Why Do Cables Matter?

The argument about cables is purely objective from what I can tell. Nobody is arguing against anybody’s subjective experience. We take it for granted. What’s being argued is the technical explanation for that subjective experience. For some reason the idea that any power of suggestion is involved in the experience is flatly ruled out, while at the same time blind testing is also flatly ruled out. So, an art of cable apologetics has developed, and that seems strange. Why insist against the power of suggestion? How does one know that is not happening, and why does one care? If it works for you, and you’re a subjectivist, why does it matter how it works? What’s wrong with power of suggestion as an explanation? This is meant as an honest question, not some kind of taunt.

If someone was curious to hear more clearly what various cables do to the sound, it seems they could be tried with long cable runs, like maybe 100 feet. Surely that would exaggerate whatever change the cable is making compared to another cable of the same length. They might both sound bad at that length, but in different ways.

This brings up a potentially complex issue, where a particular cable might sound better at certain lengths, while another sounds better at other lengths, even in the same system.

Have you optimized all your cable lengths? I haven’t. I tend to assume shorter is better, but I haven't tested that notion. It just makes sense to me.

I think we should just keep kicking this horse. It’s dead so it don’t mind. Has anybody ever heard a really bad effect from a cable or connector? I have! I tried some passive line attenuators on the output of a pro level dac to lower it’s output for a consumer grade pre-amp. That sounded truly awful. It was much better to digitally attenuate. I also got pretty bad sound from some 30 foot RCA interconnects. I can’t even remember why I needed those at one time, but I’ve still got them! - You know, I think those cables had a stereo phono plug on one end and RCA outputs on another, and I was using the headphone out of an iPod into a pre-amp from across the room. A lot of problems there.

Another truly terrible sound came from trying to use y-splitters on the dac output in an attempt to mix channels. Dac didn’t like that.

So, if I can hear the effect of RCA interconnects when they are 30 feet long, maybe some people can still hear the effects at only 3 feet long. I’m really glad that I don’t hear anything that bothers me with decent 3 foot single ended interconnects. This assumes there’s nothing wacky about the impedance matching between the two devices being connected. If that’s the case, then all sorts of mayhem and cable effects may revealed.

That’s hilarious! Are they trying to kick over a trash container with a weighted bottom?

I’ve got a pair of Klipschorns that are sitting mostly unused in my living room. They are temporarily hooked up to a receiver with two very different cables. One is thick and fairly short. The other is much longer and extremely thin gage. It’s just whatever was sitting around. I kind of expected to hear a little image shifting due to the cable difference but it doesn’t do that. Center panned vocals are dead center no matter how loud I turn it up. That may come down to the efficiency of the speakers and the relatively low amount of current that has to be pushed through that crazy thin and long speaker wire. 

The speakers sound to me like they've always sounded in this room, regardless of amp or cable I've tried. Someone highly experienced with hearing cable and amp differences may notice the changes but I'm too distracted by the overall speaker/room interaction effect to hear more subtle effects as important.

@ieales

Cables make a difference. I’ve said that for over 50 years.

What is not guaranteed is that any particular cable in any particular system will effect a change or be an improvement to all. Regardless of all the marketing claims.

Advising someone to try what you own has an even chance of being bad advice. AND I NEVER do it.

This has been my experience. It is very possible that an extremely excellent speaker and amp combination will be best served by plain zip wire of adequate gage for the cable length. If a special cable is needed, it suggests that something unusual in terms of standard engineering practices is happening between the amp and the speaker. I talked to a guy who hooked some Wilson speakers up to a high end amp he had (can’t remember which) with some fairly expensive cables and the combination made a lot of noisy distortion - like really obvious noises coming from the speakers. He got a pair of very expensive cables that had a box with some secret circuit in the middle and it stopped the problem. Most consumer grade speaker / amp combinations would not have that kind of thing going on.

A lot of my experience with high-end audio gear has been that it is fussy stuff with unusual issues.

@yoyoyaya 

Do you accept that recovering all of the information contained in the original recording is a legitimate aim of hi fi reproduction?

I think that's an admirable aim, especially when in the context of a cable. It should let the signal come through without adding noise or distortion. Of course, nothing will ever be perfect. But I think it's possible for a real cable to be indistinguishable from a perfect cable. Once a certain threshold of accuracy is passed it won't make a difference to our hearing perception. 

Changing cables undoubtedly causes perceptual changes for some listeners. Why that is could be a number of things beyond just expectation bias. For now we don't have much in the way of convincing explanations for what actual changes in the signal are occurring. We just have perceptual descriptions. It's quite possible that the cables are deviating away from technically correct performance, but that perceptually comes across better for some listeners.