Why Do Cables Matter?

I think you are the arrogant one.

Have no time or interest in anything you post.

ASR is a much better site for you.

So why doesn't  the worlds most complicated most expensive machine (the ASML Semiconductor chip makers) use fancy cables. These machines need to do the most exact measurements in the world. Why don’t audio test equipment like Audio Precision testers come with a boutique AC power cable? If your argument @nonoise is:
"The signal is there all the time just waiting to be freed from the confines of a poorly made cable."

Then why don’t these machines need their information freed? You arrogantly put me down and won’t deal with anything I’ve said. You call me a name dropper I simply used Al Schmitt because he is a known commodity and spoke of the principle we are talking about, maybe you would listen to what he said. Try to be nice.

Yes, +1 steakster

The signal is there all the time just waiting to be freed from the confines of a poorly made cable. The old saw about cables good enough to record with are all you need is a red herring.

My speaker and IC cables wouldn't last a week in a recording studio as they're fragile, comparatively speaking, not made for constant pulling, yanking and inserting. All that metal in robustly made terminations degrade the sound. Same for the overkill built sleeving and (if they need to use it) shielding. 

A cable that can get out of the way of the music will do a better job revealing the music that's always been there, dying to get out.

All the best,
Nonoise

Manufacturers must hate talking to know it alls at audio shows. 

The Audioquest cables are listed on the PS Audio website under Connections. Just rechecked and yes , the Dragon is listed at $34,100

And so in a thousand other websites, including Amazon. Point is?

I spoke to some of the highest end cable makers at AXPONA this year they all told me the same thing they shrugged and said something like " I don’t know why it woks it just does"

I call this BS. Please tell who was that. This never happens. I am 100% you made this up. Or you never talked to any of the cable manufacturers. Please share names & brands you talked to. I promise I will get to the bottom of this.

You have made the same made up claim before. Time to put names and faces to your claim

Well I can say I believe @yoyoyaya is a recording engineer and he does know what he is talking about.

Are you not a recording engineer of Oscar’s and Amy;s fame? If so, why do you have to drop names of other recording engineers?

@thyname Well I can say I believe @yoyoyaya is a recording engineer and he does know what he is talking about. I appreciate your advice and I'm learning you are right. I honestly wanted to see what the view of this group was about entropy and the bottleneck of components assuming that smart people pay a proper amount of money on a percentage basis to get the most out of their system. Best

@tjag I think you make a good point about Paul of PS Audio, I've met him he seem like a great guy, what could make him pick another companies very expensive cables over PS Audio's own (I've bought them myself)? The answer is Paul needs to make money and he can make much more money selling Dragon cables than his own cables (especially at $34,100). Simple.

I spoke to some of the highest end cable makers at AXPONA this year they all told me the same thing they shrugged and said something like " I don't know why it woks it just does" the only exception was an old engineer at Beldon, I asked him how expensive cables between cheep PC traces, fuses, random connectors, internal speaker cable, crossovers, and on/off switches could justify expensive cables. He went off for 30 minutes about the speed of the signal, dialectrects and such. I said if the timing difference of the dialectrect was an issue why isn't the latency in digital circuits an issue? At least he had a reason no other manufacture had any idea why expensive cables made a difference.

I’m saying that the audiophile view of cables is not one of science but religion. People on this forum and on YouTube along with salesmen at EXPONA

All I have to say… it’s Axpona. Get a real life dude. You are sick

@knownothing @yoyoyaya @tonywinga : you are wasting your time with this dude. Folks like this are a dime of dozens in the internet. I appreciate that, I have done that many times in the past. It’s an exercise in futility . These folks are all set. You will just waste your time and make you upset.

@yoyoyaya 

Yes

I don't believe the limitation is in the recording.  It is in the playback system and the ears of the listener.  One reason I say that is from my visit to Axpona 2022 in Tampa.  On Friday night a recording engineer did a seminar in the large room displaying the Acora speakers.  He had a digital version of the master recording of Night at the Opera by Queen.  The original master was analog being that it was made in the 1970s.  One of the fascinating things he said is that he can hear the splices in these old master tapes when playing them back on his stereo.  Try as I might I do not hear them.  I'm not trained to hear them.  His entire demonstration of how the mix down to two channel is made was a new experience for me and very fascinating.  

