In a sea of audio cable industry snake oil, we’re sure you’re wondering, What really matters when buying cables?Save your money by avoiding overpriced cables with outlandish claims. Below are some common myths to look out for and some important things to consider when buying audio cables.
CABLE MYTHS1. Conductor skin effect
In some applications like power transmission lines, an electric signal tends to travel through the surface of a conductor and avoids traveling through the center of the conductor. Many cable companies claim that their design limits the skin effect and measurably improves your sound.
The TruthWhile skin effect is a very real issue for large scale power transmission, audio signals are in such a low-frequency range that the skin effect is negligible at best. The skin effect is only an issue in high-frequency applications. 20kHz is the highest frequency that humans can hear. If we calculate the skin effect on a 12 AWG speaker cable like Gene from Audioholics does in this article, we find that the skin effect results in a loss of only -.014dB. Your speakers, room acoustics, and the human ear have a much larger effect on your sound than the skin effect. 2. Cable break-in
Don’t be fooled - any company that claims this thinks they can trick you into hearing better sound after a month or two. “Break-in” is a commonly used term throughout the industry. It is the idea that the dielectric of a cable changes and aligns itself to the electromagnetic field of the signal traveling through the conductors.
The Truth
There is no scientific evidence to support the idea of cable break-in, but there are still those who claim it improves sonic qualities. We’re not against optimism. We’re just not full of crap. Don’t drink the audio industry kool-aid and save your money for legitimate cables.
3. Cryogenic treatment
Cryogenic treatment is the process of freezing cables to -320 degrees Fahrenheit before use. The claim is that freezing the conductors of the cable at ultra low temperatures aligns the crystalline grain structure of them resulting in desirable improvements.
The Truth
Again there is no scientific data to support this notion. Cryogenic treatment can improve the durability of certain metals, usually steel, by stabilizing impurities. For example, the process is used to create strong tools or car parts.
But, steel is a terrible metal to use for audio cables. It is one of the least conductive metals out there! Copper and silver are the best conductors of electricity and the preferred metals for audio cables.
4. Cable signal direction
You might hear this phrase tossed around quite a bit. It’s the notion that a cable has an established signal direction, the direction in which it was initially used, and that this signal direction should not be reversed.
The Truth
The reality is, assuming the connector ends and terminals are the same, the cable will work in both directions and the performance will be equivalent.
5. Cable elevators, risers, or lifts
The claim is that the cables’ magnetic field can interfere with the surface it is laying on. Essentially, the magnetic field can “reflect” from the surface back into the cable and cause distortions.
The Truth
There is no evidence to support these claims, and these unnecessary devices are merely for looks. They are in no way proven to improve cable performance.
CABLE FACTS1. Shielding is Important
In the modern age, wireless signals are all around us all the time. The rapid growth and spread of technology means that these wireless signals will become more widespread and more likely to cause unwanted interference. Cellphones, wifi, and Bluetooth signals can enter your cables, but shielding can block these signals and preserve your sound quality.
2. Length is a Factor
No matter how well a cable is designed, cable length will always impact performance. As the length of a cable goes up, so does the risk of unwanted interference and signal loss. We always recommend keeping your cables as short as possible, but we understand that is not always possible. A well constructed and shielded cable will help combat this issue.
3. Conductor material plays a role
The best conductors to use for audio cables are pure silver or pure copper. Both are valued for their high conductivity, but copper is more widely used due to the high price of silver. Additionally, some variations are constructed with silver-plated copper. However, because the metals have different conductivities, the sound is more likely to travel through only the silver plating and not the copper.
The purity of the conductor will affect performance more than anything. Look for Oxygen-Free High Conductivity (OFHC) conductors. This means that a significant percentage of oxygen and other impurities have been removed from the conductor resulting in high purity.
4. Wire gauge should not be overlooked
The amount of wattage your system is using will determine the total gauge size needed for safe and optimal performance. The standard is 14 gauge wire minimum for the transmission of 250 watts of power. Many electronic devices use much less than this, but some speakers and listening setups may be using more. If your system uses more than 250 Watts, we recommend a higher total gauge cable.
5. Quality connectors matter
Truly, the best connectors are no connectors at all. But, if you can’t hardwire your system, gold plated connectors are the industry standard. Gold plating exhibits great corrosion resistance when exposed to oxygen and has good conductive properties. Connectors range from basic to extremely high end and flashy.
