Cable Snake Oil Antidote

@shadorne  

Poorly designed and poorly matched gear will be affected audibly by the slight impedance of a cable. High fidelity gear will not.

Only AFTER they repeal the laws of physics. The better the gear, the easier it is to 'hear' cables as masking defects have been removed.

@geoffkait 

It’s strictly an old pseudo skeptic

I'm not a skeptic. I've been able to reliably detect cable & component differences for almost half a century. I built electronics for the recording industry. In doing so, we evaluated transistors, ICs, resistors, capacitors, wire, PCB fabs, connectors, circuit symmetry, SMT vs PTH, ground schemes, signal routing, etc. Some had measureable differences with the equipment we possessed, some only audible.

argument to claim “cable manufacturers make all kinds of wild claims.” Especially when no examples of such wild claims are presented by the pseudo skeptic

It would be unfair to single out some manufacturers as their cables could be very good in some systems in spite of their pseudo-science double-speak. The intent is for people to do their homework and listen for themselves, ignoring internet blowhards without an iota of technical expertise or any test data to back up their claims.

Justifying wild claims because HiFi is a hobby is ludicrous. HiFi is a business and some manufacturers are charlatans.

Amended to "Some cable manufacturers make all kinds of wild claims" My apologies.

Coffee is a bad analogy as it is an organic product. It varies from day to day, degrading from the instant it dropped from the roaster. HiFi also varies from day to day, but the trajectory is not always downward.

Coffee Rule of Fifteens:
Green coffee is good for 15 months.
Roast coffee is good for 15 days.
Ground coffee is good for 15 minutes.

@bdp24
+1 for Galen Gareis articles @ Copper.
Can’t wait for the speaker cable article.
His papers are what prompted me to do the simulations.
For the interested, Cable articles are available @ https://www.psaudio.com/copper-magazine/
Issues 48-50, 54
Time Part 1 https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-1/
Time Part 2 https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-2/
RCA https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-3/
XLR https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-xlr-interconnect-design/

@geoffkait

The articles, from what I can tell, are nothing more than a Belden Cable marketing ploy.

Then Belden has to be the most inept company as there is nothing on their system except this link http://info.belden.com/iconoclast
Decades of experience using Belden products would indicate otherwise.

From what I can tell just scanning

is what?
Scanning ≠ comprehension.
No need to reiterate.

Copper Issue 55 has the Garen Galeis Speaker article
https://www.psaudio.com/issue/issue-55/

@geoffkait

Great Cable Debate

¿Que? There is no debate. Cables are system dependent.

Quoting Gareis "Speakers vary by design so their “back EMF” load into amplifiers varies. Amplifiers of differing design react to the back-EMF differently, and the overall performance can be hard to predict." [emphasis added]

Google it up on Wikipedia

Use a biased search provider to search a biased informational site that can be edited by anyone with no credentials what so ever?

BTW, I tried several Wikipedia searches for wire directionality and found nothing. Might be a worthwhile use of certain individuals' time...

simply starting with a quality power cord, next an Audience power conditioner, next interconnects, finally speaker wires how each step most certainly made a difference-for the good.

I've been to similar presentations where they were playing music I'd recorded and mixed and thought "This guy's nuts! It's different but definitely not better."

Almost assuredly, the source material and the substituted components were not picked at random. By careful cable and component selection it is possible to replace the same parts and have it make absolutely no difference or make it consistently worse.

Such demos lack any standard for rigor and should be viewed with extreme caution.

Cables and components interact. A cable may make a system better for some and not for others. The only way to tell is to listen in your system on a wide range of program over an extended period. Discount store demos and marketing hype before expending great sums. If stating same is trolling, so be it.

My take on this:

Audiofools
noun
Those who believe that $3,500 cables let them hear the audio more clearly, when the music was originally created with $25 cables.

Many of my contemporaries carried specialized microphones, pre-amps, cables, amps and speakers to achieve the best possible recordings.The more revealing a system is, the better. Albums I mixed 30+ years ago get better as each layer of fog is removed from the playback system.

We installed studios where the cable budget was many 10's of thousands.

Price is irrelevant. Performance is what counts.

Why not $0.50 or $0.60 / ft?

Some like 22ga zip @ $0.08 / ft. It's entirely possible their system is incapable of resolving anything better or 22ga zip gives the most musical representation in THAT SYSTEM.

Other than snake oil and dishonesty, there are many parameters that determine cost. Whether these parameters are a positive depends on the system.

@ostensible_constituency - People spent multiple thousands per mic and thousands more having them rebuilt. Do you think they would do that and use the cheapest possible cable?

Some of the best recording studios were built by fanatical audiophiles. They didn't scrimp on anything!

@rodman99999 

measure exactly the same, can sound so different

"If it measures good and sounds bad, -- it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, -- you've measured the wrong thing." -- Daniel R. von Recklinghausen, HHScott

An awful lot of gear has appallingly bad phase response beginning with the power supplies all the way through the loudspeakers and most listeners are oblivious!

Phase response is almost never measured. Component variations may affect phase response more than frequency response. The ear is very sensitive to phase, less so to frequency.

I've heard it said a mother can recognize the cry of her infant

Not sure about humans, but definitely true in many animals.

Changing wire is no mystery. Differences can be predicted with math. Audibility, not.

Jury is still out on fuses other than acting as non-linear resistors until shown mathematically and all other possible causes are adequately controlled.

@rodman99999 My comment on phase was not to suggest that it is the only important parameter but that it is so very important and largely ignored. Next year it will be half a century since Richard Heyer's seminal paper "Loudspeaker Phase Characteristics & Time Delay" and yet speakers are released every year that can only be described as incoherent.

the reason phase coherent speakers aren't the order of the day is because the virtues of that strategem haven't acquitted themselves as highly important. Typically speakers that make that a cheif priority make detrimental compromises in some other facet.

IMO, given that a HiFi should come as close as possible to recreating the original performance, be it a well recorded orchestra in a great hall or a pop effects menagerie, unless the phase is correct, that is not possible.

Many recordings have zero phase information from over miking and effects. Some early stereo recordings are magical when heard on correctly phased system achieving an 'aliveness' otherwise not possible.

If accurate sound stage presentation and performer focus is a priority, good phase performance is mandatory.

Again, IMO, the reason phase is not pursued is it is difficult, and therefore expensive, and there is no point when most consumers are oblivious.

@geoffkait - there's only one confused around here and it is not me.

Polarity is irrelevant to phase discussion.

as expected from Mr. Kait, the Feynman quote is incorrect.

Feynman said “I think I can safely say that nobody understands
quantum mechanics.”