I believe in the sufficiency argument. Once you get to the level of a competently engineered cable, there is no ROI beyond that. As been said in this forum and other places, if you spend more on speaker cables and interconnects than what you can find at Blue Jeans Cable, you’ve spent too much.
I find the talk about skin effects (stranded vs. solid) to be baseless. A lifetime ago, I worked for a test and measurement company that had to measure electrical signals in the radio frequency (RF) range. We had to use exotic substrates and different metalization schemes to deal with skin effect and insertion loss but this was for signals starting in the GHz range. Audio is in the Hz and KHz range; at least a 1Mx below that threshold. These cable marketing guys borrow selectively from the electrical engineering lexicon to sound competent.
I’d take the exotic cable money and spend it on better speakers and hear a real difference.
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@op. I guess I'm a naysayer. I believe in using decent quality, well-constructed cables that fit a particular need. Once there, though, what I don't hear on any of my systems or on anyone else's or in any shop demos are the immediate night and day improvements many claim to have obtained. I don't have much experience with megabuck, exotic cables.
Yes, differences in ICs and speaker cable, primarily. Digital and power, not so much. Subtle differences, if starting from something competent. Never anything like swapping out a competent speaker jumper with 3 inches of megabuck wire and finding 6db difference on the volume knob, all of sudden not needing the beloved pair of subwoofers, miraculously expanding stage width and depth to the neighbors' houses, taking down half the room treatments, etc.
That's what I don't hear. A slight tightening of the bass on a long speaker run, a hair less noise when swapping out all the ICs, a very slight smoothing of the upper mids when swapping in bi-wire solid core v. large gauge stranded singles...sure, I believe I hear something like that occasionally, but not always.
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Different speaker cables, for example, sound differently from one another because each ALTERS the signal giving you the illusion of more air, deeper soundstage, more bass, etc.
If you truly want to hear what your amplifier sounds like, the most logical approach would be to have speaker wire that is exactly the same wire that goes to your amp’s binding posts. Also, the same wire should go from your speaker’s binding posts to its drivers.
One must use some common sense here. Adding some boutique speaker cables does not unlock something magical hidden inside your amp. Also, and I dispise when people use this expression, cables don’t "get out of the way of the music". That’s the biggest load of BS in audio. In fact, it's just the opposite. The differences in cabling you hear is the cable doing something to the signal.
Newsflash: Your audio components do not have $4,000 wiring inside. If you truly wanted to get out of the way of the music, your interconnects and speaker cables would be the same as what’s inside. The sound you perceive to be different is because boutique cabling alters the original signal to the point where it’s so manipulated you hear more of this, or less of that.
I wish I read a post like this 21 years ago. Maybe some young audiophile will read this one. |
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I was a sceptic once. Used blue jeans ICs and SCs..
Now I DIY my own stuff using quality materials. There is an easily discernable difference. I'd never go back.
You nays can throw as much pseudo science around as the cable manufacturers do, just from the other side. I understand that the absurd prices are absurd. But we’re not talking ROI, we’re taking efficacy... |
Some say they hear a difference, some say they can't. The ones who hear a difference claim the ones who can't are deaf, and the ones who can't say the ones who can are just trying to justify their purchase. I don't recall if anyone ever tried to defend the cost/markup of 5K+ interconnects and 20k+ speaker cables, even if they think they sound amazing. So that's pretty much it, as far as I can see. |
My perspective is this: there are two separate arguments here, using the same words, and people keep talking past one another.
Many people seem to be against cables because of two main things: high (absurd) prices and crazy, hyperbolic marketing copy from manufacturers. This is often the main knock against cables, once you get through all the posturing and 'electrical engineering' junk.
Those that are for them can often come from the opposite perspective: spending money on something means it's good. More money means more good. And then the idea that if it's a professionally made, special cable, it has to sound good, so they listen, hear a difference, and start spouting ad copy.
I'm too cheap to spend good money on stuff I can make myself. So I experiment and have heard the differences in different architectures and materials while not being too attached to whatever I'm using. If I see a better idea or better materials that aren't stupid expensive, I'll try it and see..
Many naysayers walk in with a contrarian attitude, reacting to silly prices and hyperbole. Many supporters aren't critical enough of what they're hearing or separating cost from performance.
And then the are many like me, who are just curious and play around, keeping an open mind and not getting too wrapped up in marketing or prices. But our middle of the road view, that can accept the truths from both sides while dispensing with their absolutism, is mostly unheard because of the shouting from the fringes.
Huh, does that sound like anything else going on in our world right now? |
devilboyIf you truly want to hear what your
amplifier sounds like, the most logical approach would be to have
speaker wire that is exactly the same wire that goes to your amp’s
binding posts That's not logical at all, because the length of a cable has a lot to do with its characteristics, including resistance. You'll want a much heavier gauge cable for your 10-foot amplifier-to-speaker cable than you'd need for the few inches of cable that's inside your amplifier.
