better audio quality

[Ian]

I bought some new speakers last year & they were bundled with some 'free' QED cables which retail at £100. They're 2m long.
For years I've used some decent no name cable bought on a 50m real from Farnell so I was interested to try these.
Sounded exactly the same to me.
I envy those people who can hear such differences.

 

[waldo]

My old fashioned rule is and was: weights for dd, clamps for belt driven devices.

And it seems I didn't even know the difference... oh well.

 

[Jls]

I bought a record weight and anti static record brush at the weekend and Amazon sent me a king sized mattress protector and a fitted sheet
Replacement out for delivery wonder what’s going to come

What do you think about the grounding/shielding/floating? WiiM doesn't seem to specify which (not) to use ...

I think I would try turning up the volume with nothing playing and see if you hear any noise. Personally, before I rewired a house, I’d get a first rate wireless router.

 

[waldo]

I bought some new speakers last year & they were bundled with some 'free' QED cables which retail at £100. They're 2m long.
For years I've used some decent no name cable bought on a 50m real from Farnell so I was interested to try these.
Sounded exactly the same to me.
I envy those people who can hear such differences.

I replaced some aging (green corrosion underneath pvc) 16 awg speaker cables with 12 awg (same OFC spec, same length, same fly-by-night brand) simply because the latter were somehow on sale, and tho' I had no expectations there'd be any difference, the thicker gauge seems to have opened up the lower frequencies, maybe the voltage from my power amp is being accommodated "better"? I don't know, but it did result is an audible benefit even to my old ears.

If I were really going to spend any money on this hobby, I'd be hanging out on the audiophile speaker forums, as what I have are by most standards, crap.

 

[slartibartfast]

I bought some new speakers last year & they were bundled with some 'free' QED cables which retail at £100. They're 2m long.
For years I've used some decent no name cable bought on a 50m real from Farnell so I was interested to try these.
Sounded exactly the same to me.
I envy those people who can hear such differences.

RS 56 Strand used to be recommended by the HiFi mags. None of your OFC back then

 

[waldo]

I think I would try turning up the volume with nothing playing and see if you hear any noise. Personally, before I rewired a house, I’d get a first rate wireless router.

Coincidentally, I -have- done that, volume to the max, zero noise. Can't even tell if the system is on .... dangerous for my speakers should I forget.

 

[waldo]

I bought a record weight and anti static record brush at the weekend and Amazon sent me a king sized mattress protector and a fitted sheet
Replacement out for delivery wonder what’s going to come

See, Amazon AI already knows that your system is going to sound so much better, you might wet yourself!!

 

[Skull]

See, Amazon AI already knows that your system is going to sound so much better, you might wet yourself!!

Unfortunately for me they sent a super king sized one and I have a double

 

[Skull]

Or may be they send you a Mistress instead of the mattrass.

They got it right this time

 

[Ian]

RS 56 Strand used to be recommended by the HiFi mags. None of your OFC back then

I think QED 79 strand was the thing? I always purge the oxygen from my cables anyway.

 

[markitect]

I bought some new speakers last year & they were bundled with some 'free' QED cables which retail at £100. They're 2m long.
For years I've used some decent no name cable bought on a 50m real from Farnell so I was interested to try these.
Sounded exactly the same to me.
I envy those people who can hear such differences.

Usually those are just volume differences. If you volume match, they sound exactly the same. I did copper and silver and those sounds the same. The only difference when it comes to analog in my opinion is whether you use RCA or Balanced XLR.

 

[slartibartfast]

I think QED 79 strand was the thing? I always purge the oxygen from my cables anyway.

56 Strand was a general purpose 4mm2 hook up wire you would twist into pairs. QED 79 strand is 2.5 mm2 so not as good as the RS cable but easier to handle. I still use QED 79 Strand. Thinking back I should have nicked some of the RS cable from work, we used miles of it . I did borrow some Litz wire at some point but never got around to trying it
The RS cable is still available

RS PRO Red 4 mm² Hook Up Wire, 11 AWG, 56/0.3 mm, 25m, PVC Insulation | RS

uk.rs-online.com

 

[bsacco335]

What did you measure from your power outlet that indicated you needed this? (Not arguing, just curious ....)

I'm a musician, so I have a bunch of Pro-AUdio gear and I know Furman products on the pro-audio side of things. I know the power to my house is not the greatest. Lots of noise. So the improvement I claim is that adding this unit to my high-end gear reduced the noise floor thus making the audio sound better. So, That's why. You can read this but the only way to really know is buy one and test it at your location. Either it sounds better or it doesn't. That's how I measure.

 

[waldo]

.... I know the power to my house is not the greatest. Lots of noise...

I asked because I wondered how one might test the power supply from the wall outlet, and what to look for, what thresholds to apply. I am unable to hear any noise or distortion from my stereo system itself, but everything is plugged into a couple of decent surge protectors.

 

[audiobliss]

I asked because I wondered how one might test the power supply from the wall outlet, and what to look for, what thresholds to apply. I am unable to hear any noise or distortion from my stereo system itself, but everything is plugged into a couple of decent surge protectors.

Get one of these from Amazon, easy to use, just plug it in your outlets and it will show you the noise level. You can even plug it into the power supply your equipment is in and see which piece is causing the most noise by the process of elimination.

 

[Mr Ee]

I built myself one of these

 

[jed1]

Usually those are just volume differences. If you volume match, they sound exactly the same. I did copper and silver and those sounds the same. The only difference when it comes to analog in my opinion is whether you use RCA or Balanced XLR.

For XLR balanced cable, starquad type cable is superior to regular balanced cable. Starquad geometry sends signal over 4 wires (A pair of twist wires for plus, A pair of twist wires for negative, 1 shield). I have used them for proaudio installation and its noise rejection performance is pretty good. Splicing and soldering are a bit hassle compared to regular types.

Canare starquad is my choice.

 

[MCG555]

Get one of these from Amazon, easy to use, just plug it in your outlets and it will show you the noise level. You can even plug it into the power supply your equipment is in and see which piece is causing the most noise by the process of elimination.

Expensiv!
Also this seems only useful for „Frequenzbereich 10 KHz - 10 MHz“
And if you want to effectively filter current afterwards itˋs getting really expensiv!