. cable and also used as aerial cable as well

[andy]

errr another luddite here as well, have a nice camera though!!

i would have to have a look for some of the sat cable as well, not sure where in the garage it is at the moment.

sorry

[PinkFloyd]

Jan 26, 2010 16:26:22 GMT @guadixman said:

Hi Jon,
I feel a bit foolish I up-ended the Bada completely forgetting the total of wire I would actually need.

Remember I use 4 x 26AWG wire and in the i/cs 4 x return wire as well.

I hav'nt had the Bada up-ended for some time and I saw that I had used only 2 x for return but they were of a larger gauge to compensate for only being 2 x .

Of course as they are not constrained by the size of any dialectric it's un-important. But I still need about 3.5 metres - ouch.

Also may I take this chance to apologize for not aswering the request for photos being a bit of a luddite I have yet to learn this.

Was'nt it Andy that has experimented with FT100. If so, Andy can you post a head on shot of the sat. cable, that's all people need to see - it's self explanatory.

You will all see then the thinking behind this particular sat. cable and which made me think how important it is to keep the signal cable as far as possible away from the sheilding - it is bloody good as sat. cable and also used as aerial cable as well

Stuart, thank god that comedian who wired the pot up in the HD-83 doesn't make cables!

[muxamed]

Hi guys

I am a newbie here so please have mercy on me

I am very sceptical when it comes to cables. A couple of years ago I bought Cardas Cable blue for my Sennheiser HD650. It cost me £100. What a disappoitment. That was the worst investment I ever made.

I really tried hard to hear any improvements compared to the stock cable. I almost felt that the difference that Cardas cable brought to the sound of my HD650 was negative, it added more bass weight (without adding definition) and muddled mids.

Not only that Cardas cable didn't make any improvements to the sound quality, it was also very uncomfortable to wear and prone to "contact noise(?)". I ended up selling my Cardas for £50. The combination X-Can V3/Cardas/HD650 didn't seem to work well in my case and to my ears. If you need a better looking cable than the stock cable then I guess Cardas is probably ok for some people but I think that similar effect you can achieve with the cable proposed by Mike here on this forum.

Greetings