3 things I learned from using MANY interconnect cables


At last, I am posting here for the first time! I got so much help from this forum and always felt a bit guilty about not contributing.

Over the past several years, I have used the following interconnect cables: Audioquest Golden Gate, Audioquest Columbia, Audioquest Sky, Monster Interlink 300 MkIII, Harmonic Technology Pro Silway (I have used both Mk I and Mk II), Silnote Morpheus, Anticables (the original version), Tara Labs RSC, Nordost Heimdall, Straightwire Crescendo, and Chord Anthem. They were all purchased used and I always had 2 or more pairs to compare at a given time although I didn’t have these cables all at once. Through the journey, I learned the following:

1. The price was NOT indicative of the sound quality unless you go very cheap (less than $100). I think this point is self-explanatory so I am not adding any elaboration.

2. Disconnecting and re-connecting the cables had a very positive impact on sound quality, which will affect any AB comparison. If you are comparing two pairs of cables that had comparable sound quality, the new cables will sound better because the connection would be fresh.

3. In my experience, the cables were NOT system dependent. This might raise some eye brows as it goes against the commonly held belief so I am going to explain a bit here.

All I am saying is that I have never seen a case where my preference order of two sets of interconnect cables got reversed when tested on two or more components (e.g. cable A was better than cable B on amp X but cable B was better on amp Y, etc). With any AB comparison I ever did, the better cable always won no matter what component I was testing them on.

Oh in case someone is curious, the best pair of interconnect cables I have ever used was Chord Anthem. It had a wider frequency range and a more natural tonality than others. And I would rather not add the qualification "but it was the best only in my system" because of the 3rd point I made above. Cheers!
johnson0134
@millercarbon "Simply handling a cable, wiggling it around connecting and disconnecting, is enough to affect the sound" - That’s interesting and I would love to try it. But I don’t know how easy it would be to separate these two different actions (re-connecting vs wiggling). Honestly I would not have paid much attention to such a proposal ten+ years ago when I used to believe everything in audio forums was kind of fairy tales. But many of them turned out to be true in my experience; except the 16 bit vs 24 bit difference - I was never able to pass a blind test even though I thought I was hearing a difference when I wasn’t "blinded". 

"Want to hear something really good, try any wire with Synergistic Research on it." - Funny you mentioned it because I literally JUST got a power cord from SR, my first time using their product. A wonderful improvement it brought about!
I think I should add some clarification to point #3. If "system dependent" means someone might prefer cable A while another might prefer cable B, then yes, I agree that cables are system dependent, wholeheartedly.

What I meant in the original post was simply that there was no preference order change between two pairs of cables ever happening to me, given that my taste in sound remains constant. That's all I was saying.
@roxy54
@soix
@ghosthouse
@lancelock
@shkong78

Thanks for the kind words and suggestions. It was my first time making a post here and didn't know the discussion thread would get active this quickly :-(  I honestly don't think I can keep up with all these new comments and respond to them when I am summoned. So I just wanted to thank you guys before I disappear for a while.

One final comment: I don't think the purpose of a forum like this is to compete against each other on proving who's right. I believe it's rather finding a solution by working TOGETHER so we can accomplish our common goal - enjoy the music in excellent sound.

Take care! Tschüss! 안녕히 계세요!