Audio Cables: All the Same?

When, out in the barn, discussing whether audio cables are all the same, I just say; yah, yah betcha! The cows don’t mind.

@gbmcleod 

Thanks, great comment. 

Cables do not sound the same to my ears, or else every cable would make a Yamaha and Gemeinhardt flute sound the same tonally. They sound quite different on MIT’s cable than they do on Transparent, Nordost, or Shunyata cables. Who knew???

Please don’t suggest it’s "confirmation bias." I read, write and play instruments, and have been a symphony goer for over 60 years, since grade school. I KNOW what acoustic instruments sound like, endless lessons and such.

@jmeyers - I've been off the forums for a while, but scannong through this thread has prompted this post.

I have been developing cables for over 12 years and have developed some "outstanding cables" i.e. according to others on this forum.

So if you want to read what I have discovered that makes a difference, then take a read of this thread

• What I Have Found Makes a Good Cable 

It details the different properties that can make one cable sound "different" from another.

Whether it sounds better or worse is up to the listener.

Also take a read of this thread for what other have noted about my cables design.

•  Duelund conversion to DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

Hope you find it an interesting read

Regards - Steve

Today I’m using $60.00 cables from Amazon. Friday I’ll be receiving new cables, Axxis - several hundred dollar speaker cable. I hope I’ll notice a difference. I’ll keep you posted 

Cables are just like speakers and tubes and different amplifiers for that matter. You have to try them to decide if they are for you or not. Just like speakers, tubes, and amps, no they are not all the same, and you can expect different levels of results and performance. Best to start with basic stuff and evolve from there over time, imo. And you appreciate the results more this way vs spending a lot of money up front and then second-guessing everything later on.

No, not all audio cables are the same. Some cost mega bucks, others not so much. Some are built well, others not so much. They all do the same thing, some better than others. 

I don't know. I am sure there are far more critical listeners (hearers) than me, but I don't hear a huge difference between cables, etc. I am certain my listening space limits some of this, but I used to live in a different house with a more optimal living area and also did not hear significant differences. I do have LessLoss cables, PC, etc, but failed to hear a significant difference when I upgraded. I have recently ordered BlueJean speaker (10g) cables to see if I can notice a difference in SQ. Certainly, the money is worth it if you hear a difference. 

@gbmcleod 

And a friend who is 30 and in a band complains that none of his friends know what even one acoustic instrument sounds like. 

But they could all name 10 rap artists I bet; all millionaires, none of which play a single instrument. I agree, it is sad. 

It’s more likely they evaluate the end results based on recordings with Bosendorfer pianos,

Honestly I don't know the difference in the Bosenforfer piano signature vs. a Steinway, but I do know Jacques Loussier's sounds very nice on my system. He obviously cares a great deal about the recording quality of this work 

I imagine you listen to classical predominantly-I wonder if you could humour me? If you find some time, (and some patience as you probably don't listen to hard rock), and see if you can find 24min to "take in" Dream Theater- Octavarium. I am curious to hear your thoughts. 

This is an individual's journey hobby and only your own opinion matters in your system.

That said, you can really tell how experiencer someone in this hobby is based on what they say about cables, amongst other things.

Another thing that is funny is that most people with such criticism most probably will try to "science" me/us with "measures", physics laws etc. I am PhD Electrical Engineer

@alexopth1512 Wow, well done. That is much more university than I had the ambition for. I taught high school physics, but seems like a lifetime ago now.

Yes, it’s funny. I have also noticed many flat-earthers who preach "science" are the ones who know the least about it with no formal science related schooling. They have all the answers already, don’t you know. Science is finished. Nothing more to learn.

For example the post above on this page: "Imagine how good our systems would sound if the power station had Cardas wiring in it". "Yuck, yuck, good one George. Yeah, you tell him George!" I wouldn’t be surprised if the next comment was the most common ignorant cable related post regarding electron transfer: "If the electrons travel 20 miles from the power station all the way into our amplifiers, how is the last 6 feet going to make a difference?"

You know, only smart people know that electrons don’t know the difference between 14 gauge romex and an audiophile cable.

