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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.
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# ? Jul 7, 2013 14:46 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 13:12 |
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KillHour posted:Anybody want a 1M RCA cable for 1700 euros? 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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 02:08 |
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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. 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
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 03:47 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 05:37 |
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It don't have to have moving parts to be a piece of poo poo.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 05:41 |
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"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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 07:06 |
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Jerry Cotton posted:the most popular opinion on the Internet ever... "Just get an SL-1200 Mk II" For a reason.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 07:53 |
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Ron Burgundy posted:For a reason. 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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 08:00 |
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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 )
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 10:43 |
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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. 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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 13:44 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 14:47 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 15:15 |
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If we want to go full-goon about cables: Just buy a soldering iron and make your own, guh.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 15:16 |
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:If we want to go full-goon about cables: Just buy a soldering iron and make your own, guh. 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 |
# ? Jul 8, 2013 15:33 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 15:39 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 16:03 |
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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.)
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 17:13 |
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I seem to have just ammassed dozens of RCA cables from somewhere over the years, I don't even remember buying any of them.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 23:16 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 8, 2013 23:24 |
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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
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# ? Jul 9, 2013 21:51 |
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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 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.
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# ? Jul 9, 2013 22:07 |
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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?
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# ? Jul 9, 2013 22:53 |
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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. 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 .
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# ? Jul 9, 2013 23:33 |
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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
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# ? Jul 9, 2013 23:55 |
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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. Pretty much. When you get to see what studios like Abbey Road use (and their engineers are very particular) you can very confidently discount this horrible shite.
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# ? Jul 10, 2013 00:09 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 10, 2013 02:10 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 10, 2013 03:26 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 10, 2013 14:28 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 10, 2013 21:13 |
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Jerry Cotton posted:
This works with wine too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlg3H1StHpQ
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 05:05 |
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Well, yes. Is there a Ridicule winophiles thread by the way?
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 06:23 |
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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?
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 19:37 |
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Jerry Cotton posted:Well, yes. Is there a Ridicule winophiles thread by the way? Oenophiles There totally should be, I've always been curious about just how much of that stuff is bullshit.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 19:42 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 20:27 |
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Mammal Sauce posted:Oenophiles 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.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 21:28 |
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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. (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 |
# ? Jul 11, 2013 21:35 |
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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. (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.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 21:51 |
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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.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 22:36 |
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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. Photography gear chat can kill photographic interest. But, you want audiophile level bullshit? Coffee nerds.
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# ? Jul 11, 2013 23:04 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 13:12 |
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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. (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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# ? Jul 12, 2013 00:50 |