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Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
By the time I left the hi-fi shop at which I was employed I was already pretty over high-end cables as a thing. What finished it off for me was a brief stint in pro audio - have you ever seen a patch bay? Yeah, that's about the most non-audiophile thing ever and many studio records have been run through them with no meaningful quality loss.

Then working with two-way RF over long distances made it really clear that getting audio band signals over any distance is kinda bullshit. :v:

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Philthy
Jan 28, 2003

Pillbug

KillHour posted:

Anybody want a 1M RCA cable for 1700 euros?

http://www.head-fi.org/t/576614/nordost-valhalla-reference-rca-wbt-nextgen

The reason he's selling them? He upgraded to more expensive ones.

:ughh:

Nordost are pretty much the go-to cables for anything 'hi fi'. If your system is running you 15k+, you're probably using them.

I have a friend who bought into the interconnects and speaker cables, but I haven't been over to listen to his system since.

I just like making my own by chopping up Walmart power cables.

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


Philthy posted:

Nordost are pretty much the go-to cables for anything 'hi fi'. If your system is running you 15k+, you're probably using them.

I have a friend who bought into the interconnects and speaker cables, but I haven't been over to listen to his system since.

I just like making my own by chopping up Walmart power cables.

Why the hell wouldn't you just buy these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021814&p_id=2869&seq=1&format=2

Philthy
Jan 28, 2003

Pillbug
I haven't had good luck with Monoprice. I've had quite a few bad HDMI cables from them in the past. I don't even know that was even possible.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
It don't have to have moving parts to be a piece of poo poo.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

"Just get the cheapest possible HDMI cable from Monoprice" is probably the most popular opinion on the Internet ever (no, wait, that would be "Just get an SL-1200 Mk II") and it's always seemed really stupid to me since I've bought 'the cheapest available' cables, connectors, headphones, etc. (not HDMI) at times and more often than not they're crap. They're cheap because they don't have any quality control, not because of some weird magic.

You're supposed to buy the second cheapest cable.

Ron Burgundy
Dec 24, 2005
This burrito is delicious, but it is filling.

Jerry Cotton posted:

the most popular opinion on the Internet ever... "Just get an SL-1200 Mk II"

For a reason. :c00lbert:

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Ron Burgundy posted:

For a reason. :c00lbert:

Yeeaaah. The problem is that for the past 30 or so years, whenever someone has asked something like "I just got an old Dual 1218 [or whatever] and was looking for any info on it, maybe even a manual?" on the Internet, the answer has patently been "Just get a Technics dude" which is really stupid. (Nowadays we have Vinylengine* and stuff so there's been some progress.)

*) I mean the database, not the forums.

Ron Burgundy
Dec 24, 2005
This burrito is delicious, but it is filling.
I'm glad to hear you don't actually have an issue with the table. I am proud to be one of the packrats that has uploaded some of the documentation for one of the moderately collecable tables of the least desirable era. (Garrard 4HF :corsair:)

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


Philthy posted:

I haven't had good luck with Monoprice. I've had quite a few bad HDMI cables from them in the past. I don't even know that was even possible.

See, that's odd. I buy a ton of stuff from Monoprice, and the only thing I've gotten from them that I wasn't happy about the quality was a 50 cent 3.5mm to 1/2" adapter. But it works and it cost 50 cents, so I'm not particularly worried about it. :iiam:

Then again, I don't buy HDMI cables from them any more since my best friend installs cable and has boxes full of them.

My point still stands that if you're spending more than 5 bucks on a 1M RCA cable, you're doing it wrong. :colbert:

longview
Dec 25, 2006

heh.
I buy nice audio interconnect cables because the cheap ones break all the time. 3.5mm jack cables are particularly bad at this, but cheap RCA plugs are rarely great.