The bottom line is: Choose connectors based on your personal needs and the type of connection being made. Overall, always choose quality connectors.
We hope these myths and facts will help you choose quality, reasonably priced cables to complete your listening room, studio, or whatever your setup may be.
The quote is "One bad apple, spoils the whole barrel" One, not 75%, (and growing) with an edigicated HiFi community. The naysayers are in the vast minority not majority.. I agree with one thing. Cable prices do VARY, and so does quality..
Second Kool-aid refers to a sweet drink with poison in it.. Jonestown. The only poison here is the misinformation. Magic Mushroom, different story.. No magic Kool-aid! Poison kool-aid. Magic mushroom. Mushroom, maybe. Kool-aid, NO! "I don't know. so You CAN'T be right... Head in the sand group, I'm deaf group, Basshead group, all the same group..Can't hear, don't want to hear, it's all BS.. Crack me up!
Rule # 1 your only as smart as the technical information you have access to.
Lots of hype in the cable world, on both sides. I haven't heard of one maker of cables say, EVERYONE else is wrong, but, not only wrong, but "Myths". Roll another one, Dude!!!Calie rules! yea! Empty beer can smashed on forehead, WIND!!!, yea back to work man..How long was that, ahh DUNO!!! 3, 30, or 300 foot, seems a little long, exhale! Dude were out of # 16...Belch!!!
I’ll probably catch a lot of flak about this. But, IMHO if you buy .999 OFC copper with quality gold-plated RCA, or regular balanced XLR to 1/4” phone plug cables; paying over $250 for a pair of twenty footers is just wasted money. If it’s no object (boy, do I wish that were the case for me!), then get four nines fine silver instead. You can get a twenty foot pair of stereo speaker cables with solid silver RCAs for $7,095 plus tax and shipping from Tempo Electric.
I parted ways on the opening shot. Most people's hearing cuts off around 20,000 kHz, and that doesn't mean higher frequencies don't color those below them. I have heard a super tweeter change the character of the overall sound regardless of whether or not I could hear its contributions a capella.
Skin effect: Just because other factors can influence the sound more doesn't null and void the smaller things. Whether or not it's plugged in will affect an amplifier's performance. Plugging it in doesn't negate the need for a decent preamp, however. My experience with cables has been that good ones (upper end Nordost, for example) are a waste of money-unless used in a system of commensurate quality. Those same cables, which do make a difference in very good gear, will do nothing for lower end equipment. Every field has charlatans and snake oil salesmen. Too often the audio arena gets naysayers because their experience says it's impossible for everyone, or their budget makes them wish nobody else could get better sound than they do.
I have had the experience of moving and reinstalling cables, with one pair misdirected. After a few weeks of allowing the system to settle in, I really couldn't determine if there was a difference in sound quality. I redirected them and found they were off sounding for a few days. I conclude, possibly wrongly, that cables can learn new directionality over time. Are there studies to dispute that possibility? So many are sure that wire is directional or non-directional, but concerning learning directionality through use is apparently not a discussed subject.
As to not auditioning cabling costing in the $100s ($300 to $900) and not the $1,000s-$10,000s, that is foolish and I consider snobbery.
Many consider my 25 year old speakers antiquated. Good high end speakers of that period are better than most $5,000-$10,000 currently made. The reason could be in the tuning of them using the best technology at the time to sound musical, not just reproducing sound. My speakers are still being used in sound studios, including some high end ones in New York and L.A. They are not SOTA but are a real bargain for those building a high end sound system, sold around $2,500 (efficient, full frequency range, wide soundstage and gets the timing of music correct).
Well, guess I figured right on a fair percentage of this crowd. It's a shame bad apples spoil the barrel as it were. As for me, I'll stick with actual engineers and people who have spent a lifetime steeped in the science than a group of cultists. And I thought that kenjit guy was an outlier.
Just dropped in real quick to scan through and confirm once again that here we have a thread specifically posted by someone with something to sell and bragging about how great it is. In other words a bona fide genuine shill. And not one comment from georgehifi who never misses an opportunity to throw that term around. Nowhere to be found. Huh.
