What do audiophiles want from a cable?

I'm thinking true audiophiles already know what's up.  You can take that swing, but it's not gonna land with me.  Still hating Randy?  We can see you are being stubborn and don't have an open mind regarding the subject matter here.  I guess you've heard it all already?

Experienced audiophiles know that the most well designed high end audio cables will out perform the average stuff by a good margin.  They have heard it in well thought out and very high performing audio systems.  If you have experience with these high performance cables and you have the other parameters down, i.e. the resolving high performance equipment utilized correctly in the proper listening space, sense of hearing that has not been compromised, and an understanding of how live instruments and voices should be presented, then you get it.  It is here and it is real.

Hey, I do not discriminate!  I enjoy MUSIC and an amazing listening experience as much as anyone!  Man I'm always looking for an amazing cable that performs way above its price in my system.  I recognize.  I've enjoyed and talked up some of the great budget cables as well.  Grovers, Clear Day, Morrow, Discovery, Anti-Cables are all good examples.  Nice additions to most audio systems.  I have spent time listening to all these and many more.  Still have the Govers and the Discovery just because they are so darn good and inexpensive.  There IS another level of sonic realism here folks and yes it's gonna cost you!  If you don't want in that club... fine.  Nobody's gonna force you, but don't knock me or others for attempting to discuss it on these forums.  

"A well designed audio interconnect, speaker cable, power cable, digital or USB cable WILL in FACT outperform your inferior cable in a resolving audio system setup in a proper listening space. Face it, deal with it, move on please."

^ that stmt. belongs in the how to rip off audiophiles thread

I have to say, the new Anticables 6.2 RCA interconnects are blowing my mind right now. I can't imagine what the new, albeit insanely expensive, (yes check the price), speaker cables sound like. 
Might be the most natural sounding interconnects I've had.

Have to admit that I'm enjoying taking you to school barking spider.   

You wouldn't know namaste' if it hit you in the yoga mat. Turn that Aiwa desktop system up and ride that keyboard off into the sunset big boy.

You are now 0 for 5.

@waxwaves 
Duuud - I was totally out, but you blew it and bit! Now I have no other option but to "nanny-nanny-boo-boo." Well, actually, there are several options, but you made it too damn easy. This time just let it float away . . . in the waves. #namaste 

barking, you are not doing us any favors.  If you really want to oblige us then take the hate somewhere else.  The knowledgeable, experienced guys have heard all of this crap before.  Cable haters are a dime a dozen.  What you have said here means nothing.  A good majority of folks here know better, and have experienced higher performance from high quality cabling on many occasions.

Gonna say it again...A well designed audio interconnect, speaker cable, power cable, digital or USB cable WILL in FACT outperform your inferior cable in a resolving audio system setup in a proper listening space.  Face it, deal with it, move on please. 
.  
cvarivey, your statement couldn't be farther from the truth.  It blows my mind that you actually believe this.  No one here in the know will take you seriously if you keep this up.

No unicorns were harmed in the process of typing this post, only the egos of the inexperienced haters and the admirers of dielectric bling.  Love to see this potentially informative thread get back on track.  Sorry for the hater hurdles we must jump.

audiophiles want from cables most of the time something that no one else does.
non-audiophiles purchase monster cable at best buy for better looks (as part of equation).

looks for audiophiles at the same time are somewhat also important. you need to arrange everything nice and shiny to be marketable and presentable to convince that that beautiful set of hoses is gonna sound super good and eyes can hear more than ear!

@waxwaves
Oh, no worries - happy to oblige. I am, however, growing bored. Off to discover other magical lands of unicorns and $4K cables. We now return you to you’re regularly scheduled programming. Toodles!

Speaking of kind of amusement, serious guys in another thread are discussing cartridge alignment. After so many years of turntables there is still something to debate on the subject, it would seem.
Just give me Studer deck and some reels.

@barking54 
At this point in the thread, YOU have become the source of OUR amusement!  Problem is, the more we get to know you, the less we like you.  I am sorry you can't find a better pastime.  The World Series is on dude, try that.  Better yet.. go take a hearing test, that'd be a good pastime for you.  Anything but Perpetual PaTrolling Please!

