Hi Merc,

Thanks for your comments…

You bring up a valid point. You stated in a previous post:

“I believe that KNOWING that you might be prejudice against a certain decision, either because of previous decisions or because of previous knowledge of a unit, actually makes you, or makes me, MORE sensitive to making sure that what I hear is actually "what I hear", and not what I expect to hear.”

I have, through the years, sometimes wondered if I had adopted a belief that so closed minded that I was limiting my ability to hear or appreciate any possible differences in cables. But the fact is, I rewire or relocate components of my various systems at least every month or so. I seldom use the exact cables on the exact piece of when they are moved. I have literally storage boxes full of cables that I have bought or were given to me through the years. Some are MIT, Straight Wire, Transparent Audio, Monster Cable, etc…others are AR or Radio Shack. I never notice anything being added or subtracted by changing any of these cables so I really never think about it. When everything is connected, I will get out my test equipment, tape measure and laser level to assist me in my system setup and tweaking. As you know, a ¼ inch here, ¼ inch there can go a long way when voicing most speaker systems.

In addition you mentioned:

“As I mentioned previously, if revealing the truth is your goal... then you probably don't ever want to deal with ART or MUSIC. Both of those are highly subjective and personal in nature. “

Again I agree…art and music are totally subjective. I find by seeking and revealing what is “truth”…all that I’m left to deal with is the beauty and enjoyment of art and music.

As always…

Best regards,
Tom Garcia



[This message has been edited by TJG (edited July 02, 2002).]

Avi,

Alas, I have no urls to flash around since neuroaudio has seemed to have taken all of the good ones. I mean this to be a "friendly quote", not a tirade, and not a scolding or a "mighter than thou" quote. This is a "college buddy" post. Please, feel free to laugh...and read with the fran earnistness if say...Mel Brooks or Gene Wilder were delivering these lines in a movie.

I am currently using 12 guage monster (or refered to up here in the great white tundra as "shotgun wire") for all of my speakers. I'm using the Monster speaker wire namely since I know the owner of a local audio shop pretty well and he sold me a 100 foot spool for close to cost. I definatly heard a differance from the previous speaker wire I was using...18 guage. Yep speaker wire so thin you could threat pencil lead with it. However, I've also experimented with some rat shack, and made my own CAT5 cables (hey working as a TV/Radio engeneer has it's benifits)...and the differance between them is a moot point in my book. Provided they offer low resistance and proper shielding it doesn't matter.

Again, I personly don't use anything less then my shotgun wire. Mainly because that did the trick for me, and I am more then happy with it.

I'm using RatShat Gold interconnects...yes I borrowed Monster 3, and AVR interconnects...granted that these are pretty much what some would consider the "bargan basement" of the interconnect world, but for the love of GOd...I live in North Dakota where it's a friggin miracle we have electricity. To me there was very little differance between any cable that was properly shielded. Now if your are compairin an unshielded cable with a diamiter 1/2 that of the others...it's a no-brainer that you are probibaly looking a a greater resistance, and more electrical interferance. But using quality shielded cables with the proper guage...There shouldn't be any proplems. And from a strict scientific, and electrical standpoint the ELECTRONS DO NOT CARE what they pass through provided that you give them enough space. We aren't transporting miniture violins and tympani here, we are transmitting electrical signals that move the magnetic drivers in our speakers. (Or in the case of analog interconnects, we are creating a path through which those electrons move to our amp or other gear.)

Now please, before anyone makes an angry post..or trys to "whip it out" and claim that I am (in the immortal words of Hannibal Lecter) "Not more then one generation removed from poor white trash" since I prefer to spend my cash on gear, movies, and other things that I can think a few hundred greenbacks can be better spent on...say what you will. I am not saying that anyone is stupid, ignorant, dimwitted, buffonish, catterwig...crap, I'm running out of synonyms. All I'm saying is this:

A) Products constructed identicaly will behave identically.

B) Interconnects/wire/circuts are symply "electrical bridges"..the only thing that they can to to "influence" your system is be poorly insulated, or ad a healthy dose of resistance between componients.