There was however one good post that caught my eye:
As to directionality, I am non-committal. My supposition (rather than knowing it to be true)
Rare indeed for one to admit so openly they have no idea what they're talking about. Oh well keep hanging out with these guys you will learn to be even less clear and relevant. They teach by example.
fleschler A major problem for my friend is the snobbery among high end audiophiles. He loses more sales due to price than any other factor (60 day trial included). Snobs refuse to try a cable not priced in the multiple four or five digit range.
>>>>Well, I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole if they weren’t priced in the multiple four or five digit range. Peee- ewwww!
A major problem for my friend is the snobbery among high end audiophiles. He loses more sales due to price than any other factor (60 day trial included). Snobs refuse to try a cable not priced in the multiple four or five digit range. They contact him, he prices the cable(s) and they say the usual that they can't be an elite sounding cable at that price.
As to directionality, I am non-committal. My supposition (rather than knowing it to be true) is that directionality can be altered by reversing the cable and breaking it in over time in the alternate direction.
I can hear very significant differences even on my video system's audio using a Yamaha CR620 receiver (1978) with speaker and IC cabling by GroverHuffman. I use his Empress cables on the video systems and the Pharoahs for the two main audio systems.
As a 20 year beta tester for various cables of GroverHuffman.com, he has a patented air dielectric with a combination of techniques which may not be scientifically proven but audibly proven at various shows and in our comparison to other expensive cables. He embosses the finer copper and silver elements in his cabling. He uses both silver and copper wire. He doesn't orient the cable but believes the wire is oriented upon usage. There are multiple levels of elimination of noise, particularly the sleeve which is dipped in a mixture of copper, nickel and tungsten powered glue and a braided copper mesh over that. His phono cables have very low capacitance. Anyway, there were many failed models of wire back in the 2000-2006 period when he used all silver or all copper wire. The mixture varies per quality/price of his cabling and per application (A/C, IC, speaker, etc). There is also an additional non-patented process he uses which is the reason his cables compete with SOTA cabling but at relatively inexpensive cost.
Wow, some scary stuff in here. People believing a copper wire has a direction
Not to take one side or the other, but not all cables are said to be directional. Some manufacturers claim that their cables are ’designed’ to be directional but that claim usually has absolutely NOTHING to do with the conductors themselves. Without wasting my time looking for the exact answer, I believe it has something to do with the ground or the shielding design. Wireworld, however, does make a claim regarding the grain structure of their conductors which is a result of the manner in which their conductor metals are drawn which doesn't sound totally unbelievable.
I like to detail cars and am able to inspect paint at a much higher level than most. It’s actually difficult to point out to others what I see, but more importantly, what I’m looking at with regards to the reflections in paint. Same is true with Audio. Your stereo set up will never get better if you deal in absolutes and have a closed mind.
Great example. There's a lot of things like this where ordinary people who simply care enough are able to develop skills that far outpace the ability of scientists and engineers to explain let alone match. Mercedes has spent hundreds of millions on some damn fine engineering and computers and sensors yet they still rely on Lewis Hamilton to tell them what the car is really doing.
This is what I meant by my comment that these people are barking up the wrong tree. They are so backwards bone-headed its almost impossible to comprehend. Science and technology, double-blind and all that, we use these things to understand the human experience. Not to tell the human he didn't have an experience. They have it so backwards its inside out upside down AND backwards!
That's not to say humans are infallible. When my 911 was painted after a ding I told the shop owner the color was off. He was all no look its perfect. We mixed the paint perfectly. What pigments did you use? Standard ones. Not the German? No standard ones. Well of course its not gonna be right. It measures right. Arrgh!
Week later I drive up park the car owner comes out looks at it says sheepishly well now in this light I can see what you mean. Ha!
Human beings who care. Blow away the meters every time. All day long.
This esteemed professor totally missed the fourth scale of intelligence.
"One who understands that he doesn’t know what is yet to be known."
His arrogance leads him to believe that science has already discovered and explained everything. What nitwit! 😎
Ditto, 25 years of teaching, yet can’t practice what they preach, LEARNING. Sounds rather dense to me..
This thread is the epitome of youth, and those who didn’t take care of their ears, during youth, both synonymous. Those whom were born with less than perfect hearing. My hats off to you. I have family that were born deaf. But for those that refuse to LISTEN have adequate, good, or excellent hearing. What can I say, other than TEST yourself. and "To thine own self be true" and OTHERS, let me add.
