DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?
Yes, the photograph analogy is good. No one as far as I know in music or film claims that they can improve upon the original recording. This is why the provenance of the recording is so important in remastering. The earlier the copy, the better. What they can do is to manipulate the original so that it looks/ sounds different. And that’s exactly all what some cables do. |
@retearl What does he know? He’s only an engineer with highly sophisticated measuring technology at his disposal! Where is the evidence that he’s measured every cable on the market? What gives him the right to sit on his high horse and pontificate as if we’re all simpletons? The sheer nerve of people who dare to suggest that cables are the biggest money making con in audio makes my blood boil!! No seriously, thanks for that, and thanks too to Mr Dunlavy for having spoken up on the behalf of integrity. I like the first part of his closing paragraph. "I sincerely believe the time has come for concerned audiophiles, true engineers, competent physicists, academics, mag editors, etc. to take a firm stand regarding much of this disturbing new trend in the blatantly false claims frequently found in cable advertising." But as for the second part, it’s far too late regarding the press as far as I’m concerned. "If we fail to do so, reputable designers, engineers, manufacturers, magazine editors and product reviewers may find their reputation tarnished beyond repair among those of the audiophile community we are supposed to serve." |
50% of the time is no better than guesswork. If we experienced listeners need just the right conditions, at the perfect time of the calendar moon, when all our faculties are working optimally to strain to distinguish better than 50% between a $1 and a $1000 cable in an unsighted test, wouldn't we be better off spending our money elsewhere? Like say loudspeakers, where the difference between a $300 and $3000 pair could be easily identified by almost anyone >90% of the time unsighted. Bear in mind also that a $1000 pair of speakers with a $1 cable will be far superior to a $100 speakers paired with a $1000 cable to everyone except cable manufacturers and dealers maybe. How about putting your money where it counts? In real sonic gains and not in dealer's pockets. A good dealer is an enthusiast, not a pickpocket and deserves our full support. But they are hard to find so if anyone mentions costly cables, then that's the time to leave. Thanks, but no thanks. |
@prof If a blind/double test can’t reveal obvious benefits of vastly more expensive cables then it’s like throwing money at the moon. It may make you feel feel reassured by quietening the audio paranoia symptoms induced by clever marketing and pseudo science but hugely cost ineffective in real world sonic terms. On the other hand if Henry Miller was selling the cables, I’m in, regardless of which tropic we were currently in or the colour of Spring. Hey, he could even call them Sexus, Nexus and Plexus. Yes, Henry Miller Cables - always merry and bright. |
@stevecham It's also funny how no pictures of ghosts or other supernatural phenomena have appeared in recent times despite the number of cameras now in use worldwide going off the scale. Kind of puts centuries of anecdotal evidence into context. Human beings sure are a suggestible lot as any stage hypnotist will readily confirm. |
Oxygen free copper cable is very difficult to better. In fact any copper cable is difficult to beat. Solid core, silver plated, directionality all seem to make no difference to me. In fact I recall a demonstration by QED at a Hi-Fi show in London where they attempted to reveal the differences between < £1, £5 and £25 per metre cable through a well respected Arcam system. Almost everyone agreed that the only sonic difference heard was between the bell wire and the £5 (Silver Anniversary) cable. It was difficult to be sure that the £25 cable wasn't making things worse as it certainly didn't make them better. It's worth bearing in mind that a good hypnotist could have easily had most of us believing that the bell wire was superior to the £25 cable AND vice versa. Audiophiles are not particularly known for their resistance to suggestibility. That usually only comes, if it ever comes, from bitter experiences after many years. It's also a good rule of thumb that if something isn't immediately and obviously better, it ain't. You should never ever have to strain to hear improvements. Its a crime against nature. |
Everyone should buy more expensive cables, especially if they can't hear the difference between what they already have. You have to consider directionality, skin effect, interference by gamma, cosmic and Wi-Fi signals plus secret government wavelengths. Then there's 2G, 3G, and 4G. Of course the game's up when 5G comes but in the meantime I advise everyone to send every last cent they have on the most expensive cables they can find. And every time a more expensive cable comes along you must buy that too. You just can't take any chances these days. The fact that some say a straightened coat hanger sounds just as good as $1000 per metre cable just shows how unrefined their palette must be. No, I don't need any figures on resistance, induction or capacitance. I prefer to trust my ears. I had them recently checked only 20 years ago. Now pass me another glass of Screaming Eagle Cabernet 1992. At $500k a bottle it's got to be worth every cent. |
@djones51 some will always argue that blind tests are useless. If this is so, then sighted ones must be ten times more useless because vision adds nothing to the objective evaluation of sound as anyone working in sound production will readily testify. In fact vision can be a good way to mask sonic defects. The fact is blind listening tests are most feared by the people with something to sell. All of a sudden when hugely expensive cables, amps, CD players are put in against their budget counterparts in an objectively fair setting healthy profit margins evaporate into the ether. Consider that over the decades despite much superstitious nonsense written about Ouija boards, the fact remains that when the users were blindfolded nothing but gibberish was ever produced. If you really want the sonic truth then close your eyes. No one listens like the blind. |