@jmcgrogan2 
Odds are he's going 0-4.  

wait for it....waaaaait foooorrrr it!

@waxwaves , make that 0 for 3. ;^)

Not looking for respect. Just voicing my amusement of this thread. You can't make this stuff up. Well, perhaps I could have phrased that differently - ha!!!

Barking54...2 posts.  0 for 2 so far!  Getting no respect for barking or trolling.

sure, you can fill them with fluid, but you really need to pressurize the fluid

^^
and it continues. It's like perpetual motion. Reading this thread is my new favorite pastime. Love it!

barking54, even your name is a noise.
By the way, Purist Ferox cables cannot be filled with fluid, unlike the other way around.
Waxwaves, Dominus, at least a new one, is absolutely out of my reach, as are many things. Gryphon Callisto 2200 integrated, as an example. It is almost never on the second market, there is one now, though.

OMG! This thread is amazing -- I read every word. Thanks for the masterclass in trolling (including question by OP that started it all off). You guys are awesome.

randy-11
59 posts
10-15-2016 3:52pm
What most audiophiles want from a cable is confirmation bias.

That cannot be confirmed.

In my best computer voice - Negative ,this cannot be confirmed 

randy-11
59 posts
10-15-2016 3:52pm
What most audiophiles want from a cable is confirmation bias.

That cannot be confirmed.

What most audiophiles want from a cable is confirmation bias.

Inna...yes all systems are different in one way or another.  How is mine very different?  Just curious...

 I feel like the Jade Audio cable sounds a bit better from the Lampizator than Venustas does.  But PAD excels between preamp and amp, and then again as speaker cable in this system.  I've experienced best results with the last legs of cabling being the same.  I can take the excellent foundation that PAD lays there and mix the qualities of the Jade ic, the WyWires USB cable, etc to get the sound I'm looking for.  You see where I'm going with this.  The full loom of PAD is still solid and well balanced, it's good stuff.  Just kinda bland and lacking the liveliness, attack, and refinement in the upper end of the frequency range that WyWires or Jade cables bring to the table.  

Sounds like you also enjoy the PAD cables Inna.  Yes Dominus are incredible and had me drooling over the emmense soundscape.  Dominus are out of my reach at present.  If I had a loom of Dominus, my opinion regarding the mixing of cable brands might change Inna.  They are certainly special and there's no denying it.

imjerrys, does all that linearity and perfect resolution ever get boring, sterile, overly analytical?  I hope you are not trading off full bodied musical sound that is harmonically rich?  It's so hard to have both in this hobby.

Only two things are required:

Resolution. Everything that comes in goes out again. Unchanged.

Linearity. Resolution is the same for the entire audio frequency range. 

The better cables maintain these characteristics with a variety of components.

Waxwaves, I never tried any Proteus or Dominus. Also, your system is very different, so no wonder it requires different Purist cables for the overall best sound. But I can tell that another striking quality of the Neptune fluid is its great balance, nothing is exaggerated or diminished, and it is neither forward nor laidback, great dynamics and details too. Unlike Colossus and Maximus Ferox RCAs, the former slightly exaggerates high frequencies and the latter - bass. But I must add that as it was designed, both Colossus and Maximus were fluid cables, replacing fluid with Ferox threw them off the balance a little. The Colossus fluid speaker cables are in my opinion better cables and work great in combination with all copper Neptune fluid. In time I will replace both Colossus and Maximus Ferox interconnects, I am just not sure with what yet. Probably original fluid Ag/Cu/Au Dominus or another Neptune would be best though slightly different choices. Just try to find used original Dominus, almost impossible.

Yes, I believe it true that different cables each have their own sonic signature imparting their characteristics in your system. For example, I used to own a Theta Pro-Basic 3, and it was very aggressive, however by inserting a mostly entry level Cardas cable, it completely calmed it down. The Theta and Cardas are no longer in my system. I for one believe in symmetry and also believe you do not need to spend the same amount of money on an IC as you spent on the source component itself! My system currently is Kimber Silver Streak throughout, Balanced and SE, there are better sounding cables out there, but I either can't afford them or the price/performance ratio was not there after audition. I think finding the balance between cost and performance is a hard thing to accomplish. There are some great values out there often overlooked because they were so inexpensive they must not sound good?? Here again, I believe there are diminishing returns as cable price increases and I also believe in not "drinking by the label". In the end my belief is there is a VERY loose correlation between the cost of an IC and how it performs.   