Psychoacoustics is VERY real, to prove OR disprove. That’s the part naysayers forget. "disprove". Being an old mechanic, you just have to know when to say "UNCLE".
It’s ok to be wrong, or not know, To insist that everyone else be ignorant and or wrong as well, that is the issue, with folk like me. You can’t, so I can’t either...Crack me up. Eye for an Eye thing...
The OP and those that agree, I hope your endeavor leads to a sound that YOU like, can enjoy, tap your foot to, GET up and dance, set down and sing along, or just turn it up. To you, ALL the good things that music does for me. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure I’d be looking for SHIP listening to some of these setups... Headphones turned ALL the way up..Wondering why you can’t tell the difference. The only thing left after your ears are blistered, is VOLUME...keep doing that and you won’t get that, volume. FACT, not MO. Only thing that goes on my ears are muffs or plugs..Not that earbuds, or headphones don’t have a place.
I agree many folks just can’t hear..Keep making BIG fat bass cables, and itsy bitsy, RCA made with recycled soda cans. Works..... kinda..
@b_limo --OP never said there is no difference between cables--in fact he said there is and listed the factors that he thinks are important in differentiating.
You guys who think Audiogon forums are fraught with hate and discontent should hang out on a car enthusiast forum sometime. Doesn't matter which one, you pick...........
I can never understand these threads where people state that there is no difference between 2 completely different components (or 2 differently sized and constructed cables).
We can all agree that wire is needed to connect the speakers to the amp, correct? Like, my cotton shoe laces won’t transmit an electrical signal, correct?
Ok, so if we can agree on that, then are you cable nay sayers implying that a single strand of rusted wire, the size of a human hair, is going to sound identical to an 8 gauge ofc cable? If not, then have you found out exactly where in between those two examples that you no longer gain ANY benefits?
It’s a disservice to people wanting to gain knowledge and improve the sound they have by telling them that something doesn’t work, because it didn’t work for you in your application.
I like to detail cars and am able to inspect paint at a much higher level than most. It’s actually difficult to point out to others what I see, but more importantly, what I’m looking at with regards to the reflections in paint. Same is true with Audio. Your stereo set up will never get better if you deal in absolutes and have a closed mind.
shieldedaudio "The bottom line is: Choose connectors based on your personal needs and the type of connection being made."
That is very helpful advice so what you are saying is if a cable in your Music Reproduction System is going to be replaced and it currently uses "RCA" type plugs then it's replacement should also use "RCA" type plugs and not "XLR" type plugs or "Schuko" type plugs or "CAMAC" type plugs but always use what was their first!
There is no scientific evidence to support the idea of cable break-in, but there are still those who claim it improves sonic qualities. We’re not against optimism. We’re just not full of crap. Don’t drink the audio industry kool-aid and save your money for legitimate cables.”
I have a cable break-in story from yesterday. I wanted to try out a new headphone amplifier because I wasn’t getting the volume I wanted out of my current setup. After trying the headphone amp and realizing I didn’t like it (it got louder but it didn’t sound as good), I went back to my old setup which involved making a couple changes to some interconnects and headphone cable after removing the amp from the chain.
I was now back at the exact same setup I have been listening to for weeks. Whereas I could turn the volume knob to maximum and enjoy the music before, now I couldn’t even turn it up halfway without being repulsed by the sound. It’s was so harsh it hurt my ears!
I let the system play overnight and now I can turn the volume to max and enjoy the sound. In this scenario, I don’t think the cables themselves were breaking in as they have already been played for 100s of hours. I strongly suspect that the new copper to copper connections inside the RCA connector had to “settle in” in some manner.
Wow, some scary stuff in here. People believing a copper wire has a direction, others saying they don’t care or believe science... I was starting to get the vibe there are a lot of arm-chair Electrical engineers around here, and maybe few Santeria practitioners as well but damn...
Quality product is a real thing but when you throw the science out... Got a friend who has been an EE professor for 25 years at a top 50 school. I showed this thread to him and he said, "There’s an old quote, ’There are three scales of intelligence, one which understands by itself, a second which understands what is shown it by others, and a third which understands neither by itself nor on the showing of others’. Here, we have the last scale."
I concur.
