John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

I hate getting involved with religious debates (although I am in this case), but my own experiences agree entirely with John's assertions about speaker cables. As yet, my system shows no real improvement over 12 gauge wire with any higher end cables that I've tried. However, with respect to interconnects, I've found pretty big differences in many of the low to mid-line cables. In fairness, I haven't tried very many higher end IC's, and it wouldn't surprise me if the differences beyond a certain point were somewhat less than dramatic. However, between cables such as Radio Shack Gold, the MIT Terminator series, and Nordost Blue Heaven (relatively low cost cables), I've found that the differences are clearly audible.

As always, your mileage may vary, and I'm willing to accept that other folks do indeed hear differences that I do not. However, since personal musical enjoyment is my only goal, I'm content to spend a wee bit more on IC's where I do hear a difference, save my money on the speaker cables where I don't, and spend the rest of the time sipping wine and playing music.

Cheers,
Ken

Sean, there are three types of mid level speaker cables that I tried along with the 12 gauge wire -- MIT T2 biwire and single wire, AudioQuest Slate, Nordost Flatline. The MIT single wire and AudioQuest did not sound appreciably better than the 12 gauge, and I found the Nordost and MIT biwire to actually sound a bit poorer (I'm suspicious that there might have been something amiss with the MIT cable, or something strange in the biwire configuration of the speakers, so the comparison may not be entirely fair). For reference, I'm running CJ amps into ProAc speakers, and the cable runs were around 12-15 feet each. Also, since my testing wasn't terribly scientific, I chose to dismiss any differences that were not very apparent and pretty dramatic.

As I mentioned before, my inability to hear, or my system's inability to produce a difference in the speaker cables may be entirely unique to me, and the results may be quite different for other folks. Also, I have not tried any of the higher end cables, and its possible that the differences at that level might be more striking. However, since I'm already getting a great deal of pleasure from the sound as it is, I'm more than satisfied to live with my perceptions (or delusions, you be the judge...).

Cheers,
Ken