Everything Matters

[Cebolla]

When you're listening to music it's not like having a file sit idle. In fact, async USB transfer isn't at all like a file copy (which is the angle used by people who talk a lot but know little and focus on bit-perfection).

It doesn't help that many users of so called computer 'music servers', with external DAC attached, refer to the DAC as actually receiving 'music files', even 'playing' them.

 

Ironically, even correct understanding of what is actually transmitted via the USB audio connection can lead to misunderstanding of how other connections work. Classic case is with network audio file streaming, provided by the likes of UPnP/DLNA, where the network cable is seen by some USB audio aficionados as some sort of realtime digital audio signal conduit. UPnP/DLNA network file streaming is not Audio over IP and is very much like a (temporary) file copy.

[mourip]

...And it will give bohemian outlook to the whole scene.

 

Actually probably more of the "Lost Weekend" look :-)

 

...Not to resurrect a usually contentious topic but I tried some ceramic cattle fence insulators which I got cheaply off of EBAY but could not discern a difference in my setup. It may be because I have no rugs under my equipment, just engineered(fake) wooden flooring over cement.

[徐中銳]

800 D3 alongside 802 D3 :

 

 

Incidentally :

Various Chinese-made natural wood spikes' date=' footers and cable lifters in Indonesian Ebony, rosewood, cherry, wenge, oak, beech and zebra woods.[/font']

 

 

 

[tedwoods]

I have quite a few of those wooden goodies and they work for me, not to mention how awesome they look!

 

Sent from my eSTAR BEAUTY HD Quad core using Computer Audiophile mobile app

[Middy]

It looks like a DIY glockenspiel stall....

I can understand keeping the cable still but why off the ground. I did think what if you had a wooden floor?

What can you hear by raising them? A genuine question...As I just use headphones... no big speaker runs..

 

Sent from my SM-G900F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

[Sam Lord]

*If* the weight specs are correct on the B&W website, the 802 should sound better. The weights for the 800 and 802 are listed as nearly identical; perhaps the 800D3 has some new, lightweight internal bracing. Otherwise, the larger drivers would necessitate a lighter, thinner chassis. It's sure hard to imagine B&W making the flagship inferior. The new woofers appear from the outside to have larger voice coils and bigger magnets, but perhaps not. Anyway, the last pre-diamond generation 802s mated with subwoofers are considered the best of all worlds by some MEs like Brad Blackwood.

[AnotherSpin]

On 9/9/2016 at 10:57 PM, 徐中銳 said:

 

Incidentally :

Various Chinese-made natural wood spikes' date=' footers and cable lifters in Indonesian Ebony, rosewood, cherry, wenge, oak, beech and zebra woods.[/font']

 

 

 

 

Yamamoto Sound Craft company makes exotic woods setting bases (plucks with cone points and plucks with concaves). It gives a wonderful results when used under different system components, from speakers to DACs and LPSUs. Company owner, Mr. Yamamoto says they use the same types of wood which is used for such musical instruments as oboe. This or other reason, but these bases add great tonality, air and dynamic.

[shtf]

On 9/2/2016 at 3:20 PM, mac_and_dac said:

I was flipping through an old hifi magazine yesterday and noticed a review for an accessory which surely offers the most marginal of 'marginal gains'.

 

It was a review for speaker cable 'stands', which in essence appeared to be raised square coasters for isolating one's speaker cables from floor vibrations. The reviewer concluded that these devices did indeed improve the listening experience, giving greater mid-range clarity to his test music.

 

I think this is pushing to the limit the concept of 'everything matters'!

 

Can anyone come up with a hifi 'solution' that is even more marginal than this one ostensibly is?

 

Have you ever tried cable "lifters"?  In time past, I've tried several cable "lifters" with various speaker cables and carpets with none to "marginal" sonic gains.

 

For me, the most marginal of gains has been bi-wiring speaker cables.  Both the shot-gun and full 2 pair routes.  At best, the most marginal of gains I've experienced and certainly not worth the cost of an extra set of cables.

 

But speaking of cable lifters, about 4 years ago I purchased a set of Shunyata Dark Field Series II cable lifters to replace my ceramic lifters that lifted the cables about 5" off the carpet.  Within 2 days after installing the Dark Field II's I realized 2 nice little performance gains and considering their designs and materials, could not determine why they would have any effect - much less a postive effect.