So what scale of intelligence is it where you're not even smart enough to know you're barking up the wrong tree?
Wow, some scary stuff in here. People believing a copper wire has a direction, others saying they don’t care or believe science... I was starting to get the vibe there are a lot of arm-chair Electrical engineers around here, and maybe few Santeria practitioners as well but damn...
Quality product is a real thing but when you throw the science out... Got a friend who has been an EE professor for 25 years at a top 50 school. I showed this thread to him and he said, "There’s an old quote, ’There are three scales of intelligence, one which understands by itself, a second which understands what is shown it by others, and a third which understands neither by itself nor on the showing of others’. Here, we have the last scale."
GK from my interpretation ( granted after a nice Pinot ) the ancient pictographs have arrows indicating signal direction to the SOURCE of the next..... meal
Gentlemen (and ladies if any present), instead of disagreeing ad infinitum why not perform a simple experiment — try it: all it takes is a professional IC, 4 short lengths of zip cord & four connectors. Solder together a zip cord IC and compare with the professional one. Give the new IC ~10 minutes to come into its own. If you do not perceive a difference, keep the zip & sell the branded product -- and post here! (BTW, I did try this and there was a difference is the sound. I kept my homebrew, put together by a professional electrician I know: it is quite complex and NOT made of zip cord. )
Here's a recent discussion between two audio journalists upon the existence of snake oil in audio.
My take on it was that the irritatingly impatient John Darko was continuously attempting to coerce the rather more ambivalent Jeff Dorgay (TONEAudio Magazine) into a blanket condemnation of virtually all accusations of snake oil in the industry.
Dorgay to his credit refuses to bite and maintains a reasonable perspective.
Darko on the other hand manages to forever darken his reputation as an audio journalist in my estimation.
You may feel differently.
I'll admit it's not the most rivetting of podcasts but it could certainly help pass the time during the more mundane lockdown chores.
1. The skin effect is only an issue in high-frequency applications. 20kHz is the highest frequency that humans can hear. If we calculate the skin effect on a 12 AWG speaker cable like Gene from Audioholics does in this article, we find that the skin effect results in a loss of only -.014dB. Your speakers, room acoustics, and the human ear have a much larger effect on your sound than the skin effect. 2. Cable break-in
Don’t be fooled - any company that claims this thinks they can trick you into hearing better sound after a month or two. “Break-in” is a commonly used term throughout the industry. It is the idea that the dielectric of a cable changes and aligns itself to the electromagnetic field of the signal traveling through the conductors.
The Truth is, maybe not the truth.
As I got older I learned not to make statements without really listening.. Honestly, the crew your working with, can hear REALLY well? Do you have a reference point on "whos got the chops" "THE EARS" in the bunch.. Get hearing test done see who can actually hear well. START there.. No late night BASS parties, night before testing. 200.00 usd get a hear test done..or Group discounts?
THEN the truth is,
If you can't hear the difference in cabling you best stick to making BASS box cable, you admit bigger is better, so you're halfway there already.
Now just make it pretty...
I want to touch "CAN ONLY hear to 20kh". This is not an accurate statement. Some people have hypersensitive hearing, 24kh. I met one at Stanford. I have it also (20 + then), a blessing and a curse. Lives with noise suppression devices in his ears.. I was being fitted for the same..Quite a few Audiofilers have trained themselves and have GOOD ears...They also protect them.. THE EARS...
The same goes for those who can't hear well, I worked with a lot of mechanics that did not take care of their hearing (BASS HEADS). They were dashboard drummers, only because they couldn't hear it, they could only feel it.
Breaking in, Cryo, and direction are hype... WOW, if you can't hear a difference in direction reversal after a breakin, stick to the bass cables, really. Cryo, I didn't believe, UNTIL, I ABCDed and found a difference. A good difference. Even handling a cable rough after treatment makes a difference..Not allowing static discharge on cable ends..Sealing ends when not in use...
Secondly there are networks in cables and have been for a while. Reversal will put the inductor and HF networks at the wrong ends of the cable..What happens then? Could mess up the network? maybe.
Why do my ears BLEED, when an interconnect (RCA) is backwards, or muddy just out of the box if there is no direction on it, (not cooked). 2-20 hours later the muddy or muffled sound clears up..usually, Alu/copper clad usually won't. Some will but never sound full, complete..FAT...
