New Altec speaker boxes Part 2

**Old Guy** · April 14th, 2007, 09:28 PM

Ouch! 50 cents/ft for zip cord?

I have some stuff here if anybody needs it

It's actually undergound burial wire- we wired up a fairgrouns a couple years ago.

Sorta flexible, black jacket 18-4 so you could bi-wire or bi-amp.

I think I have 3000 feet or so. Longest pieces are maybe 800 feet.

I'd need to get something back but I'd sell it dirt cheap. Maybe 15-20 cents a foot or something.
I thought about cutting it into 100 foot pices and posting it on FeePay.

Like I said when I kick of there'll be a heckuva garage sale.

**thinking** · April 17th, 2007, 04:36 AM

Copper prices have gone through the roof, last wire I bought I found to be cheaper to buy extension cords, and cut the ends off, providing lengths that you need are available.
Looking at the link, I wondered about the wire insulators. If placed too close together, they would approximate laying back on a porcelain surface, so there must be a need for a study about proper spacing. Maybe if we stretched bare wires between the amp and the speaker? The possibilities here are vast.
Remember by far the number one problem in electronics are the connection points

**Carl Bill** · April 17th, 2007, 02:38 PM

Old Guy: How about using the silver power cord with Cryogenically treated plugs and receptacles!

Now that will make a big difference! forums

**MikeInNH** · April 17th, 2007, 04:24 PM

Copper prices have gone through the roof

A couple of weeks ago here in NH...two men broke into a power transfer station to steal some copper wire. They cut a wire that was carrying 10k volts...Both were killed.

**bowtie427ss** · April 17th, 2007, 04:26 PM

I'm just curious about this, and I have no interest in a "fire storm" either. I apologize if I over-reacted to the other post.

If I have two sets of wires of identical gauge and length, both copper and twisted pairs, neither is from an audio manufacturer (neither have accompanying claims for the sound difference) and both cost less than $2, and I am able to repeatedly hear the same differences and others are as well, what am I likely hearing? Not always favouring one or the other, just differences. And I'm asking honestly, not looking to challenge you, but I have experienced the above and I can't see how they would measure any differently. Any thoughts?

I'm not sure if OG caught this post or not, so in the meantime i'll offer my .02.

You'd be surprised what our brains can trick us into thinking we hear. Now i'm not saying you don't hear a difference, as you very well might since wire does posess the properties of capacitance, resistance, and inductance and there's little doubt that these properties can and do vary among different types of wire.

What i can tell you from experience is that "blind" testing is really the only way for sure to know if you're hearing a difference.

No matter if your comparing amplifiers, speakers, or wire, we all seem to have preconceived prejudices, or preferences. One of mine is against piezo tweeters. They've always screamed "i'm cheap junk" at me, then one day i was visiting an old friend who invited me to give his latest DIY speaker project a listen. I was really taken back by the crisp yet subtle HF extension he had. I was just blown away when this man of great means pulled off a grill and exposed a pair of square motorola's. I was really quite sure i was going see some very expensive boutique planar/ribbon tweeter............... not 10 bucks worth of motorola plastic.

It was this very incident that taught me the value of a "blind" test, i was forced to render my opinion based solely on what i heard as i had know knowledge whatsoever of what was hiding behind that grill.

Have a friend help you do your own blind testing. Explain to them your goals, and that they must switch wires at random while giving you no clue as to which you're hearing at any given time. Have them keep a log with your comments of the results each time.

I did this a while back with some 1 inch horn drivers and will be doing it again soon with a little more rigid control.

I chose 3 of my favorite tunes, and had my friend go thru the motions of swapping drivers after every round of listening and i'd left the room. The secret here is that sometimes he didn't change anything, but was consistent in his motions so i truly didn't know when a change was occurring unless i could distinctly hear it.

**Old Guy** · April 17th, 2007, 04:49 PM

Yeah, I did miss that.

It's worth reading all the info at that link I posted.

As far as differences? If you expect to hear one, you will. Period. If it isn't there your brain will make it up.

As Bowtie suggested, blind testing is the only wat to be sure.

Really, what's needed is a disinterested 3rd party to do the changing.

If you can correctly idendify one wire over the other this way 7-8 out of ten times, that might mean something.

Please, no offense, but the tests you've done are absolutely meaningless.

The link has picks showing all cheap wire is not equal. So one $2 wire may be better than the other.

The point is, a good $20 or $50 wire is no better than a good $2 wire. At least 99.9 percent of the time.

A researcher at McIntosh gave a presentation about this- standing on a roll of Monster cable.

**Ronald Lee** · April 17th, 2007, 07:38 PM

Originally posted by MIkeInNH:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Copper prices have gone through the roof

A couple of weeks ago here in NH...two men broke into a power transfer station to steal some copper wire. They cut a wire that was carrying 10k volts...Both were killed.<hr /></blockquote>Oops! "We have a problem Houston."

Personally, I don't know why there is so much discussion about the wire necesary to carry the signal. Electrons don't know the difference, just as long as there is an adequate diameter, it doesn't really make a difference. I would rather spend the time doing something else more useful.

**Old Guy** · April 18th, 2007, 12:39 PM

I have to disagree it's not worth having the discussion.

The wire companies put out so much propaganda. It's necessary to point it out for what it is.
Some just don't know.

Silence gives assent.

BTW I hooked up my directional cables backwards.
Heard all hinds of stuff in my old Beatles records.... forums

**scott fitlin** · April 18th, 2007, 12:42 PM

Originally posted by Old Guy:

BTW I hooked up my directional cables backwards.
Heard all hinds of stuff in my old Beatles records....

ROTFLMAO!

Guess its time to get out the old White Album?

forums

**selmerdave** · April 18th, 2007, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by Old Guy:
[QB]If you expect to hear one, you will. Period. If it isn't there your brain will make it up.

So if you don't expect to hear one, you won't, right? Period? If it is there you're brain will make up that there isn't one, right? That would suggest that anyone's claim about there not being differences is as "weak" as any claims that there are. FWIW There have been plenty of times that I didn't hear differences when expecting them, and I have heard differences when I didn't expect them. I've done it blind and not blind.

If you can correctly idendify one wire over the other this way 7-8 out of ten times, that might mean something.

I'm pretty sure I could, not with any wires but with some there are very distinct differences.

Please, no offense, but the tests you've done are absolutely meaningless.

Well, in the imperial sense they are, but to me they're not as I am the one ultimately listening. I think people should listen and make up their own minds. You can say it's garbage, but there is a whole lot about sound that can't be measured, so I really think that going *only* (and blindly) by what we measure is at least as flawed a method.

Anyway, I've been through this enough times to know that this is a dead-end discussion. No point in rehashing it here, I was interested to hear if you had another point of view, but what you're saying is familiar. There is always a very dismissive tone in these sort of discussions that I don't think is called for, really if psychoacoustics are as you describe then nobody's position/opinion is any more "sure" than anybody else's.

Dave

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