WHY CABLES MATTER!

@smurfstain -

@smurfstain being able to deliver a level of detail where the music comes out of a completely black background so you can actually hear the components and what your system is doing. I literally can hear guys breath and mumble in the background of non vocal content as an example. No ssssssss no tube hiss. No noise in background. 

Okay.  That was clearly too many questions.  Let’s start with the basics then, I guess.  What is the definition of “high resolving” when it comes to audio?

@smurfstain it depends on the the different equipment you have heard. Some equipment like some non tube equipment has very low noise floors which will,let you hear more of the music because it will come from a blacker background.  Sometimes it’s the combination of the equipment and cables working together to keep the non music noise out the system. Also a lot depends on equipment design. Some designers and builders of equipment design their equipment to keep lower noise floors by designing equipment the reduces distortion so it works better. Some of those will be your higher end designers. Some don’t have to be high end the just design the equipment well so it keep the noise lower. If they do that then if it’s designed properly and has good cable synergy it allows the system to be more resolving. It will allow you to hear differences in cables, sources etc. That’s the way I see it. 

Sorry, this is a bit of necromancy here, but I have been reading this thread (and others on this forum) with great interest and have some questions.  
 

How do you know of your system is “high enough resolving”?  Do you just know?  Is it “high enough resolving” only if you can hear changes to the system when you swap out cables and power cords?  Does equipment have to be expensive to be “high enough resolving”?  Or can lesser priced equipment be “high enough resolving”?  What is it about a particular piece of equipment, say something  from Infigo……,  that makes it “high enough resolving”?  Is there something in the specifications of the equipment that will give me some clue as to whether or not it will be “high enough resolving”?  Or do you just have to buy stuff and switch it out until you think you are there?  If I measure the noise floor of my room and then turn my equipment on and it doesn’t change, does that mean my system is “high enough resolving”?  Does cable burn in only matter of your system is “high enough resolving”?

Thanks in advance, as this seems to be a fairly confusing topic.

@kennyc  you hit the mail on the head. There is a resentment tied to some of the opinions they have. Because some of us participate in this hobby at a different level there is bias. Look I’m willing to pay for music in its best form.  My system makes me rush home to listen.  Like having a concert in home! 

It’s usually pointless to debate with naysayers- it’s not a lack of understanding but an heavy bias envy/anger “emotional resentment” based on their perception of value and unaffordability.  

Tactics often used:

• Lie then ask us to prove different 
• Ask for proof- a smokescreen to ignore sonic gains, tries to place a precondition for it to work. If it works proof not needed
• Create fake victims - someone is being duped. Audiophiles do not part with their money easily, the more it costs, the higher scrutiny we use.  
• Unrealistic Exaggerate examples 
• Ignore sonic gains
• Look for a few examples, then apply findings as representing the whole
• Present themselves as knowledgeable by presenting unrelated facts, then end with their unsupported claims

One cannot reason with unreasonable people. Few will ever admit their mistake aka being wrong- their self esteem is tied to them being right.

@kennyc that's the part where some people don’t get it. Low noise, transparency and detail matter.  When you don’t have the right cables that can be a bottleneck to the music.  It’s not what the cables are adding. It’s what they are not adding that’s important. 

Look I’m not being snobby but I have all the latest gear from INFIGO AUDIO who I now work with.  Amp and dac literally have no noise floor. Music comes out of blackness. When you have that kind of gear cables matter. When you have gear and speakers capable of great resolution you hear the difference

@calvinj 

Agree - as one moves up in better lowered noise floors, transparency, and resolution usually associated with better “likely significantly more expensive gear” (diminishing returns) then cables can be the sonic bottleneck unless addressed. 

Has anyone else ever heard of Vogue Audio, a small US based cable company?  I use nothing else except for my USB cable's?   Which unusually Vogue Audio doesn't manufacture strangely enough? I know some people are not really into solid silver cable's but I've found them very impressive which Vogue Audio manufacture nothing else.  

