JDFlood

A very good one with a good system. What format did you use to post those pictures. I have been having a real problem posting my photos (on my web site) and having them look anything like the original.I have been reducing to 800 to 1024px in jpg and png. JD

You are unlikely to be disappointed. It finally put me out of the buy and try mode and into the listen and enjoy mode. JD

Since there is no "absolute sound ruler. It must be another person. Here is one way. I used live in a town with two other audiophile friends. Sometimes our dealer (read: pusher) would find a cable or interconnect and send it to us. We would pass it around, listen in our own system, take notes, then get together and compare notes. Invariably the other audiophile at my level and I would have descriptions almost identical. Different sequence of words, but the same attributes and adjectives. The third audiophile was junior, and his description were generally correct, but rough in the verbiage and occasionally just could not articulate what he heard. After reading ours, he would, go, yeh… that's it. So, we could always hear and describe what we heard that was exactly the same thing the other person heard. We would be hearing the cables in different systems (each our own reference system), but the descriptions were the same. I also had a aspiring audiophile friend. Whom ultimately put together a $35K system, with a big Krell amp, and all top rated components. I would send him a set of interconnects, and he could never hear the difference. He lived out of state. I would be really confused. I know him well. So, I would fly out and check out his system. I would be set up so poorly that it was ridiculous. The speakers would be in front of an alcove with Bookshelves sticking out in the middle. The speakers, known to be lean on bass would be away from the wall and a t different distances, and the window would be open letting all the racket in from the outside. His lifestyle just did not permit him to be and audiophile. Setup, is critical. Depending on the system, hours and hours of tweaking is necessary to get the best sound out of your system. Along with the other stuff. JD

After mulling over the ridiculous repetitive discussion about whether cables make a difference. It seems to me that participating in discussions about whether they make a difference simply adds credibility of the argument that they don't. It is a basic tenant of audiophilia and has been substantiated by probably hundreds of thousands (?), at least 10's of thousands, of people all over the world over decades. However, it does take learning on how to listen for differences in a rather systematic way, training your ear, learning the language of describing (to yourself) the nuances, good equipment and ultimately the epiphany that occurs when you finally hear it. One, that cannot be undone… which leads to more expensive purchases and "the illness". An audiophile is not a normal person, it is someone obsessively possessed with the desire to recreate the live / best possible music experience. You don't just have a passing interest in music and systems, and become an audiophile. It took me years for effort and money to get close to becoming an audiophile. The purchase of an expensive preamp ($2,000 in 1978, a lot of money for a young professional, taught me what "grain" was, as I became horrified of the purchase I had just made. That purchase and a week of listening taught me one little aspect of sound. But one that would never leave me. Each term, rhythm and pace, micro dynamics… were hard fought for over hundreds of hours of listening and learning. So, having given this some thought, I have to say, yes, if you want into the club of fanatics of real "audiophiles", the minimum qualification is that you can reliably hear and describe the difference in cables, as many on this site can. That is a reasonable bar, beginners level. If you can't, well it is not a negative, you can still appreciate music, have a really good system, but you are categorically not an audiophile. I would consider an intermediate level audiophile someone that can reliably hear and describe differences in power cords. Finally, advanced, someone who can reliable hear and describe differences among, special feet, cable elevators and the like. I can and have brought many uninitiated people in my house and let them hear my analog system. When their manage to pull their jaw off the floor, which usually takes a couple listening's. After the stream of, "My GOD! I had no idea a sound system could sound like that"… etc, etc. Once I get them a little comfortable with it, I'll ask if they heard about the discussion of if the cables make a difference and I'll switch one and ask, could you hear that? They unanimously have exclaimed, "YES", wow… This is an easy thing to do. I have a very good system and I pick something easy to discern, what I play and what I switch. When you are building a system and learning, the differences tend to be more subtle. I joined this forum to help me put together an audiophile digital system for my desk at work. It was difficult to do. Too much new technology is not up to the task. I finally managed to put one together that just barely reaches into the audiophile category. One that has, "the magic" that we are trying to achieve. It is made up of this stuff.. For those interested in equipment. Ayre QB-9 DAC Ridge Street Audio Poiema USB cable Woo Audio 6SE - fully upgraded Nirvana S-X Interconnects Audez'e LCD-2 Headphones ALO Chainmail Headphone Cables PS Audio Quintet Power Alan Maher Ref II RFI / EMI Filter Shunyata Venom3 Power Cords In the process, I ended up with this additional equipment, which sounds good, but did not allow my to achieve an audiophile sound: HeadRoom UltraDac with dedicated power supply Woo Audio 6 fully upgraded Arcam rDAC VioElectric HPA V200 head amp Tesla T1 Headphones Denon AH 7000 Headphone Wireworld, Ultraviolet, and the red one that is so popular For the newbies to the idea of audiophile / digital. Go back! This is going to cost you a lot of money / time, maybe a couple wives… but, if you continue, spend an ungodly amount of money, sleepless night, ignore the skeptics, you can assemble something that transcends the component parts and becomes truly amazing, that can take your mind to the far reaches of the universe. Let your consciousness flutter on a edge of single note from a flute in three dimensional space, to experience something close to religion… without the hell and damnation. Good luck to you.

