Audio Cables: All the Same?


My patience has worn thin reading numerous postings by individuals who proclaim that anyone who spends more than, say, $30 on a cable is an “audiophool” and that the manufacturers who sell cables priced above that price are snake oil dealers. These people base their claims on two factors: (1) they can’t hear the difference between a cheap cable and an extremely expensive one; and (2) all cables of any quality whatsoever measure the same when tested.


I believe that these individuals have blinders on. Allow me to set forth a useful analogy – eggs Benedict. The recipe for them is simple: toast an English muffin; sauté a couple of slices of Canadian bacon; poach two eggs; and prepare Hollandaise sauce. After those ingredients are ready, put the Canadian bacon on the English muffin, stack the eggs on the bacon, pour Hollandaise sauce over the eggs (and possibly sprinkle a pinch of hot paprika over the sauce), and serve. Voila! Now, take two preparers – one of whom doesn’t give a damn how his eggs Benedict turns and tastes as long as he gets his $17.50/hour pay; and the other a supremely talented chef renowned for his exquisite preparation of egg dishes. I am willing to venture a guess that one of them will taste terrific, perhaps being the memorable highlight of a marvelous breakfast, and the other will be an awful mess, perhaps a composition of barely toasted and soggy English muffin, Canadian bacon so overcooked that the meat is like shoe leather, poached eggs like hockey pucks, and a severely curdled muck of a sauce poured over everything, followed by far too much paprika. That serving will also be memorable, but for a far different reason.


Now, here comes the chemist to test and measure both versions of eggs Benedict. He confirms that, upon his testing of the two dishes, he is able to state unequivocally that they are identical because both contain exactly the same ingredients and provide the same nutritional value. The fact that one serving is nearly inedible and the other is altogether delicious is irrelevant. After all, there is no science-based test for taste.


I propose the same is true for cables – there is no scientific test for what we hear.
Let me end my soliloquy by relating my recent experience with cables. A couple of months ago, I upgraded my digital system by acquiring a new SACD transport and a new DAC. Both components are widely considered to be extremely high end pieces of equipment (and priced stratospherically, too). At the time I did not replace the cables I had been using previously – an Audioquest Cimarron Ethernet cable between my 24 port network switch and my DAC, and Monster Cable M1000 analog interconnects between my DAC and my preamp. Frankly, I was dismayed by what I heard when I began streaming (Qobuz) music through my new DAC. The magic I had heard at its demonstration at AXPONA 2024 was non-existent. Maybe it was a bit better than my old DAC, but certainly not by much. One of the local audio dealers with whom I shared my disappointment suggested I try a really good Ethernet cable, handing me a Shunyata Sigma V2. This Shunyata cable contains two filters (one for EMI/RFI and one for common-mode interference) as well as several differentiators in how it is constructed. I really despise the expression oft-used by reviewers – “like a veil was lifted” – but that is what happened. The magic had returned. However, now I had another problem. Voices seemed to come only from a singer’s mouth and not also from the chest. With instrumentals, a certain fundamental (bass) element was missing. Overall, it was as if the entire frequency spectrum was tilted – lifting the treble and lowering the bass. I went back to this dealer. He recommended I try a pair of DH Labs Air Matrix Cryo analog interconnects between my DAC and my preamp. All I can say is “Wow!” The frequency spectrum had returned to its proper equilibrium.


I have now been using these new cables for a month. Their impacts are not the result of a placebo effect. Moreover, the last thing in the world I had wanted was to spend a couple of thousand dollars more for cables after I had already spent far more than I had planned on the SACD transport and the DAC. However, they had addressed and solved two very real problems. The Shunyata cable filtered out noise coming from the network switch; the DH Labs cable eliminated a frequency distortion inherent with the Monster Cable cable (which evidently had been masked by the predecessor DAC).


Before this experience, I had never believed that cables could be so important an element of an audio system. I always spent between $100 and $200 on them because, on the one hand I did not want to “chintz” and shortchange myself sonically, but on the other hand I was very skeptical that even spending that amount was fully money-for-incremental-value.


Since then, I tried replacing another Audioquest Cimarron Ethernet cable between my Nucleus+ and my network switch with a $500 Ethernet cable of another well-regarded cable manufacturer. I could not detect a shred of sonic difference between them. Thus, it has become clear to me that every cable implementation is unique; sometimes there is a discernable improvement provided by one over the other, and other times there isn’t.


In summary, having a preconceived notion about the value of cables (or lack thereof) disserves oneself. In some cases, but not all, there is a cable out there that will truly improve the sound of one’s audio system. It may be immeasurable, but it is, nevertheless, very real. 
 

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xjmeyers

Hk,  Hopefully the cables work, but wondering if you might need to re-dial in your speaker locations, since you moved the rack.

I just received my new cables and the difference is not subtle.  Yes, I still have more optimizing to do but the cables were just bad!  Glad they're gone.  :)

@jmeyers

I agree with you completely. I no longer pay any attention to the you-must-be-crazy-to-think-you-hear-differences-in-audio-cable crowd. BUT, I suspect that there are three factors that figure into this:

The biggest one is:

1) They have little to NO experience with live, unamplified music as one would hear it in the symphony hall, the jazz clubs, or parades. This means they couldn’t tell a flute from a piccolo (or a clarinet for that matter), and therefore have no sense of the actual tonality of acoustic instruments. That will make evaluations difficult if they’re using KISS records, for example, to evaluate equipment, as very few rock records are well-recorded (Brothers In Arms, Trinity Sessions notwithstanding).