@jeffrey125 that is so true. Look I’m not being snobby but I have all the latest gear from INFIGO AUDIO who I now work with.  Amp and dac literally have no noise floor. Music comes out of blackness. When you have that kind of gear cables matter. When you have gear and speakers capable of great resolution you hear the difference 

@jeffrey125 that is so true. Look I’m not being snobby but I have all the latest gear from INFIGO AUDIO who I now work with.  Amp and dac literally have no noise floor. Music comes out of blackness. When you have that kind of gear cables matter. When you have gear and speakers capable of great resolution you hear the difference 

@kirk9 great answer.  There are folks that don’t have high enough resolving systems that just don’t get it. 

It's pretty easy to tell the difference between speaker cables IF you have a high enough resolving system AND the speaker cables are dissimilar enough. 

However, there are plenty of cables that you can't tell the difference between and price doesn't seem to be much of a factor.

I'd say it's more difficult to tell between interconnects, but I've always used fairly good ones. I should try some cheapies in the future.

@kennyc great answer. Common sense as well as actually trying them out and hearing it. Some just not at the hearing and equipment level 

@jayctoy if you have time listen to the podcast with Peter, he agrees, to a point. 

If cable does not matter you think MikeLavigne and Albertporter will spend money on cables? This two audiophile are highly respected here at Agon.Check their system see what you think?

@ernstmach Then you need to do more research and give this podcast a listen. Cables do matter no matter how much Science and knowledge The Geek espouses. He is not an engineer nor is he a designer/manufacturer. Pure conjecture on his part.

Peter Comeau is a renowned engineer and designer and will debunk a lot that is said in these forums. Again, just the facts from a real engineer.

https://darko.audio/2023/10/podcast-10-hi-fi-myths-busted-w-peter-comeau/

@ tvrgeek

Thanks for your detailed response. I'm usually skeptical about such claims as I listed. 

I also realize I have much to learn. Working in a research environment has helped me to be skeptical but with a need/want to understand.

After reading through this thread, it is obvious that everyone has their insights and preference built on their experience and knowledge. That is what I was looking for.

Thanks to all that responded.

@tonywinga come check us out.  Looking forward 

Cool.  My son lives in Dallas. 

@tonywinga my system actually sounds better in a carpeted room. I have hard woods. I will be at lone star audio fest in Dallas with my system minus the subs in June 

Facten,

appreciate what you are saying. " I realize the science end has fewer proponents.

"Are you really in a position to say/conclude that what they stated doesn’t occur?"

Not saying it doesn't happen. I do know that my work with pulling deep vacuum says anything will out gas just cannot say it means anything hence the ongoing questionnaire. As far as contaminates in 4-9s pure wire I find it hard to believe that contaminant size has enough mass to be of consequence.

I'm far more inclined to believe the words of someone that has the credentials earned towards this subject. 

Has anyone considered that the wire might sound even more different due to cold working ot the wire? 

Thanks for the responses!

tvrgeek

Your BRAIN has re-mapped to convince you it is better. Our brain lies. Always.

I am beginning to think there is indeed one remapped brain here. And it lies. Always.

@ernstmach - I can’t speak to the provenance of their statements. That said, I think you also need to take into consideration that your colleague nor you have heard the cables over a time period. Are you really in a  position to say/conclude that what they stated doesn’t occur?  If you are skeptical maybe find a retailer that offers a trial period and listen and evaluate for yourself. Personally, I don’t get caught up in all of the "science" I’m more interested in the result of what I hear. BTW I have (Tchernov) or have had (e.g. Silnote) interconnect cables from manufacturers that have directional arrows and just connect accordingly could care less about the why.

Stay skeptical.