Not really. It's been in the text books for decades. For instance High-End Audio, by Robert Harley. It is no more debated gravity or the weak and strong forces. The causes,value, scientific principles,yes. But honestly, until you have a system capable of real high fidelity and you can hear the difference between cables I would say your probably not an audiophile. It is not a question of believe, it is a question of experience and equipment. JD I'm not really trying to be an elitest, but so many folks seem to be dead set on believing that because they can't hear some thing it doesn't exist. JD

All the comments here are true. Some may sound contridictory, but they are not. I have been putting systems together (for myself, I am an audiphile) for a long time (40 years). If you have inefficient speaker and you buy a cheap amp... you are doomed. If you buy efficient speakers and are really good amp, and a cheap DAC... really sounds really bad. There are a lot of ways to have a system that doesn't sound as good as it could. The trick is to balance the components so that you maximize the quality of the output. It is absolutely true that if the start of the signal path is not good, there is no amount of fixing you can do along the way. So, you do not want to do a really inferior DAC. But from the philosoph standpoint. You might want to decide to choose efficient speakers something in the sensitivity of 92+db. This will reduce the cost of the amp you need to buy. Personally, one of my office systems has Totem, I can highly recommend them. They sound great and if I remember correctly are fairly efficient. I personally prefer tubes, particularly in a low cost system, but that puts a whole other variable in here. So, if you can afford the Totems and 1/3 for and amp and 1/3 for the DAC... that sets some limits. I personally have not had good luck with HRT Streamers... but a lot of people have, make sure it is the newer one, at least the plus I bought sounded terrible. Anyway, if you do Totem + HRT + then you have to find the amp and you have a budget. You can put together a great sounding system at any budget, but it take a lot of reading. And if you have some system, and you ad one component at a time, it allows you time to really research and think through each choice and gain experience making audio decisions. The key to making good audio decisions it massive research, reading in between the lines, ignoring the hype, and listening a lot. I have a friend who has spent at least $35K on components and has constantly been really disappointed. He just never put in the time to really research components, think about what the reviews said and how they will interplay with his own components. I have about 5 spectacular system, that really sound like I want them to sound. Good luck, JD

I would look at your behaviour on other purchases, particularly audio. Are you prone to kick yourself because you bought something too expensive, or more likely (like myself) that if I make a mistake, I try and save a few bucks and get something a little cheaper item and ALWAYs end up buying both. This will always happen to me on audio. I have 5 DACs that I bought on the way to getting my Ayre. Now I am happy, and not inclined to upgrade again until I go for a Crimson. You can save on buying a cheap cable, then save up for a better one. I think, in general, the units in the same price catagory have similar performance, with very notable differences in presentation. Analytical vs, musicality. This is where the Aryes, Scecants, and Weiss differ primarily. The Ayre is very musical and detailed, it's a good DAC. I highly recommend it, but would have gone for a Crimson if I could have afforded it. I have also found that it takes at least 100 several hundred hours to break in, so you are going to be making a decision primarily from reviews. Read widely and carefully in between the lines, know the rest of your system and your tastes, and you will buy the right thing. JD

Hi Julf, I have selected, tested, and used many digital and analog cables. The difference a digital cable can make is tremendous... depending on the sensitivity of your system, which components you have. In general, the better the system, the bigger the difference. The way to test and choose Digital vs Analog or USB vs SPDIF is the same, lots of listening, and for me long-term... like a week to figure it out an be able to write it down, them put another one in the sytem. As far as design. There is probably a differnt approach to making them. I have heard lots of theories, explainations, and hype. I try not to pay much attention to it. No company has cornered the market because they had "the answer" under all circumstances and for all systems. So, it just doesn't really matter. I do remember the first time I used a digital interconnected system, about 20 years ago. I was really excited that it was digital, and would not have to worry about the sound of the interconnect... because it was digital. I was incredibly disappointed when I swapped cables and heard a very large difference... bigger than I had heard when I had swapped my analog interconnects. This was between a Mark Levinson CD Transport and DAC. Oh, well.

