Yes they do, regardless of what others may say. They really do.
Do speaker cables really make a difference ?
Thinking about buying a different speaker cable. Do speaker cables really make a difference?
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Confirmation bias is real and very common here. Not saying cables don't matter but when two cables are close, 2 component are close, a new component is added that doesn't make much difference, tubes are swapped, it is easy to get confirmation bias. I am certain many of the positive reviews here on the forum absolutely reek with confirmation bias. So do your tests for several hours each. Keep an open mind. go back and forth a couple of times. Do everything you can to keep from being a victim of confirmation bias. Sometimes I just do the upgrade and don't try to judge it, other than to confirm I did no harm. Jerry |
Like almost everyone on this thread, my answer would be, very much, YES. But, as usual that answer means absolutely nothing unless you hear the difference yourself, and like what you hear. It seems to me that the key issue for anyone in your situation (and mine) is to have a nice hi fi dealer who will lend you stuff so that you can make comparisons. |
There is only one way to find out, as I recently did for my own curiosity. Reading what others think, either for or against, about the need for "better" cables is useless. You need to make that determination yourself. Follow what I did and you will have your answer. Contact a retailer that will allow for a return within 60 days. All it will cost you is the return shipping to make your own determination. It would have cost me all of $28 + insurance to find out for myself that YES, speaker cables and interconnects do make a difference. So I kept them. I contacted a popular online retailer and asked them to ship a full set of the most recent Shunyata Venom-X cables. The first cables I swapped out were the speaker cables. I was pleasantly surprised at what I heard. I listened to a total of 10 albums between SACD and vinyl. Then I would replace another cable in my system and again listen to the same 10 albums. By the time I replaced all cables and listened to the same 10 album each time my system was truly "singing" to me. For years I have been skeptical. Now I am not. They do sound different and in my case they sound significantly better than what I was using. Total cost was in the neighborhood of $4,300. Not a lot different, if at all, than adding a new device to the system to enhance the sound. I am happy I did this little experiment. edit: Don’t shy away from buying "open box" cables as they will be much less expensive. I did that with the Shunyata speaker cables and saved $700. |
I'm sceptical of cable claims too. But not such a flat-earther as to say speaker cables make no difference. If you can hear an improvement in a bliind test then spend a bit of money on speaker cables but never nearly as much as on an active component such as speakers, amps, source. A few $100 maybe. Always test blind; never give in to confirmation bias. But mains cables and fuses cannot make any difference as long as they are correctly rated. Volts is volts, amps is amps, but cable can change the presentation of a complex musical waveform. |
Yes they make a difference.
But it is of less contribution the big elephant in your system for "sounding".
Most are connecting their speaker cable between a crossover and a (power) amplifier. It has so much bigger impact that we use and have a big crossover between the amplifier and the speaker driver.
If do the crossover is before the power amplifier that is connected directly to the driver/speaker. That is "sounding" considerable better than a speaker cable swap in a passive system. Of so many reasons.
The only drawback is convenience, convenience and convenience.
Go active if you want a cheaper way for getting high end sound in the LONG run. Or keep switching out your amps, speakers (including speaker cables) in different ways rest of your life in hope to get a different result.. Make a change that counts or live with a system compromise because of convenience in my opinion and experience. |
Back in the day ...... and we liked it. (It's a link) |
40.years ago Monster Cable provided dealers with an A/B cable switch for demonstration of their product with 16 GA lamp cable. At under a10 ft no one could reliably tell them apart. At 20 ft, Monster Cable became noticeably better. One customer brought in some (I think) Audioquest cables to compare. They were very different looking, but sounded no different. They were however 4X the cost of the MC. 0ne trick i learned was to coil the extra cable of a competitor - creating a series inductor and low pass filter making the system sound dull. The longer lengths also had higher resistance, negatively impacting the bass. As for patch cables, just use a good affordable cable and Deoxit. If youre worried about power cables and don't have a dedicated and conditioned 20A circuit and hospital grade outlets, you're kidding yourself. Even then, if the wire gauges are matched for a very high current load like a power amp, youre not apt to make any improvements or prevent any degradation. The amps power supply will handle momentary load demands. Finally, digital cables make no difference. They are binary (pun intended), they work or they don't. |