2) They don’t understand terms such as "low level detail" or "harmonics" or most of the vocabulary that was invented 30 years before they arrived on the planet, and so they invent the meanings of the terms, and then sneer at the established terms because none of their peers know any of this either.

3) Their systems - and the music they play - do not have the resolution level to hear the differences. (This was actually put forth by one of the Founding Fathers of High End Audio, Ivor Tiefenbrun, who said, ’If you haven’t heard it, you don’t have an opinion." His other comment, when told people could not hear the difference between his turntable and say, Ariston, "Then your equipment does not have the resolution to show you the differences." And he said this in the late 1970s, if my memory is correct.

AND, a fourth!

4) They have completely untrained ears. Training one’s ears is not hard, but it does require patience and discipline. I knew music LONG before I discovered audiophilia, and spent decades in symphony halls, jazz clubs, cello recitals (from friends who were teachers and demonstrating their pupil’s proficiency), but I wouldn’t have known how to integrate what I heard in the symphony hall with what I heard a piece of equipment was NOT doing (but SHOULD be doing) to something I KNEW was on the record. It took a year or so for me to "hear" how recorded music varies from live music. But I still had to train my ears. No way around that. And they haven’t. It’s that simple.

That seems to be asking too much of many posters who have zero experience with much of the high quality equipment (which, unfortunately, is also priced higher than they can spend), so they speculate. Now, my mother DRILLED into me when I was young, that if I didn’t know about a subject, I should keep my mouth shut. That no longer seems to matter to the unknowledgeable - on ANY subject.

Hence, people on forums who want to tell me - someone who can read, write and play music (none of them great, but still...) - that I must be hearing things to think I can hear the resonating cavity of a nylon guitar, or that I cannot hear the tape splice in The Nutcracker Suite (Mercury Living Presence). I just mentally realize they don’t have the tools (equipment, experience with live music, and trained ears) to "get" what I’m hearing. You cannot SPEAK knowledge into someone. Anyone with children knows this (and some of the responses on here remind me of 14 year olds with their ’nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah’ responses), otherwise, none of us would have burned our finger on the stove even though grandma had said, ’don’t touch the stove. You’ll get burned.’ Same thing with sharing insight or knowledge. It can’t be "transferred." It can only be experienced.

If people want to remain unknowledgeable and ignorant, I say, LET ’EM. It’s no skin off my nose if they like being that way. Anytime someone sneers before even asking ONE question, they’re not interested in learning. They’ve had a bad day, and they came to a forum to discharge their anxiety/fear whatever. They write their dismissive response and get a temporary fix of "GOTCHA" but it goes away after 10 minutes, so they return and spend none of their time learning, and all of their time bitching. Why fight with some complete stranger over what they don’t even know? Waste of time! You’ll drive yourself crazy.

@gbmcleod

Totally agree with what you are saying, but you have to give more credit to more of the non-acoustic recordings for having the ability to discern sonic differences between cables (and gear). I agree it may be easier to hear differences with acoustic music, but I personally find it just as easy with some rock, pop, or even metal music. In a broad sense, the concept of difference only applies when one senses a change from what they are familiar with.

I feel like writing so here is a story, apologies in advance cheeky

I chose my Magneplanar’s almost 20 years ago based on what they sounded like with Coldplay and Rush. Going even further back than that -1988 ish? I recall my brother shopping for speakers in the $800 range (what is that, $1500 in today’s dollars?) And the particular mid-fi store I frequented to buy CD’s and records had these Mission’s we read about in a magazines. We listened to them standing up, as this "sound room" had no chairs, and they sounded just okay- when he played his favourite Queensryche Empire CD, Della Brown track, the bass wasn’t that good enough for him-it was not powerful enough.

This "sound room" had several pairs of floorstanders all side by side, on a ledge a few inches above the floor, to hide all the unsightly hundreds of feet of cheap cable attached to all the speakers. Above this ledge was another ledge with dozens of bookshelf speakers. What a great idea hey? speakers on one side of the 20’ square room, home theatre receivers on the other side, and the salesman just has to click a few buttons and demo this receiver paying that speaker, and go back and forth- nothing to move or lift, nothing to connect. Brilliant! There were 4 identical rooms like this on one end of the store, all with glass walls and a glass door on one side, so 4 different sales people could be demoing at the same time. This acoustically horrible room was probably designed by an interior designer, not an audiophile. I did say it was a "mid-fi" store.

But this was a knowledgeable salesman- he had enough knowledge to work at a high-end hi fi store downtown but told me he made more money at this store. He said "give me a minute": He dragged the speakers out of the room into the main area of the store, and went to a roll of bulk litz speaker cable and cut off about 20 feet, cut that in half, sheathed the ends, then hooked up the bare copper ends to the Missions, and the other ends to a Denon receiver he grabbed, and connected and threw our CD in a Denon CD player. Well, the bass pounded, our jaws dropped, and after 10 seconds my brother said "Ill take them!"

From your post I don’t know which point above this is, but to add to it I’ll say 3) The system and the room: I now know this as it was demonstrated way back then. Perhaps many people who can’t hear differences have their gear set up in rooms such as this, with little knowledge or thought on how this setup affects the acoustics, ie: sound. I don’t think the simple speaker cable change would have made that much of a difference in that room.

To emphasize my point- even back then, almost 40 years ago as a teenager, I found out what a difference can be had by playing speakers in a different space, with different cables, even with heavy metal music.