Really nice video! It's very easy for folks interested in audio equipment to get sucked into all these tweaks and upgrades. I personally enjoy building my own equipment, so I don't mind experimenting, taking things apart and listening to what makes a difference and what doesn't. I know that you're talking more generally in this video about caution against tweak frenzy, I would say that as far as connectors go, my experience is they don't make a huge difference primarily because they contribute very little metal to the signal path. My own experiments taught me that each metal has a distinct audio signature, and the more of any particular metal you put in the signal path, more of that Tonal quality Will be imparted. For example I really enjoy the authoritative total quality of tungsten, but unfortunately you can't solder it.
once again, I am reminded that many people with audiophile related interests would be well served by a basic understanding of the tremendous subjectivity of human hearing. the ignorance is so rampant that some people post comments as though they think a double blind test is listening without vision identifying the equipment.
A while back in one of your videos you were selling some of your equipment. I was wondering what you were going to replace it with. I have a Conrad Johnson mv55 in my system which I use during the fall and winter seasons biamped driving the midrange and treble. I can't see myself living without it. The Premiere 11a that you have was class A rated in Stereophile's recommended components for a number of years. Conrad Johnson out did themselves in its performance and appearance. You can get something different but not better than the CJ, tube or solid state. I've heard newer amps that don't sound better yet were more expensive. This is also true of the smaller CJ mv55 that I have.
Steel connectors are a cheap alternative, use to maximize profit. Profit , profit. Steel magnetized with the passing of current so smeer sound, you being old , loss of hearing cannot detect such minimal differences of sound. You would be lucky if hearing 10khz fully at this age.
Measurements could be somewhat helpful here. At least one could see if there was any difference even if not an audible on to a particular listener. And yes, the psychological aspects of audio are massively underappreciated. Thanks!
@ 13:30 i can say from personal experience Lenny Kravitz CD Are you gonna go my way track Heaven Help was recorded with the abbey road tube mic pre and tracks of an empty room to create the silent spaces between the notes if you listen with the valencias you will hear the fingerprints move on the strings and if THAT isnt clarity then nothing is as close as being in the room while it is being played for the recording just sayin !!!!
Companies used and use steel connectors for the same reason they use iron-core inductors, electrolytic capacitors, and unbraced fiberboard cabinets for speakers---because they're cheap and they have a profit to margin to reach;--which is perfectly understandable. After all they're in business to make money.
I am not so stubborn. That if it looks better on a oscilloscope as is the example in the video. Yes I understand your scepticism "that you don't listening with the oscilloscope and are using your ears". Yes that is true. But maybe you can't pick out a very small improvement. Or knowing where in the frequency band or what to listening after and so on. Even if the oscilloscope show that a connector is or has better performance. Just that is proof enough! Multiply that visual improvement on not just one measured connection point in your system. Multiply the improvement for each and very connection throughout your system.. Maybe it is still not something that we maybe could detect by ear or in a fast A/B comparison. Maybe if we listening for weeks and switching back maybe we would find some difference. But a improvement is a improvement and probably with other improvements they may make that you hear something new that you never would have heard if you had not implemented improvement A first and that would mean that you now could hear a small improvement of tweeak B. In other words you lock your self to not begin able to advance in your HiFi evolution. You are stuck at the ground floor with that mind set. You see your arguments can bee used the other way around. That Yamaha, pioneer and what ever "sounds fine" with their steel connections. Who and what is "sounds fine" and to whom... It is EXACTLY the same as your story with the reference CD that you bought! To him it not just sounded good/fine it were excellent as it was his reference CD recordings! And you thought and in your opinion it were "garbage"! That is the same those Yamaha, pioneer and what ever "sounds fine" with steel connections, that blank statement could just be that they sound actually "garbage" in comparison! Nobody have that comparison like you easy could do in a static HiFi system that you know and put in a CD.. Yes everything "sounds fine" when you are temporarily at someone even a kitchen radio may sound just fine at times.. In other words you're fooling your self and precondition your own brain to have arguments against certain changes.. When the arguments could just as easily be flipped around.. I think like this.. I get grounded in proven engineering and physical properties of materials. Conductivity bras, steel, Copper, silver, gold.. How I go about it is copper has better conductivity than all of them except silver. But somewhere we need to draw a line.. So no bad gold, steel, brass and go for the better copper and silver if there is a specific application for it. Like I made my speaker wires in pure silver yes it were expensive but much more cheaper than buying ready made once and they are astronomical expensive if you go with silver ones.. (There is a reason why the manufactures come up with WHATEVER with their copper but not pure silver.. It is just to keep their cost down for materials and to pocket more money them self by not using the "best" materials. Instead they make up OFC, pure, 99.9999 pure, onto casting, silver plated and so on.. ..still copper..