Are cable “upgrades” just as likely to make your system sound worse?

coppy777 - How did you know I was using Nordost cables? You've described what I've heard very well. They are too bright, and I've learned that detail isn't everything -- especially not musical. 

This....

Now granted, this might be a bit extreme but I do agree with the premise that there is no difference to the human ear. Someone mentioned 100 hours to break in speaker wire...BREAK IN WIRE? The simple reason is that your ears were broken in after the 100 hours. You forgot how they sounded 100 hours ago and now accept them for what they are.

Come on now. Are you having a laugh?

Are cable “upgrades” just as likely to make your system sound worse?

If a Cable Upgrade is specifically categorised by increasing the Purchase Value (a method commonly adopted) for the Cable, there is a very strong likelihood that certain selections will be perceived as being a unattractive experience and unwanted.

My experiences are based on my being in attendance at Bake Off's with both Interconnect and Speaker Cables being used as Demo' Cables on a few different systems.

This experience has shown that certain Cables and more commonly certain Cables with a particular type of Silver Wire as the Signal Path, can have the Purchase Value that is most expensive, or close to most expensive. The experiencing of such Cables has been terminated quite quickly, where the idea of furthering usage has been immediately repelled as an idea, as a unanimous want from a Group in attendance to receive the demo's.

I'm not a Silverphobe, in the same experiences Silver Wire Cables proved to be the Cable of choice by the owners of the system, which is a choice I totally agree with. As time has evolved some other system owners have adopted for a interface the same Brand Cables with the same Silver Wire. 

I am a advocate of PC Triple C Wire as a Signal Wire and a Power Supply.

I am well aware for my own system, I can purchase/loan Cable with a much more expensive purchase value that those that I have incurred. When comparing the other Cable to the PC Triple C design, I am without doubt, it will be quickly detected that the PC Triple C stands out in front as the better option. 

I can also reassure others that my introducing some others who are Silverphobes to PC Triple C, the outcome has been encouraging enough to have them rethink their Cables and abandon/sell on Cables that have been much expensive to Purchase than that which a PC Triple C will cost.      

I bought a pair of 15 A Martin Logan‘s.  I thought they had a nice soundstage. However, I knew they were missing something. In the end, I bought a pair of Wilson, Alexia twos and moved the Martin Logan’s to my rear.   The Wilson’s were the finest speakers I ever had. It wasn’t even close.

Definitely. I used Audience Ohno cables because they were excellent and relatively cheap compared to some. I recently had the opportunity to upgrade at a better Audience cable. Because of a good deal, I purchased Studio Two cables, next up the line. I heard a definite improvement. Onward up I tried Studio Ones and yet again an improvement. It's real. I have been doing this too long to fool myself. Used to make cables etc. Do it. However get cables you can audition or buy used at a good price. 

Gave up?

Where's the OP?

Cables matched to components ? What are you talking about ? The best RCA cables that I have sound best with everything I tried them with, both tube and SS, both analogue and digital, anywhere. Now that's the cables. And they are both musical and detailed, as usually defined by audiophiles. Not exactly the same situation but close to it with the best power cord that I have. Unfortunately, those my best RCA cables are $2700 pair new. Of course, I am not out of my mind yet to pay that for any cable, Still, I paid a lot for the used as well. I took a risk and guessed it right.

.. Let me offer a different perspective: Most people assume that when they hear a difference from the new, typically madly expensive cable... it must be an improvement! The expectation of something better, can wire the brain into some serious placebo territory that I think it is important to be aware of.  A difference does not necessarily equal "better". 

IMO, all good things start with the room, meaning that spending equivalent money on acoustics (or buttering up that partner for better speaker placement and the like) is more likely to really improve sound in a big way 😁

Would you spend money on cables in a room like this?:

https://youtube.com/shorts/iKnRtD3JR28?feature=share

Almost everything you do in this hobby results in a tradeoff of some sort or another. I believe this is one the reasons that relying on equipment and cable, etc. reviews and moving forward based on those reviews doesn't always produce results that are pleasing to us. Suggesting that buying only things that can be returned is one answer but that doesn't deal with the circumstance  where you don't fully realize what the tradeoff was and whether you are pleased with that tradeoff for a period of time. Return policies always have limits and you may not realize what the tradeoff was until it is too later to return the item(s), Often I will seek what I think will be an improvement only to discover that the only thing I did was change the sound but that the change is only that and actually not an improvement at all. Can keep you on your toes. 

As did I.  Great cables for big bucks.  And again, in my system, they favored detail over musicality.

Great example of how it is strongly dependent on your equipment. I had the privilege of auditioning a pair of Odin 2 in my system and they were the most amazing, musical, natural and detailed cables I have ever heard.