Inna, yes I have used Proteus Provectus which are fluid filled and solid core using some combination of the metals you listed in your previous post.  I experienced good results and I agree with your assessment of the qualities these different cables impart on the sound. This fluid filled cable worked very well from the Lampizator DAC to the McIntosh, and did mate up very well with the Venustas and other ferox cables that come later in the signal chain.  The ferox insulated cables seem to provide the SOLID, WELL BALANCED foundation for the music with the dead quiet backdrop you mentioned, while the Proteus Provectus(fluid filled) cables offer the mid range "magic" (similar to a good tube amp or tube preamp)that will inject a very lifelike, multidimensional quality to the sound system.  The Proteus Provectus interconnect, as good as it is, seemed slightly unbalanced in this system.  I heard it tilting the presentation a little too far forward in the mid range and upper frequencies for my liking.   Enter the Jade Vermeil Gold with Bybee purifiers to provided a truly special, spacious, palpable and utterly lifelike presentation of the music that works perfectly here with the ferox insulated PAD cables coming after.  This gave me a real sense of LIVE INSTRUMENTS AND VOICES which is my BASE REFERENCE for what this sound system should be able to reproduce bjg.  In my experience, this is what happens when cable synergy is there, and working its "magic" in the listening space with good equipment.  One should have a "you are there"or "they are here" type of experience when things are setup correctly and this so called "cable synergy" is in full effect and playing music.

@helomech  What length and how much?  Are they terminated in spades or bananas???

Thanks maplegrove, I had lost that reference. 

I got a pair of speaker cables to sell..
 
They're made of military and aerospace grade beryllium copper, harvested from fragments of a comet that only passes near earth's orbit every 100,000 years. 

These cables are then coated with platinum, because everyone knows platinum is better than gold. 

The cable is cryogenically treated, then annealed, then treated again. This makes the cable resistant to electromagnetic interference due to its superior flux blocking grain structure. 

After about 100 hours of break-in, you'll hear immediate improvements in clarity, transparency, openness, resolution, and a lack of opaque..ness.  

You'll experience a telepathic connection with the musicians and hear all the subtle detail they intended you to hear, realizing that the cables in their recoding studios was comprised of this same magic formula.

@maplegrovemusic , thanks for the new information!
That breaking news changes everything!

You do know that brainwashing works both ways, don't you?
If you don't want to hear a difference, you won't.

For anyone not brainwashed yet - http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Audiophiles want magic!!!!!

Cable discussions and evaluations are entirely subjective ( all rooms, components and listeners are variables).  When you measure one set of cables against another ( in itself a challenge -- as meaningful blind A/B tests are almost impossible without manually switching them back and forth -- losing the ability of a quick A/B with the time lapse) -

But the question of having the cable be neutral - and not adding or taking anything away --- how is that even possible to measure or determine ?  What is your base reference for measurement ? -- It has to be another set of cables ----- so how do you know what your base reference of neutrality actually is ? --

Simple fact -- You can't listen to any of the components without cables -- So all cables must impart a sonic signature of some sort -- and it becomes completely subjective as to what you consider to be neutral.

I have spent a considerable amount of money on cables - mostly motivated by a hope that it will provide better sound staging, possibly broader frequency range and an enjoyable / pleasant tonal representation ( not likely better - just different and more personally preferred in my room/system/ears -- which may change after 6 months if/when I try another pair) --

But some moves have been in hopes of getting rid of any background noise and trying to achieve that completely quiet 'Black" background in my system ----  I find that most "good" cables do this better than mediocre or cheap ones.  I do believe that good cables are an important component -- but beyond getting rid of any background noise, hum etc.  and being dead quiet (as if the system was off when paused) -- the results are completely a matter of tonal preference -- but I can't ever say neutral -- and not adding or taking anything away -- because all you can do is measure one set against another -- what is being added -- or what is being taken away -- means nothing other than the two sets have different tonal signatures -- so it comes down to personal preference.    