I am at least a 10. Computer is means to and end. But this explains a lot. There are a lot of 2-4s here. This explains the rampant dumb arguments about whether the sound of a USB cable matters. This is a judgment call and the values of a computeraphile are very different than the values of an audiophile. Hence, the discussions from different points of view. There is no debate amoung audiophiles, cables are the basic bread and butter components one optimizes. Good question!

I have been a audiophile for the last 40 years. So, I have built a few systems over that time. Mostly two "cost not object" ones, my home audio system (under construction for about 20 years, until my income level got high enough to achieve what I wanted) and our home theater (ditto). Then I put together an office system for work: Ayre DAC, Woo WA6SE, Audez LCD2 headphones, Ridgestreet Poiema USB cable, Nirvana Audio interconnects, and a bunch of power manangement and noice stuff. Finally, after 100+ hours of break-in, it sounded great. I felt very good to leave the pursuit and enjoy it. About a year later, say 1000 hours of use, I really think it is sounding a LOT better. I am very good at evaluating the sound characteristics that a new component brings in. But I am not sure about now versus a year ago. I was not looking for an improvement over time, but I think it just plain sticks out. Much better midrange bloom, greater overall clarity, articulation in the bass. Seriously, this system is amazing now. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed anything like this? It is not like me to imagine stuff. The 100 hour breakin is like night and day, but this is not subtile either. JD

Music it a very complex sequence of different sounds. Let's say instrument sounds. Each has individual starts and endings, like drum beats. The rise and fall of volume as the expand and contract across the spectrum and harmonics. Then there is the relationship of each beat to each other and the other sounds. Very quickly you realize you are not listening to a single varaible but dozens. So for your mind to "focus on" a specific instrument sound is a difficult thing because, first it is instantely changing over time, waxing and waning before you do you are able to completely characterize it in your own mind. Equipment changes can be easy if the change is large and to a single facet of the sound, like bass more pronounced, but usually by the time we get to cables we are speaking of more subtile but very important changes. This is why tracks like Spanish Rose by Rebecca Pidgeon is so useful in evaluating equipment is there are single instruments that vary slowly over time. Rebecca's voice can be narrow and distant or full bodied and up front where the system has mid-range bloom. It is a really good test recording. Hearing or not hearing differences in the same material and systems depends on the quality of the systems the interaction of components and the experience of the listener. Most folks I know find the only way to deal with the overload in variables is to listen to a system over a week or so and your subconscious is good at detecting the overall cumulative differences. This is the only way I can do it reliably. Once you have identified the characteristics, they tend to be easier to pick out quickly. Unless you are comparing really cheap cables to really good cables on an otherwise really good system, an novist that does not want to hear a difference probably will not. An experienced person will. Science only has a few of the variable defined as to their affect on the sound. They will all transmit the packets. While some companies have claimed to have identified the science, I would doubt what they have done is the end all to the science. After all in some cases, cables that, say retard the high freqency just a little could be a good thing. So, while in most cases a "better" cable is a better cable, sometime it might make a system sound worst... I have had this problem with systems that tended to be hard and brittle to start with. Anyway, we resort to listening tests because, we do not understand all the scientific variables introduced, each system is very different, each listener is has differenct sensitivities. Muffled bass is a killer for one guy, while a little brittle high end will drive someone else crazy. High end audio is connoisseurship. Connoisseurship enters when things are not cut and dried scientifically and usually when gestalt is the way to appreciate the individual components. Wine, if you had a printout of all the components in two bottles of great red wine, you would be not closer to answering the question of which is better. A great Monet is not better than a VanGogh because the is more cadmium in his yellows. Differences exist and can be heard and it is useful when folks that can hear a difference can help the rest of us understand that difference so we can make better informed choices in putting together our systems without completely starting from scratch. JD

Yep, have to agree on the LCD2 over the T1s. I am lucky to be able to keep both, but the T1s sound like sound in miniature vs the LCD. No comparision on depth of bass, speed, and extention. JD

Oops, got to read more carefully, great another link to spend a few hundred dollars on. I'm sure the HD one will prove dubious as well. JD

Thanks You! I just knew it was just a matter of time before someone got qualitative about the wire between the hard drive and the computer. I would have put a lot of money on the fact that it would make a difference. No mater how much you can come up with logic to say it will not matter... darn it, it always does. Thanks for doing the work. I personally don't give a darn on why. I don't need another science problem, I get enough of them at work. I just want to continue to improve my system with as little effort as possible. Thanks. JD

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try separating the power for the laptop... I don't think the wall wart has a ground, I'll have to check when I get home. JD