😂) Gold is still fine as a plating when it is not corroding and keep it clean the connection surfaces. Then we have eddy current keep the shunks of material (copper) as low as possible. Yes I shop around for the best constructions and materials. Another contradiction and stroking your brain is that the material steel "sounds fine" and then bladder about different brands just like that is somehow making it legitimate to use steel. That were back in the day and all of them has evolved and don't use that in the same extent today.. Then you go on that your component is heavier than the Macintosh component.. there and then you state "it has better components and materials".. You see how your brain work.. It uses the same argument to support your believes in one way. And the same argument is used that steel (material) don't matter in connections..😅 Materials counts! The differences is that one steel connection is not detected by ear but if you use copper connector, better materials throughout the component that makes it heavier as a consequence.. All of the COMPOUNDED benefits of each and one of them will at the end make a improvement that you can hear! So in summary every small component improvement in better materials will compound and will matter in the final sound quality that you will be able to hear. And if you think it is to expensive or to big trouble and effort to change for example components then as I said it is having a impact in your progress for sound quality improvement going forward.🎉❤
Obvioiusly it is written by AI. " one steel connection is not detected by ear but if you use copper connector, better materials throughout the component that makes it heavier as a consequence"
I agree what you say. "Better" is the most meaningless and constantly used word in audio vocabulary. Because it alows to devalue one gear while prize another It is possible to compare sounding of the same system in two alignments, EQs or placements - on e factor at time Then we may decide which one is better but it is almost never the case in selling where they compare totaly separate two products which conatan tens of unidetified differences say half to half better and worse (or there are not noticeable differences at all) and say that one is better which is nonsense. I enjoy my own construction speakers which produce for me "total sound". But they do not look as mighty as Nautilius and are much lighter and unusual. . I do not wait any opinions about them because I know how much they are worthy for me and no any visitor can change it. . Unfortunately any usual listener will judge them only by brand name , weight ,size and used materials. People are not experienced and not enough educated to understand audio reproduction. They would judge by look and degree of adequacy to something that they already prize . People do not understand much about resistance and only ask it to be "0" ohm. It is never to happen and has no sense on compare to 3dB tolerances for spakers which is equal to falsely added (for some harmonics) to cable 8 Ohms. Connectors resistance are in range below 0,01 Ohm .They accept with trust 800 times more difference than impact of steel connector and still complain about steel in connector?"
Steel is cheap, durable, and it works. Use what works for you. Happy with your sound already? Don't bother. Looking for more, sure, keep on tweaking and experimenting. Could end up being a psycho acoustic effect too. I have all copper contacts through the signal path, but other things probably matter more.
Being an electrical engineer and a music lover, I have to laugh. My father who was also an engineer told me time and again, if you can't say it with numbers, you're full of $hit. So question. How many microhenries does the steel add to the series inductance? How does it compare to the inductance in those amplifier output transformers, the inductance in your speaker crossover network and voice coils? How many decibels of high frequency dropoff does it cause and why can't I compensate if it matters with a slight boost to the treble or a nudge on a graphic equalizer? Same goes for the shunt capacitance of wires? I just laugh at all the stuff audiophiles say and do. Enjoy what you have and don't listen to these people. They don't have any real knowledge IMO.
Really nice video! It's very easy for folks interested in audio equipment to get sucked into all these tweaks and upgrades. I personally enjoy building my own equipment, so I don't mind experimenting, taking things apart and listening to what makes a difference and what doesn't. I know that you're talking more generally in this video about caution against tweak frenzy, I would say that as far as connectors go, my experience is they don't make a huge difference primarily because they contribute very little metal to the signal path. My own experiments taught me that each metal has a distinct audio signature, and the more of any particular metal you put in the signal path, more of that Tonal quality Will be imparted. For example I really enjoy the authoritative total quality of tungsten, but unfortunately you can't solder it.