While there is no question cables can make a difference, the current commercial cable market is nothing less than pure alchemy. Until consumers, equipment reviewers and dealers push for some objective standards and information it is a shell game. Every other type of audio equipment sold publishes standards such as s/n ratio, etc. but not the cable industry. It boggles my mind that someone is willing to spend thousands on what amounts to a black box. Yes, of course, amp, speaker, and turntable specs do not tell us how a particular piece of equipment will sound to an individual user but specs can help narrow the choices and differentiate between levels of sophistication, but not so with cables. The infamous test many years ago when Absolute Sound compared Home Depot extension cords with big bucks cables remains an eye opener. They wouldn’t do that today because the cable manufacturers who advertise would pull their ads. 

Most music, not all, is about frequency range. The hardest part is bass. Our ears are pretty attuned at locality and direction, even of very low tones far away. Our rooms are tricky to get bass to sound right. Personally it took years of fiddling, plus two subwoofers.  But when it works it’s hi fi. My cables are just ones used in studios from Amazon for 20 bucks or whatever since the system is balanced. The speaker cables are short and monoblocks keep them that way. With proper bass setup, I tried the top of the line nordost amongst others and they only remove bass. Now that can be a positive if your room or setup doesn’t have accurate bass. But why bother? Fix the bass, it’s worth it.  

The answer for me at least and probably all of us, is room, system, music and personal preference dependent.  We all need and prefer different sound characteristics. And to those who say the problem is more evident in less reveling systems, that’s incorrect. I ‘fixed’ my cable issues with Wireworld’s top solid silver cables which, by design, are warm with accurate detail. 
My cable merry go round started some years ago when I thought it would be cool to hear more detail in this higher end system.  I run Wilson speakers, all top Conrad-Johnson electronics and a dCS front end.  We had just moved to Florida and my room is large and highly reflective glass, tile and masonry.  
Nordost cables give lots of detail at the expense of musical richness.  For some systems, their top lines are great but didn’t work for me.  I was thrilled to hear all that detail but over time missed the richness of the music.  Their Valhalla 2 speaker cable was way better than their lessor lines but the Wireworld platinums gave me just what I wanted.  The detail is still there but in balance with the richness.  Acoustic guitars have a real wood sound as does the big bass.  I have finally arrived.

Some cables make it worse. I seen Nordost Odin 2 make grown men cry and not in a good way!

There ya go!!!!!  Easy one.......Only buy cables that you can return, as trial and error is almost always the order of the day in high end audio.  

With regard to the Kunchur paper, do note that the comparison is between an XLR ($$$) and RCA connection ($) between the DAC and amp. This was done to avoid complicated switching arrangements, but it certainly adds a confound to the better comparison that would be budget XLR versus expensive XLR, for instance. Or, perhaps, reversing the experiment and using budget XLR versus expensive RCA.

Of course, if cable manufacturers provide test data it would help everyone.

Clearly cables can sound different, some of the differences are predictable by their construction and the materials used.  But 'good' or 'bad' I don't know. Just different for sure and it all depends on their synergy with your components and your sonic expectations. That's it folks. Inexpensive v expensive, as far as I'm concerned that is either in your ears or between your ears and does not make what you hear predicitible. If I can I'd rather spend my money on stuff which is clearly more audible such as better amps, preamps, cartridges, speakers, etc. But, that's just me for sure, and I admit I'm not a major tweak freak. :-)

Absolutely, and more money doesn't mean better sounding cables. Only buy from folks who will give you an entire refund.

I’ve generally not liked the sound of anything with silver in it, whether it’s touted as an upgrade or not. OCC or OFC is where it’s at for me.

Cable deniers: If i passed a blind a/b comparison 20/20 times (statistically significant) in my rig+room on a couple of tracks between 2 cables i own, i.e. i’ve passed such a comparison before... You would refer to me as a scientific anomaly, i.e., there ends your science.

@davetheoilguy not at all, lots of folks buy quality components and build their own cables, IC, Power, Speaker. I have the patients to set suspension SAG on race cars and motorcycles, dyno tune and build engines. When it comes to audio I am a plug and play guy. For what it cost to build your cables I bought OCC,(better than ofc some say) Silver Center, Litz Constructed speaker cables with WBT connectors, under $400.00.

Now I do not have the personal satisfaction you do, unless I go the race track and watch a client wring his stuff out. Been building snow machines as of late. IE 500 is coming up soon the Indy 500 for Snowmobile racers.

https://youtu.be/c2LNmywU5d8?si=giFqYsrKoa54WjSC

I'm probably considered an idiot here, but I bought 12awg OFC copper wire with silver tinning from Amazon

Amazon.com: Silverworm 12 AWG Real Silver Plated Flexible Copper Wire 12 AWG by ACER Racing : Electronics

($29 for $25 feet, bought 200 feet), braided it myself, covered with nylon sleeve, and then put on WBT silver banana plugs WBT-USA (wbtusa.com) because I love their screw-down tight connection.

