Speaker wire is it science or psychology

I am always cynical. But 10 years ago I changed cables,
I was impressed, tighter bass, a layer or two of transparency, and the highs a little less grainy. Now whether $10,000 cables/interconnects vs $1000 are better, I
don't know but I think I would whether spend the difference
on something else. That is about 700 CDs. I could buy
every Schubert, Brahms, and Webern CD produced.

Steve, I recently initiated a post on blind listening tests and received a number of negative posts. In the end, it is difficult to argue with people whose only response is "there must be a difference because I hear a difference". I would bet large somes of $$ that the majority of audiophiles could not hear a difference between cables in a blind testing scenario. I also believe a similar result would occur if you put say Rotel type electronics in a Mark Levinson box. I find it easier to believe in the tooth fairy than to believe that most audiophiles can hear what they claim to hear!!

For a long time I considered that all wire was the same. My Dad who has been an electrical engineer for a long time would say that for speaker cable, as long as the gauge was large enough for the length, that was all that mattered. For interconnects, if you had a problem with noise, then a cable with shielding may help, but other than that, no differences.

Several times I've been curious about these types of debates and tried some experimenting to see if I could tell a difference. I compared the free $0.25 interconnects that come with stuff to Kimber PBJ and some AudioQuest stuff, but I didn't want to spend a lot for this experiment. I couldn't really tell a difference with the equpiment I had. I was using a Sony ES preamp with lots of digital gizmos built in, a decent amp, and Definitive Technology speakers. I was pretty convinced that there was no difference.

In the last year, I got a separate preamp for music and B&W Natuilas 802's. The dealer was asking what kind of cables I was using and I told him about the $8 balanced cables that I brought at the electronics supply store. He claimed that was choking my system. So he set up a demo at the store and I brought my cables. We tried my cables, some $240 cables, some $900, and some $2000, and there were clear changes at each step of the way. The most obvious of course was the difference between the $8 and $240. A cable with no specific engineering towards sound quality vs a cable that is trying to preserve the sound and minimizing distortion makes a big difference. The bass was not muddy anymore, instruments that kinda blended together could now be heard as distinctly separate instruments. Its really difficult to tell the difference unless you listen to a system that can reveal the differences and you do the A-B-A-B tests.

I would suggest going to a dealer and getting the chance to compare cables in several price ranges.]

Its really hard to get through to the truth about cables because there is a lot of snake oil sales out there and tons of buzz words floating about. While I was looking around for information, I found that there were some measurable differences in resistances, capacitance, inductance etc. Some of the measurements were suspect because they do them way beyond the audible range - so I don't know if those really have any effect. On one site, they showed oscilloscope traces at the amp end and speaker end of a cable, and you could see how different cables add distortion.

Its also difficult to swallow because the companies making the cables have some huge profit margins built in especially on their top of the line cables. If you look at the difference in construction between one line and the next, they make slight changes, trading one dielectric for another, or a slightly different copper purity, or adding air tube insulation instead of foamed insulation - and those kind of changes may not cost them any more to manufacture, or perhaps a few cents per foot but yet they charge hundreds per foot difference but that all comes down to the free market, supply and demand. They have to make certain models stand out as high end, and stand up to their competition etc. Its hard to get above the noise level with so many companies and different cable designs.

I think the easiest way to determine if better cables are worthwhile is to have a demo yourself - and go in with your current views and make someone prove to you that they make a difference. I would have never beleived it. My old system was so muddy by itself that cables didn't make any difference, but once I cleaned it up the difference was obvious - its not subtle so it wasn't hard to convince me even though I expected that I'd have to strain to hear anything and then convince myself somehow that I could tell a difference. It wasn't like that at all.

I have tried several different cables and used my wife as a guinea pig. She has definitely noticed differences between the three I tried. I tried some old 12 gauge stranded zip cord, some Kimber 4TC and Analysis plus oval. All were matched using a Rat Shack SPL meter that I had calibrated vs my B&K meter that we use at work for accoustic measurements (truck drive by testing). To match levels I used the 1000 Hz test tone on Stereophile's test disc 3.