BANME.sh
Jan 23, 2008

What is this??
Are you some kind of hypnotist??
Grimey Drawer
I haven't had an audio or video cable break on me (including plenty from monoprice) since I was a dumb 13 year old. What is it that you manchildren are doing to your cables that breaks them so often? Take care of your poo poo.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
If we want to go full-goon about cables: Just buy a soldering iron and make your own, guh. :colbert:

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Detroit Q. Spider posted:

If we want to go full-goon about cables: Just buy a soldering iron and make your own, guh. :colbert:

That would make me full goon then... That said I've made some DIY PA speakers which sound poo poo hot so I thought why not just go full bore and make the cables to go with it too? It's this thinking that has caused me to assemble some mint green/red XLR/1/4" cabling for the setup.



Olympic Mathlete fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jul 8, 2013

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
I would make my own but the raw materials are usually more than the single cable I need and also my soldering skills (even after years of soldering things) are mediocre on my best days. Like I'll see a solder joint that looks pretty drat good to me and someone who really knows what's up will be able to just pick it apart for not having high enough temps or whatever.

If something turns out well when I'm handling the pen it's usually a happy accident.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Yeah for a lot of things it's cheaper to buy a cable but a few of these runs are fairly long and to get something with Neutriks on was about the same price as just doing it myself and since I had the equipment it was a no brainer to ensure the quality was decent. I'd like to think I was at least competent with a soldering iron considering I put together the passive crossovers for the tops in my setup. I need to get pictures of those, they're pretty nicely done.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

BANME.sh posted:

I haven't had an audio or video cable break on me (including plenty from monoprice) since I was a dumb 13 year old. What is it that you manchildren are doing to your cables that breaks them so often? Take care of your poo poo.

On the very cheapest RCA cables it's really hit-and-miss whether or not the connectors actually conform to any reasonable definition of RCA. A lot of the time they will simply fall off the mixer because they are so loving loose. Sometimes they simply won't fit. Bad solders are very common. (As you can probably tell by mixer, I'm talking 'professional' audio here.)

Ron Burgundy
Dec 24, 2005
This burrito is delicious, but it is filling.
I seem to have just ammassed dozens of RCA cables from somewhere over the years, I don't even remember buying any of them.

BANME.sh
Jan 23, 2008

What is this??
Are you some kind of hypnotist??
Grimey Drawer

Ron Burgundy posted:

I seem to have just ammassed dozens of RCA cables from somewhere over the years, I don't even remember buying any of them.

Every time you buy any kind of A/V equipment, they seem to come with dollar store RCA cables. I usually just throw them in my cable bin and yeah, I have about a million too.

Willeh
Jun 25, 2003

God hates a coward

BANME.sh posted:

Every time you buy any kind of A/V equipment, they seem to come with dollar store RCA cables. I usually just throw them in my cable bin and yeah, I have about a million too.

I've split a couple and used them as digital coax interlinks. They work perfectly 100% of the time and my equipment hasn't caught on fire once :toot:

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Willeh posted:

I've split a couple and used them as digital coax interlinks. They work perfectly 100% of the time and my equipment hasn't caught on fire once :toot:

This always weirds me out since I thought a 75 ohm impedance was pretty necessary for digital coax to work. I guess the cable has relatively little effect on the overall impedance.

Skeleton Ape
Dec 21, 2008



I've ordered quite a bit from Monoprice and I seem to end up with a lot of cables that are too tight. I have to really force and twist them to get them on and off. In the grand scheme of things I guess it's better than too loose, though.

I've always thought RCA was kind of a goofy design to begin with. Is there a reason BNC connectors never caught on with consumer products?

KillerMojo
Mar 30, 2007

The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
- Douglas Adams

Skeleton Ape posted:

I've ordered quite a bit from Monoprice and I seem to end up with a lot of cables that are too tight. I have to really force and twist them to get them on and off. In the grand scheme of things I guess it's better than too loose, though.

I've always thought RCA was kind of a goofy design to begin with. Is there a reason BNC connectors never caught on with consumer products?

