external power transformers?

pucho812 said:

James randi through his foundation,  one million dollar paranormal challenge, has offered one million dollars  to anyone who can demonstrate that expensive audio cables are any better then regular audio cables.

No one has taken him up on the offer, even the audiophool guys.

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Well, not exactly.  It was a specific cable.  I wouldn't argue that there could be no audible difference in unbalanced cables.  It's pretty common for even guitarists to hear differences with cables.  Reportedly, Jimmi did and he liked the HF roll-off of the curly cables.  I think where the nonsense comes in is the super-exotic stuff and here's what the cable challenge was about;
"We see that the Pear Cable company is advertising a pair of 12-foot "Anjou" audio cables for $7,250; that's $302 a foot! And, as expected, "experts" were approached for their opinions on the performance of these wonders ... Well, we at the JREF are willing to be shown that these "no-compromise" cables perform better than, say, the equivalent Monster cables."

well now your talking real things that matter especially in guitar cables with capacitance per foot and so forth. That is real that can be heard and yes there is a difference.  That being said all cables are subject to the laws of physics and at 12K a cable you cannot avoid that laws of physics no matter how much money you toss at it...

Oh and thanks for that bit of information... very nice...

Yup capacitance matters for (lead) guitar cables and MM phono preamp cartridges... for speaker cables it all about the Ohms.

I suspect many audiophools misinterpreted the sonic difference between two phono cables as having some secret mojo, and not just that they were shorter or longer (less/more capacitance). I escaped the hifi business in the '80s because there was no cause and effect related to performance that I could discern (or harness). 

JR

Bowie said:

Well, not exactly.  It was a specific cable.  I wouldn't argue that there could be no audible difference in unbalanced cables.  It's pretty common for even guitarists to hear differences with cables.  Reportedly, Jimmi did and he liked the HF roll-off of the curly cables.

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Well, the difference is that everyone knows that a passive guitar pickup is a medium impedance thing (round number: 10k ohms), and also "impedance" implies frequency-dependence.  Since the impedance is rather high, it's no surprise that the capacitance, inductance and resistance of the cable is significant.

If the guitar has a built-in preamp presenting a low source impedance, the cable effect is greatly reduced.

-a

> a passive guitar pickup is a medium impedance thing (round number: 10k ohms)

Often 5K lows and mids and then *inductive*, rising to 100K by 3KHz.

It does not take a lot of cable capacitance to resonate with that, cause a peak/drop response in a critical overtone zone. (Also cut-off the inharmonic overtones of a string.)

I have wondered without finding a solid answer: what's the most equivalent or better performing wire for shielded grid leads?  I have seen multiple ancient references to 'crystal mic wire'.  The stuff looks kinda like coax, solid  core with a fat insulator between it and the shield layer. 

emrr said:

I have wondered without finding a solid answer: what's the most equivalent or better performing wire for shielded grid leads?  I have seen multiple ancient references to 'crystal mic wire'.  The stuff looks kinda like coax, solid  core with a fat insulator between it and the shield layer.

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I've got some mil spec coaxial from an old Black Radio that fits that description.  Might give it a try.