WHY CABLES MATTER!

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. Sound will be like that too, some people will argue they can tell even more.

I just started with power cables, and got the $50 super fat and cheaply shielded pair from Amazon. They made a huge improvement into each of my amp, dac, pc, and monitor. After those, it will be all about the smart guy’s way of making better cables, and how much purity of metal costs on top of it. I’m not really looking forward to that, but I know in my head that big fat high purity cables will be better. My poor wallet.

Oh, but if you happen to be running a pc that’s plugged into a cheap $20 power bar, you won’t believe how much deeper your audio and video’s digital signals really are until you get it off of that. The $50 power cable will help that even more, too. You’re probably going to need a power distributor if you have a component-stereo setup, though. The cable you use for that will make a difference to everything...

Just skip this hobby, you’ll need to get rich to make it sound like it’s supposed to, anyhow. Actually, you could do it with only 1 billion. Even with the 10-story tall planars with 2 10 story tall stacks of 1 story subs behind them in a stadium with the roof open, that someone will say sounds better. I could get back into good headphones if that’s what I really needed, though. They’ve only reached costing $6k so far, outside of the Orpheus and Sennheiser’s $40k set that includes its custom amp and built in dac, encased in marble. That set is nonsense, since you can plug a better dac in, right away. I don’t know how much the best amp with a headphone jack is. Why do they stop including headphone jacks on power amps? Hmm, you would need the older 3-pin pair of XLR connectors on an unbraided pair of cables for the dual mono blocks, at some point. Nobody cares about headphone listeners, yet. They all want stadium sized sound. Which you could argue sounds better. But, as the speakers get further away, you might miss something compared to the speaker being right next to your ear. Then the IEM people will get right into your head. I don’t know, I still like my cheap HD800 open-backs, so far. With the microphone-measured EQ running as a plug-in only through Audirvana, they’re really nice.  It will be the same problem I had with the HD 600's though, I still know they were cheap.  Plus, I haven't heard planars or electrostats, yet.  Then I'll want a more powerful amp, too. :(   My DAC is ready for that upgrade, though!  👍  A good dac on $50 speakers would so sound like they were playing something that sounds good.

Interestingly, last night I saw some video's of black and white 60's performances at 4k50fps on YouTube.  If you have a 4k monitor, you should look them up.  Too bad they do something to your pictures and sound that make them worse, after already making you have to make them small.  They have not looked anywhere near as good at home, until now.

That guy Dion is a wanderer, he's not going to get married.  Those other girls will be real nice ones, though.  😍

@roxy54

You're complaining about how you don't understand people, as usual.  That looks like about all you do, this thread.

When I assumed someone would want 10 story tall speaker system, I went on to assume someone would want IEM's also.  Can we assume that there will be proponents of both?  If we can't, what should we do?

I was just telling you what Dion was saying.  Well, he's not looking to get married, is what I said on top of that.  Why?  Do you have something to say about it?

@asctim 

I went with getting the color calibrator, because I didn't know how to prove to myself that my reference would be correct.  Everything looks great for sure now, though.

My stereo is my reference compared to anything else I hear, but its not really very expensive, so I'm going to try a more expensive power cable, next.  No, I should try a better IC first.

If you're Apple box looks the same as your TV's Apple app, you're probably just not bothering to be discriminating enough.  When I buy a new video card for the same pc setup, the calibration of all colors goes off to a point where it says it should be noticeable by now.  So, each different device also digitally outputs different levels, regardless of what the software is telling it to.  It's just not really to a great extent, the calibration software's number just reads off by a beginning to be noticeable amount.

I know this is an audio forum, but in a 'do cables matter' discussion, an independent measuring device showing a difference counts.  There are probably people who will argue that it would be even more noticeable in audio than video.  I can't really find too many videophile forums, outside of setting up the 9.1 Atmos part.  Don't really want to, either.  I don't want to hear about how much better people's $10k 42" screens look compared to mine.  It was already 3x as much as usual, for the good one with extended color range.  On the bright side, there were only a couple of 42" monitors that costed more, and the one that was 2x as much as this, was the same model, except with better HDR accuracy, however both of their HDR modes destroyed the picture, otherwise.  HDR screenis are still in their infancy, though it's encoded in the available movies at a per-pixel level, so no worries there.

Anyways, I would recommend a color meter if you care about the intended reference, however, it could lead to you being just as picky about what you're getting as you probably are with your audio, since you're here.  Have you tried a better power cable on your screen, yet?  😈