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Vintage Audio Gear - AV Home Theatre
- Thread starter J_F
- Start date
Hdmi really annoys me. A constantly revising standard with no markings on the cables to let you know which standard they comply with. You have to remember when you bought each cable to have a fighting chance.
I havent played with speaker cable enough to have a personal opinion. Some people whose opinions I trust say speaker cable can make a difference. A lot of that may be as bad says, a colouring of the sound which can be used to fine tune a system to match your personal preference.
J_F
Guest
I don't really think so
HDMI being a digital connection
the gold connection points and fancy labeling/packaging is BS
either the binary info gets there or it doesn't
speaker connection being analog
yeah
not to be crazy about it
but I do think you need to use wire capable of carrying the signal without excessive loss
a roll of 2 wire lamp cable from HD is generally better than supplied speaker wire
I will
appreciate GG pointing out NIB identical speakers
I drove 6 hours and paid more for these used ones
because they had the look I wanted
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The basic concept...
- A normal good cable is made for pennies and sold for a few dollars, already huge profit margins all along the supply chain.
- A high-end cable is made for a few more pennies (needs to also look fancy, so it costs more to make) but is now sold for hundreds of dollars! Does the job no better than the first one, bigger profits.
- The end sellers make huge margins on cables so they will also push these sales.
If a systems needs the sound coloured by the connection between the components, maybe they are not so good after all (or are really poorly matched)... regardless a couple of dollars (retail) in caps and inductors can do way more tuning than hundreds of dollars in fancy looking poorly electrically designed wire that does the same thing... When the high end cable thing really took off (80s) there really was no difference other than looks, then people started to catch on, so they got even fancier looking and some actually made an electrical (even audible) difference, the only option was to make them worse...
As the wires may be visible, no issue with people blinging them out, just don't fall for the "its about the sound."
Assuming everything is copper (see below) and you have a reasonable distance between the amp and speakers we are talking hundredths of an ohm difference between 16 and 12 gauge (really a non-factor). If the runs get longer it can matter... BTW 14G lamp cord is a good all around option, assuming copper... it was my go to for a long time when speaker wire prices got jacked, I find many good options these days. I even have some of the semi-scammer brand name stuff--cough, same name as an energy drink, cough.... just bought it for normal (lamp cord) prices surplus--don't care as long as it does not impact the sound electrically. As for the current, your 6 ohm nominal speakers will result in around 4 amps RMS at the 100w output of the receiver... no need for super large gauge. Generally a bigger gauge is better, you just won't notice a difference at reasonable lengths.
Aluminum has a higher resistance than copper and some cheap speaker wire is made out of aluminum wire (gold also has a higher resistance than copper BTW...), silver is lower but really not economical or needed. Gold is used on connectors as an option because it more or less does not oxidize... Aluminum wire would just require a larger gauge BTW (but as it is used in cheap speaker wire the gauge is actually less to make it even cheaper to make...).
Skin Effect is another angle of the scam, yes it is a real thing and does exist but it will have no impact at the gauges, lengths (and frequencies) we are talking about.
Another point... polarization matters in that if the speakers are out of phase the bass performance will be poor as the bass drivers will partially cancel each other out if not in phase--it is most noticeable at low frequencies (you can play with this, just switch the wires (red and black) on one end on just one speaker, it will really negatively change the sound in the bass region for the system--BTW I have seen this used as a wire sales technique in the store). It does not matter electrically for the wire as the audio signals are actually alternating not DC. Most wire is marked in some way so you get the first part right...(sometimes that is +/-, sometimes a stripe, or dots). Just another big scam (upselling "polarized cables", like they are diodes or something), so don't pay extra...just worth a mention... (just make sure there is something to make your life easier).
These scams have been going on for decades, it is really ruining the hobby and industry and played a big part in the downturn (but not as big as HT). Yes some super cheap cables actually are crap but you do not need to pay much for something good. rant over/
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Well that confirms some of my suspicions. I'm all for getting as nice a sound as you can afford and i do understand placement in the room can make a much bigger impression than the " right" speaker wire.
The smoke and mirrors drives me bonkers.
My business partner bought a 'clean' power source to run one of his recievers. All the equipment plugs into a power source that removes bad vibes from conventional 120v power coming into the house. Can one of you smart guys confirm, is this a thing? or would Joe Average really hear a difference? (please tell me he ****** $500 up against a wall....)
The smoke and mirrors drives me bonkers.
My business partner bought a 'clean' power source to run one of his recievers. All the equipment plugs into a power source that removes bad vibes from conventional 120v power coming into the house. Can one of you smart guys confirm, is this a thing? or would Joe Average really hear a difference? (please tell me he ****** $500 up against a wall....)
Filtering harmonics and other bad juju could make a difference. Whether the juice is worth the squeeze is a personal choice. I laugh at most power products. I am shocked that so few "audiophiles" dont install separate circuits run off an old school non-inverter generator.
Unless the power supplies in the audio equipment are really (and I mean REALLY) poorly designed (or failing) it will not make a difference for the vast majority of the population. The power supplies are already designed to filter all that stuff out, or what little actually exists. Ironically some of the goofy top dollar boutique gear do have poorly designed circuits....