What do audiophiles want from a cable?  For it to sound audibly different from the ones they have! LOL!

I also tend to see the system in a holistic angel like renolds 853 and waxwaves. Overall i see the software, hardware, the room and finaly ouer body ( mostly the ears) as all connected to the expirience. I too have expirienced a cable the has huge synergi in one system and very little in another. When i alter a component in the system, it creates a domino effect so some of the other components in the system again can be optimised. Getting better a better and better system makes the diffrences when changeing anything more and more audibel. I whish that i could find a cheap cable that did it all right but i have never found it yet.
At a certain level i didnt need the filtercabels that takes out nasty things. Before that i hadent been dealing so much with the room, decoupling and the electric supply. For me cabels are components, i have never heard a highperformance SOTA system without superb expensive cabels. I tend to think that the powercabels today is the most importaint cable in my system and in the low level time it was the most unimportaint.

My cables, as well as the rest, shall improve the realism, make it more involving and letting me feel more when i listen to the music. I think most will go for that but how much you are willing to offer on them.
Here i am looking for the lowers fruits first and i get a lot of help form other expirienced audiophiles. When i think i have reached a homogenic level in the whole chain, i usually start lifting one component up the ladder again and then the rest follows over the years. Which component it is, depends on many things but feeling that making a good deal, eg superb price/performance matters a lot. 
Trying new super cabels in my system is a easy way to learn more of the capacity/potential in my system, that may be hidden for me. Unluckily i dont have so many opotunities to do it,as supercabels are rare in this area. Maybee we could swift cabels with each other once in a while.
Good lisining.

Waxwaves, you use Purist cables, all Ferox. Have you ever tried Purist fluid cables? Now when it comes to Purist it's a fun game, there used to be fluid and Ferox cables with both Ag/Cu/Au alloy conductors, that's, mostly silver, and Cu/Ag/Au alloy, that's, mostly copper. The newest Luminist revision has no Ag/Cu/Au with fluid combination.
I have original Colossus fluid speaker cables, Neptune Luminist Single Crystal Copper fluid RCAs, original Colossus Ferox RCAs, used to be fluid that I bought with Ferox, and original Maximus Ferox RCAs that used to be fluid in my set-up. Fluid and Ferox have their strengths, the analogy could be that fluid Purist, especially all copper, sounds like a tube amp, and Ferox like hybrid/warmer transistor. The Neptune that I recently got has an incredible deep and layered soundstage that I doubt  any other Purist cable could match, and also exquisite slightly rounded highs. Other things being equal, Ferox may be a little quiter with tighter bass. So, no wonder that a number of people use both fluid and Ferox cables in their systems. Some would call it sound manipulation, yet others would call it fine tuning. I would not run all Ferox cables in my system but I could run all fluid cables, provided I had Ag/Cu/Au speaker cables. Single Crystal Silver with Ferox might give the ultimate resolution speed and bass and balance with great soundstage but it costs a fortune.

Cables essentially are tone controls. You are basically altering the lows, mids, and highs by trial and error. It just comes down to which one floats your boat in your room with your setup.

I pick cables to get the best out of and not restrict the full potential of my components.To me its all about a balanced system.I run all Furutech which are better then out of the box cables .

Yes terry9, in some cases a cable will sound just fine.  You would never know what you were missing.

I think some cables do act as filters, but not in the sense that most think.  The cable is not filtering thru the audio signal, but filtering OUT all of the crap that is detrimental.  Mainly stuff that comes in on the a/c line that keeps the equipment from optimal performance.  I'm a fan of what ferox has done for my system as well as the Bybee products.  

Well wax waves, I have heard little to no improvement over fairly mundane cable technology, in my system. I use Canare Starquad microphone cable for interconnect. For speaker cable I use Goertz when I'm not using an exotic solution which only works in my system (nichrome wire speaker cables instead of resistors at the speaker).

I understand that some cables will sound unrefined and nasty in some systems, while others will sound fine. I suspect that this is because some cables act as filters, removing the nasties. I also suspect that this is not your opinion.

terry9, you can see the associated equipment on my system page.  It is resolving enough of an audio setup for cable differences to be audible and sometimes shockingly different.  It surprises me often the sonic attributes and shortcomings of difference cable.  

