Cable Controversy

@hifiman5,....... VERY interesting, I must say. Never thought of it from that perspective.

@devilboy  - This conversation takes me back to the "original" audio press argument over whether or not something called "The Absolute Sound" existed.  Back when Harry Pearson was at the helm of TAS he asserted that "the absolute sound" of a musical event as reproduced by our systems was what the audiophile quest was all about.  I think we are both in agreement that there is no "absolute sound".  The most we might, as audiophiles and music lovers hope for, is to put together a sound system that reproduces music that sounds as much like the real thing as our ears are capable of perceiving.  

As much as I think I am close to that realization, I am certain I could find plenty of audiophiles who would find my system "colored" in some way as their perception of reality or "good sound" is different.  Example...I have been embracing the Vandersteen sound for the past 30 years.  My ears like the version of reality that RV employs in his designs.  I know audiophiles who embrace the electrostatic sound of Martin Logan speakers.  While I hear many virtues in the sound those speakers produce, my ears don't connect that sound with what I hear when listening to live unamplified music.  My Treo CT speakers do that for ME, but it certainly is not "the absolute sound".

What gear, including cabling, is in your system -hifiman5?

My four cents worth.  (1) Cables can (but not always) make a difference; (2) Good quality silver is always better than good quality copper; (3) DIY is the way to go if you know what you are doing; (4) Buying Commercial cables: They all have their 'magic ingredient' so that they are apparently all better than each other!  Buy from a company that has a three-tier pricing system, not a four-tier system.  The tiers are (a) cheap, (b) medium, (c) expensive, (d) silly.

@jafant   My system is listed here on AGON. 

@andrei_nz
regarding your 4 points.... 1) yes  2) yes...if the purity of the conductors is comparable and both employ the same type dielectric.  3) yes...only if , as you said, the DIYer knows what they're doing  4) don't disagree, but... the "magic ingredient" argument can be made about any component.  Every designer seems to have their "thing".

Some credit is due to Harry Pearson for his Absolute Sound concept, which centers on recreating a facsimile of a concert experience. I think the concept of Absolute Sound has been changing to something more objective and reproducible. But in terms of evaluating cables, we are still in the stone age.

First, if you can't hear the difference in cables using a double blind test, then you should not waste money on them.

As Buffalo Sproingfeld put it:

Confirmation Bias Strikes Deep
Into Your Life It Will Creep
Starts when you're always afraid of testing
The man come and take your wallet away.

Hey, what's that sound???

Here comes another old, classic debate...to double-blind or not double-blind?  No sarcasm randy-11.  

To quote Stereophile magazine founder, Gordon Holt, from an interview in 2007:

“Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me..”

I've always been a firm believer in blind testing. We, as audiofools, listen first with our eyes, then with our wallets. After taking both factors into consideration, it is then that we use our ears just to "verify" what our eyes and wallets have told us about a product. Let's say an amplifier has a fancy faceplate, or a speaker cable looks like it came off a suspension bridge, and both of them cost 5 times as much as another amp or speaker cable. We go into the listening session with a preconceived opinion of what we will about to hear. Before we begin to listen we'll think the fancy, expensive stuff MUST sound better than the cheaper ones. This happens subconsciously and very quickly, but it's in the back of our minds. We may or may not realise it, but it's there.

I believe that if you compared audio products blindfolded, many times, you would pick out the "uglier" and cheaper products over the more pretty, expensive ones. The audio industry would obviously NEVER back blind testing. (At least the companies who make the expensive, pretty ones).

devilboy, your statement is well articulated and very likely completely true; not only where cables and equipment are concerned, but in source material as well. The same lack of double blind testing has been indicated in cases where different digital formats and/or sample rates within the same format are used (i.e. dsd vs pcm, 16 bit vs 24 bit, etc.). I highly doubt anyone can tell the difference - blindly - between between PCM 16bit and something "better than that". 

devilboy

The audio industry would obviously NEVER back blind testing. (At least the companies who make the expensive, pretty ones).