Vibration is the single most limiter to resolution.  Unwanted vibrations cause smearing.  A good example is a Scanning Electron Microscope.  The more the SEM is isolated from vibrations the better it's resolving power.  I can recall seeing my first SEM in 1980.  It was mounted on its own separate concrete pad from the plant floor and stood atop a thick cork underlayment.  Audio is the same.  The better the recording studio and its components are isolated down to the playback system and its components- including the cables then the more resolving the playback will be.  

I agree and understand your point and that is exactly how I think about it.  If say the live performance is a 10 and the studio recording is then possibly an 8, then the average system playback will be around 2.  Mid-fi might hit 4.  Hifi might hit 5-7.  Thing is, only a small subset of listeners may be able to discern the difference between a 6 and a 7.  I also understand that the live recording and the final mix down to 2 channel will not have a lot in common.  That was another interesting thing that night at Axpona.  After hearing many of the 24 tracks separately on the master tape, I tried and tried to hear many of those sounds in the 2 channel version but I could not make them out.

@donavabdear 

Thanks for that lengthy exposition but could you just please give a direct answer to the question that I asked. A simple yes or no will suffice.

Thank you.

@yoyoyaya I'm saying that the audiophile view of cables is not one of science but religion. People on this forum and on YouTube along with salesmen at EXPONA often describe the characteristics of their components as creating something in the music while using their 100k components that are much better and finer tuned than any recording studio. This is not possible because despite the statements of $80k DAC's or $40k XLR's with the same neutrik connectors on the ends covered in 3x colored shrink-wrap, you are not going to achieve anything better than the Canary or Beldon star quad XLRs that were used in the studio. Logically $80k cables will get you close to simply welding the amp to the speaker but that cable is never going to give you anything positive. 

As far as getting to the point in audio quality as the original recording I think that level can be surpassed in speakers but with musical attributes that are not mixed and A.I. in the near future will be able to give us all very high quality by filling in the musical harmonics and subtracting the unintended noise in the recordings. The mindset in the audiophile world is not trying to get back to zero (the original recording) but it is buying exceptionally expensive things like cables in which at the original studio used cables 1/10th the price and therefore theoretically is not capable of producing a fraction of the quality of signal in the playback recording if all the thought in modern audiophile cable technology is correct. It's always the same picture. Super turbo mega cables inserted between a skinny fuse and the crossover wire a speaker can't make a difference just like inserting a firehose between two garden hoses can't make a difference. In physics in called Kickoffs law. 

@donavabdear we are apparently talking past each other here a bit.  To the degree you called me out on that, you sound like my wife.  She is quite smart, so that’s a compliment.  

Like others who just posted to this thread, I never said I was trying to get 7.5 worth of information value out of a recording that only has a value of 7.  OK?  We straight on that?  I think pretty much everyone on here has addressed that issue in a way that is consistent with your point, so we should be good.

I also maybe misinterpreted your point to mean it is hopeless to use way more expensive cables than the recording studio, because you might be trying to score a 12 out of 7 in replaying the recording, and that is just such a ridiculous concept, right?  Nobody would claim that.  Right?  At least I haven’t read a single post in this thread where anyone claimed that.

I think what folks are getting at here is that better hifi systems, including their better and finely optimized cable looms, more closely approach reproduction value of 7.0, say attaining a value of 6.45 (subjectively) compared with less capable systems with less resolving or higher loss cables which may only be capable of achieving a reproduction value of 5.9 or 6.2 (subjectively) for the listener.

My point was also that as systems become more resolving and more closely capable of reproducing what is actually on the recording (nothing more), the variation between quality of different recordings and their pressings becomes quite apparent, and this can either lead to more enjoyment or less enjoyment for the listener.  Again, with system and cable qualities adding synergistically to the approximation of perfect replay of only that information captured on the original recording and source material, be it analog or digital formats.

All that said, I am having a distinct sense of deja vu, so I’ve either had this exact same discussion in the past on this or other forum, or I am doomed to have it again.

kn

Paul McGowan of PS Audio admits that AQ Dragon pc is far superior than PS best power cables.

Does PS Audio still make power cables?

Is Paul deluded or is he a charlatan? Why would an owner of a HIFI firm recommend someone else gear? Come on people.