I touched on just a couple of your statements.. I would urge you to do a LOT more research on you own, and LISTEN.
dragon1952179 posts04-02-2020 12:47pmshieldedaudio Science can’t even explain how a freakin’ bicycle works yet. Since you’re so smart maybe you can. " How Bicycles Work
I love the post.. The answer is simple. Has nothing to do with the bicycle. It is the person that's on it. Bicycles don't stand on their own, and most people don't need a kickstands.. There are those that have lost the use of a body appendage, but are very stable.. Unicycle?? Tightrope walkers. heck a dog a bear and a chipmunk can ride a bike...LOL crack me up..
It’s been my observation 👀 that amplifier manufacturers by and large are not aware of the cable controversy and if they are don’t really care much about it. In their minds it’s all about the circuit design. It’s the same idea for fuses and wire directionality. Audiophiles are way ahead of amplifier manufacturers in this regard.
I have observed the same thing with one exception being Steve McCormack at SMc Audio. Steve and Patrick built my new amplifiers and by working with them throughout the process (and previously with a preamp they built for me) I can honestly say they leave no stone (or capacitor) unturned. Things like connectors, wire, caps, resistors, fuses, power cords, transformers, damping, supports, and on and on, in addition to significant circuit and grounding improvements, they pretty much look at everything to build the best amplifiers they can. As a pioneer in audio equipment improvements (i.e., tiptoes and equipment modifications by the ModSquad), my experience with Steve is that he looks not only at the components but also ancillaries as shown by his products such as the flex-connect,
Nexus AC Power Conditioner, Cable Kiln burn-in service, and Gravity Base System that is included in my amplifiers. https://www.stereophile.com/interviews/522/index.html
bob540 My thinking regarding cables (power or otherwise) is this: If the manufacturer of quality audio equipment includes a certain cable or recommends a cable as an additional purchase, I would think that such cable works well with their device. I don’t know why the manufacturer would market, say, an amplifier and then handicap its performance by including or recommending a deficient cable. The company is in competition with other companies to deliver the best sound, so they should be motivated to have their sound be the best. I figure they most thing their cable does that.
>>>>It’s been my observation 👀 that amplifier manufacturers by and large are not aware of the cable controversy and if they are don’t really care much about it. In their minds it’s all about the circuit design. It’s the same idea for fuses and wire directionality. Audiophiles are way ahead of amplifier manufacturers in this regard.
My thinking regarding cables (power or otherwise) is this: If the manufacturer of quality audio equipment includes a certain cable or recommends a cable as an additional purchase, I would think that such cable works well with their device. I don’t know why the manufacturer would market, say, an amplifier and then handicap its performance by including or recommending a deficient cable. The company is in competition with other companies to deliver the best sound, so they should be motivated to have their sound be the best. I figure they most thing their cable does that.
The other consideration, for me, is money. I have a finite amount of it and I have other needs and wants that compete with how much I can spend on audio. So, while the $10,000 cable might well deliver better sound than a $100 cable, the cheaper cable fits better into my budget and mates with the lesser amounts I spend on equipment it is connected to. That $10,000 cable probably doesn’t make as much difference when connected to a $1,000 amp instead of a $20,000 amp.
As I’ve noted before, I’m a “most bang for the buck” guy. I might well get more enjoy from driving a new Porsche 911 instead of my 7 year old Honda, but driving the Honda allows me money to spend on other things I value even more. Those who wealth allows them to purchase tens of thousands of dollars in audio equipment AND the Porsche AND the McMansion AND the vacations to Europe or island paradises, etc. . . . their decisions are different, because they can. More power to them.
Ding-ding-ding-ding.....@dragon1952 nailed it. Succinct and to the point. "But the bottom line is that no matter how much science and measurements you spew forth there is still too much that we haven’t learned yet, especially when it comes to what the human brain can and does perceive."
Duke Ellington once said, "If it sounds good, it IS good."
Beauty is in the ears of the beholder.
The discussion goes on and on. toward infinity, ad nauseam (Where’s my spectrum analyzer.....)
The “TRUTH IS” this article is complete crap! Cables make a huge difference! Grounding being the biggest. Next would be power cables. Those two things make the most difference lowering the noise floor. If you say you don’t hear a difference then you just don’t want to hear it. Well, you could be deaf I suppose...