You're mistaken, because the industry is already using blind testing. In particular, Harmon uses it extensively and has a pretty elaborate setup for it.

@cleeds, maybe I didn't explain myself well enough. I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturers used blind testing within their own company to test out their products amongst other companies. I meant that they wouldn't want US to do it.

@devilboy  If you are advocating a double blind cable test of, let's say interconnects in YOUR system where you, the listener get to judge what sounds best to you in your system and setting, then I am all in with ya.  As many people have been quick to note here, the sound a cable brings to a system depends on that system.  I would love to have someone like The Cable Company bring a half dozen interconnects and speaker cables of the same length but of varying designs and costs to do such a test on my system to see what sounds best on it.  If only...

"As many people have been quick to note here, the sound a cable brings to a system depends on that system."

Has certainly been said here many times, and accepted by many as dogma.  Personally, I'd prefer not to think of cables as 'flavors' or tone controls, to be used to balance out a system. Rather, I evaluate cables for their inherent 'quality' (for lack of a better word). Another way to look at it is that a well designed and executed (high quality) cable loom will sound great in any neutral, high quality setup.

Agree with hifiman5, disagree with psag.  I believe cables ARE tone controls...without question. 
Everyone's perception of what "sounds good" is different.

 Let's say someone prefers a certain flavor of sound. Cable A might take them further away from that flavor, while cable B may bring their system closer to it. All components have their own flavor as well. They're like ingredients in a recipe. Certain ingredients work well together, some don't. Depends what you want it to taste like. Also, too much of one ingredient can ruin the meal...just like cables.
I have one friend who has two different model pairs of interconnects. The ones going to his preamp are five times as expensive as the ones going to his amp. Why? Because while the first pair has tremendous air but is slightly thinner in bass, the second pair brings that needed bass to the signal. (there's more to it than that but I'm just trying to make this long, borring post shorter, lol).

 There is no right and wrong, just right and wrong TO THAT PERSON, IN THEIR SYSTEM.  

Cabling is not necessarily tone controls, more like, filters.
As in filtering out specific information, filtering in specific information.

@psag   I would encourage you to rethink your last post.  Look at manufacturer's systems that they set up at audio expos...they use the same gear from show to show and that does include cables.  From their own extensive research they have assembled a synergistic system that they believe shows their products in the best light.  In fact, the system components used by the same designer at shows can vary from one product in their line to another.  They know there is no "absolute sound".  They are looking for components that play the best together for the particular product they are endeavoring to showcase.

From a purely scientific perspective cables are primarily and overwhelmingly a function of their resistance. Can the type of conductive material, insulation material, capacitance, the rest of teh audio gear and some other variables effect the overall sound, of course. However, all aspects other than sheer resistance or lack thereof are dwarfed in comparison (to resistance).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire

From perspectives other than scientific your guess is as good as mine.

Regarding resistance, in many and perhaps most circumstances it is indeed likely to be the most important parameter in the case of speaker cables, and also power cords. It might also be at least marginally significant in the case of digital interconnect cables.

Under nearly all circumstances, however, it will be of little and probably no significance in the case of line-level analog interconnects and phono cables, because it will be a totally insignificant fraction of the impedances of the components that are being connected, especially the input impedance of the destination component. In those cases capacitance and perhaps shielding will often be the most important parameters, depending on the impedances of the components that are being connected, the length of the cables, and several other variables. Although if ground loop issues are involved in an analog interconnection, that can be affected by the resistance of the shield or other return conductor in the cable.

Also, given the many component dependent variables that factor into the sonic effects of a cable, I agree with those who maintain that a cable that may be considered to be inferior to another in terms of its intrinsic sonic quality may perform better in many applications than one that is supposedly superior intrinsically.

