How important are speaker cables to the sound emanating from the speakers?


Hello. I was just wondering what your opinion is about the importance of speaker cables to the sound coming out of the speakers, and, of course, the sound the system altogether produces? Also, what are your favorite speaker cables to use in your system?
warmglowingtubesart

Showing 1 response by akg_ca

- Its been well established in the prior posts herein that speaker cables matter. The naysayers can  have their opinions, and let's avoid those stupid cable war posts and respect differing opinions.

- for the many,  the sonic benefits of different cables (thst is  all of different brands AND different price points) are very system dependent and one size does not fit all.

- As you move up  the quality build kit strata with the increased resolution capabilities to make it work, the added cost gear may make it worthwhile to move up the speaker cable selection pricepoint in lockstep with ICs and power cables.

Conversely, there is also no guarantee that new Brand X at a loftier pricepoint will actually deliver that quantum leap ethereal sonic performance benefit. Brand name alone and price point alone are  no guarantees that you will like the outcome - full stop . You HAVE to audition yourself in your OWN system.

the takeaway:

i will rehash  a prior post to serve as a litmus test that cables DO matter. and you don't need to resort to any blind test as the only silver bullet poster child for an actual validation in an  audition shootout / bake-off of contenders and pretenders.

in brief: NORDOST ran a repeated 3-day audio expo demonstration symposium in Toronto on that very issue, it was attended by thousands . It was also attended and written up as such in a  Canadian AUDIO mag

He wrote an article that highlights his litmus test on the effects of swapping in better cables as reported by him reporting on the shared observations of the thousands of attendees at the TAVES audio expo in Toronto in Nov 2014. With reference to the  above , ... his conclusion summarizes it well.

Nordost

"... I had a chance to sit in on a couple demonstrations in the Nordost room, giving my feet a well deserved break. I’m very familiar with the benefits of high quality cables and use a full Nordost Heimdall 2 loom with my reference two-channel setup. That being said, I always find the Nordost demonstrations to be an “ear-opening” experience.

Michael Taylor from Nordost demonstrated the significant sonic benefits of replacing an OEM cable with a Nordost model – in particular

1) a swap of a single USB cable, from OEM to Nordost Blue Heaven ($250/2m), to Heimdall 2 ($500/2m) and;

2) a swap of a single RCA interconnect, from OEM, to Blue Heaven, to Heimdall 2, to Tyr 2 and finally Valhalla 2.

Along with convincing the audience in the room that cables DO matter, I’ve now got the bug to upgrade...."

You are going to have to experiment yourself to find the better mix for your system gear .