Who thinks $5K speaker cable really better than generic 14AWG cable?

gbmcleod-

nice point of view and I concur that most dealers/retailers have poor sounding rooms.  Happy Listening!

"Cables need to SETTLE."  Really...now they need to settle?  Is that after they are burned in?  Before they are "elevated?  Holy Moly!  I am still chuckling at the comparison with flowers growing.

You have to listen to something in order to ascertain something. It cannot be done on the fly. It takes time. Swapping out cables in a blind A/B test is nothing more than a parlor trick meant to beguile.

Anyone who know ANYthing about cables, knows that once you move them, it takes a while for them to ’settle’ again. A ’blind test’ done by switching cables out, one after the other, is the height of futility and absurdity.
It’s not the cable, it’s one’s level of sophistication and knowledge. Now that there are a zillion cable around, whereas there used to be only 3 or 4 top brands that dealers carried, people walk in and want to hear "X" or "Y" compared to each other, one right after the other. This is dumb, but not necessarily the consumer’s fault. The dealer fails to educate his client base and with the short attention spans people betray, it’s no wonder someone feels like this.

Clearly few people remember the Stereophile Carver Challenge, when Bob Carver tried to duplicate his amp to make it sound exactly like certain tube amps. As pointed out, it was absurd to expect people to be able to discern differences in a matter of seconds or minutes.
When I move my Shunyata cable around and listen - and voice is ALWAYS better, because most singers stand right at the mike. Wiat, let me qualify that: OLDER recordings with well-recorded singers (Ella, Nat King Cole, Sarah, Eileen O’Farrell, Callas, Leontyne Price), will do the trick. Using those recordings, I can move my cable and hear the loss of hard consonants (words ending in "d" or starting with "p" because, especially with a word starting in "P" the sound creates a sort of "aspirant." Just say the word "push" out loud: there is no way to say it without, literally, pushing air out of your mouth, whereas the word "thought" does not "push" air out. So, move the cable, play Ella Sings Cole Porter, or even music up to say, 1970, and you can easily hear the aspirant disappear. Leave it for an hour and try again. You will now hear the aspirant.

Cable are not rip-offs: people merely have incompetent dealers, more interested in selling than in educating their customers, and simply saying, "lets let this sit for 20 minutes or so" because the customer may simply leave.
Flowers don’t grow because you throw water on them: they take time. Nobody rushes a flower to bloom, or a foal to walk. They do it in their own time.
Cables also need TIME to settle. You don’t have to buy new ones to test this knowledge out: do it on your own system. Same with power cords (especially Shunyata because, I think, of the way the cable is woven. But I can hear it on my Nordost as well). And I buy from places where I can return the item if I don’t hear a sufficient increase in sonics. And many is the time I haven’t hard enough to warrant the purchase. But blaming the genre as a rip-off? You need better ears, and a knowledge of how live music sounds (or at least something that has not been multi-mixed at a console).
So, instead of "fake news," try acquiring something that you can put in your own system and do it the correct way. Insert. WAIT. Then listen.
Whereas, the listening experience used to be a relaxing one, when brick and mortar  establishments were the standard of the day - and dealers had actual knowledge - you could, assuming you knew anything - trust your ears. Now? The dealers are mediocre,  and their setups are poor. A nearby dealer has top of the heap electronics, and the worst setups, and yet he sells tons of ARC, Nordost, and others. Yet, he has no ears. I have a suck out around the lower treble, yet I can easily tell when something is wrong. In his setup,  it's ALL wrong. 
Bad setup will cancel out hearing what the equipment (including the cable) can do. Do you know the equipment well enough to assess the cable? One wonders.

Still amused immensely by this topic, here,s my 3 cents of old fart musings!
Hail from England originally and grew up as a cash strapped music afficondo making do on a shoe string budget to begin.
Back in the 70,s, affordable meant Jap amps and cassette decks, JVC, Trio, Akai, Aiwa etc, all made fair offerings for the price, hard to beat  garrard turntable for the price and with a half decent cart sounded good enough. Speakers were ALWAYS English, Mission for the masses, Tannoy or Mordaunt Short for those with a bit more cash.
Anyways knew a lot of similar minded folk and we would trade gear, tell tall stories etc but not once EVER did anybody even think about cables of any sort!
You used what came with your gear, yes those throwaway rca cables, whatever power cord came with it and hopefully you could persuade the dealer to throw in some speaker cable if you bought a new pair, remember getting some QED 14g cable with some new Missions...which I still have...lol.
I think if anybody had suggested you go blow the price of your tape deck or amp on interconnects or power cord or fuse they would have been laughed out of the country!
Now maybe we were all ignorant or just did not know any better, who knows, all I know is I am still constantly amazed at the price of some cables and the people who buy them.