Don't believe the OP ever said all cables are the same or you can't hear differences between cables. What i read is that he believes there are certain myths that don't make an audible difference and there are certain design characteristics of cables that do make an audible difference.
What we don't have here is any description of any posters system. I agree that any well constructed cable sounds okay in a mid-fi system. In my stuff, Wilson speakers, top Conrad-Johnson electronics and dCS source, cables of all sorts make a hearable difference. As you go up in system quality, usually because you are sensitive to small differences in sound quality, you can hear cable improvements. In fact, the problem is that small difference, once heard, can't be unheard. Wham... another twenty grand down the tube. No pun intended.
Hello, the cables are truly snake oil , sorry I didn’t read entire post waste of time. I can only point one famous brand AQ they come out 20k and after a year or two prices go down to 5k , and actually I think soon the Webster library will run out of wards. That many names they are using for their cables 😀
Thank you for your interesting article. When I read the title, I said to myself, here we go again and again etc. More hogwash. At the end of the article, I was surprised. I had to reread it because I was sure I had made a mistake in my initial reading opinion. Nope, second reading did not change my mind. Based on my experience, observations, and a lot of technical researching, I agree with everything said. Since we both agree, everything said must be accurate with no dissenters, right? LOL That, of course, will prove to be wrong. There are always objectors. But, what the hell, it was fun saying it. Thanks for your contribution.
It seems the older I get the less I know. But I do know that we all have different hearing capabilities & there's some things you'll hear that I may not be able to, maybe even vice versa.
Recommendations from asylum members can help steer one into the right ballpark. Once in, it's up to the individual to determine if the $40 seats are worth twice as much as the $20 seats.
Now where's that snake oil thread, I need to figure out whether to run full synthetic or if Rotella will work.
"Any business person knows that the marketplace determines the success of a product. Wikipedia: Ford Edsel
Belden - Iconoclast Furutech Cardas Nordost Purist MIT Transparent Stereovox - Black Cat Acoustic Zen . . . and more
All these cable companies have been in business for decades. Each company has customers from around the world. Each customer has a different system - and different hearing capabilities.
And you’re accusing them all of lying. Wow!"
As I've said before, these cable companies do not, and as far as I know ever have, claimed one iota of superiority in either electrical or sonic performance over any decent copper cable.
Therefore it's simply not possible to accuse them of lying (or more to the point - challenging them in court).
No, they simply imply some nebulous quality often backed up by advertising, sleeve design and most importantly, price.
We all know that more expensive items must be better, right?
That's it, once the touchpaper is lit it's simply a question of standing back and counting the money. Their work is done -the rest is down to the dealer and the listener's hungry imagination.
Some few might bite and many others will not. As far as science is concerned nothing has changed. The cable manufacturers know this perfectly well and remain tight-lipped.
Their work is done - until the next advertising / marketing facelift is required of course.
It to hijack the thread but this really wound me up... Dragon52...really? You honestly, deep down, "believe" that scientists, at some level, don't understand how bicycles (and thus unicyles and motorcycles) work? Just from some bs fake new website?
By and large most people that post here are smart but now and again some ridiculous theories/contentions get posted. That is the dumbest contention and article I have ever read on any website.
Every single thing about bicycles is completely understood or we couldn't have improved them over 150ish years and make incremental and sometimes major improvements every year from hundreds of manufacturers using science, physics, chemistry, and scientists. To whit: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/bicycles.html
Saying there is "there is no cable breaking-in" without any proof is as bad or even worse than saying otherwise. "ShieldCable" is just re-iterating some dogmatic beliefs without any scientific evidence.
I think it's time to leave this forum. There really is too much negativity, arguing, name-calling and people who have their own agenda, rather than being a "community". Why is it always a fight? It doesn't have to be this way, folks.
I used to think that I could read a thread for 30 or 40 posts before it goes off track into argument-land. Now, it has gotten more like after 5 posts it's off track.
So many threads I've seen with questions from people, and everyone recommends whatever is their favorite gear or tweak without even addressing the question. The really good people have been chased away. And a newbie gets attacked so fast, or their thread turns to trash so fast, I don't know why a newbie would want to visit here.
There has just gotten to be too much narcissism and hate in here. Have fun, y'all. Sounder-Out.
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