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What do audiophiles want from a cable?

What should a high quality interconnect or speaker cable do to the sound of a system? Make it more transparent? Improve the sound stage and focus? Soften unpleasant highs? Tighten the base? Bring out the mids?

To me, a good cable should reveal more of what is on the recording and more of the true nature of my components. So when trying new cables, I look for more detail and accuracy without becoming cold and clinical. This seems logical, and yet after reading reviews and trying a few of the cables in the reviews, I find that the cables that have received glowing endorsements are not especially transparent or revealing. They modify the sound, but they don’t take me where I want to go. I wonder if the reason I don’t hear what the reviewer heard is that I don’t know what to listen for. Am I too focused on cable accuracy and resolution, and not enough on actual sound quality? Or is it just a case of no two systems sounding alike so why trust a review anyway? Thanks.
mward
psag
517 posts
 
There seems to be two schools of thought, with membership being somewhat age-dependent.
 
Attendees of the older school want their systems to sound good, and seek out cables that make their systems sound more 'musical'.

The youngsters gravitate towards neutral, full-range, highly resolving components and cables. The results in this case are more dependent on other issues, such as room acoustics and the qualities of the recording.
inna
7,132 posts
 
I agree with two school idea but I would categorize it differently. One school are those who want to hear it as it was recorded, good or bad. And another school are dreamers who want to hear it the way they want it to sound.
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,823 posts
 
And there is nothing wrong with those two schools.  Each listener gets to decide which camp they place themselves in.  As long as they are happy and satisfied with where they are then so be it.

inna
7,132 posts
 
Right. Nothing is wrong with either. But each must know his school. If you ask me, I belong to the school of 'realists' with an element of the dreamers' school.
waxwaves's avatar
waxwaves
206 posts
 
I'm not too sure about the two schools in that sense sense folks, but I'm keeping an open mind.  If anything, there is the transparency, analysis, and resolution heads(I'm not naming any names), the warm, full bodied, and harmonically rich camp(you know who you are), And then MAYBE "the Neutralists"(it's what you THINK is neutral).

McGrogan is so right about cable modifying the sound to suit tastes/equipment and IMO it is suiting the "taste" of the equipment that is most important to keep in mind here! 

Yes I believe you will love the sound the cable imparts on your system IF it works well with the equipment.  For example, I can tell that cable x is really jiving with my DAC and cable y is sounding really good from preamp to amp.  BTW...rarely ever are they the same cable in my experience.

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