This is why my tone is bad.

[JCizzle]

They do look cool..

I should make some that do nothing, just for the look.

You can get some that do nothing right on that site.  :laughing7:

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Yeah I live in London which has house prices at 2.5 times the national average, highest in Europe I think, and some of the highest in the world. I live in one of the cheapest parts!

In the 80s the government encouraged people to look at houses as investments rather than homes, and so the generation above us, who have so much voting power they've tailored the country to their own needs for the last 50 years, bought themselves a bunch of houses, then sat on them until their mortgages were paid off by the people they'd rented the houses to. So then they had a huge asset that was earning them enough income to buy another house. And this went on for a while.

House prices in the UK are seen as a huge problem - if food had gone up at the same rate as house prices for the last 50 years, it'd cost £50 to buy a chicken. We now have a generation where the average wage-earner is facing the very real possibility of never owning their own home.

So yeah, my example isn't a very good one. I'm a special case in an already stupid situation. Luckily I earn something like 3-4 times the national average wage and so I can afford to buy.

 

[JCizzle]

What part of London, just out of curiousity?

 

[AprioriMark]

I knew that Mac vs PC brings out the stupidity in people, but dang.  I laughed heartily.

-Mark

 

[Dan025]

but then i scratch my head on how to do something i do every day on any other operating system

What you don't seem to get is that this is exactly the same for someone who does these things every day on a Mac who then tries it on Windows. What you are trying to do is use OSX as if it was Windows, getting it to do all the same things. It's the way of working that's different - OSX isn't just a different interface for doing everything exactly as you would in Windows. That's what took me some time to realise. Don't try and turn it into Windows; try and use it how it's designed to work. The number one tool for window management in OSX is Exposé (now called Mission Control ffs), which doesn't really have an equivalent in Windows.

(Alt+tab has an exact equivalent on OSX - Cmd+Tab. It works in exactly the same way.)

You're arguing that OSX is objectively less easy to use than Windows and you don't seem to realise how much your unfamiliarity with it is clouding the issue.

Having said all that, I use both a lot and I do prefer Windows' window management paradigm. I think the W7 taskbar is brilliant. All I'm trying to say is, all those people who love it aren't wrong, they're different.

I think arguing about how easy something is to use the first time you use it (or saying something is better because "my grandma can use it") is pretty pointless. It's much easier to get a tune out of a piano than a guitar the first time you use it, but that doesn't make pianos better. Ease of first use and ease of continued use aren't necessarily connected.

The things I miss about OSX when I go back to Windows are: AirDrop and Spaces, which just don't have an equivalent in Windows. And there's some nice under the hood stuff like the OS-level AutoSave so that any app can have reliable auto-save. But then, Windows 7 has amazing developer support, is faster (yes it is - even running on a Mac) and, to me, feels more streamlined. It also has wayyyy more little freeware downloadable apps.

i never said they are wrong. i am stating my opinion that out of all the modern os's i dislike apples interface the most. and giving reasons why. arguing would be more saying "no you're wrong, apple is crap, those people are dumb." i don't think i did that, but if i did then let me know.

i will however say, osx being bsd based has a much more robust command line interface over microsoft (even if the file tree structure is harder to follow on linux and the bsd's than windows it is way more powerful) and has a lot of things that are akin to linux. if i ever own a mac i will not only multi boot it with linux and maybe windows but i will also replace the window manager with something like xfce, i know it can be done, that might break certain things but i'd be much happier with it. not quite sure how switching between the window managers will work though. i've heard of gnome or xfce on osx which uses the xwindow system, but i dont know if they are using linux desktop managers or just starting the alternate desktop with alterations to startup scripts or using the command line to kill the x server and restart it with a different window manager... i guess i'd research it if that day ever comes.

the weird thing about the whole apple conversation is there are apple lovers and apple haters. there are pc supporters but they aren't really pc lovers. i don't think such a thing exists. people seem kind of indifferent to windows. they just seem to use it because it makes the most sense to most of the population. people may say why they didn't use the alternative as a reason for using windows but nobody says how great microsoft is and how they would never use an alternative. it's funny how pc users are more subject to apple hate than pc love.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

What part of London, just out of curiousity?

South-east. West Norwood.

 

[reluctant-builder]

I knew that Mac vs PC brings out the stupidity in people, but dang.  I laughed heartily.

-Mark

Yeah, I've just been sitting back, enjoying the melee.

 

[JCizzle]

What part of London, just out of curiousity?

South-east. West Norwood.

Ah ok, I was just in Clapham a couple of weeks ago.

 

[-CB-]

In AC circuits, electrons actually do travel along the outer circumference of a circular conductor, and not the core. Google the skin effect.This is the physics the cable companies use to market all that fancy multiconductor cable nonsense, but most people know that it's actually not significant in the real world.

