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What do audiophiles want from a cable?

What should a high quality interconnect or speaker cable do to the sound of a system? Make it more transparent? Improve the sound stage and focus? Soften unpleasant highs? Tighten the base? Bring out the mids?

To me, a good cable should reveal more of what is on the recording and more of the true nature of my components. So when trying new cables, I look for more detail and accuracy without becoming cold and clinical. This seems logical, and yet after reading reviews and trying a few of the cables in the reviews, I find that the cables that have received glowing endorsements are not especially transparent or revealing. They modify the sound, but they don’t take me where I want to go. I wonder if the reason I don’t hear what the reviewer heard is that I don’t know what to listen for. Am I too focused on cable accuracy and resolution, and not enough on actual sound quality? Or is it just a case of no two systems sounding alike so why trust a review anyway? Thanks.
mward
terry9
931 posts
 
Agreed Almarg. Well directed.

Eric, I am lazier - after I built theoretically optimal cables (viz the Maxwell Equations) with gold plated, fine silver wire, vanishingly low dielectric absorption in a Faraday cage, and ETI connectors, and got little or no improvement over microphone cables, I just bought a stack of Starquad.

I know by single blind experiment that every high quality styrene cap and every nude Vishay resistor makes a perceptible difference in my home brew electronics. So I spend money there. Exotic cables? Not for me - can't afford them. YMMD

waxwaves's avatar
waxwaves
206 posts
 
terry9, if you come here and take the cable I use as a preamp jumper on my integrated amp while I'm at work and you switch it with an inferior cable, I will most certainly notice... guaranteed.  Absolutely positively.  I tried it recently and my audio system was much less enjoyable.  This was very obvious to other people that listen to music here on a regular basis.  From them I got the "what did you do?"  There was most certainly a decrease in the level of performance.  Similar performance loss is apparent when I position the cable that I enjoy so much on the output of my DAC in between the preamp/amp.  The magic is lost, it just can't do it.

terry9
931 posts
 
Sorry, wax, don't quite understand a few things. First, exactly what components are you connecting? Digital source --> DAC --> Integrated amp --> amp ??? Or something else?

Second, how does the sound improve? What are the characteristics of the performance loss?

Third, what characterizes an "inferior cable"?

I can hypothesize, but until I know more I can't really respond.
infection's avatar
infection
593 posts
 
Social sense of belonging. 


What...?
devilboy
818 posts
 
In terms of speaker cables, It’s said over and over: the best cable is one that doesn’t alter the signal. So then logically, that cable should be EXACTLY the same cable that goes to your amplifier’s binding posts, (newsflash: it's not a $4,000 exotic, NASA engineered cable). If I hear one more comment about how a $4,000 pair of boutique speaker cables are needed to, and this one’s my favorite, "get out of the way of the music", my head will explode.

I agree with jmcgrogan2, all cables modify the sound, it’s just a matter of do they do it to your liking?
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