Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

Robert: Many of the points that you bring up are valid. On others, i could respond point by point and waste my time, your time and that of anyone else that read it. Rather than do that, i'll keep it short and respond to two statements that you made:
----------------------------------------------------------
"Now come on Sean. You accuse me of writing a novel. I said what you said above here with less words! What I said was:

Purity has to do with the level of impurities. We all know that I think. Q has to do with levels of types of impurities.

-----------------------------------------------------------

You forgot to mention that you did this AFTER posting four "novels" with no such information in any of them. Had you responded to the questions that were asked in an easy to read and respond to form, most of this would have never taken place.

As to the second comment, i'm surely NOT a liberal. Nor am i a CONservative. I'm a socialist, hence my concerns for the average citizen i.e. audio enthusiast. While "liberals" want to give the property of others away in order to "take care of the masses", socialists believe that everyone is responsible for taking care of themselves and earning their own keep. That's why i try to make the masses aware of the facts & figures involved in the equation. That way they can formulate their own educated answers to the questions and decisions at hand. Some will absorb that information right away and respond accordingly, probably saving themselves time, money and frustration in the process. Some will disregard and make their own decisions, with some of those decisions and actions being mistakes. Some of those that initially disregarded the facts & figures may come to realize that the information provided was of greater value than they initially though, but that would be at a later date, explaining why & how they made the mistakes that they did.

As i've said before, i'm planting seeds. Some seeds will grow, some will be stomped on, some will be carried away by the birds and deposited elsewhere, possibly taking root at a later date in an unexpected place. Obviously, i'm not the perfect farmer and the harvest represents that fact. My methods in some areas are quite lacking. As such, some will nurture those seeds, some will pull them up by the roots and others won't know whether they are a plant or a weed.

Another problem is, i think that i've been planting roses. That's because much of the beauty that i strive for has been marred by the thorns that i've left behind. As such, i apologize for the occasional hurt that those thorns have caused and hope that the beauty of the bloom that comes to flourish more than makes up for the damage done.

Thanks all for putting up with me. To those that recognize my motives and have tried to steer me back on course when i've veered, i appreciate your honesty and effort. This includes those that i've had words with too, as i know that at least some of their concerns were fair and just.

Have a safe and happy Holiday... Sean
>

Well Sean, are you going to borrow the cables or not? Five sets and a whole month should be plenty for doing your analysis (dont' cut them open). There's nothing wrong nor it means any loss of face by actually liking them. You could even drive to Robert's place and have a beer with him! If he invites me I'll drive to LaPorte this weekend before moving to Florida...I would like to hear his new demo room.

I think the cables will be a paradigm shift.

Robert, I have never made any claims of being mentally sane. It's not mentally sane to have mini-monitors with 4 inch woofers play at loud volume *hardcore* salsa recordings of full blown, 20+ musicians' orchestras. Yet, somehow it is possible. RX8man had a paradigm shift when he witnessed the Fania All Stars playing in my living room. It's not supposed to be possible...

Good, wholesome foods have crap in them. After chewing, digestion starts and the crap comes out the other end!

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Ernie: Dielectric Absorption ( DA ) takes place to a far greater extent as frequency rises. This makes it a non-linear distortion because it doesn't absorb all frequencies at the same rate.

As such, one can turn the drawbacks of DA into an actual asset by taking advantage of this knowledge. That is, by allowing the low frequencies ( 60 Hz AC waveform ) to pass unhindered, and by absorbing a greater ratio of signal as frequency rises, one has developed a form of a low pass filter. This has been achieved at reduced cost and complexity due to the use of lower grade dielectrics without the added expense or drawbacks of any extra parts or active circuitry. Granted, the effects achieved through careful application of DA is NOT going to be a sharp slope or even a linear slope, but it will be beneficial none the less.

