Audio Interconnect Cables, Does Size Really Matter?

August 18, 2018

#270

Gentle reader,

By now, you are likely familiar with my passions which are also my hobbies: Great sounding music reproduction, classic cameras and photography, fun cars. There are more, but those make up the bulk of the 270 chapters I have presented to you, lo these many years. I have YOU to thank for my continuing to produce these blogs. Just the other day, page-views surpassed 175,000. Seems like 50,000 happened not so long ago. So, Thank You!

What we have here are two examples, and not EXTREME ones, of manufacturer's material choices for producing stereo interconnect cables. I say not extreme because there are some REALLY huge and frankly silly examples of cables which cost four or five figures PER METER and weigh a lot too. Why? The thin ones on the right carry the signal just fine. In fact, they sound pretty good. Cable companies have been making them roughly this way since the 1950's. OK, so they may not reject interference all that well, if you're not careful in your routing of these, you might pick up a 60 Hertz hum from power cords or cables. But they do what they are supposed to do.

I have gathered here photos of various cables from several manufacturers, all of which I have tried and most of which I have passed on to others when I found another brand, to me, sounded better.

There was a time when I had setup a six-channel system in addition to the stereo system in the listening room. Since SACDs only output in analog, I needed short cables from the SACD player to the home theater receiver. I do not remember the brand name of these. They are well made and have nice terminals on them. They are 18" long or about half a meter.

Next shown are Liberty Cable's Z-500 Series, their top-of-the-line cables. There was a seller on eBay that did home theater installations and upgrades. He was selling a large number of used, but excellent condition, audio cables as well as Liberty's analog video cables.

As I could afford them, I bought more and more so that I completely outfitted the stereo with these. Our home theater setup received them as well. These are very low capacitance so I still use a half-meter pair to hook my Denon turntable to my preamp. 

These are Liberty's Z-500 component video cables. Their capacitance is slightly higher, but they still make excellent audio cables. 

Below is one of their Coaxial Digital audio cables. I do not know what, if any, construction difference there is from analog cables.

I may be wrong about this, but is seems to me that masses of zeroes and ones streaming through this type of cable is NOT affected by radio and other audible interference. They're numbers! If I am incorrect, please let me know. I truly am curious.

While on the subject, Toslink or Optical digital audio cables are definitely not affected by that type of interference. In fact, I've used completely CLEAR Toslink cables and they transmitted that complicated multi-channel mass of numbers just fine. SO, if some sales person or web site touts all the many layers of shielding they put in their Toslink cables, save your money and buy elsewhere.

Now I'm going to show you some of Monster Cable's excellent interconnects that I continue to use.

They are both the same color of blue, just the flash was closer to the bottom photo, thus they appear lighter. Aside from them being THX Certified, I do not remember their name or model designation. But at least you know what they look like! (They are 800 series, I just remembered.)

Monster makes many levels of quality and price point cables for various uses, analog, digital, subwoofer and speaker cables. Often they number the series, starting with 100. 

Below are several examples.

Above are their THX I100 Series. Note the inexpensive grey plastic insulated terminals. 

Above are their Interlink 400 Mark II interconnect cables. Better quality by far than the 100s.

Above are ones that I think are made for car stereo applications. Note the signal directional arrows. Whether there is anything to that, I do not know.

Above are examples of their IDL 100 Digital Coaxial cable. Oddly, they did not use the standard orange collar color that most makers use to denote digital. Note these also have directional arrows.

These are their M350 interconnects. Note their thickness and very high quality terminals.

This is the final Monster Cable photo and they are more model 800s. These are the same type that I continue to use today and are the same as the initially pictured blue ones at the top of my Monster Cable showcase of cables photos.

I believe that these are Monoprice brand cables. Fairly well made. Note how they sleeved the pairs with heat-shrink tubing. There are those that swear by Monoprice products, so I thought I'd give them a try. Not great, but not bad either.

Below are Python brand cables. For lesser uses, such as the family room TV setup, these do just fine.

Here are ones which branded AR for Acoustic Research, once a vaunted brand of speaker manufacturers.

These are some no-name ones I came across and decided to give a try. I was unimpressed.

So, what prompted me to write about this now? I have done similar articles in the past and as some of my posts tend to do, it got tongues wagging on FaceBook audio groups. Opinions are like elbows, everyone has some.

Well, as you may know, I have a second stereo in this room which we dubbed our "office" when we bought this house. This room is across the hallway from the listening room. Both were designed as bedrooms, this a child's and the other the master. But previous owner's finished the lower level with a large bedroom which we have always used. Thus it too was a child's room.

I recently bought a Fisher cassette deck, a very nice looking one and as I am listening to it right now, a fine sounding one. I had rediscovered Radio Shack's then-top-of-the-line interconnect cables. I had used them in the past. By swapping these latest ones into this system between the Denon universal player and the Yamaha stereo receiver, I was instantly aware of a huge increase in the size and clarity of the soundstage. I mean, it was profound! 

