Absolutely not! Wire is just that - wire! IC's are simply signal conduits - they either work or don't work! They are not tone controls or equalizers! Save your money for something that really matters - like speakers!
Can interconnect cables improve sound stage height, width, and depth?
Will good interconnect cables give a bigger, wider, taller, and deeper sound stage? Has anybody seen/heard an improvement in the sound stage dimensions going with high quality interconnects? What interconnects have given you an improvement in sound stage size?
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You’ll hear more musical info in the areas where you previously couldn’t. It will be more detailed, have better focus, and be more in balance with what you already hear, giving the impression that it grew. Just having less toe in with your speakers will increase the soundstage more than better interconnects. But by all means, use better interconnects. As for your last question, I use Darwin ICs and they helped "grow" my soundstage. 😄 All the best, Nonoise |
I'm a skeptic when it comes to fancy cables. Any well-constructed cable that meets the specifications of whichever standards apply to it should be audibly indistinguishable from another such cable. You may see differences in oscilloscope readings for various cables, but the big question is if any of those differences are audible. To my knowledge there hasn't been a rigorous double-blind test published that shows a statistically relevant audible difference between any properly constructed cable vs others, if there is I'd like to read it though. |
Out of boredom, I swapped out my Darwin ICs for an old pair of Mapleshade copper ribbon ICs and then, a pair of Zu Audio Mission ICs to see what would happen. With both of the older copper ICs, I was rewarded with a pleasant, slightly fuller/denser presentation. Highs were recessed compared to the Darwins and it had that nice, reproduced sound to it. When I put the Darwins back in, the sound became more focused and had that "I'm now in the studio" presentation. The shimmery highs returned, the bass tightened up, and it became much more realistic, in every aspect you can think of. There was no comparison. Use your ears. All the best, Nonoise |
Some years back, I had decided to replace my Silver Audio Hyacinths, and gotten a pair of Wireworld’s Platinum Eclipse interconnects. With the Hyacinths, I was enjoying a wall to wall sound stage(with attendant, accurate, imaging) and excellent/realistic height and depth(with recordings made in open venues, that contained the ambient info). Installing the Eclipses, while realizing more air, greater inner detail and tone quality, the sound stage was reduced to between the outer edges of my Magnepans. I then auditioned a pair of Synergistic’s Tesla Apex, which yielded EXACTLY the same benefits/audible improvements, as the Eclipses, but- restored my sound stage width. They’re still in my system. Besides using my own recordings for sound stage verification, I like the tests(especially the LEDR) on the Chesky CD: http://mazsola.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/~drdani/cdlist/chesky.test1.html and https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_ledr.php Prior to that experience, I had replaced a pair of Audioquest Emeralds with the Hyacinths, which was tantamount to removing a blanket from over the speakers. YEAH- interconnects make a difference! https://www.stereophile.com/features/772/index.html |
"Wire may be wire," but the design and implementation of a cable does affect it’s sonic presentation. I have found it has to to due with the metallurgy and how it’s implemented by the designer. Look at all the different conductors and dielectrics used in IC’s and other cables. Conductors may be copper, silver, gold or any combination, they may be stranded or solid. And then there’s the metallurgy and design of the connector. An IC doesn’t have to be super expensive to be a good performer. Grover Huffman makes excellent affordable cables that are transparent, organic, with wide and deep soundstaging. At a higher price point Siltech cables offer realistic inner detail and an image that is focused and extends in all directions. Purist Audio Design offers different lines of cables, each having it’s own signature, but all offering an excellent soundstage. Silent Source offers a sense of realism and the reproduction of the soundstage as it was originally recorded. The Cardas Golden cables, IMO, have a closed-in soundstage, while the Clear line of IC's present realistic height, width and depth. A budget cable such as Belden produces a very good soundstage in terms of height, width, and depth, but lacks the nuances and organic characteristics the above cables provide. My 2 cents. |
@geoffkait putting them in sideways results in marked improvements on all fronts. Try figure 8s and braiding them as well. @blamere Different ICs definitely sound different. Sometimes different sounds better because it’s sounds new. Sometimes different sounds worse because it’s bad. Try some cables from different companies with fair (30 day or more) return policies. It’s a fun exercise, worth the shipping and you’ll probably find something you like! I recently tried Morrow cables and have perceived more depth and detail than before. |
Brands offer different levels of build, and cables, components, speakers, tweaks treatments and rhevroom will contribute in your overall sound. With that being said, I recently swapped a reference line XLR from my DAC to Preamp (which yielded great results) to now from the PreAmp to the Monos and gained even greater results. I will circle back at some point and upgrade the XLR between the DAC and Preamp. Could this have been done with less expensive but still well built cables, possibly, but that was not an option. As as many say let your ears and wallet decide what’s best for you and never forget to Enjoy YOUR Sound! |
