Why Do Cables Matter?


To me, all you need is low L, C, and R. I run Mogami W3104 bi-wire from my McIntosh MAC7200 to my Martin Logan Theos. We all know that a chain is only as strong as its' weakest link - so I am honestly confused by all this cable discussion. 

What kind of wiring goes from the transistor or tube to the amplifier speaker binding post inside the amplifier? It is usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper. Then we are supposed to install 5 - 10' or so of wallet-emptying, pipe-sized pure CU or AG with "special configurations" to the speaker terminals?

What kind of wiring is inside the speaker from the terminals to the crossover, and from the crossover to the drivers? Usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper.

So you have "weak links" inside the amplifier, and inside the speaker, so why bother with mega expensive cabling between the two? It doesn't make logical sense to me. It makes more sense to match the quality of your speaker wires with the existing wires in the signal path [inside the amplifier and inside the speaker].

 

 

kinarow1

Showing 2 responses by raysmtb1

I think it’s an unexplored science. It’s in the same science as when you buy a new set of tires for your mountain bike you feel faster….. like when you wash your car, it seems to ride smoother….. or like when you were a kid and you got new tennis shoes you could run faster. I think speaker cables and inner K’NEX live in the same science. I don’t think that any of these of quite been figured out yet.

 The part that I don’t understand is every time you make a tweak your system gets better. When you change speaker cables there’s four connections so you should be able to divide the change by four.can you hear the difference if one speaker has expensive cabling and one speaker does not? The improvements should only be half as good. I haven’t made a list, but I would guess that if you added up every tweak, that makes your system better there’s probably 100 different things that some people do to make their system sound better. Here’s the part I don’t get, when do you run out of better? You just did 100 things to your system and each one made it better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better. Doesn’t at some point it reach a level of being so good that it stops? It seems to me to be, almost a little insane to think that there’s no end to better. OK, I’m not on drugs. Sorry for going so deep I really would like to know if you ever think you’ll run out of better? 

 

 

So you spent money on all these improvements. Better cables, better fuses better feet better better better better better better and better. What happens when the better is 20 years old? If you reconnect all of the better on a new system, is it still better or is it no longer better because it is an older version of better.  an older version of better. If somebody tells you that cable that we made 20 years ago it was better. Is no longer better than the new batter that is shinier and a different color. Does that mean that the older ones better disappeared and you go with the new shiny better?
 

When cables get old and they lose their better, is there any way to obviously see that they lost their better?if you bought cables now and measured them on those fancy machines that scientist use….do the measurement numbers change as the years pass and they lose their better?

when a fuse company comes out with a purple fuse, does that mean that it nullifies the red fuse because it’s better? How exactly does that happen? If you took all the different colors of fuses and mix them up, would you be able to tell which one was better if you randomly put them back into your system?
 

if you change all of the feet on your system, does that make it sound better or is that a styling change?

i’m trying to figure out how much of this better is actually measurable. Do the measurements change once the item doesn’t look in style anymore?

do any of the better believers believe in a machine called the null tester?