C) Gear constucted with differant componients can possibly sound different from each other.

D) it is absolutly mental that this keeps going around in circles. I didn't have to do this much typing on my thesis in college.


-Jason

TJG - I'm sorry if it wasn't clear in my last post, but it was an excerpt from a discussion on this subject that I found on the internet. Those were not my words, and if you read the copyright on the bottom of the post, you can see it was written by Chris Sommovigo, a cable designer. I just thought it was a pretty intersting observation.

As far as a good ABX test that is unbiased and performed by those who appreciate the nuances of audio reproduction, I just got finished looking through a back issue of Home Theater Magazine in which a very good test was performed using speaker wires and interconnections from 8 different speaker manufactures. It was written in the November 1998 issue of Home Theater Magazine, Vol. 5, Number 11, by Brent Butterworth and Jeff Cherun, and I will try to either scan the pages into my computer and put it in a PDF file for you, or rewrite it and post it at another time. The test in the issue most clearly defines what I personally experienced when I performed similar testing on speaker wires. As a matter of fact this test was inscentive for me to go out and perform my own test, because I wanted to hear the differences for myself.

In the tests that I performed, I was changing between 6 different SPEAKER WIRES of different manufactures and guages. I think I only changed the actual interconnection cable between the SACD transport and Pre/Amp once during my testing, and then tested all the speaker wires over again. To reiterate, I was using a Krell Showcase Pre/Pro, Krell Theater Amplifier Standard amp (Set @ 4 ohms, 400 watts per channel) with a Marantz reference SACD player, through Martin Logan Odyssey electorstatic tower speakers with no subwoofer , listening to 2 channel SACD and CD music. I ensured that the system was level matched and did not adjust trim once during the entire session, to ensure accuracy. I did the best I could to make the test a blind one by having the salesman, a friend of mine, tape off the ends of each cable, and write a number on each piece of tape, so that I couldn't see the maker of each cable while hooking them up. It was only after the session was finished that I removed the tape and wrote the manufctures name next to the corrosponding number. My wife, my brother-in-law, and I were the test subjects. Would this not constitute an ABX double blind test?

I personally have very keen hearing and have been able to pass every yearly hearing test I have for my work with flying colors. I am not trying to promote myself as some kind of superhuman freak, I'm just stating that I have extremely sensitive ears. My wife sat through the test and was unable to hear hardly any difference in the wires I was testing ( granted she has some hearing loss in both ears). Her brother-in-law, on the other hand heard almost all of what I was hearing in the sonic differences between the wires, though we were split on which ones we prefered the most. I am just trying to convey that this entire debate is based totally on personal opinions. And as my dad likes to say, "Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one!"

I have had very little preference for specific cable manufactures, and in fact use quite a plethera of different brands in my home system, and honestly they are fairly cheep. So the thought that I am some seudo-religious zeelot blindly following one manufacturer down the road to hell is pretty silly. I try to keep an open mind and take the time to listen for differences in sound reproduction and quality in different products, including wires.

My intensions in responding to this thread were to reinforce Merc's statements with my own personal experiences, not to be drawn down into firing flaming posts at one-another. I know how very personal an issue this is to many people, especially myself, and never intended to try and force anything down anyone's throat. I mearly was stating my personal experiences in this area.

So in the immortal words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

Hi Jeremy,

I was aware that the comments I responded to were not your own...I can see how my post was unclear about this. I truly didn't intend to fan any flames. My apologies...

Best regards,
Tom

Oh my goodness... is this thread still live?

[This message has been edited by merc (edited July 02, 2002).]

I remember reading that article a few years ago. I could be sorely mistaken, but I don't remember it being a double-blind, ABX, scientific test. It more was of the "gee this cable sounded better than that one variety".