Hi! ICs can indeed improve SS width. SS height and depth to a lesser degree. I’ve found it takes a combination of decent to quality cabling from the outlets to the speakers for the SS to be fully expanded, either artificially or with adherence to the recorded venue. Preffs being what they may be for different folks. Along that route, one should be looking to obtain fidelity, naturalism and honesty as well and not focus solely on SS expanse. The only IC I’ve ran across that yielded a cavernous depiction of the SS without changing any other aspect of the rig were Sound Smith cables. I was seeking new Main ICs at the time (pre to amp). The biggest or more noticeable changes or alterations to the overall sonic display came via power cabling. One PC on just one device can make all the difference in perceived SS width and depth. Naturally, it follows that the setup, room and gear itself MUST be capable of developing a larger sonic envelope. Tubes for instance inherently provide a SS with more air or space within its displayed boundaries with just good to very good wires. As has been said, there’s plenty of wires to explore and all have similar to quite diverse presentations. I’ve found one doesn’t have to spend tons to garner more air in the reproduction, but spending some more often does equate to ‘better’, in more ways than one. I’ve always found starting with checking out power cables as my initial area of interest. Then source IC, main IC and then speaker wires. But that’s just me. Good luck. |
The correct answer is that it all depends. The effect of cabling choice is system-dependant. At the risk of poking the bear, I have a theory that the naysayers who claim "wire is wire" or "assuming capacitance and resistance are within a certain range-wire is wire", have systems that don’t reveal changes in cabling. It makes perfect sense that the folks who don’t want to spend the money on more expensive cabling or listen with an open mind are the same folks who buy lower level amps and preamps and speakers thinking that all amps sound the same and that preamps are nothing but input selectors with volume controls and that inexpensive loudspeakers are plenty good enough. At even further risk of poking the bear(s), damn there are a lot of dumbasses on this Board! It blows the mind! Exhibit A is the chicken crying that the sky is falling because one of Kalman Rubinson’s reviews did not include measurements from which said chicken falsely concluded and declared that Stereophile has now globally dispensed with measurements. This is stupefying stupidity. In that same thread, a very cynical but unfortunately likely correct person concluded that 97% of us humans just don’t want to use our brains any more than we absolutely have to. Can anyone imagine how difficult it must be for a bricks and mortar salesperson to deal with the public when this is the status quo? How in the world can a salesperson (and let’s face it, 99.999% of them are male, so "salesman") possibly explain to a price-conscious customer that for the most part, you do get what you pay for in audio? So for this reason and many others, there are fewer and fewer bricks and mortar stores and now we have even less educated lemmings who buy over the web and express their views based upon what little they think they know. So to the OP, I advise you, and you can take this as worthy of thought or not, that the answer is unequivocally "yes" that better cabling can improve the perceived soundstage width and depth, but it depends on so many other factors such as the equipment design and quality and whether the room is properly set up and whether the source is good among others. Without going into specifics, I recently completed a six month long experiment of various IC’s and SC’s and heard tremendous differences in the soundstage width and depth among other things with each change of cabling. But my sound system is not yours. |
@fsonicsmith, dang, you must REALLY like the MC5! Good post, to which I would only add that there is another dynamic at work, only at the high end. Brooks Berdan was (R.I.P.) a SoCal dealer who had a fair percentage of long-term, repeat customers with deep pockets. He sold a number of lines of tube electronics, including VTL, Jadis, McIntosh, and others at the higher-priced end of the spectrum. He also was a Music Reference dealer. Brooks was the kind of retailer who only sold products whose sound he found superior, passing on some companies from whom he could have made a lot of money, but whose products he didn't find to provide sound quality to his level of expectation. He chose to carry Music Reference because of it's sound quality, engineering, but especially it's value---Roger Modjeski's designs sound far better than their price would suggest. Brooks didn't mind selling his higher-priced products to his customers (he made a lot more money selling a VTL amp than a Music Reference), but readily admitted to me that some customers buy with their eyes, not their ears. Eyes as in seeing the sticker price, magazine reviews, websites, etc. He also acknowledged that bragging rights is a major motivator in high end consumerism. No duh. |
A change in interconnect cable certainly can improve imaging, but, if you are having problems in that area, it is not likely to be a cure. In other words, you really have to get everything right to get terrific imaging and there is no way that making changes in one part of your system can compensate for inadequacies in others. First and foremost, you have to get speaker placement and placement of your listening chair correct. Taking care of this can turn almost any speaker into an imaging champ. I've heard remarkable imaging from a vast variety of speaker types, sizes and shapes, and it mostly comes down to correct placement. This is too broad a subject to get into the details, so you need to do some research, and mostly, a lot of experimentation with moving things around. Room treatments can help, but, placement is the key. Also, it is simply not realistic to expect great imaging in anything but a tiny listening window unless you are using omni-directional speakers. Even then, the ideal spot will only fit one listener (the two dedicated listening rooms that had a wider sweet spot than one person were gigantic--around 30' x 55'). Electronics certainly matter, and the best gear at giving one a sense of a sound-field that is completely enveloping the listener tends to be tube gear, particularly low-powered tube gear (e.g., single-ended triode amps). Whether or not this is an artificial thing with tube gear, it certainly is seductive. Once you get everything right, it is pretty easy to hear differences in cables and some wire tend to do certain aspects of imaging right. But, as with anything in audio, any choice tends to involve some tradeoff (no one thing is superior in all aspects of performance). For example, some wire that sounds very clean and detailed, will tend to be very precise in terms of image placement, but, that type of wire tends to be tonally thin and this detracts from the sense of the sound filling the entire listening space. Finding the balance that fits your priorities is the key. |