Yes, quite right. Let's abandon blind testing. In fact let's abandon all scientific criteria altogether and wallow in subjectivity going round and round ad infinitum according to mood. If that floats your boat, by all means go for it. Just don't try to convince the rest of us with that kind antediluvian attempt at confusion. The whole industry has been going onto it's knees since the 1979s due to that particular kind of quick buck pseudo scientific stink. |
<@marklings Short answer, no they don't. Long answer. There is such a small differnce that the average person would not be able to pick up. Thos golden ears that will be able to do so will not experience an enlightenment of their musical enjoyment. Just a slight difference. There's PLENTY of blind / double blind test on the net that prove that. Here's a page with a lot of links: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/ But just do your searches and you will come up with a lot of links. Bottom line of all those tests is cables make little if any difference. Same for electronics from a minimum quality level up. According to that here's how you should spend your hifi budget: 90% speakers 9% electronics 1% cables> Finally someone takes as Occam's Razor to the whole tangled thread. We even get a practical formula to use a guide! Brilliant. |
No one would argue that there might not be the subtlest tonal differences between cables but you will have to look for them. Even then it won’t be apparent whether they are genuine improvements or electrical aberrations due to idiosyncratic cable design. The ensuing debates can and have been going on for decades. Mostly with skeptics on one side and the paid journos, dealers, misguided cable fanboys et al on the other. The fact remains that a scrape the barrel $50 system with some decent speakers from any of the following - Audio Note, ATC, B&W, DeVore, Eclipse TDs, Harbeths, Classic JBLs, KEF, Klipsch, Linkwitz, Magnepans, Monitor Audio, Quad, Sony, Spendor, Tannoy, Vivid Audio, Wilson etc will simply blow away any $50 speaker paired up with uber-overkill electronics using the most eye wateringly expensive interconnects and cables imaginable. I found that a $40 Sony system from Walmart with bell wire to give excellent results paired with even the smallest Rega bookshelf’s let alone any of their larger brethren. So much so that I upgraded the free supplied cable to $1.50 per metre oxygen free just in case! |
@taras22 so you used to work in a hi-fi store? And these were your conclusions about loudspeaker importance? I guess you overlooked all the data about which hi-fi component has more 1000x more distortion than all the rest put together. Perhaps you were preoccupied by the data showing which hi-fi product then had 100x more profit than the rest put together I really hope for your sake that your current line of work is proving more suitable. All the best. |
Cable debates do have a certain sporting value. There may be no winners or losers but the fun is in taking part. As we have no voting system or judge and jury there may never be an end to this debate. Unless of course WS agree to give the final word to an indifferent bystander, Elizabeth perhaps. Alternatively we could attempt to have it added to a Philosophy syllabus throughout our most noble seats of learning. It could join other perplexing questions such as the following :
It might work if we can only get someone with a fully working brain to run it for us. How about it prof? Would you be up for attempting to steer contrary disinterested undergrads through the difficult and treacherously challenging paths of logic and rationality? You're seem to be the only one among us here with the necessary patience and experience. |
Cables are probably the simplest part of the entire audio chain. You can see them as a pipe through which current travels. The real work is done by the equipment that processes this current not the carrier. Now compare that to what is happening inside even the simplest loudspeaker crossover. Or any drive unit as it frantically attempts to resist breakup under load. Or the cabinet as it deals with increasing resonances with volume. Or as it interacts with its surroundings. Or a hundred and one other things. Yes, cables have it easy. They live extremely long lives and hardly ever break sweat. |
@elizabeth this all sounds plausible. Electromagnetic radiation is indeed at times a complex and mysterious phenomena. However if we poor humans had only ever relied on our eyes and ears we couldn't be having this debate. In pure sonic terms, if we can't hear it then in practical terms it doesn't matter. Even worse, it's a waste of time and resources. Anyone for a solid gold cable? |
It's always down to personal choice how much you want to spend. Experience has taught me that if I had to build a system from scratch I'd be looking at 75% on loudspeakers, 10% on CD player, 10% on amplification and 5% absolute tops on cables/ancillaries. Even If I fancied something more exotic, we're talking vinyl and valves (tubes), I'd still be looking at 50% on loudspeakers and 25% on a turntable and 20% on the amp. It'd certainly make assembling a great $1000 system interesting. On the other hand it's worth remembering that $1000 can be a big psychological hurdle to overcome for anyone who doesn't see themself as an audiophile. |
The problem with a $1000 system is finding budget speakers which do fast, deep bass. Bose have always been clever at how they handle the extremes, and many regard them as them as the high end in not only prestige terms but also sonically. In fact my neighbour has a Bose system and she seems happy with it. It would be a waste of time to discuss sound quality with her as she regards us audiophiles as a little strange (if not exactly mad). I think that's the main reason why really good loudspeakers can cost a lot of money. My current speakers have a FR of 35Hz-20kHz ±4dB and that's good enough for the occasional Jazz, Rock or Reggae if required. For many years I didn't even bother with low bass being happy to settle for bookshelf models which had a reasonably vivid midrange and not too much of a sting up top. In fact the old adage about a good midrange making you forget what you might be missing is one that I found to be true when I listened mostly to Pop and Vocal. However nowadays I do want to hear what Peter Hook or Ringo Starr were doing in the studio. Any system with little below 60 Hz would just feel too limiting now matter how refined. |