Ok I’m done.

offbeat thought/suggestion: if you are not aware yet, check out 3 body problem on Netflix, awesome show for physics fans. (or any sci-fi buff) 

@mclinnguy 

Thanks, I played also a  little game. When I see a comment like"yeah suckers with religion in cables etc", I check the person's system and setup. You will find it very interesting.

Another thing that is funny is that most people with such criticism most probably will try to "science" me/us with "measures", physics laws etc. I am PhD Electrical Engineer with research also up to M-theory, an electronics designer and its fun because these people usually are up to college... I prefer not to walk this way, because it is really a long one... 

I remember in 4th year in Polytechnical School, we had a course for "Advanced Electronics", which was using also for example quantum mechanics with relativity. I remember that it counted more than 13 problems for electron movements in conductors, mathematics was truly advanced. I wondered back tehn, what the heck, with all this issues how the hell we say that cables are "just a means for electricity movement". 

Regarding the tests, you are very right:

- Most vendor's rooms just suck. Whenever I have tried to go for a test, I was never satisfied.

- Yes you can test with any music you like, heavy metal has one more thing to add. Many organs (real or synth) play together and multiple IMD is really taken to the edge. If you can build a system that can play heavy metal that sounds non tiring, then this is most probably a hi end system

- Big orchestras (symphonic) are big problem. Big big problem. Haven't found a single system that can play all orchestras well. 

I stop, I can continue for ever :) :)

@alexopth1512

Great post:

I noticed that he had the cables on special stands with spikes and I new that these were expensive, I had seen them on the vendor and I believed this was crap. So I told him, everything ok etc but these stands, come on now... you threw your money out of the window... He replies, why don’t we do a blind test then... You imagine what happened... I was shocked... When removed it seems like the concrete stage was collapsing upto a point... I tested again and again because I wouldn’t believe it. I asked him if i can borrow to test in my system, a modest 10k system back then compared to his... NO difference in mine... none...

And while I definitely hear the differences in all cables in my system; power, IC’s, and digital, and filters, and LIve Vibe stands, I have yet to hear the difference in cable lifters. I have some, just because it was easy and free, and I have read things like that, but I have yet to actually experience it. Maybe one day I will go back and forth, or buy some manufacturer’s offerings and give it a go. Thanks for sharing this.

 ...but I believed that other "goodies" were more or less snake oil. 

And that is exactly what it is with people: they believe they know, and will argue their opinion to the death based on their belief system, until the facts are proven to them. Unfortunately some never have the opportunity and will never know the truth. 

@mclinnguy

thank you for an intelligent, considerate, response. I am sure that you are correct and that you can hear cable changes, even with pop music. I can hear them too, with all kinds of music, but well-recorded classical and jazz have more “aliveness” to them, so you can hear extremely low level noises, such as people shifting in their seats (if it’s a classical recording), scores dropping, the air conditioning in the hall, and other sounds, even trucks outside the recording the recording venue on some recordings!

I know that it’s possible to hear these things with other types of recordings, My point is that so many people can’t even identify one acoustic instrument, that sometimes when they make a comment, it’s less out of actual knowledge and more out of supposition.
As well, it’s not the people with the better systems who are complaining about the $25,000 speaker systems or the $10,000 amps. It’s the people who don’t have a lot of experience with these components, or even know what they can do, or don’t play the kind of music that displays the brilliance of a new speaker system correctly. And then they blame it on the speaker system (“I could get the same results on my $1200 speaker system“ when actually, they cannot.) instead of the recordings they use or their lack of insight/knowledge around music. They could help themselves by simply being careful listeners, not just “reactive” listeners.

