One extremely good sounding speaker cable that you can try for an extended period Of time with free returns is Anticables Level 3.1’s. They are quite magical sounding at any price...liquid, dynamic, extended and complex with a glorious midrange!
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I would really like to know when the chart shows that there is NO difference between ANY cables! Or how about any info showing induced noise performance. Maybe we should start a GoFundMe site establishing a grant program to provide a $100 AC cable to deserving applicants. You must be an audiophile and you must be unable to afford such an item. I bet AQ would participate. Skeptics will show that AQ actually made the cables for less than $2 ea. and we're all making off like bandits. |
Why do people think they can measure everything, I don't think we even measure the charge that we use, instead we measure the current and voltage of ac power which is the medium not what we actually use, so we don't know how to measure everything involved. There's probably a lot more to a music signal than we understand. We don't even know what gravity is made, and we have probably been studying it a lot longer than an ac music wave. |
other thing i would add is that while very expensive cables may well provide some benefit, in general, i would say the degree/extent of benefit usually makes it the least cost effective upgrade (relative to a change in an actual component - source, amp, speaker) obviously, if you have the money to burn, want that last .01% of improvement given that you have absolutely maxed out the SQ produced by your rig, then, by all means, go for it after all we can't take the money with us when we kick the bucket but from a value for money perspective, i am most leery of claims of super expensive super exotic cables ... the bs meter in me toggles 'on' |
i have to say the idea of using printed specs to select a cable seems silly to me to each their own... ...but cables' sound is probably the hardest to quantify or characterize using ’specs’ really must audition at home in the system in question, otherwise it is really a crap shoot you may think you know... but you really don’t -- nothing replaces listening |
You might miss out on a good cable looking at specs alone. Noting your question about Cardas and specs. They release some specs on a few cables, not all. They will tell you not to listen to their cables based on specs, and to work with a dealer on it if you can. Tested many Cardas! Some of the better local dealers and better retailers still around may let you demo them, on a charge/refund basis. And, with the anticipation you’ll follow through and buy something from them. With cables, many of us like to say to support your local dealer if you can, those who remain. Or, try TheCableCo loaner program for a fee. |
treynolds155, thank you for the good information. I presently have all that I need but who knows what the future may require. I have been exclusively using Audioquest products since 1990 and presently penetrate well up into their line for all signal, speaker, and power cables (Earth for signal, William Tell ZERO for speaker, and Tornado for power). I personally find their methods of R&D, metalergy, application of materials, and manufacturing process to be superb and meet all of my needs. But I do have an open mind, and especially for a great price it's always fun to try other products, too. I will keep in mind what you mentioned. Be safe and healthy. |
mammothguy54, Thank you sir, I appreciate that. And if I may....for cables that you are very interested in but can't find an avenue for home demo, try the used markets. You can find just about anything you may be interested in relatively cheap and you can always resell for little to no loss if it doesn't work out. I learned that one on this forum years ago and it paid off on my purchase of Acoustic Zen Hollogram II speaker cables that were basically new, but half off list. |
@daleberlin I wish you luck in your pursuit of the perfect cables for your system. I don't think your post was stupid or uninformed, there's a staggering number of options available and it can be daunting.
From there research those results a bit more and arrange for some home demos? Again....good luck and stay safe! |
Ahh, in my vision the spreadsheet was column after column of numbers. Because measurebators get off on measuring and that means numbers. Totally forgetting spreadsheets can include lots of pretty pictures and graphs. Glossy print, classy frame, I could totally see the wall art aspect. Anything to avoid the whole messy process of having to, you know, listen to them. |
apologies. I’m having a weird morning. Humans do tend to think the same when confronted with differences, that they lean in similar directions. If they allow themselves to be neutral about where they are coming from. And, if they are good at communicating such in a common form of language and casting of the concepts. Kinda like trying to have a scientific method, a thing with purposeful commonalities. Language itself is it’s own form of an attempt in the direction of a ’scientific method’. We all see an ’orange’ but we all see it differently. So it has the same label but internally, the interpretation is different. If we are aware of this, the ’coloration’ from the individual, is minimized... in most cases, so a consensus of general direction can be obtained. but it usually can’t go any further than that... Marketing will do what marketing does, so ....no spreadsheet. The variance in human condition says that those aspects of individuation would hold more sway than the spreadsheet, as so few people know the origins of the sound characteristics of their own room. Thus the given spreadsheet would have too much error to be useful, as utilized from the drivers seat of the individual. Rather the spreadsheet is not in error, but the range variance, in individuals... is great enough... to make the spreadsheet almost useless for the individual humans using it. The forum itself, in almost every single post available to be read.... should be enough evidence of that. J Gordon Holt of Stereophile magazine tried, at one time, to make a common language for audiophiles. Many tried to hold the torch. It sorta took shape (over time), to those who are paying attention. I tried to do the same for video, high end video, when I was steering Goo Systems on a day to day basis, and was exploring the cutting edge of video, as I was making said cutting edge. (eg, I still make the best projectors, in any realm of projection technology) The cacophony of human noise and human projections on the AV forums made it impossible. Not unexpected. But I had to try. Sound familiar? |
