Interconnects and Cables (Taken from 50% Off All QED Signature Interconnect Cables!)

[dfour]

REPLICATED BY ZAK33 ON 24 MAY 2010 FROM THE BARGAIN THREAD BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME VERY GOOD POINTS TO BE RAISED.. AND NAILED... IN THIS BUT THAT HAVE NO CONNECTION TO BARGAINS!

For one week only, you can make a massive saving on selected QED Signature range interconnect cables by using a special voucher code which is valid only until next Thursday May 27th. Act fast to take full advantage of this excellent deal.

http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/d...on/browse.html

1. Choose Your Cable
Pick your interconnect cable and add to your basket:

2. Check Out and Enter Your Voucher Code
Just check you have the cable in your basket and then enter the voucher code may350a in the field and proceed to payment.

3. Proceed to Payment
Your basket will then be adjusted to deduct half price off the chosen cables.

Terms and Conditions.
Maximum 5 cables per customer. This voucher is only valid until Thursday May 27th 2010.

[dfour]

dammit i just ordered the sub cable

[SiM]

dammit i just ordered the sub cable

Well even though £40 for a cable is still crazy (given that there will be no audible improvement), at least it's not £100+ like some suckers pay

[lawrywild]

given that there will be no audible improvement

Depends on what was there before, and what type of signal it's carrying.

Still, I'd rather make my own with Mogami 2893...

[Rave]

Read and learn.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A useful article on how to make your own interconnects:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...wn-cables.html

[finlay666]

I'm looking at making my own cables from CAT5 cables saw a useful guide
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/cat5questions_e.html

Got a 20m cable lying about so thought I would give it a shot

[Rave]

For analogue video, a half decent cable is worth buying. For analogue audio, it's just not. For digital audio and video it's not worth worrying about unless you get obvious dropouts in the signal (which shouldn't happen with cable runs of <5m).

So don't waste your money!

[dfour]

I make my own power cables and have made the cat5 speaker cables that I used for years.

@Rave your saying that analogue sound interconnects are a waste of money is rubbish. I had several of differing styles and cost sitting around and did sound runs and found they all sounded different to each other. I agree that didgital interconnects are in general all the same especially HDMI cables. I have a £5 and a £50 one and can notice no difference between either.

Please do not turn this into a is it bull**** or not debate this is a thread for a bargain if your interested. You have your own thread please leave your opinions on there.

Anyway if it makes no discernable difference to my rig I will just make my money back on ebay

[watercooled]

For analogue video, a half decent cable is worth buying. For analogue audio, it's just not. For digital audio and video it's not worth worrying about unless you get obvious dropouts in the signal (which shouldn't happen with cable runs of <5m).

So don't waste your money!

+1, expensive digital cables are a 100% scam - a £3 will produce exactly the same image as a £200 cable unless as rave said you get dropouts - you'd be a fool to buy an expensive cable knowing this since the offer NO advantage whatsoever. It's different with analogue cables where you can lose quality with poor quality cables but TBH the expensive ones are again a complete rip off unless perhaps you have a super high-end hifi or something where you might actually be able to notice a very slight difference. I'm not having a go or anything, just trying to stop people completely wasting their money.

[Rave]

@Rave your saying that analogue sound interconnects are a waste of money is rubbish. I had several of differing styles and cost sitting around and did sound runs and found they all sounded different to each other.

Were these blind ABX tests? If so, please detail your methodology.

Was it as careful, as, say, this?

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...s-12-2004.html

Alright, so it's power cables being tested here, but still, fast forward to the end, 49% of the time they got it right. Which is almost exactly what you'd expect if there was no difference between the cables.

In the thread I linked to there were several other examples of double blind ABX tests of various cables proving that there was no statistical difference in tests. It's an old thread, and I daresay many of the links are dead now. But neither physics or human hearing have improved markedly in the last 6 years.

Please do not turn this into a is it bull**** or not debate this is a thread for a bargain if your interested. You have your own thread please leave your opinions on there.

This is a discussion forum. As far as I know, there is no rule that says that we may not discuss whether a posted deal is a bargain or not. Let's say you found a SuperStudForce Ati 5850 for £300. That may well be the cheapest price for the SSF 5850. But if another retailer is offering the functionally identical GenericCheapoBrand 5850 for £220, is that not worthy of mention?

My argument, backed up by ample scientific evidence and numerous published blind ABX tests, is that there's no audible difference between these costly QED cables and the ones that came in the box with your hifi seperates. So let me rephrase my contribution to this thread- yes, these QED cables are cheap, for QED cables. But any potential audio cable purchasers would get a better bargain by going to Poundland and buying a perfectly good cable for one pound sterling. Or if they can't even be bothered to leave the house:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1x-Lead-Red-Wh...item518c3068d2

Anyway if it makes no discernable difference to my rig I will just make my money back on ebay

Yeah, or alternatively, you could just not bother in the first place, saving considerable time and effort.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you want to talk about rip-offs many loudspeakers themselves are overpriced. Basically many have relatively cheap drive units and TBH it would not surprise me if more money was spent on the aesthetics of the cabinets (not necessarily cabinet improvements which improve the sound quality of the speakers).

Anyway if you want to pay for better looking components then fair enough as appearance also plays a part in how many people appreciate their hifi.

[Rave]

If you want to talk about rip-offs many loudspeakers themselves are overpriced. Basically many have relatively cheap drive units and TBH it would not surprise me if more money was spent on the aesthetics of the cabinets.