Not trying to be snarky, but genuinely curious, for anyone who might know the answer why: Spending time in recording studios, ADR stages, and theatrical mixing stages, there are no exotic high-end cables being used (that I’ve seen.) No cables from any of the hifi brand names we all know. There are multi thousand dollar microphones, hundreds of thousands in servers, processing, mixing consoles, etc. But mic cables, interconnects, patch cables, speaker cables, power cables, etc., all of the cabling at these facilities (that I’ve seen) is utilitarian, standard issue recording industry brands. (The facilities are some of the best and most used in the world for music recording/mixing and movie/television postproduction.) As someone who has owned expensive hifi cables, I wonder why a playback system somehow requires better more expensive cables than the very system where the source material was originally captured and mixed. |
When I got Magneplanar MG3s 38 years ago I replaced the 10 gauge Monster Cable (zip cord on steroids) with FMS 1810, much less copper, but designed with multiple thin solid core conductors like AQ, and these were 20+ foot runs. The increase in clarity heard through the ribbons was not subtle. Clearest case I ever heard for the audibility of cable changes. I now have Cardas Cygnus, Transparent Music Wave and Nordost Purple Flare all under 10 feet. I’m using the Cardas but my hearing isn’t so good anymore. |
Everything in the signal path impacts the sound quality. How much of an impact depends on the synergy with the other components in the system, particularly in this conversation, as one would expect, the speakers. Many speakers are very forgiving, if you will, when it comes to speaker cables. My Apogee Acoustics Duetta II Signature full range ribbons speakers (recently completely updated and upgraded by Music Technology in VA) are on the other end of the spectrum and extremely speaker cable sensitive. So much so that the speakers would sound like crap in various ways depending on the myriad of unsuitable cables. I know there are other speakers cables that would sound good, but there are many at various price points that simply won’t work well. I’ll go with Jason Bloom’s advice from 30+ years ago and won’t even entertain at this point switching out my Symo cables I’ve had since soon after the Apogees were originally purchased by my dad in 1988. |
Yes, they can make a significant difference. I had some custom made 1950’s 12 ga bi-wire NOS Western Electric cables on my Vandersteen 2CE Sigs, and when I got my Treo’s, a pair of AQ Comets were thrown into the deal. I didn’t initially use them, as I thought my NOS Western Electric were very nice, (and indeed, they are), and I also needed AQ spades for the Comets on the amp side. Finally got some, tried them out, but thinking I could sell them off for a nice profit since they were thrown in with the speakers. Well, hooked them up, and it was one of those ‘wow’ monuments. I knew I could not go back the WE cables. They have been installed since, and are not going anywhere. Cables, given the overall equipment, can make a big difference, but I think speaker cables can be even more dramatic than interconnects…..overall. |
I did not read other posts, and this is the feedback from my own system. The cable differences in my system from most to least improvement is as follow: power cord for generator/conditioner; power cords for sources including streaming and disc transports; interconnects from DAC to pre, speaker cables, interconnects from pre to amps, and all others have small effects. |
STICKY TOPICS: Do cables matter? This continuing variant is one of those “Sticky Topics” . On CANUCKAUDIOMART, forum posts on this sticky topic have been - restricted to posting actual personal experiences, and - general pontifications with anecdotal non-specific opinions alone ( and especially posts laced with anecdotal , biased hyperbole opinions .. pro and con ) risk potential suspension.
“ …, Forum rules
Works for me.
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I used to have Kimber 8TC speaker cable which I thought was good. Then I replaced them with Nordost Blue heaven cables and the improvement was immediately noticeable. Then I had a chance to buy Nordost Tyr 2 cables at a great price. I cannot say that I noticed any improvement but then I don’t have golden ears and cannot distinguish the nuances as reviewers describe with all kinds of fancy adjectives. Same with interconnects. I started with Synergistic Foundation silver cables (less than $700) and they sounded fine, better than the Kimber Heroes they replaced. Then I “upgraded” with their Galileo SX interconnects, used at a good price, but couldn’t notice any improvement. The lesson learned is that for my particular system and my hearing, get a good cable from a well known manufacturer within your budget and stay with them. It’s an individual thing and I won’t be buying Crystal Cable or Siltech.
