Expensive Hi Fi cables - adjudication

The ASA has responded to a complaint made about an advert by Russ Andrews making claims for an expensive cable:

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_44177.htm

Common sense prevails!

Good stuff - thanks for sharing.

Stewart

Thanks.

Was a nice little read this morning.

:grin:

Clarification: the "ASA" = the 'Advertising Standards Authority'; -a UK government-mandated organisation which holds all forme of legal adverising to four tests: Legality, decency, honesty and truthfulness.

Keith

Fantastic, it's about time some of these cable companies ditched the bullshit
I love that stuff with "arrows" on it - like the voltage only flows down some copper,
when they are the right way round ! :roll: :roll:

MM.

Now if they could apply the affect-effect distinction correctly.

[quote author="bcarso"]Now if they could apply the affect-effect distinction correctly. [/quote]
Well, they actually do use the word "effect" correctly ...once... so really they need to be consistently correct.

Keith

I don't care as long as they affect or effect change in deceptive behavior. Keep whacking the deserving moles.

+1 for the good guys.

JR

Pity all they got was a slap on the wrist.....

we should use ASA more often, for anti-vabrations and anti-distortion woden knobs and tube-o-lator and C7 kind of stuff... I would love to know how would they explain these specifications, wich sounds completely bogus to me:

Technical Data

Fast drying at room temperature.

No unpleasant fumes during coating and after further processing.

color, appearance
black

moisture and insulation resistance
class H, IPC-TM-650, TM 2.6.3.1.

surface resistance
1,0 x E13 Ohm, VDE 0303, part 3

method of application
brushing

curing conditions until tack free
30 min

complete curing (sonic character)
20 days

Click to expand...

from:

http://www.altmann.haan.de/tubeolator/default.htm

[quote author="MartyMart"]Fantastic, it's about time some of these cable companies ditched the bullshit
I love that stuff with "arrows" on it - like the voltage only flows down some copper, when they are the right way round ! :roll: :roll: [/quote]

Right; everyone knows that the electrons flow from the end that higher to the end that's lower. That's why power amps are always on the bottom shelf of the equipment cabinet.

Seriously, on some cables direction does make a difference. These are unbalanced cables wired in pseudo-balanced fashion, with two wires in the center for hot and ground, plus a grounded shield. The shield is typically only grounded at one end, and it can make a difference which end that is. (I believe current practice is to have the end with the shield ground connected to the "sending" component.) It may (I said may) make a difference also if you connect one channel one way and one the other way.

On the other hand, for the more common sort of cable, with hot in the center and shield carrying the ground, it doesn't make a rat's arse worth of difference which way they're plugged in.

Peace,
Paul

Nice

:grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:

Justin

As for the arrows on cabling, does anyone remember the article in TapeOp a few years back where David Gilmore's house tech discussed their studio upgrades? He and "the chaps" heard directionality in the high quality audio cables, and even in the multi-strand welding cable used for the star ground. It got weirder when he mentioned that the power amps sounded better when placed on top of some audio company's pyramids. Yep, pyramids.
Mom would'ave said "more money than sense"
Mike

[quote author="sodderboy"]As for the arrows on cabling, does anyone remember the article in TapeOp a few years back where David Gilmore's house tech discussed their studio upgrades? He and "the chaps" heard directionality in the high quality audio cables, and even in the multi-strand welding cable used for the star ground. It got weirder when he mentioned that the power amps sounded better when placed on top of some audio company's pyramids. Yep, pyramids.
Mom would'ave said "more money than sense"
Mike[/quote]
I have to admit that I did a blind test with a certain type of unbalanced line cable many years ago where I was able to hear whether it was connected the right or wrong way. I didn't believe in it at all before, I was actually laughing at the chap who paid big money for the leads. I do nevertheless believe that it must have a scientific reason for the sound difference and I've been looking out for any hint what might make such a difference. The only thing which I came across was to use symmetrical leads for unsymmetrical (hifi) connections and to connect the screen on one side only. I could imagine that this might make a difference, but haven't done any further tests.

Michael

P.S.: No, my power amps don't stand on pyramids!

To be fair, the only "with arrows" cable I've ever seen was for speaker use.
Two core ( of course ) and out of amp to spkr had the --> --> --> all over it
!!!! :roll:

If it was indeed a specific bal/unbal thing then yes that makes sense.

I bought a roll of thick copper two core mains cable to run around the studio
for some 5.1 work and it absolutely worked a treat !
Cost me about £10 for 30 metres of it or something !

MM.

I've got a BNC cable from Tara Labs with arrows that point in one direction.

I thought, "does this make sense?"

But just to be safe (?) I have it connected the way the arrows suggest...

What about the "burned" cables idea ?
Are flowing electrons able to change the cooper matter ?
I tried a search about this on internet, but to not available (maybe due to a lack of keywords from my part, though)

I orient all my transformer cores in the studio 90 degrees with respect to Magnetic North to eliminate core bias. The improvement is just unbelievable!! Same applies to cabling; and all cable should be on a level plane so the electrons don't have to move up or downhill causing delays within the cabling. Balanced cabling helps minimize this, but not completely. Cabling is best run in a zero-gravity duct.

This is especially true on microphone cables due to the small currents involved and the difficulty in forcing them from valence to valence within the atoms of the cable. This can be verified by using a high quality condenser mic lying on the floor on the same horizontal plane as the cable, and having a vocalist lying on the floor during the performance. The sound will be much more open and earthy than if the mic was propped up in the air on a stand as many so-called engineers will do unknowingly.

It's also good to water your star grounding rod to maintain a low impedance current path to ground enabling any noise currents to locate earth ground easily without getting lost.

BYacey, you killed me! :green:
:thumb: :sam: :sam: