Is there a glass ceiling for cable technology??

I was under the impression that the glass ceiling was reached decades ago by Monster Cable.

Of course you could just leave out the word "cable" and ask if there is a glass ceiling for audio technology in general. Since so many seem to enjoy analog and vacuum tube technologies over digital and solid state technologies, one could ask if technology in general is even moving in the right direction, let alone hit a glass ceiling.

Glass Ceilings are an interesting topic in general in this hobby.

Just how good can anything sound in given room? Its a fair question.

My suspicion is that what determines the absolute sound in home playback at this point is 98% subjective and 2% technical/objective.

Absolute sounds abound elsewhere all around us, but the biggest technical limit for home playback is probably the quality and nature of the recording.

Plus nothing stays exactly the same over time, including us and our perceptions day to day, so what sounds like the glass ceiling one day may very well not the next.

IF you are enjoying most all of your music most all of the time, then I would say you are practically in a very good place.

If you've been at it for awhile and not the case, then maybe try some digital audio streaming off even a half decent computer and some good headphones or earbuds (not the cheap stuff that comes with most devices). There is a lot less that can go wrong there as a start!

Perhaps in the future. As for now, I recently bought some new Cardas cables. They are miles ahead of the former Cardas offerings. But not at long lengths!
Also some wire from Kimber. The clarity of the new wires is better than other wires from Kimber I have had. (though at 6 meters they are not perfect either..)

Part of the current situation is geometry. No one has really totally explored all the kinds of geometry possible. Still room for breakthroughs there.

For wire purity, we may be near the peak. With single crystal wire, 99,99999 purity. That particular point is near perfection. The only breakthroughs may be lower costs to produce.

Alloys may be a whole new area few cable makers have explored, and the few who have are only scratching the surface of it. Alloys may be a very fertile area of cable research in the future. And not neccessarily gold and silver with copper. there may be others no one has even had an inkling of. Mostly because no one has bothered to look.
Alloys in aerospace are a million miles ahead of audio cables, because there is money and a demand to do research to solve problems. the only cable companies which could afford to do some are not at this time.. probably because no need to.

So thirty years from now some accidental discovery of an alloy composition which makes all other cables seem made by cave men may appear.. Who knows. Maybe next week.

One point is plenty of current mid to low priced cables available now are great.

In a word, no.

Having said that, I've gotten the best results I've had with some plain old 16 gauge .9999 soft annealed silver wire with an 8 gauge teflon tube that's so big it makes air the primary dielectric. No connectors, just bare wire.

All the best,
Nonoise

Audioquest ICs - polyethylene or polyethylene foam, or polyethylene foam in oversized tubes, Teflon, Teflon foam, Teflon foam in oversized tubes. Metal can be very pure but standard oxygen free copper has still thousands of crystals per foot(impurities reside between crystals) while the best metals have one crystal being made in hot forms that allow to cool metal slowly preventing crystalization (Ohno Continuous Cast).

My interconnects are 0.5m XLR Acoustic Zen Absolute (silver in oversized foam Teflon). While typical cable capacitance is about 30pF/ft - Absolute is 6.1pF/ft

How does it sound? It is more refined than previous 10x cheaper 0.5m XLR AQ King Cobra. Everything is a little bit better. Sound is slightly smoother, faster, cleaner with the same neutral balance. Is it worth paying 10x more? Perhaps not (for my system), but I got very good deal (and it is going to stay forever). It is for me point of diminishing returns. Even with better system and better room my ears are still the same. This point of diminishing returns is different for different people. Some are satisfied with lamp cord and it is great - saves a lot of money.