Some relevant comments I posted on 12-15-2012 in this thread:

If an interconnect having relatively high capacitance is compared with one having relatively low capacitance, and if everything else is equal, the higher capacitance cable will produce a duller and more sluggish response in the upper treble region if used as a line-level interconnect (especially if it is driven by a component having high output impedance), due to the interaction of cable capacitance and component output impedance; while the exact opposite result will occur if those same two cables are compared in a phono cable application and driven by a moving magnet cartridge, due to the interaction of cable capacitance and cartridge inductance.

It is easily possible for digital cable "A" to outperform digital cable "B" in a given system when both cables are of a certain length, and for cable "B" to outperform cable "A" in that same system if both cables are of some other length. The happenstance of the relationships between cable length, signal risetimes and falltimes, cable propagation velocity, component susceptibility to ground loop-related noise, and the happenstance of how closely the impedances of both components and the cable match, all figure into that.

Regards,
-- Al

I've owned much gear and cables of all variety in many systems and in various environments.  After 30 years, one thing has survived the test of time...my choice of cabling.  Now, more than ever, MIT delivers true audiophile performance.  Large spacious sound stage, oodles of low level detail, micro and macro dynamics to die for, tone beyond reproach, extreme extension/control and flexible designs which adapt to various systems!  Simply the best

@dave_b When you mention "flexible designs" can we assume you have owned a variety of cables over time all manufactured my MIT?

When the system, or some part of the system is flawed and/or colored, we seek to correct it by using different flavors of cables. In contrast, when the individual components are well-balanced, full-range, and neutral, we naturally gravitate towards high-quality cables that have all the same virtues. At audio shows, in the best rooms, we see a clustering of high quality components, transducers, and cable looms that share these virtues. As a general rule, you do not see in these rooms a mixing and matching of different brands of cables and pricepoints.

Hifiman5, yes...various MIT CABLES over the years and many many many alternative cable designs used as well.  After awhile you start to learn what consistently seems to grab you and compel you to listen over and over again!  Only MIT and Transparent cables have ever done that for me.

Then you are all set!  There is a certain sense of satisfaction and certainty once you find what works for you and how you perceive sound.  I supposed I am there with speakers more so than cables as I have owned and own Vandersteen speakers for 30+ years now.  The Treo CTs that I recently purchased are by far the greatest realization for me of Richard Vandersteen's design prowess.  What sounds like music to him sounds so to me as well.  Couldn't be happier.

Vandersteen makes great speakers...musical and spatial!

There is a difference to my ears. If not to yours be happy!

Cables make aa difference sure but there is so much to do with components first that imp are the key to getting you there first.  Each system and your ears have to do with what you will prefer kinda like as vs tube sound but just go with what you prefer. Happy listening

@psag: Couldn’t you have posted something less controversial, like religion or politics?

I just came to this section to seek advice on cables myself, having recently upgraded my amp to a Bryston 4BST and preamp to a Krell KRC-3.

To expand on your request for a ’sit down and talk with an experienced listener with intact hearing..." permit me to submit a modest proposal as a spin-off of your idea.

What about a cable "crowd-sourced pass-around" program?

- Solicit trustworthy volunteers from AGON who are willing to participate.
- Seek donors among the participants here who no doubt have cables hanging around.
- Solicit product from vendors to include in the experiment.
- If security is a concern, we could require a deposit from each participant and refund when the cables are passed to the next recipient.
- Require each volunteer to catalog his equipment
- Establish parameters for the characteristics we use when describing audio (i.e. "ambience", "warmth", etc) but have a quantifiable metric for each on a scale from 1-10.
- Set up a BLIND SURVEY via website where results can be gathered and later tabulated.
- Once the cables have all been passed around and data collected, we could analyze the results, compare it to the equipment sets, and hopefully come up with some reliable, more empirical results which members here - both current and future - could use as a guide to finding what’s right for their needs.

As a freelance marketing consultant who is also a music and audio enthusiast, this project would be of great interest, and I would be happy to do the work of setting up the survey.

Just a thought.