A little science if you dare:

Vinyl outgasses. Vinyl is actually a very brittle plastic. You know that film on the windshield of a new car? Yea the rather toxic oils used to "plasticize" the vinyl.  PP or PE do not outgas much compared to vinyl and they are both far better dielectrics. PTFE even better and more stable.   The process of outgassing is not hours in your system, but time and temperature from manufacturing. Vinyl starts immediately and lasts years. ( split dashboards!)  PP takes decades to even measure any change. In a laboratory, I do expect plasticizer outgassing to change the dielectric. Audible?  Well we try not to use vinyl anyway. GOOGLE about plasticizers ad you will find most of the research is involving exposure to solvents. Yea, why the fuel line on your chain saw keeps cracking!  I did a lot of laboratory testing on this subject as it relates to "O-rings" in various solvents. Different use case, same chemistry. 

Now, after 150 hours what is the difference?  Your BRAIN has re-mapped to convince you it is better. Our brain lies. Always. Humans are never objective.  If so, fine and money well sent because it is your perception and enjoyment even if there is no actual change.  Electrolytic caps do "form". Tubes do age.  Speaker suspensions change.  Not much else changes in modern electronics. 

Diodes making the cable directional?   Guess this prestige company has never heard audio is AC.  That alone should unmask the scam.  Only shield termination can make a cable useful in one orientation. The conductors don't know the difference. In actuality, an oxide layer or discontinuity in the crystal structure acts more like a back to back diose, not directional anyway. 

Maybe their cables sound fine. I hope so. Most do.  It is actually not hard. Their claims are total made up to sham the non-technical to spend a lot of money for their ego.  P.T. Barnum had a lot of wisdom. 

"Fluff" is a politically correct way of saying BS.  "Prestige" is the nice word for snake oil. 

Not mentioned as a place where interconnects may play a larger roll is with passive preamps feeding long high capacitance cables into low-ish impedance inputs.  You can do the math.  With a max attenuation making output impedance as low as 5K, and some inputs as low as 10K, it does not take too many "puffs" to roll off the top end.  My advice would be to drive cables much longer than a meter with an active stage rather than searching for magic cables.  Hint:  Pro audio used high current higher voltage balanced lines to overcome this limitation. ( xlr cables)  Well understood. Science and engineering, not "fluff" 

@tonywinga

Very nice setup you have. Bet it sounds great.

Thanks for the responses.

facten

Thanks for the info. After reading about the cables that Nordost sells I found a section about how the cables are better after "burn in" because the cable outgasses, and they claim the insulation charges up. Most things out gas but I don’t understand how that would affect the quality of sound. The article goes on to say "The diode effect of the conductor will be more pronounced after a minimum of 150 hours.. They also claim that small impurities in the conductor act as diodes, allowing the signal to flow better in one direction making the cable directional." That in particular was my reason for asking about purity of the copper. At 4-9s purity it is difficult for me to see how those could contribute.

I presented this article to a colleague who has a PHD, is a Professor and researcher for the local University. After reading the article he just smiled and said it seems like some fluff to support their view. I cannot speak to that but I am skeptical of some of the claims.

Anyway, thanks for your information.

All the best.

Thank you kind sir.  I ended up installing the hardwood floor myself.  I have installed hardwood flooring before which is why I didn’t really want to do it again but it was the pandemic.  Had a hard time even getting the flooring.  But it worked out in the end and I saved some money doing it myself.  Just rent the big staple gun and my wife who likes puzzles, laid out each row of wood and kept scrap to a minimum.

I like the hardwood flooring vs carpeting because, 1) the 7/8” thick wood stiffens the floor which is good for room acoustics and 2) I can control reflections using wool rugs over the hardwood.  And I probably no longer need my self made cable risers with the wood flooring but I kept them in place since I put the work into them.

The notion that everyone is under the influence of expectation bias and placebo effect and that subjective listening reports are essentially the result of delusion, is simply absurd. It’s just like a certain politician who instructed his followers to ignore what they read and saw and instead listen only to him. Smart people don’t dismiss observations and empirical evidence just because someone else tells them to.

+1 @cleeds 

Although there’s a possibility of a placebo effect, it’s offset by the multitudes of voices saying otherwise.  Common sense, which maybe not as common as we hope, would rule out that all these people including professional reviewers are being duped, by the manufacturers.  It’s quite common for as one moves up a product line like Audioquest that there are usually noticeable are sonic improvements.  There is also a chorus of people who say Belden is a quality cable, but moving up to a better cable makes an obvious audible differences.