Also, the same wire should go from your speaker’s binding
posts to its drivers.
Again, this does not make much sense. In a typical speaker with a passive crossover, the cable going to each driver only sees a fraction of the total current that is at the output of the amplifier. And as an FYI, some speaker systems do use quite high quality internal wiring. |
I always think of the responses in threads where ’nay sayers’ erupt, as being the outlier, the minimal, like 1 or 2 or 4 voices in a crowd of hundreds.
Which is true.
the reality is, if you get all the readers of a given thread in a room, there would be hundreds of them. Hundreds.
Then, in that room, 2-3-5-6 people ’disagree’. Some start shouting and waving their arms around, throwing anger and vitriol at all the other people in the room, throwing it at the silent majority of ~hundreds~.
So when you look at the naysayers who spend their lives keeping the threads alive with their disagreements, look at the number of views of the thread and you can calculate, to a certain degree.... that you are dealing with a ~totally dismissable~ extremely small minority of those few who won’t back down on their extreme minority viewpoint.
They don’t truly realize they are in a room of hundreds of people who feel differently, hundreds of people who don’t feel the need to engage them.
the naysayers do not have a strong viewpoint for the majority or masses.
They just have a keyboard and an unwillingness to back down. All they a have to do is wake up and look around the room (’forum thread room’ full of viewers/readers). They are surrounded by hundreds of silent people who feel and know otherwise.
I engage them at times, simply due to the fact that the silent majority is also generally not noting that the few naysayers do not have a real functional position that the majority is interested in dealing with or taking on. That the majority of silent readers of the given thread to not realize they are dealing with very minor outliers.
And that, in a nutshell, is the nature of these ongoing war like threads.
The silent majority of hundreds to low thousands, is not visible to the eyes as a physical presence. But they are most definitely there.
think about it. Think of the given thread being a room of 400 people, meeting, and having a discussion. Four people keep disputing it and trying to tear down the meeting itself.. to tear down the intent and meaning of the meeting. Refusal to stop, means they would be ejected from the meeting or removed by force if necessary. The forum is this sort of large hall meeting, but done through keyboards. See it for what it is.
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Funny that you talk about the silent majority (remember who introduced the term?). Anyhow, science is not decided by votes but by facts.
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Well, I’ll be kind and take your comment as being not fully fleshed out, and not be inflamed via the holes that can be fleshed out by me and used to insense myself.
Which your two line post is chock full of. We have to be careful to not make the kind of incomplete statements we can get away with in person, as the the back and forth can take place in seconds and also has our own particular physical presence to help mitigate misunderstanding.
The implication is, put in the effort, leave the emotions at home in a box and do it right. Or stay home. whic is aimed at all, no specific person. Avoid the self inflammation and also avoid the inflammation tactic. Which is how the internet forums grew up, sadly. Heck, things like reddit are based on inflaming and baiting. Tis’ a sad sack of effluent, at best.
Problem is, I can do it right all day long, but some jack will run up behind me or another given person who is trying to do it right and run them through with some short curt written sword of some sort, one that has nothing do do with handling the subject properly or in the vein of a communication that resolves the points at hand.
Points which are incredibly unlikely to be resolved in print -- at the best of times.
Put two opposed viewpoints into a thread on a forum and you are looking at the law of diminishing returns taken to heretofore unknown levels of pointlessness. Which is how the barbs and viciousness gain a foothold.
So,
-pointless barbs and viciousness,
-arguments that cannot be won,
-small minority of unyielding handwavers
-a large room built out of a silent majority
Saving forums and building them up to high levels of participation involves dealing with the small minority of itinerant punchers and kickers.
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I felt this thread was trolling but it seems to have life. Good to see some healthy skeptics providing balance to the tin foilers who think the Holy Grail in audio are interconnects and speaker wire.
It is obvious that excellent audio equipment design should maximize the audio signal fidelity and minimize ALL other factors (cables, power, RF/EM noise, transformer Hum etc etc).
My answer to the tin foilers is: If you own audio devices that are incapable of minimizing (below audibility) extraneous factors then get rid of said devices and find something that actually works properly!!! |
I had a very interesting experience yesterday - I went to a neighbours house and he demo’d his system - it was dynamic, spacious and clarity through the roof
His system was an old (20 years) 6 watt tube power amp and tube pre-amp with a consumer grade CD player CD player.
His wires were very mediocre IC’s and the Speaker Cables were 18 gauge lamp cord - yep - lamp cord!!!
The power cords on both units were 16 gauge, wired directly to the transformer
I had taken my custom built cables over for him to audition, so we went about replacing all of his cables.
At the end of the day, with all of the cables replaced we both noticed a discernible improvement, but given the quality of his original cables I was very surprised we were not hearing more of an improvement.