No it does not. For an ABX DB test, neither the subjects nor the 'switcher/tester' are aware of which cables are which, or what changes are made. The X also represents a control choice, which I believe can vary according to test design. It could be a third cable, or just a repeat of A or B.
For a true ABX DB test, you would run a series of trials, where you try to identify differences in the cables. If you can hear a difference between the two, say one is brighter than the other, you would try to pick the 'brighter' one in each run. Cable switching must be nearly instantaneous (not someone going back and changing them around). If you are able to identify a single cable reliably (better than by pure chance) under these conditions, you may have identified a true difference in cabling. Just saying X sounds better than Y after swapping them doesn't prove anything.



No offense, but many people in audio/video feel they have better than average hearing. It's like driving skills. Go poll a whole bunch of people about whether they are average, above or below average drivers. The vast majority think they are above average, which is obviously impossible!
It's kind of like this: approximately 1/3 of all humans ever born are alive today. Therefore, you have a 33% chance of never dying, right



... and most of 'em stink



As for keeping an open mind, try out a true DB ABX test someday, and see if you can still tell the difference between different wires.

As an aside, speaker wires are in a _slightly_ different category (although many audiophile cables are still ridiculous). Speaker wires tend to carry much higher power signals, over longer runs than interconnects. So, using 24 gauge wire between your 400 wpc amp for a 40 foot run to a speaker probably isn't a good idea. But, 12 gauge Home Depot wire is more than sufficient.

Guys: alot of good points are being made in this thread on the need for DBT ABX testing in component selection... which certainly has nothing to do with the original topic, yet, I STILL have not seen a single post or link(some links were dead) which details how you can personally perform a true, well controlled, Double Blind, ABX trial for yourself, using only your own gear and the two components in question?

And so, I reiterate, that without a reliable and valid DBT ABX, using ones own ears and perception is as good as any other method I can imagine for deciding which component sounds best to you in your system.

Amen

Absolutely, totally true for components, since almost everyone will agree -- every component can have its own character. Which component works best is highly dependent on personal taste, and the environment (room, speakers, etc). Components have different stuff in them which makes them sound different.

Cables don't sound different unless one of them is faulty.

Two channel and multichannel audio via the direct inputs is pure... purely outstanding. Incredibly, audio clarity is comparable to that of using my Senn HD-600 headphones directly from the Sony 555es's headphone output. It is cleaner than the Ref 30, that I previously owned, without any loss of detail, imaging or soundstage depth and width. There is no grain, no noise.
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In conclusion, I am buying my 950 and the only way anyone is gonna get my beta2 unit from me is if they pry it from "my cold dead hands" OR simply send me another 950.
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I have owned several dedicated 2 channel systems which were anchored by a Audible Illusions Mod 3 preamp and another one which used a Classe A preamp. My favorite of these two preamps was the AI Mod 3 but comparing it to the Outlaw 950 is like comparing apples and oranges. Both taste good, but very differently. Since the AI is a tubed unit, it is more musical while still being detailed. The sound of the 950 rely's solely on the source media. Analog sounds like analog, digital like digital. Other than the Cal Audio CL-2500 processor, the 950 is about the best pre-pro that I've tried for music playback. I have not tried other expensive pre-pros like Tag or Integra or Krell, however, I don't think even Outlaw would hope to target buyers of those products.
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As for me, I found the Outlaw 950/Sony P9K/Outlaw ICBM($1700) trio to be the best sounding, best performing combination for both music and HT under $3000. Sonically, the Anthem AVM-20 comes close, but MC SACD playback with my trio was superior, IMO.
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Will: Most of the dealers in my area are still trying to sell Rotel's last pre-pro and refuse to order any unless you pre-pay, full MSRP, in advance.
I simply cannot imagine why anyone would buy this unit, rather than the Outlaw 950, unless they simply can't wait for the Outlaw, are not on the pre-order list for the Outlaw, or just dislike Outlaw very strongly.
As for 7 channel discrete processing, the Outlaw can direct discrete signals to each channel but there just isn't any media which comes encoded that way. What Logic 7-like processing does the Rotel use to produce 7 discrete channels?
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Merc-some past reviews you wrote about the 950......




[This message has been edited by tommy2811 (edited July 02, 2002).]