You really want to know if cables matter, go to a HIFI store and ask for a demo on a system that they chose. It is as easy as that.

But you wont. 

@donavabdear,

To echo thyname's post and to reference your recent post, we are attempting to retrieve the original "7" not 7.5.

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

All these dead horses must look like hairy pancakes by now.

@donavabdear : and you have been repeatedly told from multiple people in various of your “audiophiles don’t understand “ threads that it’s not about adding “more information “ to the original recordings. It’s about removing as little as possible from it. But it does not appear you WANT to listen. And being so smart (Oscars and Emmys and all those distinguished accomplishments), it sounds to me you don’t want to listen (or read) on purpose. No idea why. Maybe because (going back to your multiple “audiophiles are basically stupid “ threads)?

Also curious why the worlds most complicated and refined machines mankind has ever made that literally have to be accurate to within nano meters in making electronic chips use regular power cables. These are $500M machines, look up the power supplies that ASML uses. 

@knownothing My argument was just called a name it wasn't dealt with as you say. My argument is that you can't get more information out of the recording than the original. I recorded original recording for 35 years I've been to the Oscars and Emmys and technical Emmys all more than once. The principle is easy if you put a Ferrari body around a Volkswagen it doesn't make it go faster or turn better. If you original recording has an information value of 7 you can't change any component and get 7.5 out of the recording this is a physics idea not an audiophile idea no matter how resolving your system is. 

Bottlenecks are parts of the recording that limit the amount of information you can put in the recording, you can have a movie with 192hz sample rate music and then mix the movie in 48k sample rate ant the 192hz music will not stick out as higher quality in the mix, the signal is limited to 48k. Audiophiles use examples explaining how cables tune their system, it is only possible to tune their system down not up because you can't create more information via the cable no matter how expensive it is. When AI is incorporated into audio that's another story but for now just understand it is a law called entropy not an idea that is limiting as well as audiophiles not understanding simple physics. 

If you would like to interact with the argument that would be great the first thing you have to do is disprove the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy). 

So I don’t understand how someone would be rolling on the floor with laughter reading patent claims.

@tonywinga 

Because the claims defy physics, particularly in HiFi.

I read plenty of claims for products on which something we made could possibly infringe - at least in a lawyer's mind - and had to write arguments invalidating the claims from prior art.

United States Issues Patent Number 10,000,000 in 2018. The twenty-five years from 1993 to 2018 double the number of patents of the previous TWO HUNDRED years. 

Many, many times I dissuaded our teams from applying because although the product might be clever and unique, it was based on fundamentals that would not survive a knowledgeable examiner. Perhaps I should have relented and 'collected' some more... 😏

I trained as a biological oceanographer, and my experience with electronics beyond plugging them in and turning them on is taking delicate research instruments out of the ocean where a seal leaked and trying to resuscitate them 1,000 away from the nearest electronics shop, wiring my house and building custom power cables for audio equipment that I hope will not destroy audio gear or cause a fire.  I have a rudimentary understanding of resistance, capacitance and continuity, and beyond that, it’s pretty much try something in my current system and see how it sounds.

Scientists are professional skeptics, and are paid to knock the crap out of ideas until they either wither or hold up under scrutiny.  I have had plenty of my ideas beaten down and a few hold up.  With any audio gear, I am always a skeptic until I hear the results for myself.  If I am making a large audio investment ( for me), I will seek second opinions and have arranged blind tests with people whose ears I trust.  Through my audio journey, I have determined that cables matter a lot, but results don’t always match linearly with investment.

All that said, I am perfectly comfortable having my ideas and comments challenged here by people who have a lot more formal training and experience in this field than I do.  I brought up the patent process as a possible place where different concepts and claims for exotic or new audio cable designs get vetted by a neutral third party out of the glare of advertising and competing claims of glory in the marketplace.  Based on y’all’s comments, this suggestion was misguided.  Both my brother and his son are electrical engineers who have patents for things I completely don’t understand, and they are not at liberty to divulge the intended use.  Perhaps I should have asked them first about the patent process before bringing it up here.  LOL

BTW, I referenced Caelin Gabriel’s patents in this thread because I am aware that he has an engineering background and I know (from effective marketing on his part) that he has patented a number of his product ideas.  I own some of his gear and it works well enough, but I would not call myself a fan boy.