At audio frequencies, the effect is below nil... one little factoid that they fail to mention.  Another is that they use stranded cabling which throws all the calculations out the window.  You can get stranded cabling that has zero - ZERO - skin effect.  Its called Litz wire.  You may notice noise changes from grabbing a noisy cable with your fist, and squeezing tight.  Thats not what's going on here... that... is from capacitive coupling to your body.

I'd say, you'd have better improvement with tone controls numbered to 12 or 15, rather than 10.

 

[line6man]

In AC circuits, electrons actually do travel along the outer circumference of a circular conductor, and not the core. Google the skin effect.This is the physics the cable companies use to market all that fancy multiconductor cable nonsense, but most people know that it's actually not significant in the real world.

At audio frequencies, the effect is below nil... one little factoid that they fail to mention. 

Precisely.

 

[Dan025]

In AC circuits, electrons actually do travel along the outer circumference of a circular conductor, and not the core. Google the skin effect.This is the physics the cable companies use to market all that fancy multiconductor cable nonsense, but most people know that it's actually not significant in the real world.

At audio frequencies, the effect is below nil... one little factoid that they fail to mention.  Another is that they use stranded cabling which throws all the calculations out the window.  You can get stranded cabling that has zero - ZERO - skin effect.  Its called Litz wire.  You may notice noise changes from grabbing a noisy cable with your fist, and squeezing tight.  Thats not what's going on here... that... is from capacitive coupling to your body.

I'd say, you'd have better improvement with tone controls numbered to 12 or 15, rather than 10.

these audiophiles are trending towards individually insulated single strands, they may run several in parallel. the hobbyist audiophiles are big fans of cat-5, the solid core stuff specifically. they use several runs in parallel in higher power situations. the guys that do a lot of low power stuff like pure silver magnet wire if they can afford it.  they have some rationale based on skin effect for the solid core but i don't remember what it was. i have used cat-5 like this mostly because i have big spools of it and i don't have lamp cord. does it help? i couldn't tell ya.... but i doubt it.

 

[line6man]

In AC circuits, electrons actually do travel along the outer circumference of a circular conductor, and not the core. Google the skin effect.This is the physics the cable companies use to market all that fancy multiconductor cable nonsense, but most people know that it's actually not significant in the real world.

At audio frequencies, the effect is below nil... one little factoid that they fail to mention.  Another is that they use stranded cabling which throws all the calculations out the window.  You can get stranded cabling that has zero - ZERO - skin effect.  Its called Litz wire.  You may notice noise changes from grabbing a noisy cable with your fist, and squeezing tight.  Thats not what's going on here... that... is from capacitive coupling to your body.

I'd say, you'd have better improvement with tone controls numbered to 12 or 15, rather than 10.

these audiophiles are trending towards individually insulated single strands, they may run several in parallel. the hobbyist audiophiles are big fans of cat-5, the solid core stuff specifically. they use several runs in parallel in higher power situations. the guys that do a lot of low power stuff like pure silver magnet wire if they can afford it.  they have some rationale based on skin effect for the solid core but i don't remember what it was. i have used cat-5 like this mostly because i have big spools of it and i don't have lamp cord. does it help? i couldn't tell ya.... but i doubt it.

Something about using CAT5 cable for audio just seems wrong to me. I think of that stuff as being used for digital networks and such. But wire is wire. You definitely have to be careful about current, though. I've had CAT5 insulation melt on me in applications that exceeded the current handling capability of the wire gauge. You do get four pairs of wire per cable, however. As a general rule of thumb, you could call the maximum current in a run from power amp to speakers the square root of apparent power over impedance. Or, I=(P/Z)0.5 So if you have a 300 Watt amp driving 8 Ohms, be sure your wire gauge can comfortably handle six or seven amps at any given time.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

There's really no need to go into such detail with cable. Anything being sold as "speaker cable" will manage it, and will not be distinguishable from any other. Anyone who disputes this should volunteer to prove it in a blind test as there are several large cash rewards, so far unclaimed, being offered to anyone who can tell the difference between two cables. This goes for speaker cables, interconnects, everything.

Some places even claim that you can get more vivid colours and a sharper picture with a more expensive HDMI cable. How the hell does that work? It's like saying you get better quality printouts if you connect the printer with an expensive USB cable.

