In my experience speaker cables and preamp to power amp (down the chain) represent the best "bang for buck."
Dang it… cables do matter (at least in my system)
I really didn’t want to write this post.
Like many of you, I am not a cable guy. I would much rather believe that a well-made, sensibly priced cable gets you 99% of the way there and that anything beyond that is mostly jewelry for audiophiles. In fact, that belief is exactly why I started this experiment in the first place.
I recently picked up a higher-end phono cable (Nordost Heimdall 2) to compare against a Blue Jeans Cable I already owned and respected. My intention—honestly—was to scratch the curiosity itch, confirm that the cheaper cable sounded just as good in my system, and then send the expensive one back with my wallet intact and my worldview reinforced.
That… did not happen.
In my system, the pricier cable consistently sounded better. Not “night and day,” not “jaw on the floor,” but unmistakably better: wider and more coherent soundstage, stronger and more articulate bass, better placement of instruments, more air around them, and a more resolved top end that wasn’t brighter or etched. Just clearer. More sorted. More believable.
Still, I was fully prepared to chalk some of that up to expectation bias. After all, I knew which cable was which, and $1,200 has a way of whispering sweet nothings into your ears.
So tonight, during a dinner party, I did something unplanned. I had four people listen—my brother (a dyed-in-the-wool non-audiophile), my daughter (a budding audiophile), my sister-in-law (a musician), and my wife. I didn’t tell them which cable was which, only that they were two different phono cables at very different price points and that I was trying to decide between them.
All four, independently and without hesitation, preferred the same cable. Not subtly. Not with hedging. My brother—who could not care less about hi-fi and would happily listen through a Bluetooth speaker—said there was “no question” which one he liked and that he wouldn’t use the other if given the choice.
Cue my quiet sigh.
So yes, to my chagrin and to the detriment of my wallet, the more expensive cable outperformed the cheaper one in my system. I wish the Blue Jeans had won. I truly do. This would have been a much cheaper and more philosophically satisfying outcome.
I’m not claiming cables transform systems, nor that everyone needs to run out and spend real money on them. I’m also not suggesting this will translate universally. But in this case—same system, same music, multiple listeners—the difference was real enough that even the skeptics in the room heard it.
I remain annoyed.
But apparently… cables do matter. Somewhat.
Dang it
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@brighamdoc your trial reminds me of when I was demoing a couple of AES cables 2 years ago. A Jorma and a Triode Wire Labs. I’ll be honest, it was tough to determine the difference between them, I went back and forth about 8 times before I figured out I was keeping the more expensive one, but that must be bias, right? As it happened my 25 year old daughter came over and I made her a test subject. I didn’t tell her anything other than ask which cable she preferred. She saw me swap them, but knew nothing else. She listens through a “regular” computer to a dragonfly, you know, a $80 DAC, into mid-level Sennheiser headphones. I started with the Jorma, played 70 seconds of the latest track I was listening to: Dire Straits- Brothers in Arms, just a few sentences into the part where Knopfler sings. She is not familiar with the track. I then shut off the DAC and K50, waited for the beep, changed to the TWL cable, turned on the K50, then the DAC, waited for Roon to register, and played again. Well sh!t, it took her all of 10 seconds to say “the first one is better”. I put on a poker face and said, okay lets try another track- you choose something you are familiar with. She chose Florence and the machine- Which Witch. I have never heard it before- not a bad track. She picked out some percussion sound that sounds like clapping, swapped cables, and sure enough it was much better resolved the second time it was played with the Jorma. She nailed the same cable again. She used the word “crisper”. I don’t know if I was happy or annoyed with her hearing ability. But, but she saw the cables! Biased test! Nope. I then told her one cable was $1200, and one was $300, which is which- she said the TWL looked like the expensive one and the Jorma looked like the $300 cable. I agree, the TWL looks nice. So definitely the sighting didn’t influence her decision. I actually planned to trial a couple of others I had on my list at the time, but it cost me over $100 for the free 30 day trial with the TWL, with duties, taxes, and shipping to send it back across the border, so I gave up and just stayed with the Jorma. You guys able to use The Cable Company and its lending program are lucky. Good post, thanks for sharing that, and sorry. |
I demoed the Sky cables, 15 years ago. But I purchased the Wild Blue Yonder cables. I had a very good relationship with the store's owner, and got a nearly 50% discount from the retail price. It was still expensive, but it was a deal that I could not pass up.
I can't imagine the price of Audioquest's (or any other reputable brand's) silver cables, today. |
On another site: ANA, these clowns are mostly cable naysayers even when they haven’t listened to the cable, if it costs more than $25, you wasted your money and you listened to snake oil. Quite a few of these naysayers thought the blue jeans cable in question was the best cable to use, I own cables costing 15 times or more than a pair of the blue jeans cables, so I bought a pair, broke them in for a month, and evaluated them. Compared to my reference cables, the blue jeans were lifeless, no soundstage, it was like you put a blanket over the speakers. I sold them. $1000 or even a little more isn’t that much to pay for a cable if tou have a resolving system.
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