You, by contrast, seem to have insight/knowledge and experience. From the time I have spent on boards (as well as what I hear from my colleagues at many of the major print magazines as well), people make statements that are absolutely ridiculous, but since many people have any knowledge of certain types of music, ignorance, frequently prevails on these forums. And I guarantee you, some of the people I know are brilliant, they design components, they’ve been in the high-end since it began 50 years ago, and they despair just as much as I do, because people use all the wrong criteria for evaluating a piece of equipment. And those of us who are older KNOW that our younger brothers and sisters were never exposed to music in high school, and don’t demonstrate any interest in acoustic instruments, Which I always find funny, because do you think the designers are designing based on ovation or Martian guitars? It’s more likely they evaluate the end results based on recordings with Bosendorfer pianos, Yamaha flutes, and other acoustic instruments.. And a friend who is 30 and in a band complains that none of his friends know what even one acoustic instrument sounds like. When he told me that the look on his face was just so disheartened.I completely understand that people can evaluate using pop, but I don’t understand people smart off at people who are more knowledgeable than they are. Actually, I do understand it, but it’s pretty screwed up that people use supposition instead of knowledge.

I trust what you’re saying implicitly and I think it’s great that you’re happy with what you’re getting out of your records on your own equipment.

1. There is the same debate running on a local forum for more than 100 pages of posts. Fun fact: the main anti-cable guy, a mod, with more than 1 post every 10 fighting against cables, proved to have expensive cables in his system lol lol lol....

2. I ll make it even worse. 30 years ago, I was young editor in a sound magazine and started discovering the wonderful world of sound... I was just starting realizing how systems details do make a difference and I had also the chance a) to test really good equipment as part of the job b) to make friends with owners of really expensive gear. I met this guy that had invested ridiculous amount of money, starting with the 100k turntable, the big Kronzilla amps... etc... I was invited to listen and I was truly amazed and this setup was of jaw-dropping performance. I was persuaded at the time that cables do matter but I believed that other "goodies" were more or less snake oil. 

I noticed that he had the cables on special stands with spikes and I new that these were expensive, I had seen them on the vendor and I believed this was crap. So I told him, everything ok etc but these stands, come on now... you threw your money out of the window... He replies, why don't we do a blind test then... You imagine what happened... I was shocked... When removed it seems like the concrete stage was collapsing upto a point... I tested again and again because I wouldn't believe it. I asked him if i can borrow to test in my system, a modest 10k system back then compared to his... NO difference in mine... none...

3. In my tests, cables do matter and I have different results in different systems. My audio-gd DAC likes a lot my Odin cable, doesnt like much my furutech cables. My custom design DAC does not like that much Odin (very weird)... It prefers custom Neotech cable with Rhodium connectors. My final stage prefers SPM reference to odin... And yes, more expensive doesn't mean it will work. I had many times got the dissapointment getting something that is so good in papers and I disliked to my guts.

Cheers

@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

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.

@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.

Good deal!

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.  :)

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

I began as somewhat of a skeptic many many years ago but over the years I slowly upgraded my cables with very good results.  

Recently I re-organized my speakers from the typical placement with electronics between my speakers, to the speakers being on the adjacent wall from my electronics due to a remodel.

Obviously I needed much longer speaker cables and with the holidays approaching I bought some very basic inexpensive speaker cables to get by until I figured out the routing of the new cables, etc.

It was shocking how everything collapsed.  It was so bad I didn't even want to power up my system as the bass was gone, top end was screechy and it overall was just bad sounding.  Everyone in the house agreed including my wife and daughter.  

Expecting my new cables to arrive today and cannot wait to get these out of here!!  Just my experience...

The Poseidon has a superior pre-amp section which does not falter during the day. Apparently, it has an excellent voltage regulation design.

Just think of the clarity if the local Power plant upgraded to Cardas cabling 

My audio system is like my kitchen.

Cables and cords is like my seasoning, spice containers in pantry

@audioquest4life Thank you so much!  I appreciate someone who appreciates the effort I made in building a very good listening room.  The VS set up team took only about 1.5 hours instead of the allotted 5 hours because the room is sonically very good/easy to install speakers.  It doesn't hurt that the speakers have adjustable subs built in and both front and rear tweeter/supertweeter adjustments (total 7 adjustments per speaker without digital room correction.

I have learned the hard way what is important in audio cables for home use.

