The Science of Cables

@douglas_schroeder, I think you might be thinking of Grannyring and his Acoustic BBQ brand here on A’Gon.

@elizabeth, yes. That is correct. Canare StarQuad brand cables, for example, have 2 conductors per leg (2 signal carrying conductors and 2 returns). A SM dual Canare StarQuad assembly would have 4 conductors per leg tied in parallel. When I asked HAVE, Inc. to make the SM dual Canare StarQuad IC assembies, they simply used 2 separate Canare StarQuad single runs tied in parallel at the RCA or XLR plugs with an outer jacket sheath put around the assembly to keep things tidy.

Some cables are made which incur significant time, material and labor costs. They should sell for more than HEA cable prices in the $1000s and $10000s. They include GroverHuffman cables which one can read about on his site. Just drawing the wire into an embossed ribbon is a time consuming, laborious task. Constructing the 3 powdered metal melded shielding is another messy and laborious task. All together, it takes 2 man hours to construct one cable A/C, IC and more for speaker cables. His prices are $300 to $1000 for his two lines. I am the 20 year beta tester for his designs. I have compared them to many of the best. No contest.

I have heard musically involving systems, even a few at audio shows and salons. The best I ever heard replicates the sound of the recording in its venue but the system costs $1.5 million. My system only does half that sound, lacking mostly the open and ambient sound retrieval of that system (of the deep bass which is also room dependant).

There is too much discussion of cables overall. HEA prices of cables are comparable to pharmaceuticals whereby the cost of innovation results in products that cost an arm and a leg (high priced) for profit to result and additional innovation to be funded (at least privately by HEA rather than govt and university funded for many pharmaceuticals).

There should be greater emphasis placed on the room acoustics as it is for music venues and sound studios. Note how long it takes to design and build as well as important for music venues to have proper acoustics for classical music. Other venues concentrate on sound dispersion, use tone controls for obtaining desired frequency balances and balance controls for performers. What is it that audiophiles seek? Is it even frequency reproduction or just dynamic reproduction or resolution of details, ambiance retrieval or a combination? I suggest room acoustics can address many of these HEA requirements.