Yes I agree, the BJCs are good value for money.
But nothing special???
I have the Vodka at the final stage and it is superior in my system. With the full BJC loom in my system, it doesn’t stir me in quite the same way.
They have been very special to me as my post earlier today states but it might just be because of my setup and particular situation.
This idea of ‘kills it’ isn’t particularly helpful. For what it’s worth, I find BJC better than Vodka in terms of naturalness and musical flow but hey, FR’s views are clearly more important.
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Yes it is.
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It was just a figure of speech. It doesn’t matter howi write things as we are all on our own journey anyway. Rather I’m interested to see if FR finds the same.as me. I have the BJC from modem to switch and from my NAS to switch. It just goes to show that each & everyone has a different outcome with their system.
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I don’t think Stephen thinks that. But he knows my tastes in music and how involvement is important for me.
Or perhaps just to have a second feedback now, after yours…
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No it’s not.
See for example Peders recent test above where the sq effects of the cables were highly correlated with their price.
See also the majority of the results of the tests reported on this thread where the results were not random but were correlated with either price and or qualities of the cables compared.
There are quite few examples mixed in with this overall pattern where odd results occur too.
But they are in the distinct minority.
So the results are not random.
I had a full loom of the AQ Vodka and couldn’t get on with it all. In my system, it just couldn’t capture the tone and texture of classical instruments accurately.
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Hi Chris, I’m glad it’s working out for you. I’m gradually shifting them through to the full loom and seeing how things go. They’re very good in many respects, but still not sure about instrumental tone and microdetail. Will shift back to DesignaCable over the weekend. The last time I did that, my better half already preferred the BJC Cat6a to them.
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Not what I found. The only pricey cable I could half get on with was the Sablon. I found the others just introduced artefacts of soundstaging, noise floor and macrodetail exaggeration at the expense of microdetail, nuance of expression and timing.
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OK, thanks Michaelb. I have never tried the full loom Vodka. I could never bring myself to spend that amount of money on cables. I’m only using the Vodka from switch to streamer. The rest of my Network cables are BJC. If I use the full loom BJCs and take out the Vodka then the performance becomes a bit meh…and lacklustre. It’s now obvious to me that listeners are finding different experiences from each other with their cables in their own setups.
Pricey cables coming out on top in tests, unless they were blind tests, smacks of expectation bias. Maybe they are just better but I suspect not.
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I think we probably are. But we may also have different tastes in music etc.
You do have the BJC 6a don’t you?
You can never predict which cable will sound the best in your system. Some like the vodka, other hate it or prefer the BJ. Some find the Designacable the best for their system, other find it not musical.
So it’s a bit of lottery.
However the majority reported better results with expensive cables. But even here, there is no consensus. Bert found for example that the diamond sounds more analytical vs the vodka. I found the contrary on my system.
Hi Michael
Very interesting description of the effects, well observed and very carefully listened to against thoughtful criteria.
But you describe a pattern, not a set of effects that was utterly random.
It’s likely that the effects on sq that you observe are directly related to decisions that the cable designers took in their choices of materials and technologies and construction techniques used to produce those cables.
Hi Hollow
I bet you’re right.
It seems very likely that one of the factors pushing the results of cable tests is people thinking that posh cables must sound better.
(I personally suffered a bad case of expectation bias recently.)
But that’s not the whole story.
I doubt that it’s overall as influential as the actual materials and design of the cables and how that interacts with the hifi equipment and the electrical environment of the users house.
Plus there are real differences of personal preference that also sway decisions on what’s best.
So it’s a very complicated set of factors that sway these decisions.
I’m not sure what is meant by quality in this context. In terms of network performance BJC and Connetix cables are higher quality than Chord Company and AQ ones. It is almost an inverse relationship between quality and price.
Unless group listening tests are conducted under controlled conditions then they are of little value. The only way to know if you can hear a difference and if you can then which one you feel sounds better is to listen for yourself. This is further complicated by assertions that these cables burn in so you may not get the same results over time.
I found no advantage of using expensive AQ or Chord Company network cables or replacing my HP switches with Cisco. If somebody finds different results in their system and decides to spend their money then that is up to them.
The combination of fully qualified Connectix Cat6a for LAN infrastructure and BJC Cat 5e patch leads works well for me.
Moreover, luckily for me and others who use it, a 305m drum of Connectix Cat6a costs less than a 1m of some audiophile streaming cables.
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Great summary FR.
Yes it’s a bit of a lottery.
But it’s not a total lottery.
In a state lottery there is literally No Pattern at all.
That really is random.
It’s designed to be random, otherwise people could cheat and the lottery would go bankrupt.
Every single ticket is exactly equally likely to win.
That’s not the case with these cables
The way they are designed makes them have different effects on sq.
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