Which cables go with what?????

In response to the original post, cable differences go deeper than coloration. Two cables can be equally neutral on chromatic scale, yet differ greatly in macro/micro dynamics, noise floor, speed, clarity, detail resolution versus smoothness, and quality of imaging. Assuming that you can locate neutral cables, there is still a wide variety of performance attributes to consider in system balancing.

Keep at it Audioengr. This is an area long overdue for both measurements and some consistent engineering thinking on how to put systems together intelligently. Most audiophiles can probably agree that the wire game, including and especially power cords, is beyond reason.

Audioengr's original post and replies to it like Sean's constitute what I think is an interesting and important question.

As an engineer, I'm well aware that the putting together of optimized systems is normally done by a design team that would never dream of leaving it to an untutored end user to shape through mix and match.

As stated already in this thread, audiophiles usually match gear on sound and much audio gear is designed according to idiosyncratic engineering principles, therefore the end result is that the connecting cables become a battleground for the subtle mismatch of electronic parameters, as in Sean's detailed reactive loading description.

Audioengr's original argument is that IF you match components well enough, including with tubed systems, that it is at least possible to get the cable influence out of the equation. Obviously cables need to be as well designed as possible (re S23chang) but the HUGE dependency of system sound on cable parameters can be avoided - unless you give up and admit that your goal is not to optimize the accuracy of sound reproduction but just to color the whole system according to your own whims ..make that..tastes.

Personally I think this is a goal worth working for (if achievable). The way forward would involve manufacturers taking a substantially more active position in determining system match for their own components and in publishing those data. Audiophiles can hardly be expected to do it, and nothing will happen when everyone insists that 'its all a matter of taste'.

With all respect, Nighthawk, I disagree on the first paragraph. People usually do their best thinking in the areas they work in, and its pretty easy to distinguish serious content from a sales pitch. RCrump actually writes all the time at the AA Cable Asylum; maybe Agon just isn't as challenging?

Good idea, now there's one Everest missed in his acoustics book :-)

Why would it be so hard to look for component synergy? There are probably only a small number of components and speakers you would seriously consider anyway.

It's the cable voodoo as currently practiced that I find mystifying. Reading hundreds of posts trying to narrow down what someone else thought the character of cable x going from component y to component z sounded like in house z' with dedicated lines z'' and power conditioner z'''. But what's it going to sound like when you get it home? And how much money are you going to throw away doing this.

Seriously - cables have been getting better in the last few years. I would predict that there may be a convergence toward what Audioengr is saying; that cable ideas will stabilize around a few good ideas, and that neutral cables will feature prominently though not exclusively.

Nothing is completely neutral but there are degrees of closeness. Audio electronics companies like Meridian, Spectral, Linn, Levinson, Goldmund that design complete systems do strive to convey the signal end-to-end with as much linearity and as low distortion as possible. I believe this is what Audioengr is referring to.

It is also possible to define neutrality from a listening standpoint, as recording engineers do when they use a live mike feed as a reference for any subsequent changes in sound.

The problem is for the ordinary audiophile who has neither an oscilloscope nor a reference sound to work with.

I agree with Audioengr when he says most cable manufacturers do not understand cable physics. There is nothing easier to do than change sound. Avoiding changing it is what is difficult.

Okay Corona, supposing that it were somehow possible to eliminate the modulating effect of vibrational motion on the fields carried on a/c cords (and I'm assuming you're talking about mechanical and not electrical resonance), what percentage of that 80% distortion through the entire record/playback chain do you think is going to be reduced?

Resonance is present at every point in a playback system. If you reduce it in the power cord, where the a/c signal after passing through a transformer, admittedly becomes the base of the audio signal, then how do prevent resonance from being reintroduced in signal cables, within the electronic components including their wiring, and most of all within the speaker environment?