Cumulative Effects of Cables?

Mgottlieb Thanks for your post! I too have found the most significant differences in sound when swaping out IC's from between the pre & power. I've also noticed a similar effect in swaping AC power cords between components. While one can hear differences between different cords I swear that my CDP benefits most from the better quality AC cords. Mike

Perfect: My mixing of Mapleshade (micro copper) and Homegrown (pure solid core silver) brought a little more warmth to my system without sacrificing detail. the combo sounds more musical to me. I had tried another copper digital IC by Canare (before the Mapleshade) and it made my system sound closed and dull in the HF's. It was not happening by any means. I am not against using cable all from one manufacturer, I have just not yet had the opportunity to try such a setup. If I want a fatter sound I switch the Truthlinks with the silver IC's (I like this combo for poor source material and I also kind of favor it for some classical material as well). It is almost like having different systems to me and the IC's don't compress the sound like ordinary tone controls would. My wife likes the Truthlinks a little more probably because her HF hearing is superior to mine. Kind of on the subject, she (my wife) also really likes a new 300b tube amp that I just picked up (with the cheap Chinese output tubes) but may not like it as much when I boost the HF's with JJ tubes. I will start with Svetlana's which should be a little more rolled off in the HF's. IC's, cables, tubes - they all sound different to me, it's just what you/I/we like that counts.

I would be very intersted in hearing the details from someone who has mixed cables and found it to be better. What brands did you mix? What were the benifits?

Several years ago I did the "audition a lot of different wires from the Cable Co.". When I was all done, I ended up with all Synergistic Research ICs and speaker cables. However, the IC from DAC to pre-amp was a different model than the pre-amp to amp IC. They were all very complementary, and while I've occasionally tried other ICs, I've always come back to the SRs for what I perceive as neutrality and musicality. Also, as I've up-graded ICs, I've stayed with SR with good results. Good Hunting. Craig.

I have done it both ways (all silver, all copper and now I use a combination of pure silver and copper "micro" wires), there is really no exact right or wrong, IMO. I have never matched all cables (including the speaker and power cables) from one manufacturer yet, but am leaning to trying this with the Mapleshade line when I can afford it and am also able to reduce the length of my speakers cable runs. Right now I am using a Mapleshade Double Helix digital IC with Homegrown Super Silver anaolog IC's and I really like the combo with both my SS and tube amps. I also like to trade off with Harmonic Truthlink analog IC's on occasion, so I guess that mixing it up has worked well with my setup(s). There have of course been cables that spoiled the recipe as well. Right now I am hot on Analysis Plus speaker cables vs my current Kimber cables and like anything else I will just have to purchse/memo the AP cables and give them a listen myself. Good luck.

I think the answer may lie to a great extent in (a) where in the system the various cables go, and (b) how similar to or different from each other in tonal balance they are. When I gradually shifted from Straightwire Crescendo, a somewhat lean, "bright", more forward cable, to Cardas Golden Reference, a warmer, richer, rounder cable, I found the sound change varied most by which cable came last, and that as a result as between interconnects the one between preamp and power amp seemed to have the largest effect. Certainly the speaker cables had the "last word," and made the biggest difference of all. Recently I have started shifting to NBS Monitor 0 cables, and found the same thing appears to be true. It is harder to generalize on this last change, however, because while the NBS is fuller and more extended and slightly more detailed in the lower midrange and bass, the overall tonal balance of the Cardas and NBS cables is quite close. I agree that changing all the cables at once is preferable, if you can afford it, and if you've chosen a good match to your components.

There are some that disagree on this point, and believe that using interconnects is like adding spice to a dish ie. that it is OK to balance a "yin" cable with a "yang" cable elsewhere in the system. Others believe an interconnect cable should be optimised for the particular interface it is going to be used in and that this may lead to a different interconnect between CD and preamp, than preamp and power amp. But to my ears the result is oddly unnatural compared with using the same interconnect cable throughout. Perhaps the brain gets more confused and has to work harder. So far it may seem I am not answering your question directly, but in reality your choices are between mixing and matching interconnects, or going with one manufacturer. If you use two "yin" cables then of course the sound will be more "yin" than if you use one "yin" and one "yang" cable. But in my opinion, there is not a cumulative effect, ie. that more of one interconnect cable means you get to hear the sound of that cable more clearly, not that you end up getting too much of that sound. This opinion is based on experience, but it is possible that a cable with significant capacitance will roll-off the high frequencies more when you use more of that cable - but I have not experienced that with the interconnects I have used.

In my experience, the colorations of cables are very often additive -- the expression "too much of a good thing" can apply here. That's why I mix and match cables. Other 'philes and reviewers may disagree, but I have had to do this consistently over the years to achieve my idea of sonic neutrality. I don't know of any cable that's completely neutral, do you??

I have found that using all the same brand of cable through out my system is best. I think that when you switch brands and designs they contradict each other. You get the worst of both worlds. There may be better solutions mixing the right cables but I think it would take a ton of work and resources.