Cable curmudgeon

Well those are just silly arguments I’m not even going to bother responding to.  Let’s just say we live on different planets and leave it at that. 

I wouldn’t use Mac gear to assess any cables.  

Interesting concept recommending cables with no regard to how they interface in a system.

Let me add a little more perspective here.  I wouldn’t use colored components with rolled off highs to assess any cables.  I worked for Magnolia and heard more than my fair share of Mac/B&W D3 combos, and they simply gloss over too much detail to be useful in accurately determining the subtle yet critical differences between cables.  Whenever a customer wanted to hear the differences in cables I deferred to other more neutral and transparent electronics so the differences could be more readily heard. 

I once auditioned some AQ cables in a full Mac system that I would judge as pretty damn good.

I wouldn’t use Mac gear to assess any cables. They have a house sound that boosts tonal richness and rolls off the treble, which is why they’re often paired with B&W IMHO. It’s surely an attractive sound to some, but it’s a far cry from neutral and thus not a great vehicle for assessing the finer differences between cables.

moving from the $6k pre->amp IC to the $12k, the system became UNLISTENABLE.

So, you’ve shared one experience where a more expensive PC was supposedly inferior (lots of variables at play here BTW) to a “cheaper” $6k cable. Good for you! That means nothing. A lot of people throw around the term “confirmation bias” quite a bit here, but there’s another type of bias that also crops up here frequently, which is the representative bias. It’s when someone is exposed to results from a narrow sample sample or what they saw themselves a few times and extrapolates those findings across the board. Sharing one example of anything proves and means absolutely nothing.

You won't be able to tell the difference BY PRICE between a $200, $1500, and $5000 cable and rank them in order of cost because the $200 cable is not better or worse than the $5000 cable. 

@wesheadley  Really?  I won’t?  Where’s your evidence of this, or perhaps you can tell us what $200, $1500, and $5000 cables you used to make your assertions?  I’ve got several cables ranging from $500 to $2000, and the difference between the $500 and $2000 cables (as well as the others) is not hard to hear at all.  Again, what’s your evidence to back your claim cause I’d love to see why I’m not hearing what I clearly hear.  Also, what equipment is in the system you’re using to make these judgements?

Well, I see the MAGA ll — Make Audio Great Again — flat earth crowd is now out in force here.  Yay.  Their motto:  I hear what I believe.  It’s a lot easier than admitting to the themselves that maybe either their ears or systems (or both) aren’t resolving enough to hear differences in cables.  Hey, they should be happy as they can save $$$ by using lamp cords and fire alarm wire and not know they’re missing anything.  Me?  The second I heard the Acoustic Zen Double Barrel Shotgun cables compared to my old Monster Cables it was game over — not even close.  To the MAGA ll flat earthers here I’d be happy to sell you my Monster Cables as they’re still sitting in my basement somewhere.  

perhaps modern listeners are adding ’Sweet n Low’ with tweaks that old timers don’t miss.

Oh yeah, that’s it.  Just buy alarm system wire and be done with it.  To each his own. 

Sorry if what I said irritates you, but the best guitarist, flutist, cellist or any other musician on the planet could teach you nothing as long as you have the idea that he/she really doesn’t know what music should sound like.

@jhills It is apparent you’ve completely missed the point of what I, @newbee and several others here have been making. Of course the OP knows well what music sounds like and nobody is arguing with that. But that has little to do with being able to assess what an individual component is adding or subtracting in the context of a home audio system especially if the listener has limited experience with better quality equipment. Again, I’ve played in bands for many years and have also written professional audio reviews for 16 years and there’s very little playing live music has contributed to what I need to know to review audio components and systems. Put another way, a professional musician with little experience with audio equipment isn’t in a much better position to assess or write a review of an audio component than any ordinary Joe off the street because they simply lack the experience and perspective to be able to make those assessments not having heard what better components can provide. It’s like a new versus an experienced driver — yes the new driver can drive at a certain level, but they’ll become a much better driver with more actual driving experience. Same with the ability to assess audio components, which is at the heart of the discussion here

What I am sure of is that not all with an interest in HiFi attain a place where they have become experienced enthusiasts with a broad range of experiences and a trained ear, but this does not matter, as enjoying musical replays are very achievable without developing knowledge through increased experiences.

@pindac While I agree someone without a trained ear can put together what they perceive as an enjoyable system to them, with more experience or “training” by listening to better equipment and systems that person will find the flaws in their “enjoyable” system and be in a much better position to build an even more capable and enjoyable system. And this goes back to the OP who is relatively “untrained” in the realm of better cables but blindly dismisses more expensive cables as “hyped” by comparing only cheap cables. This alone makes no sense, and being a professional musician doesn’t help if there’s no perspective on what more expensive cables can offer. That’s the ultimate and fatal disconnect going on here. We mock what we don’t understand.

