ugdalf,
Yes, but the VAT is by design a one way collection, so be aware of that. Audition is free but the VAT is an experience fee most of the time.
Check with Bob Howard as he kind of knows which places make that tax permanent on the exchange.
Best,
Galen
Galen is a gamer?! I did not see that coming.
Oh yes!
I killed all the Valkaries in God of WAR except the LAST one, ARGH. I could not kill the QUEEN. I get face stomped into oblivion near the 2/3 done stage.
Been gaming since the original DOOM was out. Did OK in DOOM Eternal. I made it through the third hardness and got stuck at the second part of the ending AGAIN! I can’t squeek by the final in some games.
Getting waxed badly on easy in XCOM2 right now.
Let’s say I PLAY games, but I’m not good enough the be a real “gamer”.
Best,
Galen
tnx for the info… and try Elden Ring. It won’t take hours to die there.
Ralf
Ummmmm…how about Dark Souls III? UGH. My step son can get through those two games.
Best,
Galen
also very challenging…
wow…having a stepdad who knows DS is cool, but one who plays himself is subzero 
btw love gaming scores.This genre often does not take second place to a movie soundtrack.
Ralf
Yes, I bought the NIER AUTOMATA sound track! I gave up my “game” at the end.
I noticed your emoji, I also have a VW GTI, Nancy drives drives a GOLF Wolfsburgh. We had a light blue super beetle in the day and two Jetta’s, again a GLI 16V sport model and a GL version.
Best,
Galen
there’s a nice live concert on yt
regarding cars…So Volkswagen is part for a long time in your live. Could be worse and speaks for your dealer. We are currently looking for a classic beetle cabriolet or an Samba Bus. Just love the sound and slowness of those days.
Faster? for decades we are loyal customer to Lotus. Always a hell of a drive.
regarding cables… i have a simple high quality system.
Just an integrated amp (MolaMola Kula) a transport (Project rs2t) and a two way speaker system (Finkteam Borg). Now is the time for matching cables.
Best
Ralf
Did you give-up your life at the end? That game was rather emotional once you got through it all. So unique approach to a video game.
I gave-up on speed after racing motorcycles, and bought a comfortable PANAMERA 4 to cruise around in on vacations. Super light vehicles are just SO, SO much more immediate than heavier ones.
Good cables can go all the way through all your systems. Get what YOU enjoy…no one else.
Best,
Galen
“He concisely show that the test resolution isn’t good enough.”
I discovered you thru the ASR review today. I think you might have an explanation for why there are differences in how cables sound. These are differences I hear as well. The author of the review seems to think he has proved there are no differences in cables yet again by incorporating his new NULL tests into the review and publishing those results. What would you consider to be enough test resolution for these NULL tests (or any tests) to actually find differences? How far off is he? I’m also wondering if you have done the double blind studies he keeps screaming from the rooftops about too. Thanks
Hello Mike and welcome to the group!
Galen has explained the design and chemistry of the Iconoclast cables in great detail if you search back thru this thread or look at the white papers he has available over at the Belden / Iconoclast site. He has also stated very clearly why the cables should sound better than lamp cord or similar products (although I dont understand much of it).
As to being able to measure the differences that the organic machine we call a human being hears it is common knowledge that no instrument or test is currently available that can measure these differences that we hear.
It is not really worth beating that dead horse again here just to give the flat earthers some unneeded air time.
They do offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you would like to give them a try in your system.
Vern
Hi Mike,
The test we do are “correct” and ASR isn’t in error as I do the same tests. He doesn’t do open-short impedance on cable to show how badly the audio cables inteface to a speaker actually is, both of which are terribly mismatches at all frequencies. I do provide that info even though it looks pretty bad…but it is the truth and I’m stuck with the same physics too. Still, I show it like it is good or bad.
Analog is an addative distortion. Once we change it, it can’t go backwards like we can with digital. Making cable as close to ideal with what we know is going also going to bring those unknowns we aren’t measuring closer to an ideal neutral state. Notice I said CLOSER. All cables has L and C, always.