When my EAR 912/864/890 equipment was developed in the 1990s and early 2000s, electricity was so much cleaner with virtually no cell phones or internet or other more modern RF and EMI circulating.  Now, that equipment in the summer sounds terrible during the weekdays when the temps are over 95.  At midnight, the sound is superb.  On weekends, the sound is mostly good and blooms again at midnight.  A/C draw and cleanliness of the power lines during the weekdays is apparently at fault.  The EAR equipment lacks voltage regulation, unlike my other gear which replaced them.  At the time di Paravicini thought that a simple cap could take the ripple problem of voltage regulation adequately.  Nope, not now for certain.  

Tomorrow I will be testing my Lampizator Poseidon as a pre-amp during a weekday to see if it's voltage regulation can prevent really bad/flat/undynamic/boxy sound during weekdays that EAR gear suffers from in my neighborhood.  

Two nights ago, I tried the Belden/Blue Jeans LC1 interconnect for phono use.  I read that it has only 12.9 pf of capacitance per foot, very low.  It worked beautifully and has better highs and more out of the speaker sound than my prior boutique and very well insulated low capacitance phono cable.  Shockingly good (and slightly louder sounding mids and bass).  It just passes more information.  

It is very simple to see the difference cables make, simply do a frequency / amplitude and noise test with the old cable and with the new cable the difference is the difference. These aren't magical impressions that aren't measurable, audio is very easily measured unlike tase or some subjective sense. Sound is objective and easy to test.

Oh, don’t you hate it when the post you are writing, including attachments, disappears because you tested the photo link in the preview and cannot go back? Shoot...again once more...

Top is new cable and below is replaced cable.

Replacement cable 1

Replacement cable shot 2

Replacement cable shot 3

Replacement cable shot 4

The replacement cable is a 2x6ga hot wire with double shielding over the previous cable. Sound went from rich to deep, from articulate to spacious in 3D. The KRIX Harmonix speakers driven by the Audio Research D240MKII are room-filling now. Surprisingly, this replacement cable is in my Marantz AV8805. It was as good as anything I’ve had, including PassLabs, Esoteric, and Krell, among others. Now if I could post a couple of videos I have on hand...to demo that not all cables are the same. 

@fleschler 

Your response stands out to me as one of the most succinct and coherent responses related to the subject. I located a few Navy and NASA research papers regarding RF/EMI influence on signals and signal loss at varying lengths dependent on gauge and type of cable. Some of these papers date back to the early 70s.
 

The point is, these organizations measured signal interference in critical signal and power cables to see what influence that RF/EMI had on the signal transmission and power transmission. They concluded that the measured distortion was high enough to cause some signal degradation but the signals could be adjusted at the source with a device to ensure signal integrity and cables could be constructed in a way to prevent signal loss and to mitigate against RF/EMI. Active shielding is one way to mitigate these problems. Another, of course, is higher gauge shielding around a specific type of wire loom. They did not have the computing power back then to make solid recommendations. 

My take away is that cables need to be created in a way to support the application for which they will be used. In other words, there is a rationale for using 12-16 gauge wire with dense shielding in a noisy environment. I know of only a few companies that provide technical and noise measurements with their cables and maybe 1 or 2 companies that have active shielding. For those who want technical parameters to suit their systems, these cables provide that information. For some people, it’s cut and dry, spend more for better, or for others, don’t spend more for the same. For others, spend money on cables that meet the requirements for your system with published specifications. This is where there is no real price equation as the consumer will purchase the cable based off the merits of the specifications that meet their system requirements. 
 

Every electronic device in the chain has a noise opportunity for which it must be countered. 
 

BTW, very nice room. I thought I had a bunker. Yours is mine on steroids. Great job.

@guscreek 

You have a very impressive background. What you know all makes sense, but just isn’t relevant in playback. It isn’t just about digits and what happens to power before it gets to the last six feet. I recommend finding a nearby audiophile or dealer willing to spend some time demonstrating what real world playback is like. There are many stories by folks that have spent years experimenting with digital, cables and power and the differences made by factors that theoretically should not matter are amazing and completely reproducible.

