One thing that I just became aware of is how a little impedance between the speakers and the amp can help tame peaky resonances in some speaker drivers, and reduce distortion as a result. Not sure how that ties in to cables, but I suspect it could in some way. Also tube amps, with their higher output impedance.
What Speaker Cables Taught Me About Audiophiles
Hold on tight because none of this story ends up where you think it will.
Ages ago I did a half-blind speaker cable test with friends in the building who loved Jazz. The amp was a Yamaha P2100 with Focal profile speakers. Cables were Mogami vs. Wireworld. Source was a CD player through a Theta Casanova preamp / processor (oh how i miss it).
I thought i was going to impress my friends with how great the Wireworld Silver 7s sounded. In particular the imaging I thought was so much better than through the Mogami Sound Runners.
To the surprise of many "scientists" here, my friends did in fact hear a noticeable difference between the two sets of cables. They absolutely preferred the Mogami.
I was a little shocked. I tried very hard to keep a poker face, and not guide them either way while switching. They could not see which cables were connected from their listening location.
What happened? Did they not understand how much better the imaging was with the Wireworld?
Well, actually they did and they didn’t care. Richard and his wife did notice that but felt that the loss of treble and beat was not worth it. Hands down for them the Mogami was the clear winner.
What this taught me was:
- Speaker cables can make a small but noticeable difference
- The improved imaging came at a cost of treble energy
- Most listeners wouldn’t make the trade. They’d rather have the tempo and foot tapping experience over my precious deep into the room imaging.
Over time of listening back and forth between my Wireworld collection and Mogami or DH Labs pure silver IC’s and Mogami speaker cables I’ve given that up. I think my neighbors were right. I’d rather have the beat and energy. It’s a fetish I was giving up far too much for.
I'm definitely not encouraging you to overhaul all your cables, but rather saying that we audiophiles need to be conscious that sometimes our preferences are unique to our culture and that the "normal" consumer may not share them at all.