Maybe this guy is onto something !

[daz]

Maybe we should build a pair of IDENTICAL amps- matched PT's and OT's, caps, 1% resistors, etc and see if the different wire makes a difference.

Well, basically thats what i'm doing at this very moment. I'm already about 1/3 of the way done, and if the amp sounds any different or not you all here will be the first to know. The amp is going to be a doorstop anyways once my new one is done, so i'm just clipping wires (have to, as they are connected under the board) and adding solid to see what happens. Every single thing other than the wires will be different. And also note that my friend owns another amp i built just like mine tho the layout is slightly different and the wiring is totally different. His sounds basically the same. (a little different, but same difference between it and my small amp) So that probably eliminates lead dress as a reason.

[J M Fahey]

Hi Jamie, you raise a couple interesting points:

having a lot of really wise and experienced people here helps make this place what it is. Most people here wouldn't blast you for thinking there is a difference- they'd just want to come up with a good reason why and a way to test the difference!

That about sums why I like this Forum so much.

The company I work for has a lot of their sheet metal work done at the same shop as this particular amp builder and they're proud to tell people that they make his high-end chassis and do the plating.

That company has every reason in the world to be proud and advertise that they make a top notch mechanical work, which can never be bad, far from it.
How much that translates into better or even different sound, is just no so clear.

[R.G.]

Indeed, but they don't notice it does not come from the wires themselves.
Fact is, wires are soldered to a lot of components, in this case meaning they are mechanically coupled to such components, many of which are microphonic, a typical example being all those caps.
Wires are also soldered to tube sockets, and we unfortunately know a lot about tube microphonics.
No doubt those amps mentioned have a "lively sound" or whatever, but they are searching for the Holy Grail in the wrong place.
On a high gain amp, just dime all pots and whack anywhere inside the chassis, you'll get sound even hitting the pilot lamp or the fuse, but that happens because the whole chassis vibrates, to a varying degree.

In addition, the wires carry small signals on big DC levels. When you move a metal object which has a high DC voltage on it near another grounded metal object (like a chassis), the change in capacitance produces a change in the signal on the moving object. This is how some capacitive sensors work, and coincidentally the way some early guitar pickups worked - they moved grounded strings near a DC polarized plate up near the bridge. There was a guard to keep your hand off the high voltage.

In addition, some insulators are microphonic. Practically everyone who's messed with guitar amps has stepped on a cord on the floor and hear it in the speakers, right?

The copper doesn't care. but many things which are coincidentally around the copper do care, and make their presence known.

I keep in mind Albert Einstein's maxim: everything should be made as simple as possible - but no simpler. It is, for instance, simple to think the sun revolves around the earth. It makes a tidy, simple explanation - but an explanation that is too simple to be possible given the way the universe works. Mother Nature doesn't much care what we think - her Rules are The Rules. We've never found something that doesn't match The Rules, only places where we didn't fully understand The Rules.

[clyde1]

I'm a great believer in double-blind comparisons, or at the very least, having a listening panel comparing sounds and not knowing what they're hearing.
Tests have shown that people cannot distinguish between different types of components nor can they tell which one is "better". Psychoacoustics is a very powerful force.

[jrfrond]

There IS a factor called "Skin Effect", whereas as the frequency increases through a single, solid conductor, the signal conduction moves outward on the conductor, to the point where only the surface or "skin" is conducting, while the center of the conductor becomes neutral. The way to combat this is to use multiple, bundled thin conductors, aka stranded wire. Skin Effect can limit HF response, but you have to be WAY up passed the audio range in the IF/RF range.

Of course, this has NOTHING to do with the 20-20kHz audio band, but f***** audiophile rocket-science types can rationalize just about ANYTHING!

[Steve Conner]

I'm a great believer in double-blind comparisons

If this were a Western, the piano player would stop and everyone in the saloon would turn to look. "A man mentions double-blind testing on an audio forum, he's either mighty brave or mighty stupid."

Double-blind comparisons are the kind of experiment that nobody ever does, and I think this is because basically the truth hurts too badly.

Can you listen to a piece of recorded rock or blues guitar music and tell what amp was used, if you didn't have any clues already? You can tell if it was a Les Paul or a Strat, but what about the amp?