Thanks.

Jena Labs

http://www.jenalabs.com/

Alan, where do you buy the Jenna Labs hookup wire? 

No, three wires to each-three wire to left positive, three wires to left negative, and the same for the right side.  Three Jenna Labs wires per side, per channel-twelvein all.  The three Jenna Lbs wires between the single MG Audio Design wire-themself attached to the speakers themself.  And the other ends of the Jenna Labs hook up wires =3 each per channel-twelve in all-to the amplifier speaker wire terminals.  I originally used just one Jenna Labs hook up wires per channel-four in all.  Next I tried two per channel-eight total.  Finally Iused three per channel-twelve n all.  It sounder better each time I added another Jenna Labs hook up wires.  The result is fabulous audio reproduction.

How do you do 3 wires per channel? One on positive, two on negative?

I myself am using a one foot pair of MG Audio Design's top of the line speaker wires, which retail for $900  which are attached to my pair of Martin/Logan peakers.  Between the MG Audio Design speaker wires and my amplifier I connect Jenna Lab's 18 gage hook up wires.  Presently I am using three of the Jenna Lab's 18 gage wires per channel.  Thus 12 of them total.  The cost of the Jenna Lab hook up wires is $6 per foot per wire.  Due to system set up I require 17 foot length of the Jenna Lab hook up wires for my left speaker and 10 foot lengths for the right.  It averages out to a 14.5 total length per speaker.  Lessthan $1900 total cost.  The result-basically the sound as if I was using mG Audio Design wires by themself.  Both Arnie Nudell and Paul McGowan use Them.  Jenna Lab's is another small high end wire manufacture.  John Curl will speak up for them as he himself has a long relationship with them.  All I can say is that my present speaker wire combination is truly state of the art, but at a real world price.

Hifiman...thanks for the response.  Technically my dedicated circuits in my old and my current house and room were 30A capable as I wired with good quality 10-gauge but I've always kept to 20A breakers.  I may have to do a limited test to see if putting in a 30A breaker yields any benefit but I've never heard any suffering in my system from lack of dynamics or headroom so I've not felt it necessary to push this envelope up to the present day....Happy Listening!

@zephyr24069   Thanks!  I must say, the Treo CTs and the Modwright CD player have  been game changers.  The Vandies take quite a while to sound their best, the reward is that their best is incredibly good, perhaps astonishing at the price.  The interesting thing about the Modwright is that at first it sounds "tubey".  Once broken in it is very extended and clean at the frequency extremes.  The "tubey" warmth is replaced by a harmonic rightness to instruments.  More meat on the bone as it were.  

As far as the 30 A circuit goes, I had my listening room built with the house and specified a 30 A circuit from the get go.  Therefore I've never heard my system on anything but.

HOLLY MACKEREL This thread is still rolling along!!???? WTF????

Thanks dill...was looking too deeply trying to figure out what user/vendor with an agenda was masquerading as this user. Was not looking for something as simple as satan!

"Well, this has become quite the thread! After reading all of the posts and participating in this topic, it seems it all comes down to what YOU hear. ".

Hifiman: Definitely,...that’s all that relevant I suppose. It has nothing to do with what had to be spent (or saved if you are luckier than some of us...). BTW,....just visited your system page again (first time since Nov 2016). That is one well thought out and assembled system and I’m sure it sounds wonderful. Did you find the 30A circuit gave positive benefit of a well done 20A?

Remove the "u"

maplegrove: No,...what are we missing?

Anyone notice if you remove one letter from the ops moniker ?

Well, this has become quite the thread!  After reading all of the posts and participating in this topic, it seems it all comes down to what YOU hear.  It doesn't matter if I can or can't hear the differences between simple inexpensive designs or the high priced spread.  If YOU do and you have the disposable income to invest big bucks on the expensive stuff and  YOU hear a difference, so be it.  YOU can feel good about your purchase and the rest of us who haven't spent our money there can invest it in other areas of our system in ways that seem meaningful for us.

chrisr: Thank you for the pointer to the Canare site; their stable of connectors for 50-ohm, 75-ohm, etc....also look interesting. I'll check out the s48 wire in the next couple of weeks with some good quality but budget spades and report back as soon as work allows....

