# knotty questions



## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

Hi folks! I'm brand new here. But I have a really odd questions for the masters. A friend of mine told me that I should always make sure that there are no knots in any of my cables, especially speaker wires because the knot could slow down the sound and cause distortion. I'm not too sure of this, but I have quite a few knots, and they would be very hard to remove. So here's my question:

Do I remove the knots completely? Or do I add a knot or two to each wire to make sure each wire has the same number of knots? Or doesn't it matter, which is kinda what I think.

I got a real mess here but if I should just change out all the wires for good ones, I can do that too. Sorry, this must sound really stupid, but I'm new to audio and video, just want to straighten out a mess if its worth doing.

thanks in advance!


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

I think your friend is misinformed. At radio frequencies, the knots could cause attenuation due to inductance caused by the knots, but not at audio frequencies. Of course, if the knots caused the cables between components (not speaker cables) to be close to AC power wiring, that could cause hum, but that solution is to move the cable away from the power wires.


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

> A friend of mine told me that I should always make sure that there are no knots in any of my cables, especially speaker wires because the knot could slow down the sound ...


I love it!!  Well, just place your receiver high up on a shelf and then tell your friend that as the sound descends through the speaker wire, it accelerates, and the acceleration will more than compensate for the reduction in speed it will encounter in the knots.  

Should you choose to replace your wires/cables, you can get good-quality, relatively-inexpensive *and* knot-free replacements from Monoprice.com.


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

Hey that was quick! Ok, I'm not going to worry about the knots until I have the need and money to replace the wire. The receiver is already high on a shelf so that's not a problem either. But I'm now thinking this guy is a little nuts. Along with knots being bad, he told me that if I put extra weight on the receiver, like books or even a brick, it stops "resonance" that makes the sound fuzzy or something, he might have used the word "fluffy", but I could be wrong. I can see how that might be though. But I don't want to put a brick on my receiver because it might scratch and it's really ugly. 

What do you guys use for your receiver weights? How heavy before it starts to work?


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

*burning question*

As long as I have the computer running and dialed up, I might as well get your thoughts on this one too. My audio friend, who I actually do think knows what he's doing, he's been into audio for quite a few years, tells me that to get the best sound from my equipment I need to burn it first. Then he said I should avoid something called "abeeax" testing afterwards because for some reason it cancels the whatever the burning does. Ok, I have no clue what abeeax testing is, so no problem avoiding it. But how long do you burn your stuff, how hot, and, well...how? I have a pretty good sized gas grill that will get plenty hot, but I think some of the plastic parts might melt. How do you guys do is? Is there a special low temperature oven? Or can I leave my stuff in my car in the sun for a few days? I sort of don't want to take it all apart for this, but if burning helps the sound, I guess I have to try it. Just tell me how.


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

Sounds like a joke to me.


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## Mike P. (Apr 6, 2007)

"Burn in" means "to break it in", as in use the equipment for while until it supposedly stabilizes. For electronic equipment it's snake oil as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, tube equipment may benefit from it.


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

Ah, so you mean like the break-in period for a car. Well, that makes a LOT more sense. Sorry, this friend of mine has English as a second language, and not much of it, so getting anything out of him that makes complete sense is hard to do. 

But on a car things wear and tight new bearings loosen slightly with a bit of use. So you don't have that problem with audio stuff? I guess snake oil is nonsense, right?

By the way, thanks, you probably saved me from ruining my gear, and maybe me grill too.


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

One more thing, any idea what he's saying when he says "abeeax"? He's from Czech Republic, very thick accent, and his vocabulary is very limited, but he says "Burn gear, it sound better, but don't do abeeax test. People burn gear, sound great, then test abeeax, great sound gone." That's a paraphrase, sort of, but pretty close. So if break-in doesn't do anything, what's this awful abeeax thing? Must be a Czech word he doesn't now the English for. But I'm curious.

Thanks, by the way. He recommended this forum, said the information "very good" here. That's why I joined.


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

> One more thing, any idea what he's saying when he says "abeeax"? He's from Czech Republic, very thick accent, and his vocabulary is very limited, but he says "Burn gear, it sound better, but don't do abeeax test. People burn gear, sound great, then test abeeax, great sound gone."


FYI: ABX Test

In many (most? all?) cases, if a person is sold overpriced stuff with promises of miracles ("snake oil"), doing an ABX, or even just an A/B test, will result in major disappointment when the person realizes that the overpriced stuff sounds no better than the regular stuff.