 

I'm kinda' big on extreme forms of vibration mgmt in other areas of the playback system so after experiencing the Dark Field II's 2 small but distinct gains, I tried a little experiment.

 

I got out from the closet four 4" x 4" x 3ft lengths of acoustic foam and using a box-cutter sliced two parallel 1/2" deep slits the entire length of one side of the foam squares.  I removed the Dark Fields and then placed the foam squares on the floor and buried my tiny Audio Tekne speaker cables into the slits I cut.  This was two full bi-wire sets of Audio Tekne speaker cables where the girth of each cable is smaller than a pencil so they buried easily into the slits.

 

Over the next 4 days I received 4 small but still distinct sonic improvements so I sold the Dark Field II's and still use the slitted foam squares for my cable "lifters".   I have my hunches why this was an improvement over the Dark Field II's, but I've no clue why the Dark Field II's offered any improvements but they did.

 

Well, that got me thinking so I lifted my small dedicated and passive line conditioners' built-in power cables about 5 inches off the floor and noticed some definitely marginal gains there, and then I lifted my small line conditioners (they sat on the carpet for 15 years) about 10 inches off the carpet and noticed more marginal gains there too. 

 

Some of these gains are definitely marginal and the cable "lifters" a bit more than marginal.   But like your thread says, "Everything Matters", right?

 

BTW, a friend once said about 12 years ago, "The best thing one can spend on their system is time."

 

 

 

[rn701]

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[fas42]

On 6/15/2018 at 10:38 AM, shtf said:

BTW, a friend once said about 12 years ago, "The best thing one can spend on their system is time."

 

 

Precisely. I do the sort of things you mention, as tests for the senstivity of the equipment - but I use things lying around the house, or cheap stuff from a local store to try ideas with. This tells me whether there's "something in it", and perhaps if more money might be worthwhile.

[Speedskater]

I did just read a good reason for cable lifters. Over time the color dye on the cable can migrate and stain the carpet.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, Speedskater said:

I did just read a good reason for cable lifters. Over time the color dye on the cable can migrate and stain the carpet.

I've never had that problem with cheap cables.

[Speedskater]

19 hours ago, mansr said:

19 hours ago, Speedskater said:

I did just read a good reason for cable lifters. Over time the color dye on the cable can migrate and stain the carpet.

I've never had that problem with cheap cables.

Neither have I, but the color dye migrating came from an old Belden page. And this is one of the only two good reasons for cable lifters. The other is about vacuuming around the cables.

[fas42]

Unfortunately, static behaviour of the materials in the the construction of cables matters. And that's why cable lifters are useful for SQ - with the first good rig I had a huge struggle with maintaining the the SQ, and in hindsight these behaviours were at the heart of my problems; at the time, I had no awareness of this area of importance. These days, it's one of the first things I look at, because it's so simple to effect a solution.

[MetalNuts]

Don't worry about your carpet, it is cheaper to buy a new carpet than a couple of this cable lifter from Furutech.  Listed price  each @ USD320 approximately.

 

[fas42]

44 minutes ago, MetalNuts said:

Don't worry about your carpet, it is cheaper to buy a new carpet than a couple of this cable lifter from Furutech.  Listed price  each @ USD320 approximately.

 

 

Yes, silly money is, well, silly ... . And the construction of that to my eyes is all wrong, anyway ...

 

Do a test, with household items, as to whether it makes a difference - and go from there.

[MetalNuts]

Some HiFi enthusiasts before my generation in my place used porcelain tea cups as spikes and isolators.  They turn the tea cups upside down and place a small bunch of newspaper in the cup as damper.  They claimed this effective.?

 

Some use these clips as the cables stand to lift it up from the floor.

 

If one is imaginative enough, every household items can be used.

[accwai]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes, silly money is, well, silly ... . And the construction of that to my eyes is all wrong, anyway ...

 

Actually there are 2 types of Furutech NCF Boosters. The picture above is the original design for clamping down on power connectors:

 

 

For those with complete NCF power outlet stack already, that's quite natural. Then people started using it as cable lifter. This is the new design specifically for lifting signal cables:

 

 

Quote

Do a test, with household items, as to whether it makes a difference - and go from there.

 

Ikea Aptitlig bamboo boards are quite well known in the audio tweak circle. I'd say getting a medium thickness board and cutting it into 1.5"x1.5" chunks to use a lifters is an inexpensive way to give it a try.