Wire is just jewelry. A more honest assessment is like jewelry you like the look and feel - buy it!
Looks maybe, but kinda weird you'd be buying cables because you like how they feel.
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100%. And not just for cables. For components as well. To properly assess the changes you need to have several listening sessions 3-4 days in a row each day with a new component only. Let everything settle including your initial reaction. Then go back to old component or cables. Whatever it is you’re evaluating. |
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One of my early jaw dropping experiences in audio were with digital cables. I had already learned how important they were to optimize the analog components. Around 1990 I had a two box CD player. I happily thought, finally a cable that will not matter, it’s digital. But I am a scientist and it comes out, I wanted to prove to myself it didn’t matter. So I borrowed a decent quality digital interconnect. I remember the feeling of complete embarrassment as the first few notes were played… it sounded like someone had come in and upgraded both component boxes with much higher level ones. I was just speechless. Also, what a screaming deal it was… while expensive… nothing like it would have cost to upgrade the player and DAC. Some components are highly dependent, some less so. Good quality equipment require carefully chosen interconnects to get the best out of them |
"How are cables that we don't like explained without a double blind test". Just possibly, some folks have better critical listening skills than others. And with sonic differences for wires, which are often subtle, and reveal themselves over long(er) listening sessions, perhaps the differences will manifest themselves only if you have good critical listening skills. Some folks can't hear any differences, and think they don't exist. Personally I just listen to the cables after they have been up and running for 24 hours before I attempt to analyze their performance, always using equipment and music with which I'm intimately familiar. BTW I think the value of A/B testing is flawed, not so much in the theory but in the execution, and of little real value. FWIW.
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@hilde45 your perspective is similar to mine - assuming your interconnects and cables are half decent to begin with - the reality is that many are not. Steeply diminishing returns after say $500/m or so. Now a brief rant about digital cables - these in particular are not worth spending more than a small investment ($300?). I’m a computing expert but not a networking expert but had a hunch that error correction in the protocols (plus the digital binary nature of the information) negates the traditional benefits of better copper and interconnects. One of my good buddies is a networking expert for one of the largest SPs in the USA. He cannot conceive of how say typical electrical signals could change the digital info enough for protocol correction to not work. if this were true, the Internet would not work - voice calls would not work, etc. |
The question becomes what is the incline of diminishing returns for cables? My own guess is that it's pretty steep, because compared to other elements in the system, cables make a smaller contribution. Thus, the killer question for anyone spending on cables is: Are cables more deserving of your upgrade dollar than anything else in the system? For example, if one were to spend $4k on interconnects, the question I'd ask is whether $500 in interconnects and $3500 elsewhere in the system would be a better investment. That's just the form of the question, and everyone would fill in the amounts with whatever suits their situation. |
Once you have a compatible set of components that sound great together, speaker wire, interconnects and powercords can make a very significant improvement in sound quality. The better your system, in general, the bigger the improvement you are likely to experience. But also, experience developing listening skills will reveal aspects to sound quality you will unlikely have even noticed when you started out.
One truth that has shown itself to me over and over again is that there are lots of good sounding systems, but all the truly great sounding systems have been meticulously tweaked through wires, vibration control, and room treatments in order to get their sound.
While the is no real wrong way. Most of us do components, wires, then room treatments. |
While more expensive is not always better, and there are some lower-cost competitive cables that have surfaced over the past decade, I would not buy anything costly without having worked with a retailer or local dealer to demo it first. After my local dealers inventories shrunk, thankfully working withe TheCableCo, TMRAudio, and MusicDirect, I was able to demo and return some and buy others on my last go-around of upgraded cables, in a reasonable and effective way. One thing I don't do any more with friends voluntarily, is to bring over some of my better cables for them to try on their systems. This can trigger instant confusion :)
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