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Do you love your family? Prove it. Do you love them more than I love mine? Prove it. Give me a spreadsheet on all of that. How do cable sound is NOT a spreadsheet question. How cables sound is NOT a checksheet/checkmark question and answer set. How humans hear IS a checkmark and factual scenario. That says.. we humans EACH hear Things INDIVIDUALLY. As our hearing mechanisms are similar, very very similar but the build of EACH is INDIVIDUAL. And it is trained and bought into existence by our INDIVIDUAL neurology. If any of what the thread OP asks for was real, then we’d all be dead corralled identical rubber stamp commodities that come out of a human pasta making mold. There would be no intelligence, no life, no recognition of any form of consciousness or differential. Note that we do not suffer the horrific dead eyed and dead minded fate of being a perfect replica of one another. To get that checksheet and simplify the linear engineering mind’s desire for simplicity in cable choices, we’d all have to be essentially...dead. Pretty durned hefty price. All that one lives and celebrates would have to die and not be, in order to make for simple cable choices. A case where there would be no individual around to make the cable or the choice. So... celebrate the complexity, it’s part of LIFE as you know it. Seriously. ~~~~~~~~ Of course, some things are clear, when the differential is great enough... Like when some company comes along and utilizes a more complex physics, like actual fully blown quantum physics as a living breathing reality within the cable as the primary aspect of it's function. Where the cable is capable of completing the same similar task as wire.. but it does it totally differently. Unquestionably so. No marketing jargon and buzz word lip service. The kind of product that excites actual physicists as they know that it is real, that is the real thing. Let's see if anyone can figure out who that might be... |
Worst idea ever, buying cables off a spreadsheet. So of course everyone is taking it seriously.* Why am I so not surprised? Enough! We get it...only you have great ideas and we are so grateful that you admonish people so strongly for asking questions you don't like or who have opinions that differ from yours. What a wonderful public service you provide. gag And for the record, the OP never said he wanted to buy cables off a spreadsheet, he simply wanted to see a comparison of specs along products lines. This is totally reasonable! |
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And here is the pricing to go along with the WIRE WORLDS product catalog: https://wireworldaudio.com/retail-price-list/ |
Here is the Wire World product catalog- although without prices... https://wireworldaudio.com/wct-product-catalog/ |
Please refer to the charts and conclusion by none other than Nelson Pass of Pass Labs in the link below:https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/ The impedance of the speaker wires are very small compared to the impedance of the speaker. But it can become an issue when one uses long speakers cables. As a rule of thumb shorter is better. Typical values for 18 G speaker wires are resistance (R) 0.014 Ohms/ft, inductance (L) 0.21 micro Henries /ft, and capacitance (C) 28 pico Farads /ft. Even if the nominal impedance of your speaker is 4 Ohms, RLC values for short cables (< 6 ft) are very small. Keep in mind, capacitive and inductive reactances are frequency dependent. Two important items in cable design are L and R since they impede the flow of electrons between the amplifier and the loudspeaker. Resistance causes loss at all frequencies while inductance causes loss proportional to the frequency. I am even scared to say capacitance is not important in the audio band (20 Hz- 20 kHz) because it might offend some of those who have speaker cables size of my thighs! Anyway, if you are young and have very good hearing above 5 kHz, I would like you to try ribbon cables (ex: Goertz) as an alternative. One of my buddies did this test many years ago. He found roll-off of high frequencies on certain LPs when using speaker wires with circular cross section. However, ribbon cables with rectangular cross section did not rolled off high frequency content. Again, this phenomenon was observed only with a handful of LPs. This was before CD was invented. Now that we are older, I don’t think it really matters anymore. AC current tend to flow towards periphery of conductors with circular cross section and this is know as skin effect. Thus, poor use of available copper. Instead, it is better to have a bundle of small gauge wires. As Nelson Pass concludes, "Who am I to dispute the feelings of audiophiles who, evaluating any cable in the context of program source, amplifier, speaker, and listening room, decide they can hear the difference?" I concur. |
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I’ll have to eat my words, at least for Audioquest. I found this wonderful info on their site: http://tools.audioquest.com/downloads/pricing/AQ_PB_US-Retail-4-6-2020.pdf I am still hunting for something similar on Cardas site. |
