Cable Asylum

Posted by Jon Risch (i) on June 27, 2001 at 21:03:35

In Reply to: Jon, I find the 89259 to sound "rough", "distorted" and "aggressive" against a straight bypass.... posted by Thorsten on June 27, 2001 at 13:52:29:

We have been down this road before, see:

http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/17504.html
and related responses.

only then it was with the CC89259. I do not wish to quarrel with Thorsten, but I feel that his comments need to be taken in the proper context.

As I said then, I think that it helps for others reading this to put Thorsten's comments in perspective, since he is very much a perfectionist, and speaks in absolute terms. He also is dead set against the use of stranded conductors in audio cables, and the possibility for some sort of bias is certainly there. We have discussed this in the past as well.

He has stated before that he feels that typical CD playback is completely unacceptable for evaluation of audio components due to severe quality limitations, and so for those out there that "only" have a CD player, it is unlikely that you would notice the very subtle and minute aspects that Thorsten speaks in terms of as major sonic aspects with respect to sonic perfection. These are his own words, seen at:
http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/27078.html

As for myself, I use many different methods to evaluate audio components. As a practicing engineer, I take many highly refined and sophisticated measurements in order to understand what the component is doing electrically. I use many different sources, such as CD, vinyl, my own recordings (consisting of some open reel tapes, digital to hard disc recordings burned to CD-R, etc.) as well as live microphone feeds. Equipment runs the gamut from SS to tube, homebuilt to modified consumer, and represents a fairly high level of playback performance. Numerous tweaks have been applied to the system, so I have what I (and many others) consider to be a well balanced playback system with excellent resolving power.

In evaluating components that I post about, including DIY cables, I usualy will not just rely on my own system, but check things out on other systems, and get input and feedback from some audio buddies that I visit/correspond with.

I think that I can say unequivocally and some degree of certainty that the kinds of sonic differences that audio cables possess are definitley of a magnitude far less than those of loudspeaker systems. Yet reading Thorsten's post might lead one to believe other wise.
All thing are relative, and unless you knwo the particular scale of the person who is posting, it can be confusing sometimes.

When I post about component sonics, I try not to get too far away from a reasonable degree of how much things are stated to affect the sound, keeping in mind that speakers and acoustics are quite a bit more of an influence than other components, and so on down the line. My posted stance on cable sonics has always been that the differences, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM, are more of the order of a subtle nature, rather than the night and day types of comments that we sometimes hear (and no, this is not aimed at Thorsten, many others tend toward this kind of description about subtle aspects of audio). To me, speaker differences are night and day, cables are the difference between early afternoon, and late afternoon.

There is also no doubt that Belden 89259 in stock coaxial form has provided many DIYers with a decent quality IC that outperforms OEM freebies, and many of the entry level aftermarket retail cables out there. The twisted pair 89259/89248 cores take it to yet another level of performance, but still not night and day.

I hope that no one is discouraged from trying the various DIY recipes out there, including the various 89259 based recipes, as they represent excellent value for the money, and provide a baseline to work from if seeking more advanced performance in the future.

Jon Risch