I am sick of cables
I think there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. See the following for what I consider to be an exceptionally intelligent and balanced (no pun intended) explanation of why cables can and do sound different, which at the same time puts into perspective the hype, nonsense, and pseudo-science that tends to surround them: http://svconline.com/mag/avinstall_designer_cables_critical/ Regards, -- Al |
What drives the cost of expensive cables (aside from markups) is the use of exotic materials and construction techniques. I think that the fundamental problem here is that there is little or no established science supporting a correlation between those materials and techniques and better sound. And muddling the picture further is that many exotic cables are non-neutral by design, incorporating in some cases outlandish values of capacitance or inductance, or "network boxes" whose function is defined primarily by nonsensical techno-hype. I don't think that one has to be an extreme cynic to feel that the manufacturers and sellers of exotic, expensive cables are taking advantage of our natural instinct to assume that more expensive = better, in selling products where there is little or no valid basis for that to be true. Other than, I should add, euphonic synergy (especially in the case of the non-neutral cables), which could most likely be duplicated at much lower cost if the designers were motivated to try to do so. A quote from the Bill Whitlock paper I referenced in my earlier post in this thread (a paper which presents several fundamental reasons why cables CAN and DO sound different): Some audio experts believe audio is too important to be trusted to technology, and consequently, they dismiss all scientific methods, including double-blind tests. This attitude, combined with the widespread notion that more expensive products must be better, has opened the door to a flood of marketing hype and misinformation. Promotional white papers abound with pseudo-science buzz words, theoretical explanations based on absurd and fanciful physics, and new proprietary measurement techniques replete with previously unknown units of measure. Regards, -- Al |
I would like to see some investigative reports into the lifestyle of some of these cable purveyors. Some of them may be living in a similar style to the 'geniuses' on Wall St. On the other hand, perhaps they're not, in which case it would seem they are charging a reasonable amount. And then, it could also be they make a huge profit on very small margin, not wealthy but living very comfortably with very little effort. I bet there are cable purveyors that fit into each of these categories. My guess would be that while the markups on many of these cables probably border on the unconscionable, no one is making a fortune on them. While what is charged is what the market will bear, the market is a very small one (essentially a niche market), and they are selling to an extremely small percentage of the population. Regards, -- Al |
The thing that I find strange is the one system that sounds so darn good with only the cheapest, while the other wants the high price spread. Several possible explanations come to mind. Your main system is better able to reproduce the bad as well as the good, and perhaps the expensive cables (which are often designed to be non-neutral) are filtering it out in the main system, while the secondary system can't reproduce it anyway. An example of "the bad" would be what is called "spectral contamination" due to ultrasonic and rf interference, in the paper I linked to in my post early in this thread. A quote from it: The audio signal degradation caused by ultrasonic and RF interference coupling.... Any non-linearity in the device under test will create complex intermodulation products at new frequencies, collectively called spectral contamination. Because the new frequencies are usually not harmonically related and appear only when audible signals are also present, they behave more like distortions than noise. Generally, listeners describe the audio as "veiled," "grainy" or "lacking detail and ambience." Also, large diameter cables with thick dielectrics will have greater capacitance than ordinary thinner cables, unless the dielectric material is chosen to have a lower dielectric constant. Although capacitance is often not specified, my impression is that many higher-end cables intentionally have relatively high capacitance, which may have a filtering effect as well. The inexpensive components, in turn, may have instability problems or other difficulties driving high capacitance cable, or cable which is otherwise unconventional or non-neutral in its parameters. Different source impedances in the output stages of line-level components will create different sensitivities to cable parameters. Cable lengths may be different between the two setups; obviously that will affect sensitivity to cable differences. Just some thoughts that come to mind; there are undoubtedly other reasons that are conceivable as well. Regards, -- Al |
Mapman -- Excellent thoughtful post. Some of you may be interested in the following, written by the late distinguished speaker designer and manufacturer John Dunlavy. http://www.verber.com/mark/ce/cables.html Towards the end of this post, he describes controlled experiments he performed in which audiophiles visiting his studio were asked to compare the sound of various cables to zip cord. Invariably "the largest and sexiest looking cable always scored best - even though the CABLES WERE NEVER CHANGED and they listened to the ZIP Cord the entire time." Regards, -- Al |
Kijanki -- You raise some good points, and also some that I see somewhat differently. I too, by the way, have been an audiophile and in electronics (not related to audio) for around 30 years. This is how I see it: -- You have a good point about cable "disappearance" correlating with a short cable sounding the same as a longer cable of the same type. But I would expect that very few people assess cable differences that way. -- I believe there are many more factors involved, both known and unknown, than inductance and capacitance. Just to cite one example, which I mentioned in another recent thread, what is called "spectral contamination" caused by intermodulation effects resulting from ultrasonic and rf interference coupling. See http://wiring.svconline.com/ar/avinstall_designer_cables_critical/index.htm -- Certainly a cable that has a shield grounded at only one end can be expected to be directional. I made the very same point in the current thread about fuse polarity. I assume, btw, that you are referring to single-ended interconnect cables that have both an inner shield and an outer shield, with the outer shield being the one grounded at only one end. If there were only one shield, as might be the case in an inexpensive cable, there would be no (direct) signal return path if one end was not connected. -- I believe that system synergy is important at all price levels, as Mapman stated well. -- Partially as a consequence of that, I believe that while some degree of correlation obviously exists between cable price and cable performance, it is far from a perfect correlation (i.e., the correlation would be well below 1.0 if it could be expressed mathematically). -- I tend to take manufacturer claims and literature with several large grains of salt. Partly because it stands to reason that it will be self-serving. But also due to the fact that as a person with a technical background I feel that much (though certainly not all) of the contents of technical "white papers" and other manufacturer literature, and the technical explanations that are offered to account for the claimed differences, often approach (or actually reach the point of) being utter nonsense. Examples that fall into this category, in my opinion, are articulation poles, golden ratios, and time alignment. I certainly don't mean to imply that the makers of those cables don't provide excellent products, that will provide good performance and value to many users, just that the explanations are speculative at best, and utter nonsense at worst. And as a potential customer, I find that sort of thing to be a turn-off. -- I think it is pretty well established that even in the case of the most sincere, open-minded, and perceptive listener there will be a correlation between what is heard and what the listener is expecting to hear. One reason for that may be increased concentration being brought into play when the cable that is expected to be better is being listened to. -- Another factor that probably misleads many listeners as they assess cables or other components over time is failure to recognize and control extraneous variables. -- While I don't believe in "evil conspiracies," I do believe that manufacturers take advantage of our natural expectation that more expensive = better, in combination with the fact that cable differences are elusive, system dependent, and to a large degree unexplainable by conventional science, to hype unnecessarily expensive product with bad science. Regards, -- Al |