We have to consider the R, L and C fundamentals and all items we do know are important so I am not subtracting from proper current tests. Again, I use all the same tests to push to better electrical state in ICONOCLAST.
Music is dynamic, and a reactive dynamic network that is VERY mismatched to each other is an engineer’s nightmare as to what is really happening in the amp/cable/speaker interface. The L and C moves voltage and current in TIME and thus alters the input signal that appears at the end of the network. It has to happen or physics is broken. We need to figure out how to measure that.
There is indeed an electrical difference between every amp/cable and speaker. They all are reactive networks so ICONOCLAST can sound better or even worse to people based on what the final reactive outcome is. This is why we suggest auditions. I have heard a range of changes with speaker cables in various systems. Some smaller, some amazingly large. Not the same networks in play.
As far as, “does that small spec matter?” question. My answer to that is it ALL matters in analog. If we can improve tertiary (those seemingly not important things) while improving the big ones like bulk R, L and C we should if the objective is to make a cable closer to “perfect”. Otherwise not so much, consider just the cost.
The superposition of a complex network over TIME is a DISTORTION added by reactance. We KNOW for a fact changing that network alters to final outcome.
Like a mentioned earlier, the more and more that we can test RIGHT, the closer and closer I can tell my VW GTI from a PORSCHE Panamera 4 without driving the two. We are not making enough proper tests to differentiate cable networks yet. Notice I said cable NETWORKS. The amp and speaker are in there, we can’t really pull out the cable since we don’t listen to just the cable.
So far we know for a fact that changing the R, L and C will change the EM wave, and thus the sound. We still can’t SHOW that change we know is there. The alternative is to say L and C don’t matter in an analog system. But…L and C ARE what DEFINE an analog system.
Research ZOBEL networks. These counter reactance with essentially equal (in theory) an opposite reactances to dampen the mismatch in a network of amp/cable/speakers. Yes, the total bulk load does impact what we can measure (course total reactance values) and hear (we seem to hear better than what we can measure).
So I am not at all discounting the standard tests we all do, as does ASR. But common sense suggest we aren’t able to show differences the physics demands is indeed there. If you want to compare really better cables with no “magic” give them a try against more standard designs. ICONOCLAST is there to support the comparison at no cost to you. The cable’s are are explained as to how and why they work to ASR’s basic tests…and they prove just that, they are proper made cables to the test we currently can do.
ASR isn’t the problem. The problem is what ASR can not show that we know has to be shown based on the physics…someday. Some, like ASR, ignore our measurement shortcomings. I don’t. ICONOCLAST cable push the specs as far as I can to provide a true “difference” for at least your system to use and see what happens compared to less ideal cables.
Do remain skeptical of cable that has no basis in true and current testing. Cable that warps L and C parameters to extremes are to be avoided as they are VERY reactive networks. Don’t make a low cap cable a long inductor or the opposite, a long capacitor with no inductance. Amps don’t operate properly into reactances and eventually oscillate. A perfect cable is ZERO L and C, not zero on one and infinity on the other reactive variable.
Resistance isn’t an issue with no L and C as we don’t need to vary R, L and C to adjust reactance to improve Vp and impedance and the like as reactance over frequency. The impedance hinges on reactance and is gone with zero L and C. There is no reactive “impedance” anymore. We now have a pure resistive impedance cable, good, but the speakers are still a “broken” non linear reactive load. The amp still sees that speaker load through the “perfect” cable.
Lots of problems with analog reactive networks that are not frequency linear.
Best,
Galen
And this is without even getting into the listener’s NEURAL network!
OR the room…
No wonder it takes so much fiddling around to put together a good setup.
Hi,
Thankyou for the responses! I can’t add much to the discussion or controversy, but I’ll chip in anyway…
I remember the old MIT cables and the approach they took to correcting what I think is the same problem. These cables seemed to address Vp in a different (and very expensive) way.
Since you have provided equations for Vp, a digital filter could be built to exactly counteract the effects.
