Do Audiophile Cables Matter? Here's PROOF!

Thank you Glupson...up all night with my sick pug 😳

Audio is Alchemy...it all depends on so many factors;  the equipment, room, speakers, local power quality, relative humidity, emotional state etc...  Best advice is to try before you buy and keep both the emotional and technical bias out of your decision making.  If you achieve your audio goal then enjoy!  No need to adhere to someone else’s biased ideas of great audio.  Trust yourself and use only a few favorite recordings to finalize your decisions.  If you find yourself putting on more and more music just to hear how great it will sound on your rig, then you’ve probably nailed it.

Mahgister gets it! Pertinent to this topic, I have been finalizing my cables for my current rig over the last year. I’ve learned to take my time and evaluate slowly and under various states of mind. My history with high end audio is fairly long and excessive. Entry level to uber expensive and all points in between. A couple of years ago I decided to re set things again without the influence of outside noise, i.e...magazines, online chatter or dealers. I have heard and lived with enough gear over the years to have a handle on what I need to be happy, so....I set a reasonable budget and attempted to bring a dynamic live sound to my den. Variables were to be few hence simplicity was to be the rule. At the heart would be my Krell Vanguard Digital Integrated Amp. So musical and full bodied with great extension. For a source, I wanted something reliable and capable of doing justice to my vast collection of CD’s and SACD’s. I chose the Yamaha CD S2100...neutral, accurate tone with great dynamic range and detail/extension. Most critical was my choice of loudspeakers. I wanted dynamics and headroom that could give me Club level sound while conveying accurate tone and musical expression. I chose JBL 4429’s mostly by gut instinct and a chance look at a MUSIC DIRECT catalogue. Most of my audiophile speakers over the years always seemed to be less than realistic sounding in the midrange and dynamics department. With a 60 day return option I figured why not try something different! Luckily, they won my heart fairly quickly with their buttery smooth dynamic midrange and extension. The “Vinyl “ sound was finally there, but with CD’s...hard to achieve these days. Last would be cables. Based on previous successes with certain designs, I wanted to get the power right first, so I went with a Transparent Gen 5 reference for my Yamaha to give my source the best power I could. My Krell has fairly good power regulation to begin with so I tried a few different PC’s and wound up with Anticables level 3 cord directly into the wall (it has its own filter). Cables have just recently settled out to being Anticables level 3 speaker cables with MIT Magnum Jumpers. Interconnects are Transparent Gen 5 Super Balanced interconnects, edging out the Anticables level 3 and 4 XLR’s. Stands for the JBL 4429’s are from Deer Creek Audio...an absolute must for these large bookshelf model monitors. Overall, the performance puts me in the venue with my favorite artists and does so while being faithful to the tone, dynamics and soundstaging inherent on the CD’s.

So typical how many audio lovers inevitably want to inflict their views as absolute science.  We can all learn from each other and respect each other’s successes...it doesn’t need to be divisive.  We all have different sensibilities about what we want to achieve in our systems.  There is no one size fits all folks.  Audio myopathy is a serious disease of the inexperienced and the pseudo intellectual measurement cognoscenti.