Where lower grade dielectrics run into problems is with "seepage". Many cheap dielectrics "bleed" i.e. their plasticizers are leeched out of the jacket and contaminate the conductors. I'm sure that some of you have seen this before i.e. taken apart a cable only to find a dark, smeary contaminant on the surface. The contamination process can be sped up via stress to the cable i.e. running it beyond its' thermal limits, mass exposure to UV rays, etc...

In this regard, Teflon is a much better dielectric. That's because it's more stable and can take a lot of heat. The way to get around the lack of stability and "bleeding" of plasticizers in order to achieve "Teflon-like" stability is to use a more stable dielectric AND keep ambient and operating temperatures low. By doing your homework, you can find a relatively stable dielectric that retains a higher DA. In order to keep thermal operating temperatures down, you can use multiple conductors to share the load. By sharing the load, internal coulomb friction is reduced and operating temperatures are kept to a minimum. The fact that many lower grade dielectrics are less rigid than Teflon also means increased flexibility with less potential for microphonic transfer of energy.

Another advantage to this approach is that multiple conductors for each given polarity means that you can now use specific geometries. These geometries reduce the radiation of EM ( Electro-Magnetic ) fields and at the same time, are not nearly as susceptable to RFI and EMI. This means that your power cord can now be placed closer to your signal carrying cables with less potential for sonic degradation AND your power cord has less of a chance of acting like an antenna for incoming signals. Yet another benefit is that certain geometries will lower the inductance of the cable, allowing the AC to feed the component on a more timely basis.

As a side effect / additional benefit of lowering the inductance through the use of specific geometries, you also increase the capacitance of the cable. By distributing the capacitance over the length of the cable, you in effect end up with a very mild parallel line filter. Devices like Audioprism Quiet Lines and the home-brew devices that Magnan recommends, etc... are all capacitively based parallel line filters. While the distributed capacitance of the power cord using specific geometries will not be as effective as the lumped sums of capacitance as found in the "plug in" filters mentioned above, every little bit helps.

As you can see, there is a method to the madness that goes into making a well rounded, thoroughly thought-out product. Most of this is based on the proper application of technology. That technology was gathered through various testing methods. By compiling the test results and properly interpreting them, one can pick and choose between the specific positive and / or negative attributes that each product / material brings with it. If done carefully, the end result is an organized presentation of those calculated strengths and weaknesses to achieve the desired goals.

As i've said before, nothing that we are doing here is a mystery. The only part that is a mystery is why more manufacturers don't make use of the information & technology that is available to them. The fact that most audiophiles aren't aware of all of the facts pertaining to various products allows these manufacturers to keep the public in the dark and charge the prices that they do. In this respect, most of the cable manufacturers and other parts of the high end audio industry fear an educated public. That would mean that their profit margin was gone, except for those that remained gullible enough to believe all of the marketing hype. Those that actually looked into and understood the facts pertaining to the situation / product at hand would no longer be at the mercy of those that are peddling snake oil.

All of that is why i post the things that i do. The more that you know, the more effective your decisions will become. Sean
>

Twl: You should contact Berning, Lowther, Sonoran, etc... and see if they just threw parts together at random till they got something that worked and shoved them out the door or if they actually did some R&D with test equipment to arrive at the level of performance and sonics that they desired and you seem to enjoy so much. You're applying a level of logic in the venom that you spew my way that you're not applying to those that made the products that you so love.

Just because one understands or desires to understand how & why a product works doesn't mean that one can't enjoy the music that it makes. Quite the contrary in fact. Knowing how it works can help one to attain even better results through making more informed decisions as to the suitability of components to achieve one's desired goals. As a side note, many of your analogies are quite flawed, but i won't bother pointing out why. I think that the above sums up my point of view well enough.

By the way, i'm glad to see you back, even if this is the manner in which you choose to return. Before you became a Star Sound clone, your responses were always cogent and helpful. I hope that you've brought some of that back with you now. Sean
>

The three manifestations of the ego are as follows:

1) I'm right (cause I say so)
2) I'm in control (and don't want to be controlled)
3) I'm looking good (it's about me)

My conversations with Robert on this subject have been really fruitful. Am I looking good or what?

***