grey9hound: definitely agree with your post with the clarification that there are moderately priced components out there that are resolving enough to let someone here the difference; despite what I've been able to work up to have today, I've heard and owned many more moderately priced pieces over the years and don't think you have to spend tons of money to find these types of (resovling & quality) components....

ptss: agree that the OP's post is somewhat suspect in that regard and was obviously meant to stir the pot :-) !

jayctoy: absolutely agree that monetary total spent on 1 or more components and speakers mean nothing in terms of guaranteed musical outcomes and system synergy. I have a number of friends and have also myself put together low-cost systems that sound great and much better than other systems that had 'glamour' component lists with high-price tags as system synergy failed despite level of spend....

geoffkait: absolutely agree however that does not mean that someone who after many years of trial and error, buy, sell because things don't work, etc...that has assembled a system that happens to cost over a certain threshold is not a real audio-nut/audiophile...it's about how musical the end result is, how involving, how realistic it sounds, etc....

Have a great day all!

If you cannot hear a difference, then your equipment is not revealing enough.
I too for many years could not hear a difference.
I upgraded my amp  and i could immediately hear differences in cables.
Sometimes those differences are very small, and it takes some listening time to hear them,whereas other times it is immediately noticeable.
Do you really think that these cable companies are able to sell their cables , for many years i might add, just based on myth.
 I think not !

mitch2
"Hollywood ... audiophile" sounds kind of fun. Where do I sign up?

Apparently you're already signed up. Your picture is on their web site.

"Hollywood ... audiophile" sounds kind of fun. Where do I sign up?

OP"s original question is disingenuous--- I don't know why...
It's not necessary to spend $5000 in order to buy a well designed and
well made cable whose performance far exceeds that of generic 14 AWG cable (actually it is 14 AWG "lamp cord" - not cable. That's lamp cord to power light bulbs.
I think his ears are broken-or never were any good....

Well, obviously there's a lot more to the hobby than plopping down a bunch of money and plugging it all in. That's kind of what separates the Hollywood pretend audiophiles from the real audiophiles.

Expensive gear don't mean a thing if they don't match and produce musicality anyway....

I used to think only expensive stuff, can accomplish good music, not ALWAYs true.On the audio show go to Elac room and music shows up.Andrew Jones will introduce you to real world of music with reasonable price, where mostly can afford it.

My Norh 9.0 set up $900 I like it better than my Andra $19k new set up, because my Norh set up is more musical and it's more live sounding than my Andra....so it's not the price.

Nowadays technology improves my friend who has 20yrs audio experience, he bought Elac b6, integrated amp used outlaw integrated, clear day cables, old Oppo DVD with Sacd $60 worth.not even 1k but it's musically involving, I go to axpona annually so many expensive systems, they sound loud, but no music, it's not the cost but your ability and experience, Robert Harley is right.

I found the low-cost wire you are looking for: canare 4s8, full range config.

2channel8 / nonoise: great posts!

Randy: try again,...no liberal arts major here, quite the opposite actually a couple times over in very deep technical areas.   I will say for the record that many of the most open, logical, truly creative and free-thinking people I've worked with in the high-tech world over the last 30+ years had liberal arts majors originally so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. It's not about what's on your diploma or where you went to school or what grades you got while you had the luxury to focus on one and only one thing (usually at someone else's expense unless you are like many of us who had to work full-time to pay for university degrees) as opposed to dealing with the rigors and realities of the world, it's about how you think, how you unwrap and solution a problem, how you recover from mistakes in that process and how you truly create versus simply regurgitate info.  

Ever heard the analysis of college degrees (joke);

B.S. = bull&*^%
M.S. = More&^%$
Ph.D.=Piled Higher and Deeper
*obviously meant as a JOKE, hoping that nobody like many of us with these degrees takes offense, please! 

I'm diverging heavily here and don't mean to send things down a rathole but frankly, type of college degree (or none at all) or GPA, etc...has NOTHING to do with a person's skillset. I've fired very well-credentialed high-scoping non-liberal arts majors who simply could not think let alone play well with others....

At any rate,....back to the thread.  I'd pray to find low cost cables that sound as good as what I have and hope all you anti-high cost cables guys are right; I'd switch in a heartbeat long term and reclaim lost funds gladly and stop the agony over next best cable and how to afford them!!!  Time for more double-blinds :-) !!!
 

I'd love to see this kind of discussion at the next big audio show. Bring all the wise cracking and insults and own it, on the floor, in front of everyone and I'll just watch and laugh. 

