Cables are a belief system, like many others in our lives. Some people believe that a $5,000 cable makes a significant enough difference to pay the money, others don’t. How is a newcomer to this hobby to judge for themself whether a cable is worth the money? In my case I purchased audio equipment first before considering cables or other tweaks. Initially I purchased good quality, well made Mogami power, interconnect & speaker cables. When I upgraded my hardware the dealer said I should consider getting better cables. He sent some mid-range (Super) Transparent cables to try. I tried them & could hear no difference. I listened to the Transparent cables for a week & then switched back to Mogami. If there was a difference I couldn’t hear it. Later my dealer sent some AQ Dragon HC power cables for my amps. Again, no improvement over the Mogami.
- it is not necessarily cost free to test cables whether they’re on loan or not. In my case I had to ship them back & the Dragons are >$5,000 Cdn and shipping and insurance for that max insurable value is about $350. Same for the Transparents when I shipped them back. And if you don’t insure them & they get lost, now you’re on the hook for thousands of $$ of cables you don’t have.
- when I first put the Transparent cables on I definitely thought that it sounded better. After a week when I swapped back there was no difference. If I thought that there was I would have done some blind testing to see if I was actually hearing a difference or just kidding myself. But the key point is that initially I believed that they were better. Had I stopped there, I'd never know that they weren't
- when I got the Dragons I did do some blind testing & neither the Mogami nor the Dragon were preferred.
- I’ve been told that the difference of an entire loom of cables is pretty small and should be a last step in finalizing the sound of your system. Something like a 10% improvement. But I was also told that swapping the entire loom isn’t necessary to notice a difference. Just one interconnect should be a definite change. So out of the 10 or so cables (power/interconnect/speaker) they can improve SQ by 10% combined yet some people can hear improvements of 1 out of 10 cables being changed. Potentially a 1% improvement.
- and now I read that cables can enable the listener to hear the music coming from the singer’s mouth or from the chest, or both. Couple that with the supposed ability to detect a change in SQ after 200-500 hours of using a cable... your brain can remember & compare something you just heard with something you listened to days/weeks ago and decide which is better... the necessity of pointing cables in the right direction (amp to speaker), elevating them off of the floor with high priced elevators, crossing other cables perpendicularly... it’s exhausting.
So by all means newcomers to audio equipment should consider cables and test their own belief system. But if you’re going to do it you owe it to yourself & your bank account to at a minimum compare your new "veil lifting" cables with your old cables by switching them blindly. I mean, why wouldn’t you? Other than not wanting to know that the new cables do nothing, why wouldn’t you compare without seeing the cables? Imagine if there was an easy way to test your faith in your preferred religion. Just do this simple test & you no longer have to have blind faith. Why wouldn’t you do it?