Actually monoprice rca cables caused one of the rca jacks on my amp to cut out intermittently. Connecting/disconnecting the tight-as-gently caress cables a couple times must have done some damage, it's now quite sensitive to the position of the cable. My only cheap cable gripe, but it's a pretty major one :(.

Banano
Jan 10, 2005
Soiled Meat

Detroit Q. Spider posted:

This always weirds me out since I thought a 75 ohm impedance was pretty necessary for digital coax to work. I guess the cable has relatively little effect on the overall impedance.

I've seen the cheapest of cheap premoulded phono cables spotted in rust from sweat/beer used in several nightclub setups that worked just fine. SPDIF must be a forgiving standard I guess :shobon:

Banano
Jan 10, 2005
Soiled Meat

Detroit Q. Spider posted:

By the time I left the hi-fi shop at which I was employed I was already pretty over high-end cables as a thing. What finished it off for me was a brief stint in pro audio - have you ever seen a patch bay? Yeah, that's about the most non-audiophile thing ever and many studio records have been run through them with no meaningful quality loss.

Then working with two-way RF over long distances made it really clear that getting audio band signals over any distance is kinda bullshit. :v:

Pretty much. When you get to see what studios like Abbey Road use (and their engineers are very particular:spergin:) you can very confidently discount this horrible shite.

Mister Kingdom
Dec 14, 2005

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light

BANME.sh posted:

Every time you buy any kind of A/V equipment, they seem to come with dollar store RCA cables. I usually just throw them in my cable bin and yeah, I have about a million too.

I have two copy paper boxes filled with various audio/video cables. I've got splitters, adapters, and who knows what else. I think I kept Radio Shack afloat in the 80s & 90s.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Skeleton Ape posted:

I've always thought RCA was kind of a goofy design to begin with. Is there a reason BNC connectors never caught on with consumer products?

RCA connectors are cheap and BNC connectors are not.

Too-tight connectors bother the hell out of me - Monster's stupid turbine cut super death grip connectors being the absolute nadir of such things. There is absolutely no need to have a connector so tight that you risk ripping the input connector off of the component, and yes I've seen it happen.

Connections need to be snug - nothing more or less. If you're worried about contact integrity unplug and replug the connections occasionally. That will clean any minor layer of oxidation that may have formed.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Detroit Q. Spider posted:

RCA connectors are cheap and BNC connectors are not.

And more importantly, they was even more of a price difference back 50 years ago.

longview
Dec 25, 2006

heh.
Long runs of S/PDIF would need to be terminated properly, but the clock rate is low enough that you'd probably run into problems with signal attenuation long before reflections started to matter. If you were doing long runs of the stuff you should run 75 ohm TV coax and ideally use equipment with 75 ohm BNCs (not the normal kind).
If you just want it to work, just use whatever, I use composite video cables I found a whole bag of in the garbage. There's something that starts to approach a dielectric in there so I figure it's ok.

Aeka 2.0
Nov 16, 2000

:ohdear: Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.




Dinosaur Gum

Jerry Cotton posted:



You're supposed to buy the second cheapest cable.

This works with wine too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlg3H1StHpQ

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Well, yes. Is there a Ridicule winophiles thread by the way?

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

88h88 posted:

That would make me full goon then... That said I've made some DIY PA speakers which sound poo poo hot so I thought why not just go full bore and make the cables to go with it too? It's this thinking that has caused me to assemble some mint green/red XLR/1/4" cabling for the setup.





Good work, now can you solder me up a VEAM multipin please?

Pretty good
Apr 16, 2007



Jerry Cotton posted:

Well, yes. Is there a Ridicule winophiles thread by the way?

Oenophiles :eng101: There totally should be, I've always been curious about just how much of that stuff is bullshit.

AlexDeGruven
Jun 29, 2007

Watch me pull my dongle out of this tiny box


It's all subjective, so most of it.

A good rule of thumb for wine (and this will be my last post on the matter since this isn't winechat):

If it tastes good to you and you can afford it, cool.

