Cable curmudgeon

Oh yeah, that’s it.  Just buy alarm system wire and be done with it.  To each his own.

If the high priced spread makes it worse, should he still buy it?

When I worked in professional studios where innumerable award winning albums and movies were recorded by award winning engineers, the only cable certainty was that any particular cable could elicit "WOW!", "meh" or "blech" depending on the microphone or recorder, console, amplifiers and speakers.

Unfortunately, many High End cable designs are Band-Aids for failings elsewhere.

I often wonder how many times a fine component is auditioned with mismatched cables and discarded as [pick your poison]?

@exflute I sat on the other side of glass and mated cables to microphone to preamp. As you heard, they differ. Better? In what context?

@teo_audio 

Are you advocating for censorship?

@oliver_reid 

+11

A.) cables get much less attention on the pro side whether it is the recording studio or the electric musician.

Not so. Professional studios have long been cognizant of cable deltas. One studio had Monster, Mogami, Canare, Belden, etc. and some then 40 year old Neumanns. The room, microphones, wiring, console and recorder all contribute to "The Sound" of famous places like Air, Sunset, The Record Plant, Hit Factory, etc. Many’s the time a part was recorded ’cross town for the particular flavor. Sometimes we’d rent a particular recorder to keep that flavor constant and garnish with the other flavors.

OP:

But, for me, spending oodles of money on hyped cables, well... I liked the solid core for my alarm system- still do.

@newbee:

Yet he is gleeful, I think, in making a pronouncement that selection of wires is of minimal benefit in audio systems.

I’m 100% in agreement on the lunacy of spend beacoup bux on cables hyped by FanBoys or salesmen.

About 40 years ago, I ran an AES clinic wherein we compared a pricy Monster speaker wire and THHN. Very few participants got better than a coin toss. A few got very high marks is discerning the difference, which was not subtle. Those same few also got high marks in the valve vs SS and polarity clinics. Bottom line, in any population, some can tell all of the time, some some and some none. IMO, the closer one moves to NONE, the more strident the advocacy. The NONEs who spend the most are perhaps the most strident.

Since we’re ’reading into’, presumably many of the posters here would fare no better than guessing, but ramble on about the benefits of cables they own connected to their gear in their room on their program.

It’s silly to think cables can have no effect and purely unscientific to think that a particular cable will shine in all instances. About twenty years ago, after I’d been out of recording for about 15 years, I upped the HiFi ante a little and auditioned some qualtiy cables. It’s irrelevant for everyone but me & the missus in that room but maybe a bit entertaining ieLogical Audiophilia Redux Cable Quest

Few musicians and engineers I worked with had a HiFi worth mentioning. One top engineer commented that my system was too good as it exposed the LP for the rubbish it is compared to the master tape played on the recording deck in the mix room.

The reviewer vs driver comparison is a red herring.

Whilst a reviewer may write more entertainingly, there is no training of one’s hearing to match the program. Learning to drive is matching one’s input to the desired vehicle behavior.

People claiming they played in rock bands and also review equipment should be required post a certified hearing test.

The OP “compared” a shitty Monster cable from decades ago to alarm system cable.

Just as pop music has devolved [see Why is Modern Music so Awful? - YouTube] and most quality has disappeared [see ieLogical Lossy], perhaps modern listeners are adding ’Sweet n Low’ with tweaks that old timers don’t miss.

Don’t misunderstand, it’s pure physics that interconnect cables alter the sound. Perhaps it’s akin to the demise of classis malts being replaced with flavor of the month for kiddies raised on Snapple. Cinnamon Bourbon?!!?!! NFW!

@soix: Really? I won’t? Where’s your evidence of this

I once auditioned some AQ cables in a full Mac system that I would judge as pretty damn good. ToL B&W LS w 2x big REL subs. Well-proportioned and well-damped room. Excellent presentation with correct perspective, height, width and depth. One of the best store demos I’d ever heard.

So, moving from the $6k pre->amp IC to the $12k, the system became UNLISTENABLE. Now, you may say it comes down to personal preference.