Afternoon of work, sound amazing.

I think, all in, it was $400 to bi-wire, bi-amp, most of the cost being the WBT plugs (which are costly, as such things go).

Considering buying pure 11 gauge silver wire and figuring out how to insulate.

@czarivey Well the good doctor is a PhD in Physics and I am sure you could learn something either way. Chat-Gpt is your deal not my source for information. Very likely that Chat Gpt more wrong than right. 

Milind N. Kunchur, Ph.D., APS Fellow
Governor’s Distinguished Professor
Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor

http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/

Cheers old boy.

@jacobsdad2000 

The number of books on that I've read is sufficient enough to be aware of Likely vs. Unlikely. 

AES papers by Dr Kuncur will only add some fraction of percent to my established knowledge base coming from LIBRARY of my educational sources on maths physics and electro-engineering, Forget about one miserable single book or paper that is trying to prove the point of "cable upgrades". 

Try to reference chat-gpt on words Likely and UnLikely and you will find a lot more information than on AES papers

@czarivey a denier disciple. Should read the AES papers by Dr, Kunchur. As should have that other guy. But hey you decide.

Having term Likely it's very easy to determine that UnLikely anything gonna happen with cable upgrades or downgrades.

Thanks for reminding us of nocebo effects with subjective performance assessments.

Everyone that has experimented with cables has likely run across some that are a bad match for their system. I suspect that many "deniers" keep the same cabling and go the opposite route - replacing equipment to match their wire.Which is ok too,just different.

Any cable if they don’t match your system ? It will make the sound worse.

@dekay +2

@roadcykler +1

Mike

@waytoomuchstuff   Lowe is right in my experience.  "Cables can’t make a system sound better. They can only make it sound worse. It’s all about damage control." 

This entire paper (website) is a real good read and addresses some of these findings.  

"Cable pathways between audio components can affect perceived sound quality", M. N. Kunchur, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 69, pp. 398–409 (2021). pdf file  (also please see the paper's official AES Forum)

I like how it you don't have a system that is supposedly highly resolving, you probably won't notice differences with new cables. "Highly resolving"being code for, "really expensive." 

Taking the OP’s question literally: "Are cable “upgrades” just as likely to make your system sound worse?" the answer is a solid "NO!" They are not just as likely to make your system sound worse." In fact, it is highly UNLIKELY that they will make your system sound worse.

To quote William Low: "Cables can’t make a system sound better. They can only make it sound worse. It’s all about damage control." My take here is that the "perfect" cable would be NO cable. Anything in the signal path will degrade the sound to some degree. We’re just trying to minimize how (badly) they mpact the sound.

To address those who do not feel that cables make a difference, I would submit that it is impossible for 2 cables with different materials, geometry, gauge, dialectric (insulation), shielding, termination method, termination, etc. to sound the same. I’m not asserting that there will be a sledgehammer difference in those cables, but there will be "some" difference(s).

Comparing cables:

One attribute of cables can be dynamic compression. They simply hold back the energy presented to them. When "better stuff" is put in the signal path, dynamics can get more pronounced (louder). This may, or may not, be a good thing depending on the system -- and, the listener. "Opening up the top end" sounds like a great idea. Except when it reveals "warts" in the signal path -- or issues with the room acoustics. Or, the changes are simply not appealing to the listener. So, we decide to "dumb it back down" because the cable is "too bright" or "too forward", etc. I’m not saying that this IS the case in every system, but it could be the case in some.

As some have suggested, cables need burn in time. So, your first (negative) response to a cable may be a bit premature. Patience.

Yes, upgrades can definitely create "mission creep", and present the perfect storm in our pursuit of better sound.

The worst part is cables do need ample burn-in time. Patience is key and buy only good reputable cables so resale will be easy because there is usually no way to properly test a cable within the return period policy.

Choosing cables is all about synergy with your room (#1) and your equipment (#2).

When I decide to upgrade a cable, I usually test out 4 or 5 (returnable) cables before choosing.  Give them all at least 100 hours of break-in time and test them with ~10 tracks that you are VERY familiar with that test sound stage, tonality, transparency, speed and emotion.  The one that makes you just want to keep listening is the winner.

Silver cables are definitely the best to me, but good ones (high purity OCC) are very expensive.

There is no "absolute sound" that everyone would agree is perfect. Therefore it's all about listening preference or bias. I think most here would agree that cables can and will make a difference in our audio systems. Whether that difference is an upgrade (preferred) or not is totally up to the taste of the individual listener. The listener who "got his bass back" by re-installing his less expensive cables may have muddied his system or subtracted detail to the ears of another.