Someone needs to call a priest to perform last rites on this thread.

All the best,
Nonoise

"One of the weakest links that many audiophiles overlook is the AC power source. Oh, yes, audiophiles love their sexy high-end power cables and AC power conditioners, and salespeople love selling these products, but wouldn’t it make more sense to eliminate a problem rather than spending money to compensate for it?
Since it affects your entire system, upgrading the AC power source that feeds your system may be one of the most impactful upgrades you can make. But first, take my advice: before you spend big money to upgrade power cables or install a fancy AC power conditioner or regenerator, install dedicated AC lines and a low-resistance ground. I’ll be writing about this topic in a forthcoming blog, but for now, let me say that you can hire a licensed electrical contractor to install dedicated AC lines in your home for less money than many audiophiles spend on a single high-end power cable.
Don’t Fall for Attractive Distortions
When I consult for friends and customers who complain that their audio system is either too hard, harsh, and fatiguing, or too soft, laid back, and veiled, the solution in nearly every case is to improve the quality of their source components and to upgrade their AC power source. Most of these audiophiles had followed the advice of salespeople and bought products that either filtered, equalized, veiled, or brought a false liveliness to their systems rather than resolving the cause of their actual problems.
Have you heard the children’s song about the old lady who swallowed a fly? She swallowed a spider to catch the fly, a bird to catch the spider, and a cat to catch the bird. Much in the same way, many audiophiles buy one product after another in hopes that the next one will eradicate the source(s) of trouble and finally make their system sound musical and balanced.
Some salespeople love when audiophiles purchase aftermarket products to fix flaws in their systems because they know they’ve found customers they can manipulate into spending more and more money. A whole genre of products in the audiophile industry is engineered for just this purpose. I’ll make my point as simply as possible by dividing these purposely colored products into two categories: “more than” or “less than.” I use these terms because these products either have more or less bass, treble, and midrange so they can be used like an equalizer. Or they’re veiled to mask fatiguing sounds, pumped up to give more life to a system that’s too laid back, or have some other form of “attractive distortion” that enhances the audio illusion, such as an unnaturally spacious image.
The problem with any cable or component that is more or less than neutral is that most of the time the engineer that designed it had to sacrifice time, tune, and/or harmonic coherency to get the attractive distortion. When any one of these is sacrificed, it can never be regained later in the system."

Excerpted from: https://mojoaudiofiles.wordpress.com/find-the-weak-links-in-your-audio-system/

My equipment is plugged into a dedicated circuit wired with 12G solid copper. My small town has its own power company, I can hear the difference between some of the crap ICs that came with certain equipment and some $25 AQ Towers. Not so much between the Towers and some $110 WireWorlds. This may be because my power is good or my system not so much; but it sounds real good to me. Phono cables are another story. I certainly hear differences. Not huge; but worth a reasonable investment.

Last week I made a power cord from 14G solid copper (12 is too stiff). I didn't make an audible difference (although I haven't burned it in) and since it's as close to the circuit cable as practical I don't think any other power cable can improve on what comes out of the wall.

I may try some Blue Jeans speaker cable. What do you think would sound better, $20 Belden 10g or Canare 4S11 bi-wired for $30?

no one is bashing those who hear differences in cables for dynamic speakers

... only those who are deluded by confirmation bias into thinking their perception is caused by differences in sound

post your double-blind methodology you used in testing or learn something about reality (here's a hint: you will not find it in your liberal arts major)

"Just enjoy the music..." 

I could not agree more...this thread continues to amaze as there will never be a conclusion that everyone is happy about or a single point of view that is agreed to. Price does not mean one has a better (or worse) audio system. That goes for components and speakers as well as cables.  I have a good friend across town that paid $500 for a $1000+ used tube integrated amp that SOUNDS AMAZING and a system around it that sounds great regardless of price.
I honestly go home to my system and still enjoy it after but this and a couple of other systems I've heard that were intelligently assembled and sound great for far less money keep me awake at night (so to speak).... The price does not make it (or him) "mid-fi" nor does what I have into my current and recent-past systems make those systems (or me) "high-fi".   What rubbish :-) ...

There are a lot of great posts here on both sides of the fence with many great points of view including those on legitimacy of testing whether money is spent or when it's not and it's a pure test, and many other things to think about. There are also the posts that are blatantly fish bait and inflammatory.