Since then, I have been keeping an eye out for more of them on eBay and snatching them up. I outfitted the Denon to the 42" HDTV I use in here for racing simulations, not that I will watch a movie in my racing seat, but hey, now I can. I bought the Denon player to listen to CDs and SACDs, so was not concerned about video at all. Turns out the HDMI output does not work. Since DVDs are at most 720P, I have found that analog cables work fine. I found some of the same type Radio Shack cables for that purpose. 

Then, with this cassette deck, I wanted them for it too. Lo and behold, someone put a three foot pair on eBay and I snatched them up. They arrived today. Again, a profound difference in the sound. To have a cassette player sound SO good is very satisfying. So, with that long introduction, here are the comparison photos.

Above is an overhead view of the cables atop the deck.

Above is the introduction photo. Look at the differences in their sizes and terminal quality in this photo and below!

Above shows them in their new home.  

NOTE: See the "LINE OUT" and "LINE IN" on the deck at the very top/left of the photo? I used a paint marker, they have liquid paint in them and one can carefully paint things like raised letters with them. Cassette decks are notorious for having molded terminal markings left the same color as the plastic.

Above and below are the Denon player's connections.

Excellent quality terminals.

Fat rubber things above are ferrule collars. Makers put them on various cables near to where they will connect to a device. They further block radio and other electronic interference.  If you did not know that, now you do.

Now, there are times when circumstances preclude one from using high quality (read thick terminals) such as is shown below on my Dynaco PAT-5 preamplifier which is from the 1970's. To my knowledge, please tell me if I am incorrect, no one made cables such as I have shown you back then. I have been told there were good cables, but no photos have been provided by the tellers. All the cables I remember using in the early days were as shown below or even more basic than these.

As you can see, Dynaco spaced the RCA terminals closely, so no thick terminals can be used. That was OK, since I was recreating my first stereo from 1976 and these are similar to what was available back then.  

A couple of bonus photographs for you. The last time I was in my local Radio Shack, this was the brand of good cables they were selling:

Note the orange collars which I mentioned previously. Below is a photo of a number of cables which were replaced by TWO HDMI cables:  

So, there are definite advantages to digital verses analog at least as far as home theater.  
MORE Bonus photos! Below shows how I have managed cable installations. These are over several years and different brands of cables and components. 

From three years ago, still mostly blue Liberty Cables with some grey Monster Cables as well. Note how I keep the AC Power cables and cords separate from the signal cables.

A few months later, I upgraded to Monster's 800 series. The speaker cables on the wall are also Monster's: M-Series.

Two years later (2017) all but one pair of Liberty cables are gone, Monster 800s have taken over. One pair of speaker cables (black ones) are Monster's Z-Series. The braided ones are BLE-Designs. A seller on eBay hand braids and builds them. I went with the cheap cables for the cassette deck. I was using thicker ones before. You'll see why below.

A couple of weeks later, I tried going retro and simple, only having what I did forty years earlier: Turntable, cassette deck, preamp and power amp. All the cables at the bottom are what was left over. Oh, and a tall stack of components. No digital equipment then! Technically, I'm not sure how far along cassette decks were. But that JVC is my 3-head favorite. Those two ADCOM units are ACE-515 power conditioners.

Experiment over, I decided to use both turntables but since my preamp only had one phono input, I had to unplug/plug each time, what a PITA. (Pain In The Ass.) I later incorporated an audio/video switch. They are cheap and plentiful and I noticed no difference in sonic quality using it.

As you can see, this is what the system looks like now. It is quite different. Top row is all Panor-era Dynaco equipment: ST-200 power amplifier, QD-2 (update of 1970's Dynaquad) and PAT-6 preamp/tuner. Middle row OPPO universal player atop TDK CD recorder and Nakamichi CD changer. Bottom row is the two Adcom conditioners, stacked and the JVC 3-head cassette deck.

Bottom speakers are Klipsch KG4s.  Top are the Advent Baby Advent II models that I restomodded. Not seen are two Dynaco A25XLs that serve as the surround channels with the Advents and through the QD-2.

Now, to answer the question: Does size matter. I don't know. Does the extra layers of shielding help? Probably. Does the better quality and thicker conductors help? Undoubtedly. 
Are the extra expense of name-brand cables verses generic-made-in-China versions worth it? In my considered opinion, absolutely. Do I recommend paying three or even four figures for cables? If you can afford it, go ahead. I cannot. I prefer to buy them "previously enjoyed". And if there is anything to "burning in" cables, well, then the used ones are already burned it.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read my words and view my photographs. I truly appreciate your kind comments and take your criticisms as being your opinion. To which you are entitled. I am not an expert at anything. I can only write from my testing and experiences of over forty years in this hobby. 