An inferior cable in the system will always change the presentation for the worst.  The words lifeless, unrefined, and uninvolving come to mind first when attempting to describe what happens to the system' presentation of the music with an inferior cable in place.  It loses the ability to do its best work.

Performance lost is performance lost period.  The presentation can be incorrect tonally, musical passages with lots of instrumentation can be jumbled and unresolved.  Lyrical content can be more difficult to comprehend.  Bass can be less accurate, too boomy or too weak.  With inferior cable music can seem rolled off at frequency extremes and have less dynamic capability.  These differences are real and many have experienced this.  I can't understand why so many deny it, when the positive attributes of implementing well designed cabling is significant in my listening space.  It took lots of trail and error and break in time is a pain, but in the end when you have cables that perform well with good equipment, the musical experience is certainly enhanced.  The result is an accurately reproduced, expansive, and extremely lifelike presentation of the tunes that is pleasurable!

Sorry, don't use em. The best cable is no cable. Ditto power cords.

Its a tweak to help fine tune  the sound when needed once all the common bigger issues are addressed. 

@reynolds853   Amen.

I agree jmcgrogan2 in that I go for what sounds good to me. It's all part of what I call voicing my system, an exercise that has included not only the cabling but also the speaker crossover components, the tubes used in the preamp & amp, the power cords, and the power conditioning system. In my experience the synergy of the cabling is system dependent. This past year I changed amps and felt a need to adjust the voice of the system. I got in three new interconnects to audition. In my system there was one that was the clear winner (to me as well as a two friends who were over).  We took the show on the road over to my friends' systems and a different cable each time was unanimously considered to be the best system match (as always the caveat of personal taste notwithstanding). 

My answer to the original question about what I (sic) want from the cabling is that I want it to be an effective part of a musical system that allows me to connect emotionally with the music, and the attributes that permit that vary by individual.  Several system incarnations ago I had a rig that I described as letting me connect intellectually with the music in that I could talk about which sonic attributes it was doing well, but it still wasn't adding up to an emotionally engaging experience, and that is my ultimate, albeit personal, criteria. 

In terms of speaker cables, It’s said over and over: the best cable is one that doesn’t alter the signal. So then logically, that cable should be EXACTLY the same cable that goes to your amplifier’s binding posts, (newsflash: it's not a $4,000 exotic, NASA engineered cable). If I hear one more comment about how a $4,000 pair of boutique speaker cables are needed to, and this one’s my favorite, "get out of the way of the music", my head will explode.

I agree with jmcgrogan2, all cables modify the sound, it’s just a matter of do they do it to your liking?

Social sense of belonging. 

What...?

Sorry, wax, don't quite understand a few things. First, exactly what components are you connecting? Digital source --> DAC --> Integrated amp --> amp ??? Or something else?

Second, how does the sound improve? What are the characteristics of the performance loss?

Third, what characterizes an "inferior cable"?

I can hypothesize, but until I know more I can't really respond.

terry9, if you come here and take the cable I use as a preamp jumper on my integrated amp while I'm at work and you switch it with an inferior cable, I will most certainly notice... guaranteed.  Absolutely positively.  I tried it recently and my audio system was much less enjoyable.  This was very obvious to other people that listen to music here on a regular basis.  From them I got the "what did you do?"  There was most certainly a decrease in the level of performance.  Similar performance loss is apparent when I position the cable that I enjoy so much on the output of my DAC in between the preamp/amp.  The magic is lost, it just can't do it.

Agreed Almarg. Well directed.

Eric, I am lazier - after I built theoretically optimal cables (viz the Maxwell Equations) with gold plated, fine silver wire, vanishingly low dielectric absorption in a Faraday cage, and ETI connectors, and got little or no improvement over microphone cables, I just bought a stack of Starquad.

I know by single blind experiment that every high quality styrene cap and every nude Vishay resistor makes a perceptible difference in my home brew electronics. So I spend money there. Exotic cables? Not for me - can't afford them. YMMD

Just carry the signal and add nothing to it ..Please .......Dont need anything added . System sounds great without added bass or treble manipulation .