A few observations on intellectual property.

1. Having protectable IP is important to inventors who may wish to licence their IP and not use it themselves.

2. It can be vital when looking to raise external capital.

3. Just because something is patented doesn't necessarily mean it is has utility - or at least not commercial utility.

4. People who work in public service don't do it to maximise their earnings. It doesn't necessarily imply that their abilities or work is of lesser quality.

5. Natually, patent examiners are not infallible - that's why people end up in litigation. That said, patent examinership looks like an area that's ripe for the application of AI.

I was awarded 10 US Patents over my engineering career and several EU Patents.  (Before I went into management).  Some, but not all of the EU Patents overlap the US ones.  Most but not all of my inventions made it into production.  My little brother has 9-10 US Patents too and he is a Purdue grad.  Go figure.

It is expensive to apply for a patent and time consuming.  I had to work with the legal team to develop the art and the claims as well as research of all patent databases to verify no prior claims.  Unless someone has a lot of time and money on their hands to write up some fantastical inventions and pay a legal team to submit it for a patent, well it wouldn’t make sense to me.  The sole purpose of the patent is to protect the invention for a time allowing the inventors to profit from their ideas.  Even holding a patent is not a guarantee someone will not copy it.  Lot’s of time and legal fees involved in defending patent rights.  So I don’t understand how someone would be rolling on the floor with laughter reading patent claims.  I’d rather watch Gillian’s Island reruns.

Alhemist never suceeded to turn lead into gold as ordered by German

''Keizer'' which ''tresure'' was empty. They all were dissmised and changed

their name into ''metalurgist''. As such they were more succesful.

Some of them deed suceed but not with lead but wiith copper. Some

from the Nord and East. They sell copper cables for more money

than gold.

Cables matter. Wire, the kind of copper, how its shielded , with what materials. The connectors. Are you using silver or other materials. It all matters. Full disclosure. Calvin Johnson from infigo audio. 

@yoyoyaya says in response to @donavabdear : “Your argument implies that because recordings are made with components of a particular level of quality, then using better quality components to reproduce them is pointless. That argument is specious for the reasons set out above.” 
 

100%.  But as our systems become more resolving (and the quality of the wires both inside and outside of our boxes contribute significantly to that resolving ability), relative strengths and weaknesses in recording quality and craftsmanship become more and more apparent.  One of the acquired skills of audiophiles is to learn to listen past the warts on some of our previously favorite recordings to still hear and appreciate the musical event captured in time.

I have tried, but cables seem to be the least easily discernible items to listen for in an audio system. Speakers are easy, but if you want to truly hear cables (any chance in hell of hearing differences without knowing exactly which cable you you changed to?) then you'd better have absolute superb speakers and amplification, IMHO.

Amplification changes, if done correctly, can be heard over time, or if you are lucky, almost immediately. Digital stuff gets tougher for me but can be heard. I guess I've not gotten into a huge enough upgrades to feel expensive wire is truly necessary beyond buying quality cabling, but not into the thousands of dollars and more.

I do hear folks point to wiring inside an electronic device in the audio chain and feel like nothing beyond that is necessary. That is more than laughable (at least to me).  Do they want a tiny board trace wire/connection al the way to the loudspeaker. I submit large better wires count for the current/voltage put out by a power amp to the speakers.  I could be wrong but I'm into decent cabling, even if not tossing tons of money into wire I can't hear compare to some acoustic room treatment.  :-)

Why do you have to lift speaker cables off the floor?

Lifting the cable off the floor lowers the cable’s total capacitance, which can make a difference to the sound of your system in either or both of two ways: The first way is by directly affecting the frequency response of your speakers.5 Oct 2020

Bunking Cable Lifters - Positive Feedback

I tested in my system by lifting the speaker cables, and the bass generally got a lot weaker.

Put the cables back on the wooden floor and the bass is back now.

Took some towels and threw them on the cables now the bass is fuller with beautiful extension. Keep he towels where they are :)

Applying for and receiving a US patent requires that the product designer provide some plausible engineering principles to support the patent application

I know... I gots one and was involved in others.

As Reagan opined, "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."

Last time I checked, which was a long time back, US examiners started @ $35k and I was paying $125k for engineers.