Hello all

Very interesting discussion.  For reference my modest system consists of a Proceed HPA-2, Lexicon MC-8 I use in two channel pure analog mode and a Denon SACD.  Well regarded components I would say.  What makes it a little more special are the DCM Time Frame 2000 speakers framing it all.  I don't recall any bad reviews on these velvet hammers.  I have had them for years and still smile when I crank a good live recording!  By the way that seems like a good benchmark on what one owns.

One day while vacuuming I damaged the banana plug jack on the right speaker.  The repair required removing the plastic assembly for the plugs.  Leading to the crossover was a pair of red and black 16 ga normal wire.  Hmm.  That gauge is only good for 18 amps...

Some of the comments on 500 dollar ethernet cables stunned me.  I have 35 years in instrumentation and low voltage controls.  I was an Electronics Tech/Surface Reactor Operator aboard USS Enterprise.  Point being I am educated in fields pertinent to this discussion.

One job in my career was installing new data wiring for a Level 4 Bio Hazard Lab in Hamilton MT.  Yes, true, federal facility even.  The standards for the cables and terminations were extremely high.  A very expensive Lantech 2 tester was used.  Most of the time the way the wiring was laid on the keystone before being punched down was the issue.  It could take several tries to pass.  RJ 45 connectors are quite simple after a couple thousand and almost never failed to pass.  Crosstalk, bandwidth and frankly quite a few tests I was not familiar with.  Normal Cat 6 wire, keystones and RJ 45 connectors.

I recently read how the bass player for Black Sabbath played thru a blown guitar amp.  It struck me how funny that was considering the exceptional lengths people go to  for sound reproduction.  Even if a band played the same song daily it would always sound different.  I ask this question with respect:  how is it that all of the equipment to amplify music and voice and record said is so normal but to correctly reproduce it takes six figures of unobtanium forged in Mordor?  I currently cannot locate a Fender amp that requires having good home equity.

Finally to power cords.  To further bore you with my past it also includes seven years at the power plants of PPL in Colstrip MT.  If you think some of your CD transports are precise and quiet try walking by 600 tons of turbine blades and generator stator spinning 3600 rpm and not feel a thing.  Anyway.  So that electricity is stepped up, transmitted, stepped down multiple times, makes it to your service and through your wiring to the living room.  NOW six feet of wire is somehow going produce some audible effect?  What happened to the power supplies in the gear?  I am honestly waiting for someone to preach how much better their system sounds on solar power.

Thanks for listening if you got this far.  I LOVE my Time Frames! 

"Let’s begin with what to avoid—gold is always a good myth to start with. All expensive audio cables on the market and even the cheaper ones will often make a big deal out of “gold plated interconnects” this and that. The reason for this has nothing to do with signal quality, as any metallurgists will tell you that copper and silver are far better conductors. Furthermore, the inner part of the cable will almost always be copper for that exact reason.

Copper oxidizes in the air, requiring constant cleaning, or cables will not last very long. Gold or zinc plating doesn’t tarnish and ensures a longer life. However, even cheap cables have some form of coating that will last the cable’s lifetime. Gold plating is definitely not worth the extra cost.

Another common sales pitch is the need for special shielding or insulation to prevent electromagnetic interference, crosstalk, or noise from other sources. Electromagnetic radiation can actually be a problem in some situations, for very low signal levels or when dealing with very high-speed digital data. It won’t be an issue over the short distance from your pocket to your headphones or from an amplifier to the speaker.

The “skin effect” is another common cable myth, and you should steer clear of cable companies that claim their bits of wire fix this apparent problem. The skin effect has practical consequences in the analysis and design of radio-frequency and microwave circuits and antennas, but it does not occur to any meaningful extent at audio signal frequencies, so it is of no real concern in our application.

Cables also cannot affect things like bit depth, sample rate, and the like. So if someone tries to upsell you on fancy cables that promise better audio quality from a digital source, don’t buy from them. Additionally, brand names do not have any influence on the laws of physics. Do not pay more for brand names."

- Soundguys.com

There's a lot of this out there no doubt, but we all keep spending money on expensivce cables. I dont use inexpensive cables, that's for sure, Speaker Lines, RCA Connects, S/PDIF, Ethernet, et al, however, I certainly don't drop thousands on them either. I will say though that silver wiring does sound differnt than copper. The higher composite of either can and does change the sound package. That needs to be minded whan matching cables to particular speakers & electronics. Just my experience...

