Hi Steve,

the main concern is 'shielding' I suppose!??

How about a version with RJ-plugs - either at both ends or as combo DIN/RJ?

Greetings Millemissen

In my re-seller role with Beo4life, I have listened to many B&O speaker systems and in my opinion,you have wasted your time Steve.  I have never noticed any of the problems that you describe, provided the correct type of cable specified by B&O is used and they are routed sensibly.

With the possible exception of Beolab 5's, you are not really dealing with "high end" speakers or sound systems. Often "pleasant", sometimes "awfu" but certainly not "high end"!

Ordinary powerlinks for older designs, Mk3 for ice power and Mk2 or fully wired for speakers with displays, have always been perfectly adequate for me, as have conventional 8 pin plastic plugs with ordinary pins.

Beolab 6000, 8000, 4000 as well as Beolab 1 and 3 could all do with an improvement in sound quality but it is not going to be achieved by "high end" cables. With most, you would be better off saving up for a sub woofer and then setting it up properly!😜

My feeling is that you are medling for medling's sake.............or is there some other more dubious motive?

Hi Joeyboygolf,

would you be so kind to present me/us with a/your definition of 'high-end audio'.

Grrr! Millemissen

Dear joeyboygolf,

"In my re-seller role with Beo4life,...."

"With the possible exception of Beolab 5's, you are not really dealing with "high end" speakers or sound systems. Often "pleasant", sometimes "awfu" but certainly not "high end"!"

Why do you resell Bang olufsen devices ?

I would never buy something to someone who critizise its own material.

It's an interesting exercise, and I'm assuming you will be able to sell these to people suffering from a leftover amount of audio nervosa from not being able to tweak their B&O systems 😎 but as to whether or not it makes a difference? Have you heard the effects, crosstalk or injection of data pulses into the sound with normal PL cables?

 Is noise a big issue? I've only ever had noise in my system, hum, when the plugs weren't mated properly.

Are the items you mention measurable electronically? If you are relying on just sighted listening to tell you it's better, or even different, I'd just point out that the human ear and brain are remarkably prone to detecting differences when none is actually there, which is why the whole high end cable market exists in the first place. Without double blind tests...you know.

Back a number of decades ago when I still sort of believed a lot of nonsense about audio, prior to going thru a lot of controlled listening testing and opening my ears/eyes so to speak, I was working with a hifi shop to help them design and market a few custom cables. We had several cables hooked up to a switch box, very high endish with silver solder, etc. and were amazed at the "night and day" differences. One had great bass, one was rolled off and polite sounding, one was bright and edgy with poor bass, one imaged really well but was a tad harsh etc. One day we came in to do another listening session right before finalizing the marketing and such, and listened and yup, all the same characteristics were in full force for each cable, assuring us that we were right on the money.

Problem was, the technician needed the box over the weekend to do some repair work on a couple of components on the bench, had borrowed it, and when he put it back the cables were not in their original positions. The cable we had found to be exceedingly bright and abrasive was perceived as the mellow one with great bass, etc. Quite an enlightening experience all in all.

So, ears are fallable.

olvisab wrote:

Dear joeyboygolf,

"In my re-seller role with Beo4life,...."

"With the possible exception of Beolab 5's, you are not really dealing with "high end" speakers or sound systems. Often "pleasant", sometimes "awfu" but certainly not "high end"!"

Why do you resell Bang olufsen devices ?

I would never buy something to someone who critizise its own material.

 

I would!  😎 😁

Having been enlightened by joeyboygolf that B&O 'don't' produce high end speakers, this therefore means I can get at least 60% off of the stock he carries in his business, because nobody seriously interested in audio pays top dollar for something that looks good, but doesn't provide the audio results expected and demanded.

Caveat emptor and all of that.  

I'd also add that in my professional dealngs with Steve, you couldn't hope to meet a nicer, more helpful, or professional guy - I thoroughly recommend his services.

John... 

Jeff wrote:

It's an interesting exercise, and I'm assuming you will be able to sell these to people suffering from a leftover amount of audio nervosa from not being able to tweak their B&O systems 😎 but as to whether or not it makes a difference? Have you heard the effects, crosstalk or injection of data pulses into the sound with normal PL cables?

 Is noise a big issue? I've only ever had noise in my system, hum, when the plugs weren't mated properly.

Are the items you mention measurable electronically? If you are relying on just sighted listening to tell you it's better, or even different, I'd just point out that the human ear and brain are remarkably prone to detecting differences when none is actually there, which is why the whole high end cable market exists in the first place. Without double blind tests...you know.