I play around with room treatments. I find parallels to the changes in sound made with various room treatments compared to changes in sound made by changing cables. Maybe there is a frequency dependent Vp in room treatments too? Could room treatment counteract the effects of cables? Too complex to determine I’m sure. However, I am wondering if the effects of room treatments and cable are in the same ballpark timing wise?
Bats seem to be able to process fine differential arrival time delays between their ears. It seems our time discrimination might be very acute as well. Perhaps the resolution needed to measure the effects of Vp could be calculated? Could it be turned into a distance: For instance, “its the equivalent of introducing a delay of X inches as measured from a certain reference”?
This is why Wilson developed the Alexx V, Chronosonic XVX, and the WAMM Master.
Vp is STILL very FAST as it is the speed of light down the cable inside the dielectric material properties (slower than the speed of light). Yes, we can improve it, but the lesson is to fix both frequency “ends” to an optimized state.
I used the Vp to determine how much capacitance to add to LOWER the open-short impedance of a cable at the very low frequency end, while also improving the Vp at the higher frequencies. Doing both beats one or the other. It is still a designed judgement call.
The Vp equation is ONLY good for a range of R and C. If you go too high or low on either R or C variable you will get impossible answers!! Remember, the equation “fits” across a narrow “range” of variables best and is inaccurate above or below them. A different equation is needed for a non linear curve as the R and C move too much.
The pure data suggest that Vp coherence is too fast to hear, even improved. Is the lower frequency impedance match improvement helping then? It is all helping and each variable by itself seems unimportant.
I aim to improve them all, and let the NETWORK of devices answer the question of importance. Again, it is all an addative distortion problem with analog.
Best,
Galen
Hi,
“The pure data suggest that Vp coherence is too fast to hear, even improved.”
Maybe you didn’t intend it, but let me ask anyway. What/How is being improved to make your cables sound better? There has to be a cause/effect mechanism. It would be repeatable. A bit of the old adage: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Thanks
There is nothing extrodinary about it. The Vp drops from 55% or so at 20 KHz to 5% or so at 20 Hz. Nothing there to prove. The Vp will go to ZERO at DC (always there so there is no travel time) to the limiting speed of the dielectric at RF = (1 / SQRT (e)).
There is a well known cause effect and it is 100% repeatable. This is not new physics at all.
If we adjust the slope of the hysteresis curve, we can get the Vp differential more linear and ALSO drop the low frequency impedance to be closer to the load impedance.
The Vp dropping causes the impedance to RISE as we go lower in frequency and this is exactly where 4/5 of our power is transfered to the load, making impedance mis-matches worse.
Since the VECTOR impedance is the same over any length, the impedance mismatch is consistent. This is why the same cable but longer or shorter seems to have a “house” sound. The way L and C are arrived impact the cable’s transfer function as tertiary properties are involved too.
We can use BOTH ends of the Vp issue to improve the cable. The always there argument is what can ge skipped or ignored? With analog EVERYTHING keeps adding to the analog distortions. Thus, we make sure we look at all the variables with proven effects both calculated and measured.
How much of those changes we want to try best optimised is pretty transparent. We sell from the normal designs up to ICONOCLAST. The cable’s are better, now we can see what we hear once we get proof the cable’s are truly made properly.
I will have some tech application reports on speaker cable used parallel with theoretical and tested values. We work off the calculations, but measurements are ALWAYS used to triangulate the data or go straight to the answer with no calculations…pure measurements. Nothing extrodinary in the claims that way…it is what it is.
Best,
Galen
I think I’m learning a lot about dielectrics but I’m missing a connection in these answers.
If we can’t hear Vp or a linearized/improved Vp, what is the connection to improved sound in these cables? Why all the work?
Is it like going from .001% to .0001% thd in amplifiers? I don’t think so, but the connection of how these Vp linearizations translate into improved cable sound is missing for me.
Please elucidate this connection or if I’m missing something, let me know. Is it that all these improvements result in close to 0 storage and release of energy from the dielectric itself? Thanks, Mike