Some people think that by using gold cable to supply their lamp then it could light brighter. It is nonsense to expect any noticeable difference.
once again, I am reminded that many people with audiophile related interests would be well served by a basic understanding of the tremendous subjectivity of human hearing. the ignorance is so rampant that some people post comments as though they think a double blind test is listening without vision identifying the equipment.
Deviating from the topic of your video, I am curious about the output tubes you are using in your primer 11. They don’t look like GE 6550’s
A while back in one of your videos you were selling some of your equipment. I was wondering what you were going to replace it with. I have a Conrad Johnson mv55 in my system which I use during the fall and winter seasons biamped driving the midrange and treble. I can't see myself living without it. The Premiere 11a that you have was class A rated in Stereophile's recommended components for a number of years. Conrad Johnson out did themselves in its performance and appearance. You can get something different but not better than the CJ, tube or solid state. I've heard newer amps that don't sound better yet were more expensive. This is also true of the smaller CJ mv55 that I have.
A bit heavy handed don’t you think? You’ve been cheated before? What are the connections in back of the CJ stuff?
Steel connectors are a cheap alternative, use to maximize profit. Profit , profit. Steel magnetized with the passing of current so smeer sound, you being old , loss of hearing cannot detect such minimal differences of sound. You would be lucky if hearing 10khz fully at this age.
Can’t wait for your Power cord discussion? 😂. Lamp cord?
did you make a video about your new super aperion tweeter ?
Measurements could be somewhat helpful here. At least one could see if there was any difference even if not an audible on to a particular listener. And yes, the psychological aspects of audio are massively underappreciated. Thanks!
Hi. Are you happy with the aperion super tweet? Is there a horn on the back?
@ 13:30 i can say from personal experience Lenny Kravitz CD Are you gonna go my way track Heaven Help was recorded with the abbey road tube mic pre and tracks of an empty room to create the silent spaces between the notes if you listen with the valencias you will hear the fingerprints move on the strings and if THAT isnt clarity then nothing is as close as being in the room while it is being played for the recording just sayin !!!!
Companies used and use steel connectors for the same reason they use iron-core inductors, electrolytic capacitors, and unbraced fiberboard cabinets for speakers---because they're cheap and they have a profit to margin to reach;--which is perfectly understandable. After all they're in business to make money.
Haha oxymoron!
I am not so stubborn.
That if it looks better on a oscilloscope as is the example in the video.
Yes I understand your scepticism "that you don't listening with the oscilloscope and are using your ears".
Yes that is true.
But maybe you can't pick out a very small improvement. Or knowing where in the frequency band or what to listening after and so on.
Even if the oscilloscope show that a connector is or has better performance.
Just that is proof enough!
Multiply that visual improvement on not just one measured connection point in your system. Multiply the improvement for each and very connection throughout your system..
Maybe it is still not something that we maybe could detect by ear or in a fast A/B comparison.
Maybe if we listening for weeks and switching back maybe we would find some difference.
But a improvement is a improvement and probably with other improvements they may make that you hear something new that you never would have heard if you had not implemented improvement A first and that would mean that you now could hear a small improvement of tweeak B.
In other words you lock your self to not begin able to advance in your HiFi evolution.
You are stuck at the ground floor with that mind set.
You see your arguments can bee used the other way around. That Yamaha, pioneer and what ever "sounds fine" with their steel connections.
Who and what is "sounds fine" and to whom...
It is EXACTLY the same as your story with the reference CD that you bought! To him it not just sounded good/fine it were excellent as it was his reference CD recordings!
And you thought and in your opinion it were "garbage"!
That is the same those Yamaha, pioneer and what ever "sounds fine" with steel connections, that blank statement could just be that they sound actually "garbage" in comparison!
Nobody have that comparison like you easy could do in a static HiFi system that you know and put in a CD..
Yes everything "sounds fine" when you are temporarily at someone even a kitchen radio may sound just fine at times..
In other words you're fooling your self and precondition your own brain to have arguments against certain changes.. When the arguments could just as easily be flipped around..
