WHY CABLES MATTER!

I read about the perceived sound changes, and then I see stuff about how the cables are made, and how this and that might cause a difference. What I don’t see is anything that gives an in depth explanation with any real substance to it of just how the changes in cable construction effect the performance of the connected equipment, and how that relates to audible perception. Something interesting would be to show a phase shift or frequency response shift or change in noise and distortion that is known to be in the audible range. If none of those things are being changed, what else might be causing a change? If you aren’t doing a double blind test, then you absolutely cannot rule out listener bias, which can have a very powerful effect on audio perception in my experience. Our brain actively tries to interpret what it hears based on other things it knows about what’s being listened to. It works that way with smell too. My office manager told me she was mortified that someone came in to the office with horrible body odor. She was practically choking on each breath. She turned around to see who it was, and saw that it wasn’t body odor, but some fresh cooked food with a lot of onions in it. Suddenly it smelled just fine to her!

I should add to this that if you aren't doing blind testing, but you can show measurements showing response differences that are known to be in the audible range, then there's really no need to do blind testing. I've perceived differences in equipment and was able to verify those differences with measurements. There's no reason to go further with blind testing.

What I want is a cable that minimizes inter-aural crosstalk. Polk Audio has a cable like that going between their speakers in their flagship SDA line. I'm someone who notices the center image frequency response dip caused at each ear by the interference from the speakers. People talk about coherency, but there's nothing coherent about 2 tweeters 8 feet apart trying to play the same sound. It starts to comb filter at each ear typically around 2k, and that's not where I want to hear a very strong and immediate phase interference cancellation. This dip is well within the audible range, yet few complain about it. They hear issues with different cables loud and clear, but that dip doesn't "phase" them. We all focus on different aspects of the sound. My ears are easy to satisfy when it comes to cables, but a little more difficult to satisfy when it comes to 2 channel stereo playback. 

I bought silver cables once and heard a night and day difference - until I blind tested myself. It absolutely blew my mind that the difference I perceived vanished  just by me not knowing which cable I was listening to. After that, it no longer mattered if I knew. I had broken the spell. 

I'm not saying that your silver cables aren't making a real difference. I'm just saying that a real night and day perceptual difference can happen because of sighted bias. Maybe it's better if you don't know...

@cleeds

They’re not interested in conversation - they seek to disrupt it.

We’d love to see just some decent explanation of what’s going on. I’d be happy with some simple measurements. If there’s a subtle but reliably measurable difference in speaker output between the two cables, that’d be enough to convince me, and we’d have a solid explanation of what’s going on. I would expect the cable manufacturers to provide this data on at least a small selection of amps and speakers, not a task for end users. Although, I have a calibrated mic. and REW so I can do those sorts of things. I have done it with amplifiers, but never felt a need for cables because I never thought I heard anything. If there are important differences, these can be described by the cable specifications, just like the parameters on a speaker driver.

@audioisnobiggie 

I use hardware calibration for my monitor. My software tells me how accurate the colors my screen puts out are. If I swap digital cables, it shows me a different measured result

That's very interesting! Is the difference easily visible as well? Is this issue with cables a well known phenomenon in the video industry? I have a new TV that has far better color than I've had on previous TVs. I have it hooked up to various devices and haven't noticed a difference in color if I watch the same Apple TV show through my Apple TV box or directly off the TV's built-in app. I haven't looked that closely but they look very similar, close enough for my eyes. I know there are differences in color perception. My parents couldn't tell if the color was way off, and that surprised me. I can tell if it's way off but maybe not if it's just a little off. 

This article answers my questions. Cables can definitely make a difference. I don’t see why they need to cost a lot, but you may need a specific mix of resistance, inductance, capacitance with any given system to get a most desired result. In some cases you need some resistance in the cable to protect the amp! In my opinion this should never be the case, but I'm sure some will argue that making a speaker behave like that somehow makes it sound better.

https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/

@invalid 

I've had Polk sda2a speakers for over 30 years

I had that same speaker. I bought mine back around 1991 or '92. I liked them but didn't tend to use that crosstalk cable. I didn't understand how it was supposed to work and so I honestly never noticed the SDA effect. Many years later I set up my own SDA arrangement using four bookshelf speakers and it was highly effective. By then I understood the concept and knew how to set it up and what to listen for, but no longer had the SDA speakers. More recently I've used 3 speakers to get the same effect, mixed L-R, L+R, R-L. This has once again been done with little bookshelf speakers, but I just bought a 3rd horn tweeter so I'm on my way to getting it set up in a fully horn loaded arrangement.

@cleeds 

Who exactly is the "we" you apparently pretend to represent?

If some simple measurements would please you, feel free to make some of your own.

The "we" are the ones you referred to as not interested in discussion, but would rather disrupt it. I'm assuming I might seem to be in that camp, but I really am interested in learning more about this, not just disrupting for disruption's sake. 

I will definitely make some measurements if I think I hear something change as a result of changing cables. For now, I'm happy with what I see on the Passlabs website link I posted.

@tvrgeek

Interesting experiments. Thanks for sharing that.

@demigodparticle

Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m getting the impression that not all of us hear these differences as important, if we hear them at all. I haven’t gone as far as you with trying cables because I did not immediately notice the incremental improvements, or any change at all most of the time. On the few occasions I did think I heard something it wasn’t clear to me whether I liked it better or not. It just seemed slightly different in tone, although I wasn’t even sure about that. The one time I actually managed to get a blind test done I was unable to tell an expensive cable from a very cheap one, even though on sighted listening I thought the difference was quite obvious.

When real, significant sonic changes occur, I suspect it largely comes down to the equipment you are using, not necessarily the quality of it, but the interaction characteristics between the components you are connecting. If they interact well, plain old cheap cords might work absolutely brilliantly and give you a sound that you will be hard pressed to improve upon with further cable changes. If not, you may need a cord with some peculiar characteristics to help things out. In my experience, mainstream brands at the upper end of their standard consumer offerings tend to be engineered extremely well and work as they should without the need for peculiarly high quality cables. Exotic stuff is more likely to have weird issues. I’ve noticed the same thing with bicycle parts. The weird issues with audio equipment make things more interesting, giving you some room to create changes with the sound that are maybe out of spec, but perhaps desirable. With bicycle parts there’s often no upside to it except lower weight. If you can get the stuff to shift and brake half way decently you get a lighter, maybe slightly faster, and much more expensive and harder to maintain bike. Or maybe you get a specialty lever that works with your hand size or some odd type of handlebar you want to use, or lets you use a cassette from a different manufacturer that has the gears you want. Interface problems.

Come to think of it, when I worked on bikes I was stickler for good shifting and braking, and it sometimes put me at odds with my employer, who felt that as long as it would go into all the gears it was fine. I wanted it to go in quickly and precisely, one click one shift, without the user having to fudge with it. Similarly, some people may be much more sensitive to subtle differences that cables make, while others of us find a cheap cable close enough. Our ear can fudge for us. One of my co-workers who was a semi-pro racer admitted to me that he was so skilled at shifting bikes that sometimes needed a deft touch to get into gear that he hard time noticing the things I was talking about.

It seems none of these manufacturers seem to know how to make a proper power cord for their electronics. It makes me question every other design decision they make. If a short power cord makes a difference, imagine what a long power cord might do? Why not use long versions of these amazing power cords to transmit power to a separate, stand alone building that's otherwise off the grid?