The Science of Cables


It seems to me that there is too little scientific, objective evidence for why cables sound the way they do. When I see discussions on cables, physical attributes are discussed; things like shielding, gauge, material, geometry, etc. and rarely are things like resistance, impedance, inductance, capacitance, etc. Why is this? Why aren’t cables discussed in terms of physical measurements very often?

Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables. 

I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
128x128mkgus
Monty's (From Xiph) lecture about digital signals on how 24-bit/192 KHz media has no audible differences when compared to 16-bit/44.1 KHz media can be applied to cables as well.

Until somebody that has golden ears (Please submit yourself as a subject as scientists are dying to study you) can prove in a double blind A/B test that there is a difference between cable A and cable B, then expensive cables merely exist to strip people with limited scientific knowledge of their hard earned money. This is assuming cable A is a Monoprice 14/16AWG cable and cable B is some ridiculous Nordost frey snake-oil cable.

Just because someone else can hear a difference, doesn't mean you can, so try the same double blind A/B test yourself.

There will always be a number of people with more money than sense and that's what these businessmen exploit, it's simply profitable business so why wouldn't they?


@maplegrovemusic 

Guess it would be real interesting to find out who, on average, has the better sounding rigs. The folks who ultimately rely on the LCR or those that rely on the EAR.
I suspect this has been linked here before, but blind tests have rarely supported the idea that people can hear the difference.