Can't hear a difference for the effort or $$$.

barfod

New Member
I, like most people here, have looked to these forums and the like for experienced opinions about audio componentry, and their relative comparative qualities in searching for aural happiness, and have come to some conclusions of my own. Most of the esoteric hoity-toity notions regarding the benefits of this rare & hyper-expensive widget or that one, are lost on the level of equipment many (most?) of us can afford. I have done a few of my own "in-house" tests (that I'm sure can be picked apart). It started a few years ago on a friends' system using Reference Series Audio Research tube amps/ preamps, his Audio Research Reference Series CD player, Sonograph turntable (idk which cartridge) and the companion top-of-the-line Magnapan speakers. While he was away and leaving me to babysit his pet, I took the special occation to answer for myself a few nagging questions for myself:

Q: "Can you hear the differences in speaker wire?"

A: I heard none. I replaced his VERY expensive speaker wire (that cost as much as my whole stereo system) with some 14 guage speaker wire I used at home that I bought on a 50 foot spool at Radio Shack for about $15, I think. No sound-quality difference we could perceive regardless of source or music selection.


Q: "Can you hear the differences in inter-connects?"

A: Same scenario. I started with replacing the hyper-expensive unobtanium interconnect between the CD player and the preamp with a $4 RCA cable... Nothing.

...and that is where my doubts began. Sure his system sounds astounding, but it sounds equally astounding with cheap speaker wire and cheap interconnects.


Next is the capacitor "sound quality" questions over which so many of us torture ourselves. My own system is far more modest than my friend's. I have a pair of beautiful Thiel CS3.5's as well as a pair of Polk Audio SDA-2's. I have been using a Yamaha DSP A-1000 integrated amp with the Thiels and a plethora of vintage Yamaha receivers with the Polks. As I just recently began to get back into my old electronics hobby, I decided to try my hand at lightly reconditioning some vintage audio equipment... namely old Yamaha and NAD equipment of my youth. So, I started a couple months ago by recapping a Yamaha R700 (1981) that I purchased non-playing. As I don't have much in the way of test equipment, but I have a pretty sweet Edsyn solder station, I decide to replace all of the aluminum electrolytic capacitors and see what happens. I bought all Nichicon VR and VZ series capacitors to replace the original Matsushita, Rubycon, and ELNA caps and set about replacing all but the two 10,000uf power supply AE caps. Low and behold, that fixed it and it now works! It sounds wonderful with the Polks. Total price for the replacement caps was about $3-4 worth.
Next up, a non-playing Yamaha CR420 (1977) that was given to me by another friend. Same deal, I replaced all the original AE caps with Nichicon VR and VZ series, that fixed it. Sounds very nearly as good as the R700. Total price for replacement caps was about $3-4 too.
Because the CR420 sounded "NEARLY" as good as the R700, it got me thinking...

Q: "What if I changed up? What if I replaced the "cheap" general purpose VR & VZ series caps with "Audio Grade" caps? Would sound quality improve drastically? Would the CR420 sound as good or better than the R700?"

A: No. I orderered a combination of Nichicon mostly KW, KA and a few KT series AE caps, and proceeded to change out sections and listen... change another section and listen, and so on. I "think I might have heard a slight difference when I changed out the old phono input cap I accidentally missed in the original cap swap-out, with a Nichicon KT series cap. I think I "might" have heard a slight improvement from the phono cap but none of the other swaps seemed to make any difference? Total cost for the "Audio Grade" caps was about $17-18 versus about $4 for the general purpose caps.

My conclusion: for mid-level level receievers, pre-amps, amps and the like, a quality name brand general purpose capacitor sounded no different than an "audio grade" capacitor. Stop sweating the minutia. A working unit sounds better than a non-working one, and replacing old worn out AE caps with new general purpose caps improves performance... period. Don't sweat minutea and just enjoy the music.

(Caveat: I haven't tried working with passive crossover circuitry yet, I can believe there could be differences to be had there. That's an arument for another day.)
 
Well, that won't be a popular view! IMO, if caps are bad or going bad, changing them will improve things. If they aren't, it won't. Old does not equal bad or even degraded to any significant extent. "Audio grade" caps don't appear to have any specific electrical properties that are different than commercial grade caps, though the marketing words are a bit fancier. There are some low end consumer grade caps I'd avoid. As for wires, bigger is usually better, up to a point. I like to be able to bend mine and have them fit the jacks if possible. IMO again, short low capacitance interconnects all sound the same. There may be some differences that people with better ears than me can hear with longer ones.
 