YES, everyone is under the placebo effect

This speaks volumes of your ignorance, I doubt you’ve even met 0.1% of the population.  

@tonywinga you have a great looking system sweet! 

@ernstmach - If you google it comes up as 99.9999% purity, oxygen-free copper solid-core conductors, with silver plating

Yes, I have first hand experience with cables.  Did you view my system?  I’m way beyond recovery…but after 44 years in hifi, no going back. 

Another question if I may. Anyone know the purity of copper used in Nordost speaker cables. I didn't see any info on their website. 

Thanks!

tonywinga

I believe I understand your thinking that cables should match pedigree with source components, amps and speakers but have you witnessed that? First hand?

As for the Torino..... Solid lifters? Only time I witnessed pushrod failure was Incorrect lash or cam timing being wrong and valves hit pistons on TDC and bending the pushrods. Either case whom ever worked on the engine F-ed up..

I do appreciate your post. Thanks.

Hang in there tvrgeek.  I think OJ’s lawyers would be proud.  

So what did you do to protect those ladies from unscrupulous salesmen?  I wouldn’t hesitate to go up and advise them that they are wasting their money.  Just like I would advise you based on the gear you have but you already know that.

tvrgeek

... everyone is under the placebo effect. All the time, for all subjects ...

Nonsense.

If your claim were true, placebo pills would cure cancer. They don't.

@facten. Thanks.  I’m keeping busy in my retirement.  The hardware came from Grangier.  I polished the brass pieces to a high sheen with some metal polish.  The only down side is those threads on the rods are sharp.  I was positioning a preamp one time and my Apple Watch scraped against those threads.  Put a deep scratch in the crystal face.  Trade in value instantly dropped to zero.  Doh!

Rolling up replies to be brief. Me brief?

YES, everyone is under the placebo effect. All the time, for all subjects.  Isn't our brain a wonderous thing?   We are never objective.  Not humans at least.  Understanding this will go a long way in life. 

Bad cables may well be more obvious on great gear, but $30,000 speakers are still 1000 times worse than the the worst cables or the best electronics. 

Mono-crystal OFC copper for interconnects is marketing BS.  That's all.  You can measure the difference in conductivity in the lab. Who freaking cares if one cable has 1m Ohm and another 1.02 when you are driving a 40K Ohm load.  Speakers? OK even dipping to 3 Ohms, don't care.  Perspective folks. Capacitance, inductance, and velocity matter and that comes from geometry. Well understood.

Sure I wish Belden 1500 had PTFE insulation, but in a 2 or 3 foot cable, irrelevant

As far as that silver, now at audio frequencies skin depth is about an 18 gauge wire, so full depth. Why do you want two different conductors?  Marketing!  Look inside that speaker and see what your boutique cable is actually driving in the loop.  Unless you are in the Sabrina range, it is going into maybe 100 feet of 18 gauge cheap Chinese recycled wire. Even then, the VC is nothing special at any price.   Caps?  Aluminum foil. Oh yea, how about that steel wire resistor pad on the tweeter?  Where do I wish we used silver?  CONNECTORS.  Silver oxide has the same conductivity as silver. Remember all those ugly brown tarnished  type N 50 Ohm connectors?   Best ever made.  

Beef?   Yea, I have seen big box salesmen selling $300 speaker wire to ladies buying $300 speakers.   Utterly immoral in my book. 

If your old Ethernet cable gave you dropouts, pixel flashes, jitter etc, it was a BAD cable. So replacing it with a cable that meets spec, i.e. CAT5e, certified, and the picture is now great just proves my point. Defective cables are bad. Good cables are good. Simple dividing line in the digital world.  Analog world is touchier.  

