How does cable construction affect sonic character?
I think this altered cartoon expresses the gap between cable skeptics and believers. No one knows what happens in the brain, the machinery between the engineered cable and the subjective experience (expressed in language). It's something miraculous -- or, for skeptics -- it's nothing.
For anyone interested, here's an old article from the Audio Critic, demonstrating how differences in resistance, inductance and capacitance affect frequency response at the speaker. One thing - I believe they used 10 meters of cable, which could certainly exacerbate the differences in measurements over, say, 10 feet of cable, but here it is anyway. https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/mags/The_Audio_Critic_16_r.pdf |
@chayro Thanks for sending the link to that article. I see that the article is called "The Wire and Cable Scene: Facts, Fictions, and Frauds Part II." Do you have a link to the issue with "Part I"? Can you share that? Thanks again. |
@hilde45 - here’s a link to the entire hard-cover Audio Critic library as it currently exists. I found them to be very interesting reading, although I certainly didn’t agree with everything they wrote. Still, the Audio Critic is a piece of high end audio history that is worth looking at, IMO. There is also a link to their later "web zine" on the page. |
Thanks for the link. Just looking at an article on the 10 biggest lies in audio and I'm already scratching my head at the claim that "Whatever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment, solid-state devices can do better, at lower cost, with greater reliability....As for the "tube sound," there are two possibilities: (1) It's a figment of the deluded audiophile's imagination, or (2) it's a deliberate coloration introduced by the manufacturer to appeal to corrupted tastes, in which case a solid-state design could easily mimic the sound if the designer were perverse enough to want it that way." Still, it's nice to see firmly wrought opinions even when they're (to my mind) bordering on ridiculous. My guess is that there will be a lot in here that I will agree with, too. |
Interesting read. The part about different recording studios sounding different, even when they use the same microphones in the same hall, really resonates with me. In my youth, my classical CD collection was organized primarily by label. I considered myself a connoisseur of label sounds, basking in the combined effect they created with the musical performance. The album art and liner notes, which some CDs still had, also added quite a bit to the experience, no doubt coloring my perception of the sound quality itself. |