I think like this..
I get grounded in proven engineering and physical properties of materials.
Conductivity bras, steel, Copper, silver, gold..
How I go about it is copper has better conductivity than all of them except silver. But somewhere we need to draw a line.. So no bad gold, steel, brass and go for the better copper and silver if there is a specific application for it. Like I made my speaker wires in pure silver yes it were expensive but much more cheaper than buying ready made once and they are astronomical expensive if you go with silver ones.. (There is a reason why the manufactures come up with WHATEVER with their copper but not pure silver.. It is just to keep their cost down for materials and to pocket more money them self by not using the "best" materials. Instead they make up OFC, pure, 99.9999 pure, onto casting, silver plated and so on.. ..still copper..😂)
Gold is still fine as a plating when it is not corroding and keep it clean the connection surfaces.
Then we have eddy current keep the shunks of material (copper) as low as possible.
Yes I shop around for the best constructions and materials.
Another contradiction and stroking your brain is that the material steel "sounds fine" and then bladder about different brands just like that is somehow making it legitimate to use steel. That were back in the day and all of them has evolved and don't use that in the same extent today.. Then you go on that your component is heavier than the Macintosh component.. there and then you state "it has better components and materials"..
You see how your brain work.. It uses the same argument to support your believes in one way. And the same argument is used that steel (material) don't matter in connections..😅
Materials counts! The differences is that one steel connection is not detected by ear but if you use copper connector, better materials throughout the component that makes it heavier as a consequence..
All of the COMPOUNDED benefits of each and one of them will at the end make a improvement that you can hear!
So in summary every small component improvement in better materials will compound and will matter in the final sound quality that you will be able to hear.
And if you think it is to expensive or to big trouble and effort to change for example components then as I said it is having a impact in your progress for sound quality improvement going forward.🎉❤
Obvioiusly it is written by AI. " one steel connection is not detected by ear but if you use copper connector, better materials throughout the component that makes it heavier as a consequence"
@@MikexceptionOh, do you mean that he is a AI ?! 😅
👍🍺🔈🔊.... !
I agree what you say. "Better" is the most meaningless and constantly used word in audio vocabulary. Because it alows to devalue one gear while prize another It is possible to compare sounding of the same system in two alignments, EQs or placements - on e factor at time Then we may decide which one is better but it is almost never the case in selling where they compare totaly separate two products which conatan tens of unidetified differences say half to half better and worse (or there are not noticeable differences at all) and say that one is better which is nonsense.
I enjoy my own construction speakers which produce for me "total sound". But they do not look as mighty as Nautilius and are much lighter and unusual. . I do not wait any opinions about them because I know how much they are worthy for me and no any visitor can change it. . Unfortunately any usual listener will judge them only by brand name , weight ,size and used materials. People are not experienced and not enough educated to understand audio reproduction. They would judge by look and degree of adequacy to something that they already prize .
People do not understand much about resistance and only ask it to be "0" ohm. It is never to happen and has no sense on compare to 3dB tolerances for spakers which is equal to falsely added (for some harmonics) to cable 8 Ohms. Connectors resistance are in range below 0,01 Ohm .They accept with trust 800 times more difference than impact of steel connector and still complain about steel in connector?"
Steel is cheap, durable, and it works. Use what works for you. Happy with your sound already? Don't bother. Looking for more, sure, keep on tweaking and experimenting. Could end up being a psycho acoustic effect too. I have all copper contacts through the signal path, but other things probably matter more.
Better get your room acoustics fixed first...
Yes. He has a lot of echo in his listening room. Treating the room acoustics is at least 80 percent of the battle for great sound.
Being an electrical engineer and a music lover, I have to laugh. My father who was also an engineer told me time and again, if you can't say it with numbers, you're full of $hit. So question. How many microhenries does the steel add to the series inductance? How does it compare to the inductance in those amplifier output transformers, the inductance in your speaker crossover network and voice coils? How many decibels of high frequency dropoff does it cause and why can't I compensate if it matters with a slight boost to the treble or a nudge on a graphic equalizer? Same goes for the shunt capacitance of wires? I just laugh at all the stuff audiophiles say and do. Enjoy what you have and don't listen to these people. They don't have any real knowledge IMO.