They also add surge suppression which is a good thing but I can do that for the entire house at the panel for way cheaper than the conditioner.
$500 seems really cheap, usually this flavour of snake oil is sold for way more than that.
There is a low possibility he noticed a difference if he had problems because he had stuff connected to different phases/circuits (see an earlier post a page or two back on powered speakers, but it is not always a problem), that could have been solved by connecting everything to the one outlet, which is all the conditioner did...
The exception for power line conditioning, if you live some place with really bad and dirty power--like some cheap generators, some UPSs or say the third world (or California a few decades back). Then it can make a difference. I have also seen people have problems with their hydro drop (bad connections, floating ground, etc.), that should really be fixed as it is dangerous, not some band-aide fix for the stereo... I do not have a lot of experience with home solar power inverters as sources, maybe some of them are bad???? I know from other experience some inverters can have square-wave artifacts that are not seen on the first world power grid...
In the end I doubt it does any harm other than reduce beer money.
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Just to add, we may see more and more noise from things like LED bulbs. I know in my day job we have seen rare RF problems (RF noise in the air so to speak) from cheap knock-off LED bulbs that do not meet FCC etc. specs.
Again, the power supplies in the gear will filter this stuff out from a power line perspective, unless they are garbage designs.
As I noted above, some of the boutique top dollar gear is actually really poorly designed. Not all...
Again, the power supplies in the gear will filter this stuff out from a power line perspective, unless they are garbage designs.
As I noted above, some of the boutique top dollar gear is actually really poorly designed. Not all...
My neighbourhood is bad for voltage spikes/drops. I got an APC power conditioner simply for the fact that it will boost/retard the incoming voltage to give constant 120. It does work. I can watch the line in dropping or spiking on the panel. And if it goes beyond parameters it shuts itself down.
J_F
Guest
Amazon special, can't remember the name
last ones yes, these, no
48 hour summary:
as indicated by BMD above, yeah I'm really happy with this combo
clarity is great, Yamaha and MA combo is warm to my tastes
complete absence of any muddy mid-range is to my liking - I think this is the Bose signature ya'll were critical of?
little woofers do an admirable job with lows, but are too small to move much air - will prolly need a sub eventually
as a TV audio system this combo does really well
a gripe with me is all background noise in modern productions that drown the dialog
these little speakers with right amp settings do a great job of presenting dialog up front
next task is to try and get my flac files directly to the amp's DAC in digital format
I really like Plex on the TV as the GUI for handling my library
but I'm pretty sure even with ARC HDMI or SPDIF connection to the amp
Plex is using TV's DAC, trancoded to analog
may not be a way around this as the NAS containing the library, and HT setup, are in different rooms
edit: not that anyone gives a flying F !
but I managed to muddle through that last snag
Plex on a Sony smart TV is known to be buggy
but after much fiddling I was able to get digital pass through working via optical
so now the Yamaha DAC is getting the unmolested digital stream
the receiver and it's Scenes gadgetry are now free to do all the molesting
last edit: have found that it is Googly things that break the optical digital pass-through
Plex, Netflix, Spotify and Prime all play well with the receiver
launching Youtube or using the RC voice search functions necessitate a hard TV reboot to get audio back
I can live with that
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Reminds me of the guys who pay to fill up their tires with nitrogen.
What was in the empty tire before you topped it up with nitrogen? Was it a vacuum? Nope. It was air...
yea yea air is 78% nitrogen.
What do track riders use? Pure nitrogen has some benefits but I doubt you would be able to find any on the street. On the track maybe. If the weekend warriors arent even bothering with it in their bikes, we have a pretty conclusive answer on its value on the street.
J_F
Guest
weight bearing vehicles that generate a lot of heat
then yeah, nitrogen filled tires are a good idea
we should ask PP about that
just pulling out my azz
but I figure it's the O part of air that is the problem
nitrogen being inert and not corrosive is a good idea
in safety sensitive situations where spontaneous deflation would be a problem
then yeah, nitrogen filled tires are a good idea
we should ask PP about that
just pulling out my azz
but I figure it's the O part of air that is the problem
nitrogen being inert and not corrosive is a good idea
in safety sensitive situations where spontaneous deflation would be a problem
My point wasn't whether nitrogen is better than air, it's that unless you suck out all the air in a tire, so there's a vacuum in it before topping it up with nitrogen, you're not really getting the benefit, if there really is one or not - which I bet would be an entirely new 400-page thread.
All the track-day guys I know use compressed air.
Interestingly enough a few years ago there was a scandal at the highest levels of racing. McLaren had gotten their hands on a stack of Ferrari's internal documents, one of which detailed the composition of gases they used in their tires. Turns out while the rest of the paddock used nitrogen in their tires, Ferrari had experimented with a mixture of CO2 and R404a, a gas used in refrigerants. This concoction caused less blistering on the tires as well as reduced the performance drop-off as the race progressed.
So all you nitrogen enthusiasts should maybe start hooking up your tires to the hoses at the back of your fridge instead of paying for nitrogen at the stealership!
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