Keep in mind, the quality of your components and music files can impact what you hear. Many times high quality cables can be more revealing. This should not be confused with being bright. It’s the old garbage in, garbage out theory. There is a synergy between all three. 

My experience was a little backwards. Years ago I bought a whole used system that included Synergistic ICs and Speaker Cables. Since their original price was pretty high, I always assumed they were "better" than what I was using, mostly Tara Labs. No issues with the ICs but I always thought I was lacking in bass. I upgraded gear but kept using the SR speaker cables until about a year ago. For fun, I decided to swap out the SRs with my old pair of Tara Labs Prism Bi-Wire cables. I got all my Bass back and other noticeable changes. I never thought a $300 set of cables would out perform a $1200 set.

@OP. It certainly can. I've seen several people move towards more analytical sounding cables and then spend a fortune longer term trying to rectify imbalances in their systems. What tends to happen is that people are impressed with the additional detail and resolution after making the change. Then over time they find that the system is less natural sounding and they become frustrated and start to change things in the system to get back to the sound they had previously.

The break in time for speaker cables can be quite long. When I made my own cables using Canare 4s11, I waited 100 hrs, before making any determination about their sound. They have certainly gotten better with time.

Yes, it can. Try different cables. 

That happened to me when I upgraded to more expensive silver cables.  They were far brighter in my system which led to listening fatigue.  I mostly stick with copper and my system sounds better than ever.  I noticed a big difference also when I went from good CAT6 to my streamer to fiber optic cables.  There was a bit more detail, but the sound was thinner with less bass and tended towards brightness.  You can ABSOLUTELY use cables to tune your system.  Anyone who says otherwise probably just hasn’t taken the time to really listen.  

@cleeds I don't think I see many of the disappointed posts but I'll agree I've seen a few.

thanks for agreeing with me on sterling silver.

Jerry

“Likely ?” ….. no …. Not generally likely, IMO.

” Possibly?” …Yes … Let me expand on a real-life example.

I contacted Josh Meredith at CARDAS AUDIO for guidance on new speaker cable upgrades: thinking CARDAS CLEAR to either match my CC interconnects, or alternatively recommend another CARDAS model with expert guidance with their experience reasons please.

I mentioned that I had a new listening area and new speakers with a lot of big windows,  and my prior incumbent NORDOST FREY cables array was being now upgraded , because it sounded overly “bright” and with a “digital edge” to be tamed .

Josh responded that he and his wife, ANGELA CARDAS , had the CARDAS CLEAR and the very top CARDAS CLEAR BEYOND spesker cables in their listening room with similar very large windows and a like “ brightness” et al introduced that was irritating. One of the CARDAS AUDIO plant engineers suggested that he swap in CARDAS CARDAS CLEAR REFLECTION speaker cables (“CCR”) (…3 models down from the very top CLEAR BEYOND model): as a better choice in their home’s bespoke big window listening arena, The CCR model has a “warmer” audio sonic signature that successfully tamed the excess room “brightness” and digital “”:edge whereas the CC or CCB more expensive cable models could not due to a different sonic audio performance and new listening arena bespoke acoustic sound warts thst cannot be ignored or minimized .

That was his recommendation to me to first scope out the CCR line in my heavy windowed room too. I did, and I bought them as the top performer for MY system (emphasis added)

TAKEAWAY

All high-end components have their own bespoke sonic signature, including cables. It requires a careful synergy search and careful matching derived from substantial research, experimentation, and hands-on auditions to maximize the product choices to distill out the contenders from all the many pretenders.

There is no one-size-fits-all “silver bullet” solution in cable upgrades either. Any and all casually assumed or like capricious changes as assumed upgrades …offer no assurance of improvement success . Choose wisely.

Worse is a judgment and in the ears of the beholder. 
 

Different may happen and the difference is based on the ‘system’. 
 

Cables are upgrades I experimented later in my journey and it had an impact I liked. And I started with speaker cables, the interconnects and finally power. Enjoy the journey. 

Yes, and you poorer, as well.

carlsbad2

Very seldom do people report a failed upgrade.

People report disappointment here all the time. Many tout how they take advantage of 30-day return privileges, or are willing to churn used gear until they find the synergy they seek. The whole audiophile quest is built on bettering what we have now.

... if you’re looking for higher conductivity, avoid sterling silver which has a lower conductivity than copper ...

Sterling silver is an alloy and I’ve never seen it used for audio cables. Most silver audio cables are nearly pure silver, which has better electrical conductivity than copper. But even sterling silver (which usually contains copper in the alloy) would likely be a better conductor than pure copper alone:

Table of Resistivity and Conductivity at 20°C

+1 dekay