.Speaking picture quality, I have cut open a lot of HDMI cables. Cheap ones. I was having issues with POD and CEC.   Several were not even constructed correctly. Drains not attached, foil backwards.  Lots of problems. Replaced with Monoprice and Blue Jean. No more problems.   HDMI cables are not easy to make or terminate so cheap ones tend to be, well cheap. We are still talking digital here, so any perception of resolution is placebo, not real provided you are using the correct spec cable and it does actually meet spec. An exotic Ethernet or HDMI cable can't make a sharper picture than one than only meets spec. Just the way it works. Not magic.  Now, a really bad or sub-par cable may cause your Ethernet to re-negotiate to a lower speed and the TV may be smart enough to drop to a lower resolution. That you would see.  My Sony LED I tested @ 96MB/s which is enough tor 4K. I am not sure what it takes for 3D- Atmos-whatever. It may be more than a Base CAT5 cable can deliver.  8K is. 5e should be good though. 6a has gotten really cheap.  Science. Not magic. 

Iconoclast speaker and interconnect cables are state of the art MEASURING from one of the top engineers in the wire world.  No doubt.  But is the sound actually different?  Not what you hear, the actual sound.  It is possible under the laws of physics, but at a level so far below the source material I seriously doubt it. I would call them excessive, but not snake oil as they are actually carefully designed products with a measurable difference at least in the LAB. 

So, a $3000 amp is no good?   $3000 speakers no good? The very smoothest amp I have ever heard is on my desk right now.  Big beefy 2W Schiit Rekkr costs $150. Of course, this is only good for my desk nearfield and not pushed very hard. 

I have had dozens of amps home. Much above $500 there is no correlation between price and sonic quality.  Some expensive amps are wonderful " wire with gain". Some add delightful distortions we love. Some sound like crap. Some have well designed feedback and are very load invariant. Some will oscillate with a 4 Ohm load.  You can't price categorize them. The cleanest tweeter I know of is the Vifa XT-25 if used at moderate levels above 4K.  Costs $25.   Play lower or play louder, well then it gets really hard and bucks pile up fast. 

Do you know how many hundreds of feet of plain old XLR cables your fancy TITLE MQA file has gone through?  Know how distorted the mic was? Love those old AKG tube jobs for vocals. Wonderful distortion. Old mixing board full of hundreds of NE5558 Op amps?  Yup. Our brains lie to us all the time. The further down the rat hole we fall, the more they lie. 

No complaints about a decent power RF filter, surge suppressor ,and even a DC filter. The power company supplies quality for incandescent light bulbs and motors. So if we need cleaner power, it is up to us as most even boutique makers do a terrible job internally.   JDS and Schiit do a pretty decent job BTW.   Clean power is NOT going to add weight, air, space, texture, depth, or any adjective a subjective You-Tuber or ad jockey can make up. It just lets your equipment work as intended.  Added the Emotivia DC filter when line issues were making my amp toroid buzz.  They make pretty decent power line stuff. So does Trip-Lite,  Iso-Max, Panamax, Furman and even some Monster.

Again: 

Our brains lie

Bad cables are bad

In the digital world we only need a good cable

In the analog world, it is harder but understood and not difficult

Decent power line conditioner is smart. 

@tonywinga - Agree with your commentary. Nice system as well. By the way maybe you should go into the rack business, nicely done!

It's the weakest link in the chain story.  Buy a top grade amp, preamp and speakers but use a $200 CD player and the system will not inspire.  Get a good quality source and the system sounds better.  Now get some good cabling to round out the system and it will really sing.

It's like my brother back in high school.  He bought a 1969 Gran Torino with a 4 speed transmission.  He rebuilt the engine and put a 3/4 race cam in it.  Double pumper four barrel carburetor and headers.  First thing that broke were the valve push rods.  The stock push rods could not handle the race cam.  Then he broke the transmission.  Got a Borg Warner T10- the rock crusher, it was called.  Next, he burned up the stock clutch.  Put in a racing clutch.  Took all I had to push in the clutch pedal.  Spun the drive shaft (or prop shaft).   Got a stronger drive shaft.  Lastly, broke the U bolts holding the rear springs.  Finally sold the car.  But it was fast.