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As an ancient one I'm from the days when high end speaker cable was 14 gauge lamp cord rather than 16 gauge. It took me a while but there's no question different cables sound different and they probably vary depending on the rest of your system, especially the amp/cable/speaker combo. So I believe a lot of experimenting is needed(and cables are often costly). By the way if the amount of copper mattered then the old Fulton Gold cables had to be the best. You could jump a jet engine with them. They were good and definitely not bright due to high inductance rolling off the highs a bit. |
I find that speaker cables always make a difference and are system/taste dependent but may make less of a difference with speakers that are easier to drive (i.e sensitivity > 90dB and minimum impedance 6 Ohms+). Definitely worth exploring, and with so many direct sellers with generous trial periods and a robust used market (at least for cables from reputable manufacturers) there’s really no excuse to not try a few cables in your system. Best of luck. |
“Full disclosure: I have owned three pairs of Harbeth speakers, and was, for a while, active on the Harbeth forum. I ultimately had a few run-ins with Alan Shaw, and was banned from the forum, as he wasn’t happy with my persistent challenges. I mention this because my response to the above quote has nothing to do with my personal feelings about Shaw, and I hold his speakers in high regard.” (1) MY TAKE: - Yup…me too. I have HARBETH 30.2 XD speakers ,,,AND .,,, - I was similarly, suddenly and surreptitiously banned from the HARBETH FORUM too for posting my findings immediately below. They did not marry up with Shaw’s pontifications. Yes… Alan is an extremely arrogant albeit fine product maker IMO.
“ … I would argue that the designers and owners of, among others, Audience cables, would take issue with Shaw’s assertions. I have owned several pair of Audience speaker cables over the past ~20 years, and currently use their AU-24SX. For those unfamiliar with Audience cables, they are extremely thin, and very flexible. I have also owned high-quality, thick cables, such as Virtual Dynamics, and Purist Audio Design, and have always returned to Audience. Would I prefer a thick cable of similar quality if I were to A/B test them? I don’t know. But what I do know is that the Audience sound very, very good, and it is difficult for me to imagine that the sound quality is meaningfully impaired by issues relating to high(er) resistance. I have also used them with quite a few different components, including speakers. As a final note, I am not arguing with the science behind Shaw’s claim, but rather with his simplistic conclusion, which is, in my experience, somewhat typically arrogant.,..”
(2);MY TAKE : fair enough…carry on.sir! Your valid personal experiences are important here. thx for sharing. Simply put, intuitively, there is no absolute Anderson here. We all have different bespoke systems. BUT ,,,,and it’s a BIG “BUT” …. I upgraded from a very thin-wire design all- NORDOST FREY cables loom (..their speaker cables specifically are a very very thin flat ribbon design…) to a thick all- CARDAS CLEAR loom :( CARDAS REFLECTION speaker cable / all CARDAS CLEAR IC and power cable array ) based on his quoted opinions posted above. Yes … the upgrade in audio performance swap-in individually ( IC’s first, then power, and then finally the speaker cables in order) , each presented a sequential step-up in audio performance that was not subtle. The speaker cable component specifically mirrored Shaw’s stated opinion about wherein more metal = better. MY OVERALL TAKEAWAY: - Based on MY bespoke experience , Alan Shaw’s comments were validated in this specific instance , without question, Clearly, ( no pun intended ) , others may have valid different views. - The large majority in the post so far is a huge majority cohort in the “yay” camp , as expected. - Intuitively, before this potentially degenerates into another cable wars debated folly, let’s acknowledge and accept the binary choice cohorts ( cables matter vs. Cables don’t matter) are immovable polar opposites with absolutely zero chance of getting the other group to change their opinion…full,stop.
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Not really, if you have decent cables in the first place. ELAC has decent cables, for example, and that's all you'd need. There are other relatively inexpensive and perfectly capable cables, like Blue Jeans as another has suggested. If you don't like how your system sounds, it's not likely the fault of the cables... it's more likely you are dissatisfied with the speakers, the amp-speaker pairing, or, and here's the big one, how your system integrates into the room itself. |
Depending on your system and your ears, yes, you can hear a difference. You don’t have to spend a fortune. Many people are very happy with Blue Jean Cables. As other correctly say, the size of conductor, which equates to a low resistance, is important. Capacitance is not as big an issue in speaker cables as it is for line level interconnects.
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@whipsaw +1 on Audience. I also use AU24SX speaker cables terminated with rhodium plated spades that replaced a much thicker Purist Aqueous 20th Anniversary which was a very good cable. Thickness of speaker cables is irrelevant if the materials used, design and implementation are done right. |
