well i was in the market for a new pair of RCA interconnects for my stereo so i could hook up the audio output on my tv to my preamp. I went to my local home audio store and looked around and saw what they had and decided that instead of going with a cheap pair i was going to get a good pair and use it for the preamp --> amp connection and another pair for my dvd player--> pre amp. i'll admit that the dvd player --> premap was an impulse buy and i really didn't need it

anyways...waht i decided on was 2 pairs of transparent cable musiclink plus 3ft interconnects. i paid for them, approx 800cdn and took them home and set everything up. My initial impression of them was that the low end definately went deeper and was very tight and clear. I listened to it like this for about 15 mintues and then i put Linkin park's Meteora cd in and played faint. I chose this song becuase in the past i've found that at very high volumes the highs become a little harsh.

i put the cd on track 7 and crank the volume up to 0db (its on a scale from -90db to +9db) and to my suprise the cables did what the manufacturer claims they would do.

My rating of this product is if you can justify the rather large price tag on them and have the appropriate equipment.

btw...the previous cables used were monstercable interlink 200's

 

I don't speak canadian money, but damn that must be at least 500US. Now you need more expensive main speakers.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I don't speak canadian money, but damn that must be at least 500US. Now you need more expensive main speakers. </TD></TR></TABLE>

guess someone didn't scroll down the page and see my other post

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=721493

 

Or you could spend $30 on a fiber and get the same thing. Expensive cables is for the birds. No effence IMO it's a waste of money.

 

possibly physcoacoustic?

 

All parts of an audio/video system are important. If you have a good AV receiver and speakers, but cheap wires, it'll sound like crap. If you have a good AV receiver and wires, but cheap speakers = crap. and so on.

A friend of mine just bought some new speakers and hooked it up using the cheapest wire he could find in Wal-Mart and it sounds like crap. He also used one of those $3 RCA brand cables as a subwoofer cable and he gets no bass. Even he says mine sound better than his speakers, and I think his speakers are better than mine.

The cables you use to hook up your system do make a difference. Heck, if you decide to spend a lot of money on speakers and a good AV receiver, you shouldn't skimp with your cables.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nsxxtreme &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Or you could spend $30 on a fiber and get the same thing. Expensive cables is for the birds. No effence IMO it's a waste of money.</TD></TR></TABLE>

fibre optic?? that would mean going digital which does not have the same sound as analog. I've got a transparent cable digital coax cable and a fibre optic cable and neither of them give the same sound.

 

oh lord, not this debate again....

Sorry, but I refuse to believe that cheap wires will make a system sound "like crap" - pure nonsense.

I have yet to do my own double blind test on interconnects or speaker cables...until then....I refuse to shell out tons of cash for what appears to be voodoo...

I say save a ton of money and just custom build your own cables.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">oh lord, not this debate again....
I have yet to do my own double blind test on interconnects or speaker cables...until then....I refuse to shell out tons of cash for what appears to be voodoo...</TD></TR></TABLE>

why not do your own testing with various cables? I tried this test with a few of my friends and even they agreed that the new ones were much better.

 

it's psycho acoustics unless you can do it double blind IMO - I'd have to do it scientifically to even think I could justify the expediture.

Regardless, the human mind is a very powerful element, and it will sway your decisions about what you hear, and what you think you hear...

One of two things will happen....a) you want to think that they sound the same, so no matter how they do sound, you will think they sound the same OR b) you want the more expensive cable to sound better, so it "does"

Unless you do the swap out properly, and you can disguise that something has changed, it's not worth doing IMO.

If you are happy with the purchase, and you feel it makes your system sound that much better, then you should be satisfied with your purchase...It really doesn't matter what I think.

 

[Crossing fingers] I hope my stock speakers sounds like some Alpine Type-X component.[/Crossing fingers]

it does it does!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EBP_SI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

fibre optic?? that would mean going digital which does not have the same sound as analog. I've got a transparent cable digital coax cable and a fibre optic cable and neither of them give the same sound.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Note the same sound as anolog huh. So what are you listening to tape to do your comparison? The sound coming from your deck CD or over the air radio originated from a digital CD. DVD digital. Only difference is now you have moved the DA converter closer to the anolog amplifier. Shorter distance that the anolog signal travels is usually better because there is less capacitance, resistance, and inductance on chip then over a wire.

And comparing a coax to a fiber really isn't the same thing. The coax cable suffers the same losses as anolog RCA's.

 

nsxxtreme is the man when it comes to wires and patch cables

nsxxtreme

Also, i've been seeing more and more people converting to Toslink. Any input on this? One of the things I didn't realized when i bought my alpine deck was to go with the cda-7969 and it's optical out or stick with the lower-end cda-7965.

Any benefits of going with optical out?

"Hey..i have some optical outs on my non-internal deck with 24-bit DAC"
"Dude! that shiz sounds so high-tech! Must sound super duper good man!"

for some reason, optical output sounds really good

 

optical isn't the end-all-be all either.

Digital Co-ax doesn't suffer from some of the jitter that toslink can IIRC.