Power cables must be safe as a first condition.  There are micro shorts that can occur and many boutique cable manufacturers do not or cannot afford the equipment to test for power issues which could possibly lead to a fire and/or equipment failure.

It is apparent that keeping RF/EMI in power cables away from equipment and from equipment infecting ICs and speaker cables is very important.  Inadequate shielding can make cables act like antennas.

Also, firmly fitting connections/connectors without overly heavy and/or overly stiff cabling is another important concern.   

After that, the field is wide open for cables of different types and different sonic behaviors, often system dependent (such as a cable sounding neutral, dynamic, tonally correct and maintaining a wide frequency spectrum in one system may not sound that way in another).  This is the tough part.  The other conditions should be met first, especially for high cost or boutique cabling.  I went to Blue Jean Belden XLRs and digital cable (cheap) for a high end system ($195K retail) because it has the conditions I listed and permits me to hear most of what I paid for in equipment (see my profile).  I spent my money first on the listening room ($150K), then on cabling with Acme treated fuses for $22/$24 replacing Synergistic Research fuses.

I have many SR blue and purple fuses for sale now. 

I don't know if the difference in cables would hold up to ABX testing for most people. I initially thought that there was no difference in cables but tried a couple of expensive but not too expensive (under $1,000) cables and heard what I believe to be a difference for the better.

However, the difference is not that noticeable in relation to the entire system for me. What I heard upon first hearing the cables is not something I notice anymore once the cable is incorporated into the system. 

I can hear the speakers and the amp as well as the source information. So the way I handle it is to get what I think is decent stuff but not to put too much emphasis on it other than definitely staying with the Silversmith Fidelium speaker cables for my main system (wife doesn't like the way it looks so not for the second system in the house) in my studio. 

Pbbraveman +5

“My patience has worn thin reading numerous postings by individuals…”

For God’s sake, why? Who cares what “individuals” post? Audiophiles sound more loopy to the general public when we bicker and whine than when we say cable differences are real.
 

Here’s a wild idea. Ignore those “individuals.” Do what you want with your cables, listen to music, and maybe take up meditation. It’s not worth the mental energy.

You have to listen for many, many days/weeks to fully understand any piece of gear. 

I agree with this.  I also believe that you have to tackle a single variable at a time, as possible.  In other words, understand how your amp and speakers interact.  Then preamp and amp.  Then source.  Or the other way.  But being linear in this hobby is useful. It takes a long time.  You really can't force it. 

FWIW,  Jay of Jay’s Audio Lab says the eithernet cables make the least amount of difference....

FWIW Jay listens for 15" then moves on to the next mega buck cable or amp or speaker. You have to listen for many, many days/weeks to fully understand any piece of gear. 

FWIW,  Jay of Jay’s Audio Lab says the eithernet cables make the least amount of difference and that they should be the last cables to be replaced.

The OP lost a lot of credibility with the eggs benedict analogy. Of course science could differentiate between the two plates: this bacon is more carbonized than on the other plate; the water content in this muffin is higher thus making it mushy; the temperature of this egg is higher than the other (so, overcooked); the paprika content is 147% higher on the second plate. There is a ton of science in cooking.

This debate is too formless to be useful (if it would ever be otherwise). The distinction between digital and analog is critical in the analysis. Digital cables are more of the "do they or don’t they work" period (binary!) type, whereas I allow there may be potential differences between analog cables.

However I don’t equate sound quality with exotic or expensive materials. And I try to be practical and not go to the "veil lifted off...wife noticed from the other room" level of statements, albeit I experienced it once when I actively biamped my Maggies (no, my wife didn’t come running in).

The argument (as an argument) need not exist if the pro-cable believers didn’t get so upset in the face of contradiction, albeit there are uncivil posters on each side.

But it’s totally legitimate to post skepticism and to remind people of established science in the area. There are many less experienced hobbyists or newbies who look to Audiogon as a source of knowledge. Sometimes it’s important to point out that belief is different from knowledge. I suppose that can go both ways.