When audiophiles have done properly controlled blind tests, they struggle to tell the difference between tube hi-fi amps and transistor ones. These tests have been done, but the brave objectivists who did them were burnt at the stake by tweakers.

Guitar amps colour the sound much more, of course. But how much more? If you're obsessed with the things, like me and a few others I suspect can you face the thought that 80% of the mojo might come from the musician, 10% from the guitar, 5% from the speaker, and all of the tubes, capacitors and transformers maybe contribute 5%?

Some audio writer, I forget who, said: Music lovers listen to music, audiophiles listen to equipment.

[Mike Doolin]

Indeed, but they don't notice it does not come from the wires themselves.
Fact is, wires are soldered to a lot of components, in this case meaning they are mechanically coupled to such components, many of which are microphonic, a typical example being all those caps...

Yes, it may not be the wire itself that's microphonic. But being mechanically coupled to components that are, a rigid solid wire could induce vibrations that the microphonic components pick up. As an extreme analogy, think of a tuning fork touched to the bridge of an acoustic guitar.

In addition, the wires carry small signals on big DC levels. When you move a metal object which has a high DC voltage on it near another grounded metal object (like a chassis), the change in capacitance produces a change in the signal on the moving object. This is how some capacitive sensors work, and coincidentally the way some early guitar pickups worked - they moved grounded strings near a DC polarized plate up near the bridge. There was a guard to keep your hand off the high voltage.

On the other hand, that makes the case for the wire itself being microphonic, in which case the physical properties (stiffness, acoustic resonance) of the wire would change the sound of that microphonic behavior.

Maybe we should build a pair of IDENTICAL amps- matched PT's and OT's, caps, 1% resistors, etc and see if the different wire makes a difference.

I hope somebody does, that's the only way we'll ever know. But Daz is going to report on his rewiring job, I can't wait to hear the results.

[daz]

Everyone has to understand something before we keep talking about placebo effect....i'm not talking about a subtle difference here between my amps. This is a very obvious difference. If someone told you to turn away from your amp and then have you play and ask when they turned up the treble and presence from 10:00 to 3:00, would you be able to hear that? Could placebo effct cause you to be wrong? thats the level of difference between my amps, and i will honestly tell you what i hear and to what degree. I do NOT expect them to then sound the same. I fully understand the difference in the 6v6 output and el34 tonally and i sure don't expect the el34 amp to sound like the small amp. I only hope to hear the blanket removed from the high end, and in a way where the high end is usable unlike now. It's also FEEL. Many forget that sound isn't the whole picture. You can talk about how things like this cannot affect sound at all, but i don't hear anyone saying it cannot affect feel. I don't know about you all, but to me feel is the BIGGER factor by far. I have no problem getting good sounds out of SS amps, some even better than many tube amps. But i have yet to play a SS amp that coveys the same feel in a mix especially. thats far more important IMO, yet no one ever says "this can't work because theoretically it cannot affect feel". An amp can feel vastly different while sounding so similar that I cannot hear the difference when someone else plays it. So it's not just a component of the tone itself.

[Steve Conner]

Feel IS sound. It's the way that the sound of the amp changes in response to your playing dynamics. Solid-state amps traditionally suck at that, and the reasons why they suck at it have been understood on a scientific level since the 1970s. There just doesn't seem to have been much motivation to do anything about it. Discerning guitarists want tubes, so if you did make a SS amp that sounded better than a tube one, you'd have to re-educate your customers before you could sell any.

http://www.milbert.com/tstxt.htm

[daz]

I'm not sure i agree steve. I have had my amp sounding almost if not exactly the same while the feel changed big time. In my buddys amp i built thats like mine, i made a change for him and he told me the feel was horrible yet that it sounded fantastic. His exact (well, close as i can remember) words were "don't get me wrong, i love the sound and i appreciate you doing this for me, but the feel is very hard and it's hard to play like this". I changed it again and he now loves it and he'll tell you it sounds the same, at least no notable difference with mentioning. I personally could never hear the difference at times if i'm n ot the one playing it, just listening.

[Steve Conner]

Well, then I would say if the feel changed, the sound must have changed too. Otherwise it means that you're perceiving the output of the amp through some mechanism other than your ears.

It may seem that the guitar "feels" different. I've heard high-gain tones described as slippery, greasy, and so on. But the amp doesn't somehow cover your fretboard in lard, that's insane. All that the amp has control over are the sound waves that come out of it and go into your ears.