Look, stereo gear comes in differing levels of performance. Some basic 100 w/ch amps can be had for a few hundred dollars these days. They use IC’s, low grade electrolytic capacitors, low grade resistors, inductors, low grade printed circuit boards and wiring. They make music but the distortion and noise levels wash out resolution and detail. Better gear still use op amps but will have better electrolytic caps and resistors, inductors and maybe better grade printed circuit boards. And today’s op amps perform much better than in the past. The best gear uses discrete components, high grade circuit boards, better grade of electrolytic capacitors and some film capacitors- better transistors, or tubes. and better grade of inductors. Now resolution and detail is sufficient to differentiate between the different grades of cables. The top end gear will have more sophisticated EMI and RFI rejection circuitry, silver or gold plated printed circuit boards and top grade wiring, resistors, inductors and film and electrolytic capacitors. Add in some nice metal work and metal boxes for this higher end gear and the prices do get rather high. You get what you pay for- very high resolution, clarity, low noise and detail. Now the best cables and power cords will work together with this gear to provide the ultimate in performance.

Take for example, my Marantz HT receiver. It is a nice 40 lb box that delivers 125 W/ch into 9 channels at 8 ohms. One of my Pass Labs mono amps delivers 280 watts into a single channel. That mono amp is almost twice the size of the Marantz receiver and weighs 110 lbs. I expect it to deliver a much higher level of performance and it does. I also know that the best power cords, speaker cables and interconnects will enhance its performance whereas those same cables would be overkill for the Marantz receiver. I know I would not hear much of a difference on my mid fi system with high end cables- it can’t hurt but it also will not help much.

I hope this answers your question and you are being sincere- not just yanking my chain.

So is  "Cables commensurate to the equipment in use. " your answer?

Basically it seems you don't know the specifics or you read that somewhere.

Doesn't answer my question.

I said why.

"$3000 speaker cables do not make sense for a $3000 pair of speakers and a $3000 amp.  Someone may hear a difference but those speakers/amp will never realize the full potential of those cables."

Why is that?

I think there is too much generalization in this thread.  The quality of cabling and power cords must be commensurate with the quality of the speakers, amps and sources.  Eg. $3000 speaker cables do not make sense for a $3000 pair of speakers and a $3000 amp.  Someone may hear a difference but those speakers/amp will never realize the full potential of those cables.  The converse, someone with $50k speakers and $20k amps running Belden wiring will never hear the true potential of their equipment.  There has to be a balance.  Lastly, people react differently when they hear a truly remarkable hi end hifi system.  Some are blown away and then make it their life goal to achieve that sound in their home (me).  Some think it’s nice but too over the top and just don’t care about it (my brothers).  Some don’t see it as a big deal at all and are happy with a Sony boom box (my youngest brother).  

Take my home theater system.  I have a nice Marantz receiver, Monitor Audio Gold 200 speakers and a Sony OLED TV.  It’s nothing like my stereo system.  It’s a good mid fi set up and I’m fine with that.  I can listen to music on it.  It’s not holographic and the clarity is not breathtakingly good like my stereo but it is pleasant enough sound.  Some things trickle down from my stereo system to my home theater system.  For example, the HT system got my Furman Elite power conditioner when I upgraded the stereo to the Niagara 5000.  The stereo sound improved quite noticeably.  The HT system sound improvement I did not notice so much but the TV picture improvement blew me away.  The picture got sharper and the colors brighter.  An amazing change.  I tried to convince friends and family that they need an $800 power conditioner on their $1000 TVs but no one listened to me.  Yes, I have some upgrade power cords on my HT system- trickle down but not anything exotic expensive.