I was using Mogami 2549’s from WBC for all my components except the connection from my pre to my amp. The following is my review, when I switched that cable to 2549’s.

I have a relatively expensive separate component system that never sounded quite right. I have 10’s of $K invested. I tried everything, except change the $250 RCA cables from my preamp to my amp.
I have 2549 Morgami WBCs on all my other components, but THOUGHT I had my best cable running from my pre to amp.
I thought just change it out… give it a try… I needed another cable for my new headphone amp anyway.
I immediately got a significant improvement in sound. Stronger clearer bass, better decay, detail & harmonics & clearer across the spectrum! My highest recommendation.

Two points:

1. Cables absolutely make a difference.
2. The price of the cable does not necessarily mean it is better.

All you need is OFC at the right gauge for the length of the run. That's it. 

Anything else is just snake oil in regards to audible performance. If you want to spend thousands of dollars on cables because they LOOK nice, then go for it. But don't be fooled by fraud, er, marketing. They will not improve the sound over standard OFC speaker cable.

Beware... Audiogon forums are a hotbed of thise fooled by placebo and confirmation bias. Educate yourself. 

MIT Computer Music Journal published a blind AB test of cables, oh, 20-25 years ago that really should have shut a lot of people up. Some of the listeners could not tell the difference between cables, while others did. One tester (identified by only the initials "JA") responded correctly 100% of the time.

So if someone claims that he or she can’t hear any sonic difference between two cables in a particular sound system & room, then my conclusion would be: i) that person is simply not capable of that degree of differentiation; ii) the system does not have sufficient resolution to reveal any differences (i.e., cabling is not its weakest link); iii) the cables do not interact with some system-specific characteristic in a way that alters SQ; or iv) those particular cables really do sound very similar.

In none of these cases, is it reasonable to assume that a choice of cables cannot under any circumstances produce sonic differences.

And I still groan when I hear about non-experimentalists whining about the sine qua non of double-blind ABX testing.  There are many ways to conduct an ABX test, and some of the most common can be ineffectual when evaluating differences in a listener's perception of sound quality.  You can't simply migrate an ABX procedure  that works for visual or tactile sources into the audio domain -- the way our brain processes sound is not like the way it perceives visual stimulus.  This is a big topic, and probably worthy of its own thread.  But it's quite possible for unblinded AB audio comparisons to produce more credible results than would an ad hoc DBABX procedure.  So again, I have to make a generalization that generalizations are rarely helpful.

I was one of the disbelievers years ago. Then, a friend who owns a high end shop let me demo various speaker and interconnect cables from Kimber, Cardas, Analysis Plus, amongst others including variations of each at different price points. What I did was to introduce each into my then system and have my lovely wife give me her opinions. She did not know if what was installed was a three dollar, or three-thousand dollar cable. She made comments along the way such as; what did you do, that sounds muffled, or what did you do, I've never heard those details in that song before. This worked quite well. See, with me knowing what each cable costed, I felt biased. In the end, I went with all Tellurium Q Ultra Black cables and was very pleased. Fast forward thirteen or so years and I recently changed everything over to Audience Front Row. I apologize for any typo's. I have a progressing retina disease and don't see font very well these days. The good news is that my hearing is still very good.

@sstraus 

If I were still a EE student with access to a lab, I would  Right now, life's short and I just want to listen to the music.  

This is the point of the OP's post here, there is no such lab.

There is no machine/equipment/analyzer that can perceive the difference in taste between a Michelin 5 star chef's hollandaise and an inferior one, and the experts would claim what would be the point in developing such a tool when there is the human mouth which clearly can make the distinction. 

Likewise, there is no lab that can fully perceive the difference in sound quality between cables. The known parameters of capacitance, resistance, inductance do not. Also run as many reactance, impedance, susceptance, transconductance and magnetic flux calculations as you like, include all your fancy sine wave and frequency response graphs to impress the flat-earthers, but it will never reveal how the cable will sound. But human's do have ears, so why bother? 

Do you know what soundstage is? Measure that in the lab. 