 

[Dan025]

with analog video, reflections, capacitance and coupling are a concern and will cause artifacts and a loss in clarity so there are video cables and audio cables, they aren't supposed to be interchanged. they have a different impedance to avoid reflections on the video cables but the video is obviously at a much higher frequency, to get a reflection in the audio spectrum you would literally need several miles of cable and then you may have a small node at a barely audible frequency but there would be bigger problems with that much wire as well. on hdmi i'm not convinced the cables make any difference at all. digital eliminates some of the problems. with digital signals it has to be pretty bad to get the receiver to count a reflection or the results of capacitive coupling as a bit.. not to mention that i've never actually seen an hdmi cable that i would consider low quality. the advertising is just trying to throw people off who remember the past.

i love when they get into the purity of their copper and the temper condition. as if there has ever been evidence of crystalline structures or .001% impurities influencing an ac wave passing through a wire. not to mention that all electrical copper is 99.9+% pure and without alloying elements the temper condition has no real effect on crystalline structure. annealing can cause the grain structure to grow and remove stresses on the grain boundaries softening the wire but i don't know what that would have to do with electricity in the form of sine waves... hell why not use pure silver for the prices they charge.

the best "speaker" wire per dollar is the appropriate gauge lamp chord n the spool at the hardware store. for most of us that will be the thinnest cheapest lamp chord they have. if it's a high power subwoofer you might need thicker stuff, for power handling if it's you rig you might need the thick stuff for durability..

i think the cat-5 makes good interconnects for the low capacitance and noise rejection and is very similar to the high dollar "audiophile" cables. but george l's might be more noise free, and durable if you want to make your own.

 

[-CB-]

with analog video, reflections, capacitance and coupling are a concern and will cause artifacts and a loss in clarity so there are video cables and audio cables,

You can use a video cable for audio, if the current handling is ok.

The problem with video cables, is not unlike those of antenna cable.  You have a forward and reflected component to the total transmitted signal.  The bug-bear is the impedance of the cable, which as frequencies go up, is more and more important.  If you happen to mismatch the impedance, you're going to get problems.  This is seldom an issue with audio transmission - except - for low impedance mics and picups, but they're on the input side.

Individually shielded parallel runs of wire, in a cable, is exactly what Litz wire is.  They also weave, or braid, or twist the wire... according to application.  Litz wire has very very little skin effect (but in audio... no biggie).  Litz wire is use for inter-stage wiring, sometimes, in amplifiers.... not really in guitar amps though.  Remember, guitar amps are capable of fantastic frequency reproduction, limited by their own filtration internally, and moreso by the frequencies guitar amp speakers can reproduce - mainly 50hz-7500hz and thats it.

I'm not sure how cat-5 cable will work... depends on how they implement it.  Its four twisted pairs.  Depending on which wires they use - and how the signal is put through the remaining wires.... I'm sure some smarty figured it out, but its about like wiping a baby's bottom with ostrich feathers.....

What you want on high impedance audio input cables (like guitar cables), is low low capacitance.  That capacitance is measured from center conductor to braid, and is a function of the dielectric used in the cable.  AFAIK GeorgeL's is the lowest there is, bar none.  Other folks may be using a generic form of the GeorgeL's cable, I dunno.

What you want on output cables is current handling, and low resistance.  All output is low impedance, running into 2, 4, 8 ohms (etc).  The impedance of the cable is insignificant.  Capacitance matters, but generally high insulation cable is also fairly high capacitance.  It does matter a bit though, and can rob highs... if the runs are very long.  Very long are in the 100's of feet, not the foot or two, or even ten or twenty feet used in our common audio output equipment.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I actually have had a couple of bad HDMI cables. The way you could tell they were bad was that the picture would occasionally completely drop out and then come back again. It's literally that or perfection. You can't get a sort of semi-imperceptible blur, it just doesn't make sense. It implies that the interference somehow magically knows how to interfere with every single bit on the line in such a way as to alter each pixel to be a bit closer in colour to the ones around it. That is f****ing clever interference.

 

[Dan025]

with analog video, reflections, capacitance and coupling are a concern and will cause artifacts and a loss in clarity so there are video cables and audio cables,

Individually shielded parallel runs of wire, in a cable, is exactly what Litz wire is.  They also weave, or braid, or twist the wire... according to application.  Litz wire has very very little skin effect (but in audio... no biggie).  Litz wire is use for inter-stage wiring, sometimes, in amplifiers.... not really in guitar amps though.  Remember, guitar amps are capable of fantastic frequency reproduction, limited by their own filtration internally, and moreso by the frequencies guitar amp speakers can reproduce - mainly 50hz-7500hz and thats it.

I'm not sure how cat-5 cable will work... depends on how they implement it.  Its four twisted pairs.  Depending on which wires they use - and how the signal is put through the remaining wires.... I'm sure some smarty figured it out, but its about like wiping a baby's bottom with ostrich feathers.....

and yet it's a lot cheaper than the stuff they sell as "audiophile quality" wire.