If you’ve paying attention, I always audition with the same three tracks and only if the system passes the sniff test, do I continue. No point otherwise if it can’t cut the mustard. I start w "Ruby Baby"*, original Tommy "Underture" and finally Jarreau’s "Mornin’". The system in original configuration was really, really good. One of the best store demos ever!

On an audition change, the tune order is reversed.

On the new cable, about a minute into "Mornin’", I said "STOP. That cable is totally wrong for this system**." Asked "Why?", I answered "The perspective is all screwed up. The hat has gone from delicate to gritty. The vocal has lost all its air. The bottom is nebulous. It’s really bad."

Asked "How do you know it’s not the recording and the new cable isn’t revealing flaws in the recording?"

"Well, I recorded and mixed it and in 35 years I’ve never heard anything quite as bad. The other cable played it as I recorded it, so for my money, if I had the original system, I’d stick with it."

BTW, most of the time I just walk out part way through a demo because the systems are hopeless.

--------------------------------------

* Nichols is one of my idols.

** It’s always the system in a room and that’s why bloviator FanBoy recommendations are worthless.

What makes a $200 cable better than a $50 cable?

It sounds better to the listener in a particular system and room.

Other than that:

Beauty is in thy eye of the beholder?

aka

Confirmation Bias?

Cables, and to a large extent HiFi, is Jewelry.

Some cables are extremely complex to fabricate and can somewhat justify their pricing on that basis. A large part is to drive marketing as in "The same technology in our $40,000 cable is used in our $400 ones."

What really gets my goat is companies like Nordost and Audioquest with their demonstrably bad geometry and silly names. By their design, these cables are tone controls and will interact positively in some instances and egregiously awful in others. Salespeople blather on about PTFE, µm plating, etc. with ZERO understanding of why the cables alter the sound.

I wouldn’t use Mac gear to assess any cables.

Interesting concept recommending cables with no regard to how they interface in a system.

So, you’ve shared one experience where a more expensive PC was supposedly inferior (lots of variables at play here BTW) to a “cheaper” $6k cable. Good for you!

Actually, first started investigating cables and connectors in the early 70's. Done literally hundreds of comparisons. I'll wager on a lot more diverse gear, in more locations and on more program, live and recorded, than most. When I left Los Angeles, I filled a 55 gallon garbage bin with old cable.

Overall, I get way better bang by improving my room acoustics, vibrations, reflections, etc.

Far too many start at the wrong end. When searching for a new home before we left LA, realtors asked the missus "Why does he go around clapping and banging and shouting?" Get the room right, most everything else is a doddle. That's how recording studios are built.

I wouldn’t use colored components with rolled off highs to assess any cables.

How do you know the Mac system 'failings' were not the cables? One AQ swap changed it from beautiful to beastly.

 Mac/B&W D3 combos ... simply gloss over too much detail to be useful in accurately determining the subtle yet critical differences between cables.

Not my experience at all. While not my cup of tea, Mac makes some lovely gear and stellar systems can be assembled with the right choices of LS & cables.

Whenever a customer wanted to hear the differences in cables I deferred to other more neutral and transparent electronics so the differences could be more readily heard.

Wasn't that rather pointless? Since cables interact with the hardware and the effects are largely system dependent, unless you are demoing on similar equipment and program the result could be WOW, meh or BLECH when the poor schlub gets them home... hence the burn-in scam.

Well those are just silly arguments

If one can make an excellent system awful w a single cable change, it stands to reason that the correct cables can make a less than stellar system much better.

Unless one subscribes to the nonsense that cables on their own have properties that do not change relative to the devices connected.

If one bothers to pay attention to impedances, cables become much more predictable.

Bottom line is cables make a difference and manufacturer hierarchy is solely $$ driven.

The one thing that'll change as you explore the upper range of Nordost is the bass. I mean there are improvements in other areas as well, but that's the one area that made the biggest difference for me.

Actually, the relationship between the 'bass' and the ear's 2-5kHz most sensitive region. Cables have almost zero effect below 100Hz. And probably just for your LS [type].

Nordost's can be a nasty load for some power amplifiers which can have any number of audible consequences.