Remember that for 90% of the digital out heads around, they do not digitize the tuner! So you still have to run analog cables if you want to listen to the radio. Optical out also is not controlled by the volume control in the headunit, so you must have some method of controlling volume downstream.

The benefits is that you can take a rock solid transport, use an optical out to go to a sweet aftermarket, outboard DAC. Then you can go to a processor that will hopefully work as a master volume control.

This is how people (like me) are using the H700. CD is optical, tuner runs through the AiNet or RCA connections. The cd stays optical, goes through processing in the digital domain, then gets spit back out analog...the last DAC in the system is the one that counts. The radio get's digitized at the H700, then processed, etc.

So there are advantages and disadvantages of optical....everything in car audio is a tradeoff...

 

that explains why people with the alpine cda-9813 are complaining about not having the radio. lol!

Too much trouble for me. Stick with the good ol' RCA

 

Sony's decks run the volume control through the fiber at least mine did MDX400. Yes most head units do not transfer the radio into the digital domain. It is usually done at the DSP processor. All you need RCA's for is the radio one set is all it takes.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">optical isn't the end-all-be all either.

Digital Co-ax doesn't suffer from some of the jitter that toslink can IIRC.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The difference is you can build a jitter filter. You think jitter is bad you should see what having mismatched impedences at coax connection interfaces does. If you have lots of connections your chances for jitter go up. Keep your connections to a minimum and your ends of the fiber clean as well as not using crapy fiber and you will be fine.

I use monster cable fibers. I paid $80 for a 20 foot fiber. Goold luck finding any set of RCA's in this price range that could compete with it. The other advantage to fiber is it is immune to outside noise. You cannot induce noise into the fiber like you can RCA's. Also if you have multiple channels you still only need one fiber, while you would need additional RCA's for additional channels.

For my home I use one fiber to connect my DVD to reciever.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">that explains why people with the alpine cda-9813 are complaining about not having the radio. lol!

Too much trouble for me. Stick with the good ol' RCA</TD></TR></TABLE>'

The 9813 doesn't have optical out....The only current Alpine heads with an optical out are the 7990, 7996, and D900...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">'

The 9813 doesn't have optical out....The only current Alpine heads with an optical out are the 7990, 7996, and D900...</TD></TR></TABLE>

no no no..i mean the guys over on carsound that converts their 9813 deck to Toslink.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

no no no..i mean the guys over on carsound that converts their 9813 deck to Toslink. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Link me to that one...I have not heard of that mod

 

Sorry to jump in a little late but I wanted to admit that I've fallen to the dark side when it comes to cables, LOL. After doing a lot of research and my own blind testing over the past year, I've come to the realization that cables DO NOT make a difference. The primary electrical factors (inductance, capacitance and resistance) that can affect sound quality would have to be so poor in order for human ears to hear a difference. Analog audio signals are nothing more than electrical current and therefore any change in sound should be measurable. As hard as it is to believe, the cheap "test" interconnect that comes with most DVD/CD players do not sound any different than the $200 Straightwire cable I have. As far as coax vs. toslink, I couldn't hear a difference in my home and I doubt with over 70 db of road noise that anyone could hear a difference in the car as well.

The factors I've found to be most important in cables are:

- Good shielding to prevent unwanted noise
- Good terminations for reliable connections (solder and crimp joints must be solid
and clean)
- Quaility cable that matches your application

As a result, I'm building my own cables using Canare and Belden cable to use throughout my house for video and audio connections. With over 300 feet of wire, the various connectors and misc. aesthetic parts, I've only spent $300.

For some good info and links, check out:

http://audioholics.com/techtip...s.htm

 

I made all my own RCA Cables. MCMinone.com Thier RCA connectors are solderless, $1.20 a piece. and I good 100 ft of double insulated RCA wire, best quality stuff ever. I went from major buzzing to NONE. Amazing, I hate all of the expensive companies who Charge $30 a foot, for wire that you can custom make to the perfect length for a fraction of the price.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Link me to that one...I have not heard of that mod</TD></TR></TABLE>

ah crap, nevermind. dunno who actually did the mod.

http://www.carsound.com/UBB/ul...00001

 

<FONT SIZE="4"><FONT COLOR="blue">DIY Rules</FONT></FONT>

My favorite is to buy a 1000' of CAT5E and braid my own cable. Use about 16 strands of the solid core stuff. Very good cable and very cheap!

Also heres another cool way of making cables. If you like the Nordost type stuff (I have solar winds's and the Bi-Amp stuff), you can make clones by buying copper foil inductors like these over at PartExpress.

You'd be surprised at how much of this crap is there... one of the 1.5mH foils should be enough for a pair. Anyways just lay em out and get some wide (1"-2") clear packaging tape and lay em on a table and laminate them. Just be carefull, anyone thats owned Nordost can tell you they are fragile...don't step on them!



However I'm gonna interject and say that spending more than $150 dollars on cable is rediculus, epsecially anything made of copper. I can buy pure silver wire and make cables for less than that.