I am sick of cables

The problem I have with "truth about cables" articles is that they bring everything to capacitance and inductance of the cable. They don't believe in any correlation between sound and metal that cable is made of (and its purity). Most of people would agree that silver sounds different than copper but to them it has to be the same.

As for inductance and capacitance - average cable has 30pF/ft and 0.5uH/ft while great cable has 10x less.
To get this you need exotic dielectric like foamed Teflon (not cheap).

Metal purity plays role IMHO and while regular oxygen free copper has couple thousands of crystals per meter 99.9999999% pure copper cooled in hot forms has one crystal. Impurities reside between crystals. Copper oxide is a rectifier (and was used as such in early age before semiconductors). What about dielectric absorption? Are you sure it is not affecting the sound.

All I'm saying is that we don't know enough to judge. As far as I know we're not even sure how electric current flows.

When cable nay-sayers post on cable forum it reminds me a man who responded to an add for music teacher. He could not read music or play instrument and was almost deaf but responded to tell them they should not count on him.

Dave_B - let me get it straight: You've never heard your new system with your "fancy" cables because you traded them at the very start - yet you claim that Monster cables are better? Am I missing something?

Dave_b - I just wasn't sure if you compared them A-B in the same system. Like with any product there are some very good bargains but there is a correlation (unfortunately exponential) between price and quality (transparency, clarity etc). I don't have extended experience with cables but I tend to agree with Bradleyc that people often use cheap cables to fix certain system deficiencies (calling it synergy) while neutral transparent cables that "disappear" are more expensive. Cables are non-perishable (don't wear out or age) and therefore deserve a little more investment. As it is right now in my system it would make sense to sell IC (AZ Absolute) and get better speakers - but I will buy them eventually anyway.

Almarg - I read article. The problem is that people often try to find sanity in the laws of physics. According to them only inductance and capacitance play part while most of people can hear difference between silver and copper cables. I don't know how power cable affect the sound but I don't question that they do.

I had once very thick stranded cheap speaker cables. I had at this time amp with tone controls. I had to set treble to more than +3dB to get balanced sound. I replaced cable with Audioquest Indigo and balance dramatically changed - too much of "treble" and not enough of midrange. It was very pronounced and I could easily tell the difference. Take two inexpensive Audioquest interconnects Ruby and King Cobra. First has absolutely no bass control while the second gives more bass extension and very good control. Can you explain it according to laws of physics?
Please don't even bring laws of physics into audio forum - as far as I know we cannot be even sure how electric current flows (and I'm in electronics for over 30 years).
Do you believe that there is no difference, as article suggest, between lamp cord and best cables? Do you have lamp cord in your systems?

As for "disappearance" of the cable - it might be intuitive and difficult to describe term but it seems to me that cable that has no particular sonic characteristic will sound the same being 0.5m or 5m (with some loss of clarity). Maybe I'm thinking of "average" sound or "clarity/transparency" - I don't know.

Directionality of the cable, so laughed at in the article, is described by Audioquest as an effect of how cable is drawn (crystal formation) but I think it has more to do with the fact that unbalanced IC has shield grounded on one side only. This side in my opinion (and Audioquest's) should be receiving end. Talking about Audioquest - a lot of people laughed at their high voltage dielectric polarization (battery attached to cable) calling this complete nonsense while people who review them could exactly tell and describe difference when battery was connected and disconnected. I tend to trust manufacturers, not suspecting them of evil conspiracy, but at the end I trust my ears.

Al - I do agree that correlation is far from being 1 but still exist. Article on the other hand claims that people can very seldom tell the difference between any cables.

I know that this is not true and I won't applaud articles like that one.

Manufacturers are not lying to us, I'd like to believe, but just either exaggerate (called marketing) or pursue particular construction that will give them advantage over competition.

At certain quality of cables I won't be able to tell the difference but people with better systems and better hearing might. What right do I have to tell other people that they cannot possibly hear any difference because I don't. That is pretty much spirit of many posts here - "I bought Home Depot wire and it sounded to me as good as my Stealth Indra". Fine, but don't judge other people's choices. All is subjective. Even if at certain point it is only a placebo effect, as article claims, - why to spoil it to other people.

If there is any correlation between spects and sound, in case of the SS amplifiers, it's inverse one. There are some technical reasons why amp with 0.0001% THD won't sound as good as one with 0.1% THD but I would not even read most of specifications. Brand name is important to me and I don't see a reason to mistrust Jeff Rowland or Audioquest.

There is no honest or dishonest price and the hype of unnecessarily expensive product (with bad or good science) is called advertising and is part of the system we live in.

"First off, how is it some kind of revelation that price does not necessarily correspond to performance; the shocking part is that someone just now figured it out."

MIT Dave_b example says otherwise - unless you think that Oracle v1.2 Proline retailed at $6500 is inexpensive? In that case I'm perhaps living on the wrong side of the tracks.

Mmike - I finally got it (I'm slow). I think we agreed there is some correlation.