I'd call this a form of synaesthesia. If the fretboard makes a different noise when you touch it, then maybe it seems to the player that it feels different.

Then again, there could be a feedback loop at work. If a guitar player has some sound in his head, maybe he'll adjust his technique until he gets that sound. So he always sounds the same, but if the adjustment pushes him into an uncomfortable place, then he'll complain about the feel.

[R.G.]

Everyone has to understand something before we keep talking about placebo effect.

Daz, I say this as a calm observation, not as an argument.

We aren't talking about the placebo effect. I've scanned the posts here. The only person who's said anything about the placebo effect is you.

Almost all the other posts in this thread have been trying to figure out some rational explanation for how what you said could have some truth in it, somehow. Including me.

Please do some calm thinking.

[daz]

Well, i'm not going to go thru all the posts. But all i had to do is go back a few to find

I'm a great believer in double-blind comparisons, or at the very least, having a listening panel comparing sounds and not knowing what they're hearing.
Tests have shown that people cannot distinguish between different types of components nor can they tell which one is "better". Psychoacoustics is a very powerful force.

and

Double-blind comparisons are the kind of experiment that nobody ever does, and I think this is because basically the truth hurts too badly.

You don't have to use the word "placebo" to talk about that type of thing. I'm talking about a tonal difference thats in your face and undeniably there. Not a questionable difference....one a deaf person can hear. They are talking about doing double blind tests and such,and why? because they think i'm talking about subtle *mistakable" differences.

Wikipedia:

A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the persons involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or unconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results.

does that sound like something needed to do in order to hear a nite and day difference?

heres what it boils down to

1-i was asking about a huge tonal difference and whether solid core wire could be responsible.

2-placebo effect WAS talked about, regardless of whether the word itself was used. It's semantics....u can talk about double blind or however you want to say it, it has nothing to do with hearing tonal differences as obvious as a treble knob at 3:00 compared to having it set at 9:00. This is akin to suggesting the difference i hear between the 2 amps is questionable. Well, It is if a marshall JCM 800 and a fender twin are so close it's questionable.

[txstrat]

daz
I believe you since I have no reason not to, period.
While reading this thread I was thinking about those solid core coaxial cables used for TV applications like satellite dishes. There must be a reason all these are solid core.
I wouldn't have cared about different wires in a tube amp in the first place and I usually like to judge things from my own experience.
But what if you just try and tell the result. It might NOT be snake oil. We'll see...

[R.G.]

Well, i'm not going to go thru all the posts. But all i had to do is go back a few to find
...
You don't have to use the word "placebo" to talk about that type of thing.

And apparently no one has to say "placebo" for you to hear it, either. It seems that "double blind" is a code word for "placebo" to you, too. And you hear a statement of belief as an accusation.

The man said **he** believed in double blind testing. I believe in the Tooth Fairy, motherhood and apple pie. None of these have the slightest thing to do with you or the placebo effect.

...

heres what it boils down to
1-i was asking about a huge tonal difference and whether solid core wire could be responsible.

The short version of the answer is "No."

Even the most wild-eyed hifi tweako can't make the difference between solid core wire and stranded wire *** if everything else is the same *** be an in-your-face difference. Where nothing else is the same, it could be anything at all.

We all turned ourselves into pretzels trying to find something that could account for or explain hearing some difference, largely out of respect for your opinions. And then you try to hear that as a put-down.

2-placebo effect WAS talked about, regardless of whether the word itself was used. It's semantics....u can talk about double blind or however you want to say it,

As our illustrious highly-verbal former president, William Jefferson Clinton said, "it all depends on what your definition of "is" is". You're demonstrating that you can hear the word "placebo" no matter what actual words are put down.

Daz - give it up. No one is accusing you of hearing things that aren't there. In fact, we're all being pretty supportive of you, trying to find a reason for you having heard the differences you say you've heard. We're trying to help. Take the "placebo" chip off your shoulder and put it on the ground. Walk away slowly, take a few deep breaths, and it'll be OK in a few minutes.

We believe you heard what you say you heard. We do not believe it's from solid core versus stranded, and we're grasping for some other explanation to *avoid* saying that you didn't really hear it.