Looking for RCA Interconnects

[Naturelover]

@bhagwan, good to see you after a short hiatus!
Nikhil, bhagwan has said that the Bertram cables were sent to Blasto for demo. Maybe you have experienced them? Are they still in Hyderabad?

Sir,
Hello !
I have some cables for sale;
http://www.hifivision.com/sale-owne...tima-signal-cable-copper-rs-30-k-rca-xlr.html
Take a look & let me know.
I have cables higher up too.
Audiaz - Germany
Silencable - Germany
If you would be interested, please do let me know.

Thanks bhagwan - will get in touch with you.

Given my setup it makes no sense going too high up unless there is some night and day type difference.
I am open to correction here - that is why I stared this thread in the first place.

 

[Nikhil]

@bhagwan, good to see you after a short hiatus!
Nikhil, bhagwan has said that the Bertram cables were sent to Blasto for demo. Maybe you have experienced them? Are they still in Hyderabad?

I think that was a while ago. No I haven't heard them.

 

[Iceberg86300]

I think cables matter, just not to the tune of 1,000's of dollars a foot, nor exotic materials.

Check out signalcable.com Nothing that will break the bank, but they are high quality, custom, and last time I checked there were silver versions available.

As someone pointed out already low level interconnects are very very important as they are magnets for picking up ANY electromagnetic noise. Ideally, even cheap equipment should have at have at least one set of balanced xlr connections, or even something proprietary but similar.

To stay at the same price I'd gladly give up something in the components themselves to get an interconnect system with superior noise rejection.

I wonder how BAD you can make a REALLY GOOD system sound by using interconnects made up ductile iron strands and pass them through a rats nest of speaker cables made up of the same.

Also mentioned above is impedance matching. Again, ideally, every component in the world should have the same impedance. This is much much much more important for amplifiers and speakers due to large & changing voltage/current combined with magnets and voice coils, but all we get is 8 ohm or 4 ohm.

If a DAC, pre, and amp all had perfectly matched input or output impedances, various cheap, well shielded interconnects could be chosen for their respective electrical qualities to further tune ones system to their musical tastes. One could even go as far as hooking up components with multiple interconnects of vastly different electrical properties to match the different music one listens to at any given time.

I think from what I've written so far you can see that I believe cables make a difference. But as engineer I also fall heavily on the science side of things. But measuring electrical properties of an interconnect is very academic, but I have yet to see multiple cables hooked up to live system and then have the least invasive measurements taken at each end and compared, let alone this done with only one cable.

So this turned into a rather long post. Apologies.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that objective testing of cables, at least the testing of today, don't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. For me that includes properties and benefits of unobtanium type materials used in high dollar cables.

This is important to me as many high cost cables are built to order, and while they may audition extremely well, when you get your copies installed at home they can sound completely different.

So I stand by my earlier sentiment, give signalcable.com a shot. They aren't a dime store cable, but also not a high dollar cable. They are custom, but I believe popular lengths are stocked and returnable. Or you can use the beauty of custom, and order the shortest possible length your system allows.

 

[Nikhil]

Update on my IC search so far:

First of all a genuine expression of thanks to all who reached out to me over PM, email and Whatsap etc. Jochen Semler was kind enough to send over a pair of IC for a listen and it was very nice to have the luxury of trying out some cables in my setup. Sharing a little on the cables ...

WSS-Kabel GOLD LINE NF-Stereokabel KS1

I was very pleased to see their high quality build and placed them into my setup straightaway. Details on the cables can be obtained from the company website - but I liked the fact that they came with Eichmann bullet RCA plugs. I received a pair of 1 m length.

I placed the cable pair between my DAC and Preamp. The Eichmann bullet plugs are top notch and fitted snugly onto the RCA chassis mounts of my Preamp and DAC. These cables are recommended for directionality and little black sleeves with white arrows indicating direction helped me connect the cables appropriately. Since these were a demo pair they didn't need burn-in but I let them play for a couple of days before listening to them.

At first I didn't notice any change so I let them settle in and waited some more time. I really did not observe any change in the sound until I decided to switch back to my old cables. That's when I noticed what they were doing - or rather not doing. These cables are absolutely non interfering - no nonsense cables. Yet when removed from the chain I realized that they were allowing me to listen more into the music. The cables are never in the way of the sound but just lets what is in there come through. Everything I had earlier was still there - tonality, imaging, PRaT, etc but there was a little more coming through with the WSS cables in the chain. More Definition would be one word to say these bring to the sound.

On the Coldplay single "Magic" the synth bass had more definition and was a tad tighter giving the song a little more punch. The keyboard notes continue to hang around along with Chris Martin's falsetto voice floating in the air.

Since then I've decided to keep this cable in my chain. I will need to put more prolonged listening to it to find out more but from what I've heard so far this is a very good cable. WSS may not be known outside Germany and I have to thank Jochen for introducing me to this cable. Do look this cable up if you are in the market for a capable. Jochen tells me that these guys are seriously good and do OEM supply for companies like Einstein and Burmester. Good enough reference for me.

Status: One down - two more to go. (sharing some pictures below)


Cables are delivered in a no nonsense plastic case with foam seating.

Cables in the flesh

Close up of the Eichmann bullet RCA connectors

 

[hydra]

At first I didn't notice any change so I let them settle in and waited some more time. I really did not observe any change in the sound until I decided to switch back to my old cables. That's when I noticed what they were doing - or rather not doing.

I've found that this is the best (and maybe the most reliable) way of identifying differences between components. Switching *back* to the old component after a while with the new component is what brings out the improvement / degradation the most.

 

[Nikhil]

Hydra,

Yes it seems to be the way to go about it although AB Test purists would frown.
What happens in my case is that the sound "imprints" after a while.
Switching back and forth helps isolate the differences or at least it helps identify the factors.