@glupson, absolutely right. Every word. How do Bose do it? They started here as a mail order business with extravagant sound quality claims and now everyone has heard of them, right up there with JBL. Yet also in the UK hardly anyone has heard of (let alone seen) anything from such respected US audiophile brands such as Klipsch, Magnepan, Thiel, McIntosh etc. I guess their main opposition will come from stuff like Amazon Echo, Apple Homepod, Google Home, Sonos etc. The loss of Steve Jobs might also have been a big loss for audio. Apple transformed the audio scene, but if Steve (the audiophile?) was still around, who knows what we might be seeing by now? Still, it's great to see some of the current big guns taking an interest. Especially as sound quality is always mentioned in reviews. |
@gawdbless, if you wanted to be really naughty you could also throw in a straightened coat hanger, some $1 per metre oxygen free cable and then see what happens. Strangely enough, no high end cable manufacturer ever seems game for the challenge. Not now, not yesterday, not tomorrow. @nonoise, seriously, it's time we moved on to types of connector, banana v bare wire v spade, spring clips v screw threaded binding posts, tightness of connection, and perhaps going the whole hog and rewiring the entire domestic audio chain with $250,000 of wire. I get nightmares when I recall the cheap spaghetti like wiring loom at the back of the mixers and under the desk at this studio where I worked some 20 years. And yet, guess what? We got some lovely sounds coming out of that setup. At least until we switched from vinyl, minidisc and CD to PC based Mp3 files. Never did find out the bitrate but I doubt whether they were over 128kbps. Perhaps not even that. They seemed more concerned with using Audacity to tidy up recorded broadcasts. |
@gawdbless , yes I bet some would prefer the straightened coat hanger, and then uber expensive cable, and then the coat hanger etc @cleeds , thank you for that information. Would it be too much to ask for the results of any of these experiments? There's plenty out there that suggest cables don't make any significant difference. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10827699/Crossed-wires-are-expensive-cables-a-waste-of-m... Seriously when you consider all the various switches, diodes, components that the signal has to pass through on it's way from the DAC (or cartridge) to the delicate voice coil wires of the loudspeaker, isn't it a bit like changing the last 6 inches of your cold water pipe and expecting an improvement in taste? I myself have tried cables from Linn (k20), Naim (NAC A5), Chord (Odyssey 2- silver plated), solid core lighting flex (it was once all the rage here thanks to Jimmy Hughes - legendary tweaker), and finally oxygen free copper. To this day I have no idea which was the best, or the worst. Thankfully many serious manufacturers have resisted the urge to chase the quick buck by diving into this exploitation business. Sony, B&W, ATC, Harbeth, Spendor, Arcam, Marantz, Tannoy etc. A ready made market there for the taking! You can imagine how simple it would be for them to start their own line of cables. These companies however are in it for the long term and wish to preserve their credibility and reputation. |
Why should I buy oxygen free copper (ofc) cable? https://youtu.be/Ms-wqCFaghs 'Won't improve your sound quality', but good enough for the LHC? Now you tell me. Ah well, at least it's better for heat and oxidation. |
@rja , Monster1000 speaker cables vs 4 twisted soldered coat hangers. To date the coat hangers have remained unbeaten against all comers from the cable world. https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hange... |
@cleeds , well there’s plenty of stuff out there regarding cable comparisons. Some of the following from 2010 won’t be music to many. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/ Surprisingly (?), nothing similar in defence from any cable manufacturer! Surely it would be child’s play for Atlas, Nordost, Kimber, Monster etc to set up comparison sessions between their lowest and highest priced cables to demonstrate worthwhile sonic differences? Unless of course there weren’t any. So all we seem to get are attacks on methodology akin to the ones faced by skeptics such as Peter Aczel and James Randi. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi Good read, even if it disillusioned me regarding the case of whom many considered the greatest case in paranormal history, Daniel Dunglas Home. |
@dave_b I’m glad you enjoyed it, certainly lifts my spirits. Just love deadpan ironic humour. @acman3 yes I’ve seen it before but its brilliance will never get old. Thanks. For me anyway, it's reassuring to know that only solid silver is a better conductor than Oxygen Free Copper, and only marginally so. On the other hand OFC is more resistant to tarnish because of its lower oxygen content. For most of us 10 AWG OFC is overkill so I’m sure 12AWG or even 14AWG would suffice for anything other than extreme lengths (20 metres+) where resistance may lead to heat issues. Here’s an old article on cables which looks at the issue of contact oxidation. https://www.stereophile.com/content/cables-case-solder |
@dave_b you’re right about experience, unless you are lucky enough to find a system that provides long term satisfaction straight off the bat. Some of us have spent decades in sorting out the truths from the fictions with very little help from the audio press., Hopefully some of our experiences shared here may be of use to those who are new to this game. |