Back a number of decades ago when I still sort of believed a lot of nonsense about audio, prior to going thru a lot of controlled listening testing and opening my ears/eyes so to speak, I was working with a hifi shop to help them design and market a few custom cables. We had several cables hooked up to a switch box, very high endish with silver solder, etc. and were amazed at the "night and day" differences. One had great bass, one was rolled off and polite sounding, one was bright and edgy with poor bass, one imaged really well but was a tad harsh etc. One day we came in to do another listening session right before finalizing the marketing and such, and listened and yup, all the same characteristics were in full force for each cable, assuring us that we were right on the money.

Problem was, the technician needed the box over the weekend to do some repair work on a couple of components on the bench, had borrowed it, and when he put it back the cables were not in their original positions. The cable we had found to be exceedingly bright and abrasive was perceived as the mellow one with great bass, etc. Quite an enlightening experience all in all.

So, ears are fallable.

That's a very interesting, revealing and great post Jeff (says he who still battles with left over audiophile nervosa from time to time - but not thus far with B&O thank heavens!)

Many thanks

John... 😐

Fantastic, thanks guys!

I knew that this one would open an interesting debate......

To answer Graham's question: I trained as a sound recording engineer and this has left me with a very critical perception of sound (probably too much so).  Hence, as I listen to music, I often get annoyed at how the recording was mixed, as well as how it is being reproduced by the audio system.  This has lead me to look into making a cable design that is as close as possible to being technically perfect, so as to minimse the electrical effects which I've heard in different systems over the years.  I'm happy with the improvement I've obtained on my own speakers by tweaking the cabling, so I certainly don't feel that I've wasted my time! 🙂

As a B&O fanatic of some 30 years, I still think that there are some great sounding products in the B&O range, both past and present.  I see Beolab 9 and 3 in particular as being true high-end audiophile speakers, which can sound superb when partnered with a good pre-amplifier and source components, yet which can seem a little "lacklustre" (in my opinion) on a Beosound system.  The later amplified Pentas come quite close in my view as being very good quality speakers, which are maybe a little less sensitive to their partnering equipment.  Whilst I wouldn't expect to hear any difference from changing cables on Beolab 6000 or 8000 speakers, I do think that there are improvements to be had on some of the better Beolab speakers.

As an aside, I'm in my late 30's and so I don't claim to have anything like perfect hearing now, although I can still hear up to 17.5kHz in hearing tests, so I hope that I'm not missing too much of the music....... 👍

And yes Millemissen, I've designed some RJ45 to DIN combo cables as well!

Jeff has a valid point that the problems I've tried to eliminate are not always present in all B&O systems, so there is no need to fix your system if you aren't experiencing the symptoms that I've described.  I have 9 rooms connected using various link systems around my home and workshop and some cable runs are well over 100 metres.  This means that most of the problems that I've described (including left/right audio crosstalk and data/audio crosstalk) can be introduced and observed to some degree depending on the equipment and speakers being used.  The key electrical improvement that I've found is that by reducing the loop impedance of the audio circuit by around 40% compared to the standard cables (ie. signal wire + ground wire DC resistance), the signal loss in the cabling over long runs is dramatically reduced, giving a noticeable boost to the received volume level and tonal balance at the speaker end.

Oh, and thanks for your kind words John!  I suspect that I've probably looked to hard to solve problems that only I was worrying about, but hey, that's the fun of being an engineer! 😁

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

I have 9 rooms connected using various link systems around my home and workshop and some cable runs are well over 100 metres.  This means that most of the problems that I've described (including left/right audio crosstalk and data/audio crosstalk) can be introduced and observed to some degree depending on the equipment and speakers being used. 

This is a point that I will easily buy. Most people with "other" stereo systems - and the high endists - will usually have at most a few meters of cable from the amp to the speakers, and the interconnects are very short. Whereas B&O systems are usually owned by people who care about looks and want to hide the cables, and even a smallish room might easily have 10-15 meters of cabling from the system to the speakers. The thin PL cables are VERY thin.

These issues will be there no matter whether you want to call the pieces of the system "high end" or not. But there certainly is room for improvement - why do people often say that their speakers sound better when connected directly to the audio system instead of through the TV? Because the audio routing inside the TV could be better. Normally I wouldn't worry about data signal crosstalk, because there are bits flowing only when something changes, not while a track plays. But on some systems you can actually hear the internal data buses while changing volume etc, already injected before the audio leaves the PL socket.

* * *

Generally, I find it much easier to deal with salesmen who admit that some of their products are more perfect than the others, because that is ALWAYS the case...