Components used:
Sony CD/DVD
Lexicon DC2 pre/proc
Adcom 7400 amp
Dynaudio Contour 1.8 MKII
Line length is aout 16ft per side as I had to run the cables through floor and out under speaker to make the room "look nice" The Dyn cherry veneer has a very nice acceptance factor however.

I really liked the Kimber 4TC at first, it seemed to greatly improve imagingand I heard more detail in the music, but after a while it sounded a little bright. I had set up my speakers and a little light room treatment (plants, wall hangings, and big honking pillows) using the Bass/Midrange and Treble decade signals on the stereophile disc using my zip cord. After listening to the 4TC for a while I got suspicious. I remeasured the response and found a +2 to 3 db increase at around 1.5 to 4.5 kHz and a lesser increase out to 10k where the Rat Shack meter rolls off. I concluded that that is why the cable sounded different and better for a while.

I later tried the Analysis Plus oval, and it had a slightly less "etched" sound than the kimber and was not as fatiguing, but it had good imaging and I heard very good detail. On checking the spectrum, it was much flatter in the 1.5 to 4.5kHz range, and flattened the lower midrange a smidge.

I am very happy with these cables, and I still am happy with the Kimbers for my surround speakers, as my system does double duty for HT occasionally.

I would like to see more measurements using a Network analyzer, such as HP makes. I have used one in the past while building capacitive clearance probes, and it sweeps a network and displays a Bode plot of the LRC network attached. Insulators and wire configuration made a difference, but back then I was a poor junior engineer and couldn't afford speaker cable.

To conclude after a regrettably long winded response. Yes it is in our heads, but yes there is a measurable difference.

As we say in test and measurement, "Your results may vary"

It takes time to acclimate ones' self with the sonic attributes of a system. Some differences are very subtle at best while others can be quite noticeable. Sticking someone into a room with an unknown quantity and then asking them to identify which is which is not a very accurate way to decipher if there is a subtle difference. It would be like asking someone to identify identical twins. While someone that was not familiar with them might not have a clue, those that are FAMILIAR with them would probably be able to identify them without a problem. It is the same with a well tuned and familiar audio system and specific passages of music. There are subtle "hints" that would and will give things away. IF the listener pays attention.

As to blind testing and ABX'ing, you guys keep forgetting about Moncrieff from IAR. He was able to verify whether there was or wasn't an "approved" ABX switchbox installed in the system, let alone wire or component changes. He did this with outside witnesses and had a 100% accuracy rate. While i'm not saying that i or anyone else could duplicate those listening feats, it obviously shows that it can be done.

By the way, the guy that built and designed the first ABX test box and started all of the hoopla is the guy that built and designed some of my preamps. His name is David Spiegel for the record. He now designs safety and security systems for monitoring Nuclear Power Plants.

I found the story about the RIAA circuit quite amusing. It sounds like gibberish, but it was quite amusing. I don't know of any design engineer that would work like that and keep his job in ANY field. Designing a component and then voicing it are different things. Trying to do both at the same time would typically result in an utter mess or take far too long to make the results worthwhile.

Do the test that i gave you with 18 gauge zip cord and 12 gauge zip. Put two speakers next to each other and place the system into mono mode using a reference quality recording for the source material. This will feed identical signals to the two speakers. Then swing your balance between the two speakers and tell me that there are NO sonic differences. A better method is to use an a-b switchbox so that you don't have the volume change as you rotate the balance, but not everyone has this capability. Don't bother wasting our time if YOU are not willing to back up your assertions. Why should we go out of our way to respond to your "troll" when you won't even investigate something with an open mind to begin with? If you think that your response is "psychologically tainted" because you know which wire is where, hide them as best as possible and ask your wife or one of your buddies that does not have a clue if they hear a difference. Tell them to be as specific as they can in terms of describing the differences IF there are any. Since you are the skeptic, i don't think that we have to worry about your placing preconcieved notions in their heads. Report back with the results and we can go from there.... Sean
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