DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

nonoise
To paraphrase an old Sam Kinison line:
If you see me doing that, just shoot me.

>>>Didn’t he wind up shooting himself? Whatever.

My first impression isn't what I expected at all.  The Kimber Hero XLR cables sound really bright to me compared to my AQ Mackenzie XLRs.  The Kimber ~$1200 speaker cables are going to require more listening.  First impression is that my AQ Rocket 33 Bi-wires are pretty good and I will likely stick with them. 

Which brings me to .. I am going to buy a USB cable because even though I've only listened to one of them so far, I'm 99% sure I will be able to differentiate between my printer cable and the better USB cable blind. My current belief is that the difference wasn't subtle which is not what I expected.

So, cables matter.  Just not precisely how I expected.  So far.  A lot more listening and an assistant next week to help me blind compare and to see if she can hear differences.

Yes and no. Cables matter and do make a huge difference to people that have the ability to hear the difference a good cable can do in their system.
On the other side those that say no must not have the hearing ability to actually hear differences between cheap and higher end cables.

^^^^^  and...there we go again....

Another in-depth analysis of the issue.

ron1319,

I am going to buy a USB cable because even though I’ve only listened to one of them so far, I’m 99% sure I will be able to differentiate between my printer cable and the better USB cable blind. My current belief is that the difference wasn’t subtle which is not what I expected.

Have you ever considered, just for the heck of it, having someone help you with a quick blind test of your cables. If you are getting new USB cables, that should be a pretty easy swap.

In my case my source equipment is in a different room from my speakers, so that makes it easier to set up a test where I can’t see/hear what’s going on during the swapping.


Though even if you have your source in the same room as the speakers, I"m sure you could do a blind test with someone helping so you don’t know which cable they swapped in. It may not pass peer review...but even informal blind tests at home can still be somewhat surprising and mind-opening :-)