When I got the LHY SW-8 network switch, I ran a 75 foot long ethernet cable to my Apple TV box.  The streaming picture improved dramatically.  The TV picture today looks like a photograph in motion.  I am so taken by the picture that I don’t think about the sound so much.  And no, I’m not going to run a 75 foot long silver plated ethernet cable to my HT system.  Also, I have $400 speaker cables on the HT speakers.  When I upgraded my stereo speaker cables from expensive to very expensive I didn’t put the old cables on my HT system.  It would not have made much of an improvement in the sound of the HT system. Sure, maybe something but not worth the cost of those cables.

Summary:  Cables commensurate to the equipment in use.  Buy good gear but go cheap on cables and sadly, the full potential will never be realized.  Point two:  Get a good power conditioner for your TV.  In this case an $800 power conditioner for a $1000 TV will make a difference.  Ok, my OLED TV cost a little more than that.

tvrgeek

... Hearing is what your brain tells you and it lies like a dog ...

The notion that everyone is under the influence of expectation bias and placebo effect and that subjective listening reports are essentially the result of delusion, is simply absurd. It’s just like a certain politician who instructed his followers to ignore what they read and saw and instead listen only to him. Smart people don’t dismiss observations and empirical evidence just because someone else tells them to.

Get this: Placebo effect and wishful thinking won’t cure cancer. Typically, biases are revealed over time. For most of us, our brains work fairly well, especially when we use the tool of logic. Potential vulnerability to bias does not mean our brains "lie like a dog." That's the logical fallacy of the excluded middle, an error @tvrgeek makes frequently.

@tvrgeek

Your comments about stock Belden cables being hard to beat is interesting given all the theories, marketing hype, and exorbitant pricing for "audiophile" cables that either by measurement or listening tests have not been uniformly proven to provide significant (if even audible) sonic improvements. Belden cables (among other professional type cables) are mostly used to process the music we listen to and the equipment we use for playback includes many feet of mostly basic copper wire that is used in transformers, speaker voice coils, and other components.

Belden makes some compelling stock cables and I believe it would be interesting to listen to their bulk/stock cables compared to much more costly "audiophile" cables, assuming the Belden cables were similarly terminated.

For interconnects, the Belden 1800F you mentioned uses foamed Polyethylene insulation and braided copper shielding, and should perform well as an interconnect, either RCA or XLR. If this had been specifically designed for the audiophile market, it seems they might have used their High Conductivity Oxygen-Free Bare Copper (OFHC) wire instead of their Bare Copper (BC) wire, which I believe is tough pitch electrolytic copper (99.9+ percent pure copper at 100% IACS).

For speaker cables, instead of the 5000 series which uses PVC insulation, I would suggest the line of Belden speaker cables recommended by Galen Gareis for those who want a less expensive option to his Iconoclast cables. Those options all use OFHC copper and are insulated with foamed Polyethylene. The line includes the two conductor 1313A (10awg) and 1311A (12 awg), and the four conductor 1312A (12 awg) and 1310A (14 awg) cables, either of which can be constructed in a star-quad geometry resulting in aggregate gauges of 9 and 11 awg, respectively.

I find it interesting that Belden’s upscale Iconoclast line does not include power cables and instead they recommend cables from the Belden Audio/Video (BAV) line including Belden’s 19105, 19106 and 19107 stock cable (high-flex 10, 12 and 14 AWG BC conductors) with upgraded connectors.

I am too far down the road with cables to go back and buy/try the Belden cables discussed above but if I were starting over, knowing what I know now and having experienced what I have related to cables, I would definitely use the cables listed above and save my money for component and speaker upgrades where I have always heard much more significant differences and improvements than with cables.

asctim It seems none of these manufacturers seem to know how to make a proper power cord for their electronics.

I’ve been saying "no cable company knows how to make audio and power cables properly except Wavetouch audio." The truth is in the performance of audio system. Wavetouch audio sounds closest to the original music in the world. Alex/Wavetouch

Here’s the problem.  When you can’t support an argument without using the term “Snake Oil” all credibility is gone.  A lack of experience and knowledge is poor support for theories based on denial.  Famous words from the lawyer that got O J Simpson acquitted:: “Deny, Deny, Deny”.