Scott
August 18, 2018
#270  

 

Who Knew Fisher Made a 100 WPC Integrated Amp, Tuner and Cassette Deck Combo?

August 13, 2018

#269

Gentle reader,

I have been looking for a cassette deck to add to my "office" stereo. Of course, I wanted to spend as little as possible, would prefer black and if possible have meters instead of LEDs.

You know how eBay shows comparable items below what you just looked at? Well, this:

Fisher Stereo Cassette Deck Model CR-7000 | eBay showed on one page. So I looked at it. I did not like that it was not tested and reading the seller's reason why, "..I don't have speakers..." was a red flag. But, since Fisher had made that interesting unit (it has handles!) I looked around at other Fishers. Another seller had the one above for $30.00 OBO. The shipping was reasonable and it had been fully tested. I offered him $25.00 and he accepted it.

He showed it as part of a stack, power amp on the bottom, tuner in the middle and this on the top. The photos were poorly lit and so I did not notice, and he did not disclose, that it needed to be plugged into a similar Fisher amp in order to actually work.

It arrived today but when I saw the thinness of the box, I became concerned. NO bubble wrapping of the unit. Just some space-filling air-pillows and crumpled paper to keep it from sliding around! But, Fisher's build quality and no USPS personnel having dropped it, it looked undamaged. As I removed it from the box began to look it over, I liked what I saw. That is until I saw the short power cord with a round plug with one spade terminal and one round. WTH?

AC 19 volts? Who uses that? I began researching it since the model numbers on the amp and tuner were not visible and saw some better photos on line.

Here are two photos I found of the amplifier and tuner, they are not my photos. 

FM-600 is the tuner and CA-800 is the integrated amplifier.

I have a container of "wall warts" AC transformers which I have saved from various failed electronics over many years. I label them with their voltage output and A or D for their current output. Closest I had was the one shown in the top photo. Actual unloaded output was 16.87 VAC. So, I used jumpers to the cord's plug, pressed POWER and the meters lit up. Put in a tape, pressed the various buttons, fast forward, rewind and play all worked and the meters were moving. Headphones confirmed that the speed was correct.

You can see the meters in action above.

With that confirmed, I cut the cord's plug off, leaving a few inches on it in case I decided to buy the amp and tuner in the future. Then, I stripped and soldered the two cords together, using heat-shrink tubing to keep things safe.

It has solenoid controls, the door is  supposed to power open, but does not. It seems that the removable door is sticking. At first, I thought auto-stop does not work, but it does work, just takes a couple seconds for this old deck to react. I suspect it may have light bulbs that allow one to see the meter's needles moving, but I have not opened it up. Yet. 

I go back and forth as to whether isolation feet actually DO anything to improve the sound of the music. I have tried rubber feet that I have found at work in the past. Since I did not want the receiver to have any overheating problems with the deck above it, I used a combination of two different types of feet which raise it an inch and a half. The "feet" it came with are nothing but rubber rings glued to the bottom of it.

I have owned more than a dozen cassette decks, and the JVC in the listening room is a three-head unit. If you are one that thinks cassettes are worthless, then perhaps you have not listened to a good deck. 
This one, while only two heads, is very good. It sounds amazing. Since I determined those KnuKonceptz or whatever they are called, cables are holding back some of the music, all that I had left were some of the generic thin RCA cables that they have been cranking out for decades. No complaints as to their sound. I HAD to use them with my  recreation of my original 1976 stereo that I compiled last year. The final (of four) chapter can be seen here:
FINAL CHAPTER: Reliving the 1976 sound of Dynaco PAT-5 preamplifier and SWTPC power amplifier!  Since the Dynaco PAT-5, like most components back then, had very tight spacing of their RCA terminals.

I was just looking through my ORION BLUE BOOK AUDIO 2002 to see if the cassette, amplifier or tuner are listed they are not. But there seem to be hundreds of "Systems" that Fisher made, some cost four figures in the early 1980's and since I do not know what this combination was called, I can find no more information on the three of them, except that the amplifier put out 100 WPC. 

BONUS PHOTOS! Also, not mine, of the CA-800 amplifier:

As I have been sitting here writing this, I have REALLY been enjoying how good this cassette deck sounds! A believe me, I WANT the other two parts of this combination!   

Thank you once again, for taking the time to read my humble blog. Your kind words are what keeps me cranking them out. I do not have, not want, a "smart" phone. Hip people use flip phones. That's not fake news. I certainly have digital cameras that can make HD videos, I just have never tried. Plus, there are SO many people on YouTube now, I'm afraid my efforts would be lost.

Scott
August 13, 2018
#269  

PS I just looked at a preview of this prior to publishing, I do not understand why some of the lines are black and some are grey. Does it appear that way to you? Please let me know. OH, as noted above, I only have seen my blog on my own PC. No "Devices" for this old dog.