He told me that the amp was custom built to the point where the guy hand wound all of the transformers to his own spec and obviously too great care in ensuring the amp/pre combo was working at optimum levels
My amp on the other hand is a mass produced product from NAIM and if I had used his cables It would have sounded terrible.
So based on these observations I would have to say that the level of improvements observed is directly related the quality of the components in the system and how well they are designed and built.
There is also the "synergy" aspect to consider and the room that the system is in plays a huge role in whether improvements are observed.
The human ear is a fine tool for discerning change (good or bad or just different) and not everybody’s hearing is the same. Some people like me can be overwhelmed by the chatter going on in a room and some people, like my wife, can tune their hearing to a conversation three tables away across a crowded restaurant.
So given the many factors at play I am not surprised by the responses as to whether cables make a difference can be so varied.
Me? - I can hear the difference, so I am in the camp that believe cables DO make a difference based on my personal observations in my own system and those of friends. But I do not intend to expend a lot of time trying to convince others of that - so I save my opinions for discussions as to the possible "why’s" with "like minded" souls.
Regards - Steve
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Was this on the road to Damascus?
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The roads in Pleasantville all end at the edge of town. The roads in other towns lead to uh, other towns and even to cities.
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Whoa! Yikes!! Holy guacamole! That’s the bible for cable naysayers and pseudo skeptics, for sure!
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IF that Audioholics article is the basis upon which naysayers base their denials of sonic differences among cables then they are working with a set of arguments based on false premises. The article wildly overstates what audiophiles find as differences among cables to invalidate there could be any differences at all. That article is a "literary turd"!
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Hard to argue with most of his positions, but he does note that for a small set of cases, low capacitance cabling is important.
I generally tend to agree with, you know, science and data. But to each their own. |
What the 'science and data' crowd forgets is money. Who is going to fund the studies to show what the measurements are that pertain to sonic differences in audio cabling? There are very few people who even care enough about audio to set up even a rudimentary system instead of a Bluetooth box. Of those, an even smaller number will care about sound quality to the extent that we all do. So there's the market, what company can make enough money from that market to fund this research? Or is NASA going to do it?
Much of the science and data we have was generated in pursuit of other goals, or in pursuit of a reasonable level of sonic accuracy. Often findings not related to audio have proven useful for us or the companies that make what we love.
So if you're focusing on 'science and data' you very well may miss a lot of great ideas because the money isn't behind them to 'do the study'. Just saying... |
When I first started playing with good gear, there was no such thing as a premium cable. (Wasn’t Fulton the first commercial audiophile cable?). I wired my Quad ESLs with zip cord, can’t remember the interconnect, it wasn’t the cheap plastic molded junk, probably made from connectors and wire from a spool by a tech guy.
I’ve been through various cables over the years with various systems and each did things differently. One thing I can say it that there was no "best" in an absolute sense. I do think there is some synergy among various components and the wire has a part in that too, though I understand the objective school.
When I had my Quads and associated gear restored recently for a vintage system, I decided I didn’t want to do fancy "audiophile" cable, so I first used some 12 gauge zip. At the suggestion of a fellow Quad owner, I replaced it with Canare 4S11, which didn’t sound quite as harsh or ’in your face.’ Both were cheap.
I like the fact that a lot of folks here have gotten into the DIY cable thing.
In terms of measurements vs human sensitivity, we were hanging art from picture rails recently, and using a level, some were still a little "off" to my eye. Tiny increment, but I could see it. Maybe the house isn’t level-- it’s from the 1880’s, but adjusted to my liking. I think much is the same with cable- the whole thing is an artifice, creating an illusion. I have good audiophile cable on my main system and feel no need to upgrade or change- I did by ear comparisons with other cable in my system to go with what I have now- I cannot say it is the "best" but it works very well in my system.
Like high priced phono cartridges- the topic of another thread here- I hate paying the tariff, don’t really read the magazines anymore, and think there is so much subjective about all of it- from the listener end to how the source material is recorded, mixed, mastered, to the system, set up and listener preference, that I can safely conclude that both camps are right- whatever works for you, absent proclamations that there is some absolute ’best’-- (though there are synergies where a number of people using a specific speaker seem to gravitate toward a particular line of cable-not sure it is group think so much as finding the same results). |
Having been a avid naysayers myself for the better of 40 years (started the audiophile game at age 20) I just recently got converted. Now that does not imply that I think the higher the cost the better the cable. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who loaned my a $4500.00 speaker cable to use in my system. Yes the cable sounded superb and I can easily hear the difference from my usual cable. Music to my ears. Worth the thousands better? Well I don't think so. Better yes but not always. I noticed that some of my older recordings were unpalatable using the expensive cable. I had never noticed that before. Some newer recordings sounded really engaging. It was obvious to me that the cable was revealing pros and cons of the quality of the recording or maybe the cable is more synergistic with my components. All I will opine on is that cables do make a difference good and bad and are overpriced for sure. But then again a dollar for me is a penny for someone else. |