But hey, feel free to pull out your $78 multi-meter and tell me all cables are the same. Maybe it will work in hollandaise sauce also? 

I’ll do my best to save you the labor pains, and just give you the baby.

Taking the opposite approach: IMHO, 2 cables with different materials, geometry, gauge, dialetric (insulator) terminations, and termination methods, will sound DIFFERENT. Period.

Way back when, the Monster Cable guy convinced me to bring in the original beefy speaker wire. (It took some convincing. What a ridiculous, overblown spool of audio BS this is!!) It hung on the peg board for months. No sales. (Of course, we weren’t recommending, or even mentioning it).

Seeing dollars hanging on the pegboard with no perceivable return on investment, I decided to take them home and hook, them up to my system. After wresting with the mass of hundreds of strands, and a few curse words later, I finally got the signal from Point A to Point B, and dropped the "needle" on the record. Sitting very low exceptions, I was simply stunned by what I heard. My audio vocabulary was pretty limited back then, and several decades have passed since. I just remember a sound with less strain, more bass, and overall improvement in balance. We started recommending MC, and never looked back.

Part 2 of the cable story was a couple of years later and we had a high end ($80) interconnect on hand. We had just received a flagship $800 CD player from a manufacturer. We also had good success with their $300 unit. After spending some quality time listening to the new player, we swapped the OEM interconnect for the "high end" model. Boom!! This lead to a serious question: "Will a $300 player with a "high end" interconnect sound as good a high end player with an OEM cable?" Well, 6 out of 6 of us preferred the sound of the $300 player with the "high end" cable over the $800 player with the OEM cable. It was at this moment that I took audio cables very seriously as a "component" rather than an accessory. Literally, you could spend $500 on component upgrade and not accomplish what a cable upgrade can do for less than $100.

A few years later, a guy named Bill Low came around doing "training" and cable demos. Out comes a jam box with removable speakers to use for "high end" speaker cable demos. It worked!! Even on a cheap system, you can hear a difference. This stuck with me and continues this day. We’re still an AQ dealer today.

Just did a cable upgrade on a $99 digital amp. Stunning improvement!!. A nasty, gritty little amp that sounded like mono playing out of 2 speakers made bass, produced an image, and had some detail after the cable upgrade.  Actually "listenable."

I developed a metric over the years that I refer to as a "percentage of improvement." So, if a component/cable swap had a modest 10% improvement, then the "math" would dictate that it was worth 10% of the cost of the system. So, bang for the buck comes into play here, and there are many variables. A 30% improvement (WHAMM!!) for a 10% investment in the price of a system is a bargain, regardless of what component/cable/other was added. It’s a metric that’s worked for me for several decades.

Today, we yank the OEM internal cabling out of electronics and speakers and replace them with the good stuff. We’re pretty proud of our work, but are often surprised with what we get. Yes, the "expected" sonic improvements in A, B, and C in spades occurs regularly. But, often very pronounced improvements D, E, and F.

Cables matter. Cheap gear. Expensive gear. Long lengths. Short lengths.

Cables make a difference mostly in high-resolution systems only. Thank you for bringing up LAN cables in this context. The last LAN cable leading to the streamer is the most important one and here it can make a difference. The egg story made me hungry this morning, so I'm having some just now ;-) Instead of an egg story, I would propose a comparison between two paintings - one by an eminent artist and the other, a copy. For most people, no difference. When a Monet was stolen from my local museum, the fact was discovered only after a few days. The policeman on TV reported: "The thieves cut out the canvas and put in a similar picture." ;-)

@roxy54 

First time here.  Technical mistake posting twice.  My apologies.

@tomcy6 

If I were still a EE student with access to a lab, I would  Right now, life's short and I just want to listen to the music.  

@evillgeniuz Welcome, nice first post. Just use a larger font next time :) 

Bottom line is it is your $83,000 to do as you see fit, to spend on what you value, and what you perceive as a benefit to your enjoyment of your music, and therefore your life. That is the best purpose for our hard-earned money. You know the difference, and the price of admission is worth it. Why should anyone else have a problem with this?