This also works for just about any other subjective medium.

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks

Mammal Sauce posted:

Oenophiles :eng101: There totally should be, I've always been curious about just how much of that stuff is bullshit.

The main thing with fancy wine is diminishing returns. The difference in quality between the $10 bottle and the $20 bottle might be a lot. The difference between the $20 and the $50 is smaller. The difference between the $200 bottle and the $1000 bottle is not detectable by your palate unless you taste wine for a living and even then I wouldn't put money on it in a double blind test. Plus there's more subjectivity to it than even music.

The only thing really to learn is how to identify the kinds of tastes you like in oenophile terminology so that you can know what you're looking for when you read a description of a wine.

On a slightly more related derail, I'm sure there's more than enough material for a photography bullshit thread. I am downright amazed at what you can pay for a loving tripod.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Audiophiles > Oenophiles > Beer nerds > IPA nerds > Pepper nerds. This is how I see it, so it's the absolute truth. People who pay 40000€ for some cables are down right crazy but people who have ever used the term scoville outside of academic conversation are deplorable scum. :tipshat::can: (I don't know where camera geeks fit in because I've happily not been subjected to camera geekery.)

3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jul 11, 2013

Ultimate Mango
Jan 18, 2005

Jerry Cotton posted:

Audiophiles > Oenophiles > Beer nerds > IPA nerds > Pepper nerds. This is how I see it, so it's the absolute truth. People who pay 40000€ for some cables are down right crazy but people who have ever used the term scoville outside of academic conversation are deplorable scum. :tipshat::can: (I don't know where camera geeks fit in because I've happily not been subjected to camera geekery.)

Now I want to find a picture of someone wearing an Orpheus, drinking a '62 Chateau Latour, hops drying on a rack overhead and a hydroponic hybrid pepper plant under special lights.

Picture must be taken from either a vintage Leica or some kind of scanning back Hassleblad, whist wearing not a fedora but a porkpie cap.

Endless Mike
Aug 13, 2003



Ultimate Mango posted:

Now I want to find a picture of someone wearing an Orpheus, drinking a '62 Chateau Latour, hops drying on a rack overhead and a hydroponic hybrid pepper plant under special lights.

Picture must be taken from either a vintage Leica or some kind of scanning back Hassleblad, whist wearing not a fedora but a porkpie cap.
They're actually brewing an IPA flavored with that pepper.

torgeaux
Dec 31, 2004
I serve...

Entropic posted:

The main thing with fancy wine is diminishing returns. The difference in quality between the $10 bottle and the $20 bottle might be a lot. The difference between the $20 and the $50 is smaller. The difference between the $200 bottle and the $1000 bottle is not detectable by your palate unless you taste wine for a living and even then I wouldn't put money on it in a double blind test. Plus there's more subjectivity to it than even music.

The only thing really to learn is how to identify the kinds of tastes you like in oenophile terminology so that you can know what you're looking for when you read a description of a wine.

On a slightly more related derail, I'm sure there's more than enough material for a photography bullshit thread. I am downright amazed at what you can pay for a loving tripod.

Photography gear chat can kill photographic interest. But, you want audiophile level bullshit? Coffee nerds.

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KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


Jerry Cotton posted:

Audiophiles > Oenophiles > Beer nerds > IPA nerds > Pepper nerds. This is how I see it, so it's the absolute truth. People who pay 40000€ for some cables are down right crazy but people who have ever used the term scoville outside of academic conversation are deplorable scum. :tipshat::can: (I don't know where camera geeks fit in because I've happily not been subjected to camera geekery.)

See, I really like craft beers, and I don't think I'm nearly as bad as an audiophile.

I mean, hell, the most expensive beer you can buy is like 600 bucks a bottle, which is probably 1/100th the cost of the most expensive cable you can buy.

Also, most of the really expensive beers are expensive because they're limited runs or just really drat cool. Like a beer from SPACE or one that comes in a termidaxied squirrel.

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