^ That was the question and that is how I answered, Dukk is right to redirect this thread. Quality of the connector... MC is a high quality connector... not sure the WBT connectors on some cables really have any benefit. If SQ is not part of the discussion then the only thing to talk about is color, quality of the component parts, reliability, longevity, quality control and service department level of service, and griping about the price.... frankly since RCA's generally don’t fail there is little to argue about

 

not to get into a pissing match dave but what do you do to correct all the solder holding the components into the pc board
and what about the passive crossovers in the speakers
there soldered to arn't they dave
you see the way i look at it is theres a hell of alot more soldered joints in the crossovers and amps than will ever amount to anything in a speaker terminal or rca cable

 

I'd like to add something that most people never consider.

I do a TON of testing and experimenting with my car audio system. I routinely hook up a high end RTA, signal generators, and even high end home audio CD players to my setup. I change some aspect of my signal path a couple of times a week. This wreeks havoc on all the gold plated connectors in my system, especially the Monster Cable XLN Pro interconnect.

Monster Cable likes to use connectors that have a pretty tight fit, this increases wear and tear on not on the interconnect termination, but also the equipment that you connect to.

If you plan on playing around with your system connections alot, try out the cable connectors to see how tight they are. I've never heard an improvement in SQ from having super tight RCA connections.

I'm not faulting the Monster Cable product for this trait, as it is generally viewed as desirable. It just doesn't work to my advantage in my situation.

Adam

[ May 15, 2004, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: PEI330Ci ]

 

I've seen those thick blue Monster RCA's retail for $90 for a 17 footer, that IMO is too much, but when XS Cargo got them and was selling them for $14.99, then I bought enough for my system. Try that.

 

*Sigh* fine fine... I'll explain myself some more.

"They don't sound better" - We have and use at work with our products balanced XLR cables (bought and hand made), phiber optic cables, high end RCA's, cheap POS RCA's that come with CD players (you know the kind that come with your TV and what not for hooking everything up) and our hand made RCA's using the cryo frozen cables and crazy gold ends.

Now, for testing we have a Phillips SACD player (I'll assume you know what SACD's are and I don't have to explain that one) hooked up to one of our DCC2 products (or switchman 3... depends what we have laying around) a nice little handmade amp, and off too what I believe are A/D/S bookshelf speakers, not sure about that one since there isn't a name on them, but they have a really nice 8" woofer and ribbon tweeter for which i've been told they cost like $7000 for the pair or somthing dumb like that.

so anyways, yeah, with our switchman we can switch between inputs off the CD player and thus can hook up the phiber and RCA's and if we use one of our other products like the DAC6 the balanced XLR cables and with the push of a button switch inputs.

So there I stand, middle of the room in the sweet spot, I listen to fiber optics "Wow, they sound fantastic" switch to XLR "Wow, they sound fantastic" switch to RCA "Wow, they sound fantastic" switch to crappy RCA "Wow, they sound fantastic"

Is there a difference between them? Yeah probably is... can I or anyone else at work easily hear it? no. That was my whole point.


"Another problem, they used solder, a relatively crappy conductor, good high-end cables should be welded."

OMG... thats a pretty weak argument you have there bud. You DON'T use solder to make contact between 2 pieces of wire, you use it to hold the contact between them together. ie if you take a RCA end, it has a gold ceter pin that your connecting your solid strand wires too. Now, I strip about 3/4" of insulation off and hand wrap that wire around the pin, then do the exact same thing with the other wire conductor for a total of like... 10 wraps around the pin, and then just put a small ammount of solder to hold them in place your telling me thats a weak connection? Not a chance.


"And last but not least, is the gear they are using up to the challenge? Most systems aren't."

Oh thats a slap in the face. Tell you what, I'm not even going to make a big deal about it. But I'd like you to go onto google or wherever you search from, and find some info on my boss Ed Meitner (here's a helpful hint, he designed car audio amps for Orion and A/D/S and had his own amp company Museatex for starters) Then check out some of the audiophile mags for reviews/comparisons on ANY of our gear and see what they say about it.

Our gear is primarily designed for recording studio's to make SACD's with customers like Sony and Phillips. And I can garentee their gear is "up to the challenge" and you know whats funny... they usually ask us to send with our products our homemade XLR cables that use that crappy conductor called solder. Odd.

[ May 15, 2004, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Big Tom ]

 

^ Big Tom, Ed has done his fair share of tweaky stuff, including cables I think. Ed is a bit of an Icon like Sequerra, Levinson (bit of a jerk), Nelson Pass, and a few others. But he has no lines of car audio (that is a challenge to Ed BTW I would think he could redefine the HU)

His pre and power amps were are the sexiest looking products ever made in North America. I even liked his speakers though I never seriously auditioned them for 2 channel (loved them in home theater). The wired remote control on the preamp was an absolute dream to look at and use.

In your last post I had a thought it will take me a bit but I will get to it; when the Meitner preamps were first hitting my local market in Albany NY at the time (1989) I owned a CJ PV-5 what a wonderful preamp -smooth and detailed and full and wide and deep. It was the epitome of an emotional piece of equipment (I was happy with my entire stereo all the time). I was interested in Apogee Divas and auditioned them AB with my PV5 and a Cello preamp, the Cello sounded good but when we plugged in the PV5 there was the width, the detail, the depth, the warmth I so loved. Does this mean the Cello was inferior? NO it means I preferred the sound I was familiar with. I later discovered every instrument sounded the same recording to recording and even recordings in small rooms sounded big and ultimately that the PV5 was extremely colored and everything it touched sounded like a PV5. I didn’t do much with interconnects back then because it didn’t make a difference it all sounded the same like a PV5.
FINALLY my point: Is there a common product in your system that may induce a sound that would obscure differences?

 

solder in the interconnects is what im thinking