Good examples are speaker wire, interconnects (cables) and power cords. $1000/meter wires sound amazing - just don't ever compare them to $10/meter wires, or you just might feel a little bit ripped off...


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

Thanks that clears it up. Actually kind funny that it's ABX...that's not how it sounded! And yes, given how that test works, I can understand why he might say people don't hear a difference...probably because there's none to hear in the first place. 

Is audio always this full of myth and legend? Knots in wire, etc.? And I'm guessing receiver weights are complete hogwash too? 

"Irreproducible Results" as apposed to science, like, apparently, ABX testing? I assume that the forum is a good source for the real story, but how the do I know the myth from the truth? I don't want to keep asking stupid questions that people think are jokes.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Don't worry about that, if you don't know...it's not stupid. We all have gone through the "learning curve." Your friend is going through it also, just without the benefit of people really care about helping others. So don't be too hard on him, he will figure it out eventually.

Welcome to the Shack.


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## 86eldel68-deactivated (Nov 30, 2010)

> ... how the do I know the myth from the truth? I don't want to keep asking stupid questions that people think are jokes.


The rule-of-thumb is "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

Next: Google.

If you don't get your answers there, well, that's what HTS is for.


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## mpompey (Jan 5, 2007)

In my opinion the "Audiophile" snake oil that is being sold to folks with more money than time to actually learn what is happening between their ears is hurting the industry.

The problem with human hearing is psycho-acoustics. A person's brain will actually insert sounds(data) into what a person hears. According to the person they do hear a difference when they use $1000 RCA cables made with unicorn hair, versus Radio Shack Cables. The problem is no one else does. 

My motto: 

"Electricity is electricity. If an oscilloscope can't measure it, neither can your ears."


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## Verse-n-Chorus (Apr 23, 2013)

Agree with first poster about concern for signal cable by power cable.
Wire _inductance_ L[henry] is real = how a speaker coil works.
A magnet moving through a coil of wire makes electricity & vice / versa.
This is why a balanced signal consists of a twisted pair ; 
the pos & neg twisted together porduce opposite magnetic fields via the right hand rule.
(Grab an insulated wire with you thumb in the direction of electron flow ;
then your fingers wrap around the wire in the direction of the induced magnetic field.)​Additionally , the braided shield protects a signal wire from external _Radio Frequency interference_.​Finally , this is why wire leads inside of speaker cabs are twisted ; it thwarts the magnetic inductance as they are routed past the speaker magnets.
(I've heard at least 2 twists / inch.)


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

Verse-n-Chorus said:


> Agree with first poster about concern for signal cable by power cable.
> Wire _inductance_ L[henry] is real = how a speaker coil works.
> A magnet moving through a coil of wire makes electricity & vice / versa.
> This is why a balanced signal consists of a twisted pair ;
> ...


I'm with you right up until that last sentence...doesn't seem plausible given the impedance of the circuit.


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## AVoldMan (May 15, 2011)

mpompey said:


> My motto:
> 
> "Electricity is electricity. If an oscilloscope can't measure it, neither can your ears."


Unfortunately, you do not hear electricity. The assumption is everything can be measured and evaluated. This is an over simplication. I agree being objective in an evaluation process and understanding the actual effects that are being heard is important, but it is very difficult! If it where easy, every device would sound the same. Sometimes, until the differences are understood there is no measurement to evaluate. 

I am reminded of the early days of CD's and their players. Theoretically, everything was supposed to sound perfect, but it wasn't. Then jitter and low level bit resultion measurements started showing differecnes that were originally noticed through careful listening and comparisions to analog signals.

The more we understand the more we realize the small amount we actually know!


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## gazoink (Apr 17, 2013)

AVoldMan said:


> Unfortunately, you do not hear electricity. The assumption is everything can be measured and evaluated. This is an over simplication. I agree being objective in an evaluation process and understanding the actual effects that are being heard is important, but it is very difficult! If it where easy, every device would sound the same. Sometimes, until the differences are understood there is no measurement to evaluate.
> 
> I am reminded of the early days of CD's and their players. Theoretically, everything was supposed to sound perfect, but it wasn't. Then jitter and low level bit resultion measurements started showing differecnes that were originally noticed through careful listening and comparisions to analog signals.
> 
> The more we understand the more we realize the small amount we actually know!


If there are no electrical differences, how can there be...well...differences? 

I thought the old CD players had trouble with the anti-aliasing filters, being analog and complicated. Didn't over-sampling take care of that? 

In the 30+ years since the CD was introduced, what new electrical parameters have been discovered and are now measured that explain audible differences?


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