@newbee Big +1.  We reasoned and well said.  

it solves everyone’s cable dilemma perfectly: a Bose Table-Top Radio with Built-In CD Player (it does have a short wire antenna to pick up local FM and AM radio stations). Nothing could better help us avoid having to deal with interconnect cables in an audiophile system than what I describe here. Simplicity is THE way to go!

Right on! I own a bicycle instead of a car so I don’t have to deal with pumping all that gas. Sure it might suck a little when it rains, snows, is 10 degrees outside, or when my destination is 100+ miles away and requires me to bring luggage. But it’s so worth it to not have to pump any gas. Yeesh.

I am not prepared to concede, as quite a number here have posited, that exflute's ears are good for playing in a professional orchestra but bad for hearing cable differences.

I just can’t — it’s like trying to reason with a bag of hammers. 

Big +1 @newbee Bingo!!! I’ve played in a band for many years, and there’s very little from playing live music that translates to assessing individual components of an audio system. And I don’t care how good you think your ears are — being able to judge audio components takes many hours of listening to a wide variety of equipment to even begin to be able to make useful, robust, and reliable conclusions. This is especially true for components like cables and digital front ends where differences can be more subtle yet still critical to the overall and ultimate performance of a stereo system, and these components take even more time than other components to get to know what to listen for. When I first started out I couldn’t hear much, if any, differences between wires and CD players, but with time and experience they become obvious and much easier to hear and appreciate. So given the OP’s clear lack of experience in these areas it’s not surprising he’s happy with garbage wire — he has no perspective to know what he’s hearing. But then to make the silly and ridiculous leap to state that more expensive cables are just “hype,” well, that’s where it got uncool for me. Anyway, thanks newbie for reinforcing what I said in my first post.

I can’t overlook the fact that precious few manufacturers that I know of bother to include anything more than basic well made cables with their equipment. If it really made a difference wouldn’t you want to add a $1000 power cable to you $10,000 amp to make sure your customers got the best out of it?

@bruce19 The reason higher-end manufacturers don’t include better power cables with their products is that the cables are very listener and system dependent, and most audiophiles either already have or will buy good aftermarket PCs that best meet their tastes/needs. Plus, including better PCs would significantly increase the price of the product, which is not consumer friendly if many are likely to replace the PC anyway.

Thank you so much for your observation. Your only intention seemed to be to put down @exflute for having ears that can perform well in a top orchestra but you allege does not perceive differences in the sound of cables that you allege (without any objective testing) to be able to perceive.

@clearthinker You continue to be absolutely clueless as to the actual point I was making, and I just feel sorry for you dude. And my only intention was not to put the OP down (although I admit that was a nice side benefit) but rather to explain why his inexperience in high-end audio does not put him in a position to make an uninformed claim like expensive cables are all “hype.” It’s certainly his right to have that opinion, but that he did so with overconfidence and arrogance was what prompted my more pointed comments.

And his argument about un-amplified music being different from a home audio system is wrongheaded and ridiculous. A home system’s job is to, as best as possible, recreate what the recording engineer intended and laid down on the master — PERIOD. Whether the music is live, dead, amplified, or un-amplified is completely irrelevant to the agnostic task of an audio system to accurately reproduce what it’s fed. If the OP had more experience he would recognize that better audio systems, given a good acoustic recording, can absolutely bring a live feel and experience to the home listening environment, but his closed-mindedness will likely prevent him from ever experiencing or realizing that. Ok, I’ve waisted enough time on you. Maybe someone more knowledgeable and experienced here will explain to you what my original post actually addressed in terms of the OP not being qualified to make definitive assertions regarding high-end audio as I’m not inclined to educate or deal with you any further. Peace out.

@clearthinker Apparently your thinking isn’t as clear as you think as you completely missed the core point of my post, or maybe you just can’t understand it. Either way your comments are meaningless to me as you’re obviously clueless, which the moderators obviously recognized and acted accordingly. 

Having a good ear and being a musician won’t get you very far in terms of being able to identify and discern differences between audio components, and that includes cables.  An analogy to your situation would be a very experienced driver who drives a mid-level sedan.  That person will likely have good driving skills gained through years of real-world driving experience, but this person is still in no position to discern the finer differences between two high-performance sports cars because they just don’t have the experience nor the perspective to be able to make those judgements.  It’s just a different world that is loosely related but still hugely different such that one has little to do with the other.

Its the same with high-end audio where you need considerable time and experience listening to lots of high-end gear to begin to be able to know what you like and how to identify the finer differences that are very important in the context of better audio systems.  That you can’t hear such differences and you’re happy with alarm system wire is fine, but you’re still driving an economy car and simply don’t have the experience or perspective to appreciate what better cables bring to the table.  But just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it invalid, and there are tons of true audiophiles with years of extensive listening experience who use relatively more expensive cables not because they cost more or want to waste $$$ but because they actually sound better to their ears in the context of their systems.  But, if you’re more comfortable living in ignorance and assuming more expensive cables are just hype, so be it.   Leave your head buried in the sand where it’s apparently most comfortable, don’t strive to learn anything new, and live happily ever after with your alarm system wire.  To each his own.