I think I said it before but in any case, I'll say it now; everyone who thinks zipwire sounds the same as ANY other cable from $100 to much higher price, keep buying the zipwire and enjoy it and stop bashing those (of us) who can hear differences in cables....anyone who hears difference in cables at any level (and I do mean any level) buy what sounds good in your systems and continue to enjoy it!

Somebody delete this thread please and put us all out of our misery <LOL>!!!

Have a great day everyone!

Audioman58: need to proof your posts, dude.... painful to read.

I donot find this true for every cable. I owned a Stereo store,not all cables dound the same for many reasons .we too did tests where each cable had a nylon shieth 
Over it. Myself evrn recently tried to get away cheap with a awg 11 from parts connection I put my own copper over gold ends  .the Neotech  wires where clearer soundjng with better resolution.  I had blue jeans speaker wire ,and interconnects 
Conaire a aufioquest colorado which the AQ CABLES  shielding, or purity of metals used had better detail  and a bigger soundstsge. 
All cables have different   inductance , resistance, Capacitance, these 3 things
Directly effect the outcome through the speakers .there to in your speakers 
Xovers the quality of that directly effects the clarity and detail of the performance.
All too often you get less expensive Solen capacitors  sand cast resistors and sledge hammer inductors just to save money, out of sight out of mind .
The ear is a very sensitive instrument I have upgraded many Xovers and higher end parts such as capacitors from top of the land Copper foil Teflon caps 
To evrn use cheap electrolytic in thd signal path.  The better speakers like Magico 
Marten , B&W use Mundorf, capacitors and resistors,inductors with Xovers  premium parts most certainly matter.any quality speaker builder will attest yo this, the drivers included with all the different choices is another topic to 
Discuss. This is why your equipment power supplies rectifiers transformers 
All electronics will sound different through certain cables because of all thjngs mentioned .every different cable design will have a different sonic attribute in 
Different amplifiers ,and preamplifiers. There is Allways exceptions to thensure rule.if someone buys a $500 interconnect and 1,000  speaker cable. If they feel 
It makes theIR system sound better then buy it .that us why Audiophiles have 
So many opinions .just enjoy your music !!

Randy said: " my Audio Research and Magnepan gear doesn’t care about interconnects (or even the cables to the speakers; nor did my Sonic frontiers"

They shouldn't care, they are unsophisticated machines, humans use these as a tool along with good cables to make music sound better to them. Some of us implement and understand that, some choose not too.

I am a mid fi guy and i hear the difference between two sets of same brand/model cables but assembled by different guys.  So hifi guys, keep it quiet.

Mid Fi crowd and the High Enders

To-may-to / To-mah-to
I am getting nervous again since this is starting to sound like the discussion over on the fuser thread about "real audiophiles" vs. "not-real (fake?) audiophiles."
Am I a Mid-Fi To-may-to or a High End To-mah-to? What happens at recess when they pick sides and I end up with the "Mid Fi crowd?" Everyone in Vegas wants to be a High-Roller....who in the world wants to be a Mid-Roller?! How embarrassing. What if someone starts a caste system? Let’s put it to a vote, oops, been there, done that. Who’s on first?
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

my Audio Research and Magnepan gear doesn’t care about interconnects (or even the cables to the speakers; nor did my Sonic frontiers

it is easy to test - you just have a friend help you with a blind listening test

or you can continue to waste money on visual bling - troll kait would love to sell you some

So it's been 6 weeks, have we reached a consensus yet???!!!

HURRY!!! I need to buy $5K speaker cables this weekend, and I can't proceed without the consensus opinion of the gurus on this audio forum!!!! ;^)

You're right, poor equipment requires fancy cables or is it poor equipment won't reveal the benefits of good cable. My systems over the years have included brands like, Pass Labs, Audio Research, CODA, Monarchy, Threshold, Krell, Cary Audio, Cairn, Pathos, AudioVector, Silverline, Totem, Vandersteen and Magnepan.

"Poor quality equipment" indeed. however good enough to hear differences in cables.

Sorry to hear so many suffer from poor quality equipment that they end up trying half a dozen cables to try to fix it. In my experience,  a band aid is always a band aid even if you give it a fancy name after a snake or a Lab or a University in Boston.

mid fi?
high enders?

are we not all supposed to be in the same hobby for the love of the music?

such labels do not help matters any IMHO

Granted there will always be people who will argue black is white just for the sake of it and they exist in every walk of life and will never go away.

I love my music, I mostly love my equipment...lol
Is it mid fi?
Is it high end?
Is it somewhere inbetween?

Buggered if I know or even care tbh!

Julian Hirsch would be SO proud!