So what? It's easy to scientifically test the properties of loudspeakers. If a certain brand spends more on the marketing and appearance of their speakers than the sound quality, then that's easy to discern with both critical blind listening and scientific tests. I'm largely deaf in one ear, and I can easily tell the difference between different speakers. And that's because, by and large, there is a real difference.

Whereas with Audio cables, there is not.

Anyway if you want to pay for better looking components then fair enough as appearance also plays a part in how many people appreciate their hifi.

Fine. But these cables are not marketed as 'looking nice', they are marketed as improving the sound. My PC is housed in a cheap-ish Akasa case which is well made, works fine, and looks plain. Others may choose to build their PC in an expensive case like a Lian-Li. That's fine. But in this instance, it's about the appearance. If someone turned up on this forum running an identically specced PC to mine, apart from the fact that his was housed in a Lian-Li, and claimed that as a result he could, say, batch process RAW files to JPEG faster than me, he'd be laughed out of town as a chronic spaz-tard.

But if that same person turned up with an identical hi-fi to mine, except he's spent hundreds on cables and I hadn't, there'd be people queuing up to claim they could hear the difference. But in a double blind test, they couldn't.

I've done this before, so I'll do it again. Anyone who thinks they can genuinely tell the difference between audiophile grade cables and cheapo ones of my choosing is welcome to a blind test, conducted by 2 third parties under agreed rules. If you score 8/10 correct, I'll give you £1000. If you lose, you give £500 to a charity of my choice, most probably SightSavers.

Now losing £1000 would be a big blow to me, but I don't expect to lose.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So what? It's easy to scientifically test the properties of loudspeakers. If a certain brand spends more on the marketing and appearance of their speakers than the sound quality, then that's easy to discern with both critical blind listening and scientific tests. I'm largely deaf in one ear, and I can easily tell the difference between different speakers. And that's because, by and large, there is a real difference.

Whereas with Audio cables, there is not.

Appearance sways peoples perception of things. If anything the design of many modern speakers have been influenced by aesthetics quite a bit over the last 30 years. Many people are not going to do blind tests when they buy hifi components in a shop or are able to keep their objectivity independent of appearance.

Fine. But these cables are not marketed as 'looking nice', they are marketed as improving the sound. My PC is housed in a cheap-ish Akasa case which is well made, works fine, and looks plain. Others may choose to build their PC in an expensive case like a Lian-Li. That's fine. But in this instance, it's about the appearance. If someone turned up on this forum running an identically specced PC to mine, apart from the fact that his was housed in a Lian-Li, and claimed that as a result he could, say, batch process RAW files to JPEG faster than me, he'd be laughed out of town as a chronic spaz-tard.

But if that same person turned up with an identical hi-fi to mine, except he's spent hundreds on cables and I hadn't, there'd be people queuing up to claim they could hear the difference. But in a double blind test, they couldn't.

I've done this before, so I'll do it again. Anyone who thinks they can genuinely tell the difference between audiophile grade cables and cheapo ones of my choosing is welcome to a blind test, conducted by 2 third parties under agreed rules. If you score 8/10 correct, I'll give you £1000. If you lose, you give £500 to a charity of my choice, most probably SightSavers.

Now losing £1000 would be a big blow to me, but I don't expect to lose.

Why are you ranting at ME?

Anyway this is all derailing the OPs thread which is not polite.

[Rave]

Appearance sways peoples perception of things. If anything the design of many modern speakers have been influenced by aesthetics quite a bit over the last 30 years. Many people are not going to do blind tests when they buy hifi components in a shop or are able to keep their objectivity independent of appearance.

More fool them.

Why are you ranting at ME?

Because you appear to think it's fine to flog a £50 quid cable that's no better at its intended use than a £1 cable?

I mean, one of their £80, sorry, £40 cables is marketed as a subwoofer cable. So it needs to carry audio signals of <1KHz. Frankly, I'd up the stakes to £10k if anyone can tell the difference between that and a coathanger wrapped in kitchen towel and tinfoil. FFS.

Anyway this is all derailing the OPs thread which is not polite.

Not polite? So what? I personally think that encouraging people to spend good money on products that are effectively worthless is not ethical. Audiophile cables are a scam. If someone turned up here pointing out a link to half price penis enlargement pills, they'd be reported, and rightly so, because even at half price, they're worthless.

TBH, if these QED cables were 95% off, I would merely have commented that they're probably a good deal in terms of build quality, but would make no difference to sound. But as it is, we're talking about between £35 and £90 for something which will transmit signals in the 20Hz-20Khz range (at normal audio voltages) so similarly to a £1 cable from Poundland that you'd need extremely sensitive test gear to tell the difference. Your own ears don't stand a chance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

More fool them.

This is not restricted to hifi but even to computers - Apple anyone?

Because you appear to think it's fine to flog a £50 quid cable that's no better at its intended use than a £1 cable?

If you cannot bother to do your research then that is your problem. It is a marketing driven society so what do you expect? Look at the stupid amounts of personal debt people have got themselves into then.

Not polite? So what? I personally think that encouraging people to spend good money on products that are effectively worthless is not ethical. Audiophile cables are a scam. If someone turned up here pointing out a link to half price penis enlargement pills, they'd be reported, and rightly so, because even at half price, they're worthless.

TBH, if these QED cables were 95% off, I would merely have commented that they're probably a good deal in terms of build quality, but would make no difference to sound. But as it is, we're talking about between £35 and £90 for something which will transmit signals in the 20Hz-20Khz range (at normal audio voltages) so similarly to a £1 cable from Poundland that you'd need extremely sensitive test gear to tell the difference. Your own ears don't stand a chance.

You linked to a thread which summarised your feelings on the matter.

However since you did not get the response you wished now you are whinging about it.