Power Conditioners Necessary?

If you're picking up a radio station via your "phono" connection (or any other connection NOT connected to a tuner), that typically indicates corrosion at the connector. Of course, changing the cable/wire would eliminate one possible source of the corrosion (the other being the connector itself). Thus by reducing or eliminating corrosion at the connection, you remove the ability to pick up the RF signal. Kind of like an accidental "crystal set". (Anybody around here old enough to remember those?)

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Thieves get rich and saints get shot, and God don't answer prayers a lot.

Agree there, Jeff. I tell everyone who comes to me for advice on sound systems to buy the best speakers they can afford, and that almost any electronics will do a decent job.

--
Thieves get rich and saints get shot, and God don't answer prayers a lot.

Yes I do know that but to have all defective cable? I did have a box full of rca cable and they all pick-up that indian radio station. Probably the monster and the "High End" ratshack cable have better shielding because as soon as I change to these cable the radio was finally gone. Also it was not cause by my amp because it make that noise on both my Technics and my Denon amps. What I find out was that el-cheapo cable have 1 conductor and 1 shield while the monster and the RatShack cable both have 2 conductor and 1 shield.

Jocelyn

Would _you_ select a loudspeaker solely on the basis of its measurements?

You could, too. It's not difficult. The arm is mechanical system, and number, strength, and damping of its resonances affect the way it colors the sound. If you don't believe this, mount the same pickup in a modest arm (such as a Dual) and in a really good arm. You should easily hear the difference on pops and clicks.

Let me stand on the other side of the issue. Did you try listening blind? For example, have another employee pick regular or Monster cable without your knowing, then listen to a few recordings to decide which was in use. If the Monster cable had a distinctively different "sound", you should be able to recognize its sound, even without direct comparison.

I've yet to be convinced about speaker cables. I saw one case where a weird speaker cable (Polk Cobra) interacted pathologically with an oddly designed amp (Berning), producing gross overshoot and ringing, which was both plainly audible and visible on a 'scope. But that's a different situation.

In general, I'd agree with you, but it ain't quite always the case. Many years ago, when I was a young apprentice in the TV repair business, we used to have endless problems with a very high powered AM BBC transmitter at a place called Daventry. As I recall, it was 200kW during the daylight hours, and 470kW at night. We had instances of radio pickup on new systems. This could often be cured by making up new interconnects using better twin screened cable. My college lecturer told me that what was happening was that a very strong RF signal was being picked up on the interconnects, and with the high bandwidth of 'modern' transistorised amplifiers, was causing saturation of the input preamps, driving them into non linearity, and causing them to behave as a detector, similar to the old 'anode bend detector' used in some old valve (tube) radio sets. The demodulated signal thus appearing at the collectors of the preamp transistors, then went on to be amplified as a normal audio signal.

As others have stated, the 'esoteric' advantages claimed for these cables, just would not stand up to double blind testing, but that's not to say that cables never have an effect on anything. Here in the UK, we use an interconnect system between video equipment, called scart. If you use a 'pound shop' cable in some situations, you can get video edge ringing, and even ghost images floating about from other equipment that's in the chain, and set to a different channel. This is totally cured (usually!) by fitting a good quality and much more expensive cable. It may look the same from the outside as the cheapo, but internally, the cores are individually screened before the overall screen. The cable chosen to be carrying the video signals is also low capacitance.

A friend of my son's used to work in one of the electrical barns during his college holidays, and he was taught to push the Monster cables purely because of the profit margins for the store, and the commission rates for himself ,,,

Arfa

Of course not. What I meant to convey was a basic difference in approach that seemed to exist between the salesmen and the technicians. I could have given a better example - perhaps that of a saleman bringing us a receiver of one of his more affluent customers and telling us to fix it because its "imaging" is off. Right. Let me get my "imaging" meter...

he

Pops and clicks aside, and speaking only of the tonal quality of the music, I don't doubt for a second that the mechanical characteristics of a tonearm would have some non-zero effect on how the overall mass (arm, cartridge) reacts to movements of the stylus - but I can't imagine these differences from one arm to the next being more than very subtle. I know that I myself could never audibly discern the characteristics all the salemen discussed - nor could any of my colleagues.

If

e

We sure did! We tried different audio sources, different volumes, and different test subjects (all skeptics like myself.) All blind tests. As I said, the difference was quite discernable, to everyone.

As I said, I was shocked. If I hadn't heard it (repeatly) with my own ears, you could never have convinced me that the speaker wire could make any difference.

As to the article comparing Monster cable with a coat hanger - I can't recall ever using coat hangers as speaker wires, nor placing my speakers a coat hanger's distance away from the receiver. But if I ever do, I won't waste my money on Monster cable.

d d

ly

Absolutely. I noticed that myself in college, also in the 60's. It's pretty amazing, and it's why for example, I usually have my cheap little tv's with a better speaker plugged in.

When I had NO money, no space, and couldn't afford even cheap hi-fi equipement, I also used to use the 3 inch carboard tube speaker, about

12 inches long, gold color with plastic grills at the ends, if you remember them. I should still have that somewhere.

If you are inclined to email me for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Yes I know (and I remenber the Crystal set ;-) ) but since my technics was in mint condition and the Denon was also in mint condition neither have corroded connector. It was simply the cheap rca cable that where giving the trouble.

There's also a difference between good quality and snake oil. A well made $10 cable may work better than a $1 cable, but it's unlikely that a $500 cable will work any better than a $10 cable.

SO? All that means is they didn't work for your application. I have seen entire shipments of bad cables.

I have tossed a lot of expensive phono (RCA) cables into the scrap barrel because they were crap. The type of shielding is important, and for anything critical I used metal cased Switchcraft connectors, with foil shielded Belden audio cable. I worked as a broadcast engineer where the transmitter was ten feet from the turntables, and the main tower less than 100 feet away. None of those pretty, and overpriced cables worked worth a damn, because the braided shield was less than

100%.

More likely, the connectors were clean, and made a better ground connection.

So? All that would do is cut the resistance of the center conductor in half. Wait a while for the shield to oxidizes inside the jacket, and the problem will be back.

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Yikes, and I thought the Monster speaker cables were pricey:

l