Well, that won't be a popular view! ... "Audio grade" caps don't appear to have any specific electrical properties that are different than commercial grade caps, though the marketing words are a bit fancier.

That is the reason I am posting. I know I am not quite as "experienced" as many on here, but it seems to me that burying oneself in trivial detail of brand/ series loyalties or esoteric component-sound theory borders on religion, and completely loses sight of the fact that the underlying reason for all of this is to be able to enjoy music. I too put my faith in those opinions as a neophyte and was let down. Was it something I did? Was it something I didn't do? No! Sometimes things can only be made to sound just so good. My post was to other newbies who are looking for answers regarding how to improve what I already own... don't buy into the expensive is good, more expensive must better theory that permeates so many opinions. Sometimes, really good is good enough... Now... sit back ant enjoy some tunes.
 
IMO, if caps are bad or going bad, changing them will improve things.

I think replacing a cap that is bad/going bad is common sense and I bet Barfod would agree. I think he is talking about good working caps where he compares cheaper cost with high price.

I agree with all above.

A good thick gauge speaker wire will sound as good as any

Some decent interconnects are as good as any

I ran some sound comparisons with an ST120 tube amp and speaker crossovers... Spendy caps don't sound better then some solid Dayton caps
 
That is the reason I am posting. I know I am not quite as "experienced" as many on here, but it seems to me that burying oneself in trivial detail of brand/ series loyalties or esoteric component-sound theory borders on religion, and completely loses sight of the fact that the underlying reason for all of this is to be able to enjoy music. I too put my faith in those opinions as a neophyte and was let down. Was it something I did? Was it something I didn't do? No! Sometimes things can only be made to sound just so good. My post was to other newbies who are looking for answers regarding how to improve what I already own... don't buy into the expensive is good, more expensive must better theory that permeates so many opinions. Sometimes, really good is good enough... Now... sit back ant enjoy some tunes.

You used logic, reasonable experimentation, and your own ears to decide. Nothing wrong with that.

I am glad that there are people who constantly obsess and get crazy spending money on this hobby; it is their discards that I seem to find at thrift stores, for which I am grateful. They drive the hobby forward in terms of R&D and they support many companies which I am glad exist. So it's all good. I leave them to what they prefer, whether or not I happen to share their belief that it sounds better than the average whatever.

I share your conclusions, by the way. But I try not to aggravate the guys who believe in the efficacy of high-end interconnects, boutique caps, and all variety of tweaks. If they believe it sounds better, who am I to judge?

All good. Happiness aboundeth.
 
PS - I also didn't hear too much difference at all when I replace some resistors in some preamp sources with high price Caddock and Texas Components replacements... I did the resistor upgrades on resistors on the signal path.

For caps I used Daytons in a lot of things... then put in some jensen copper foil paper-in-oil capacitors, jantzen silver z-cap and Mundorf in spots... Didn't hear much improvement. The black Dayton caps from Parts Express are good Real good at a reasonable price!

I did this all to mess around with an otherwise excellent sounding system... Just trying to see if some boutique parts improved what I had that I liked.

No regrets on the spend and I still run the parts... Just not sure if the spend got me much at all so I guess I'm agreeing with the poster of this
 
Peter Walker of Quad had two criteria for speaker cables: they should be able to conduct electricity and have adequate length to connect the speakers to the amp.
 
The real test would have been to leave the cheap wires and interconnects in place and see how long it your buddy to notice.
 
I think it's depressing. Proof that people are too gullible, and that there are other, horrible people taking advantage of those by making / selling it.
 
I bought some ma-3's cheap I tested them against some cheap rca's that were longer and plugged into the headphone port on my dac (the head phone to rca leads are the longest I had). I decided to test them the other day I could barley hear the difference I think the length had more to do with the difference.

On the other hand I have had rca cables that if you move the cord it can cut the sound on that side so there is cheap and there is overpriced.

I have been thinking about what would make a good speaker cable there are many things to consider two things I know that help are twisting of the cables and little to no insulation, many high priced companies seem to do the opposite?
 
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I do hear a small difference in cables, but I think you guys are right - perhaps spending the dough some where else rewards more in sound quality.

One time though, in a hifi shop, I saw these 1 inch thick snake speaker wires, and the sound difference was night and day! I will never forget that.
The price was over $1000 for short pair though... so there are cables like that, and people with umpteen thousand gears do spend on them - and it makes sense from their point of view, I suppose... but not from ours - we at AK go for value midfi which is fun and doesn't break the bank account...hehe
 
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