“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
― W.C. Fields

The dead horses are strewn all about in these parts and people just keep on beating on them. 🐴💀😵

@ieales 

”Just for laughs, when I see a patent on HiFi gear these days, I read it...

... if I can while ROTFLMFAO 🤣”

Applying for and receiving a US patent requires that the product designer provide some plausible engineering principles to support the patent application, and an attempt to explain how it works and how it provides a unique design solution for a particular problem of set of problems.  While patent applications are also a form of “sales”, one hopes that the engineers approving patent applications have greater experience and expertise than the average consumer, in this case consumers of hifi cables.  My assumption here is that there is a higher standard of “proof” required for the presentation of the idea to the patent office than, say to consumers at audio shows, showrooms, or viewing online videos.  If this assumption is not true in general for patent approvals, then heaven help us all.

kn

Objectively speaking, it’s all subjective.

What do you want your cables to do? Magically and dramatically change the sound of your system?

That’s unlikely, unless they are junk and don’t perform the basic function of getting a signal from one place to another.

They can and do sometimes improve sound quality, but usually incrementally. If your ears amid the rest of the system can’t detect/convey the difference, don’t waste your money on cables.

If you're looking for that last bit of performance, then yes, everything matters. Don't denigrate others simply because they're willing to take things to another level than you can/will.

Personally, I buy cables primarily on need. For example, if my turntable has a hum, it may be grounding or I may need a cable with insulation that will shield the signal.

Besides shielding, other considerations include connectors, length, flexibility, and yes, looks. 

Turntable cables probably matter most, others typically have less impact. 

@asctim says:

”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.”

Cable length seems to be discussed most often in terms of speaker cables (keep them short to reduce signal loss, or keep them above a minimum length to match amplifier properties (Naim), and digital cables (1.5ft or greater to reduce reflections in the cable).  Balanced cables are preferred in pro audio for low level signals to reduce signal loss on long runs.  Lot’s of discussion of this topic on this and other forums, check it out.

But length is only one parameter in cable performance, and the one that the end user has universal control over in the selection process, whether buying lamp cord or exotic six figure wires.  One could argue long runs could require more care in cable selection and matching cables to your particular gear than shorter runs because of greater chances for selective loss of certain signal frequencies, smear in time domains, interference in electrically noisy environments, or compounding or decreasing negative gear/cable interactions unique to your system.

Speaking of electrically noisy environments, how about the environment right behind your integrated amp or preamp, where high and low level analog signals cross paths with high level power supply cables and various ethernet, USB and coax digital cables?  This is where cable technologies that tame interference and keep various signal forms in their respective lanes really pays off.  The performance benefits of good design here are generally independent of cable length (unless various cables are coiling on top of each other in a pile behind your gear) and, I think, one element in answering the original question “why do cables matter”.  YMMV

kn

At least some designers of high end cables have obtained patents for their products and designs.

Patent examiners by and large are overworked, underpaid and not expert.

Michael Jackson was able to patent his ’moonwalk’ shoes ... something used since the 1880’s music halls.

Just for laughs, when I see a patent on HiFi gear these days, I read it...

... if I can while ROTFLMFAO 🤣

If people think they matter then they matter.

My personal view is on the grand scale of things, practically, wires are not a big deal. Get some good quality ones if needed, get all the rest right and you are in good shape. If it still matters to you then try something different and see. Expensive wires are very practical to buy used. Not too much that can go wrong with them over time compared to the more complex devices. Let other people pay top dollar if they must.

At least some designers of high end cables have obtained patents for their products and designs.

https://patents.justia.com/inventor/caelin-gabriel

And these patent applications have received some review by qualified engineers to determine if there are any technical grounds justifying award.

“Patent examiners review patent applications to determine whether the invention(s) claimed in each of them should be granted a patent or whether the application should instead be refused. One of the most important tasks of a patent examiner is to review the disclosure in the application and to compare it to the prior art. This involves reading and understanding a patent application, searching the prior art (including prior patent applications and patents, scientific literature databases, etc.) to determine what contribution the invention makes over the prior art, and issuing office actions to explain to the applicants and their representatives (i.e., patent attorneys or agents) any objections that may exist against the grant of a patent. In other words, an examiner reviews a patent application substantively to determine whether it complies with the legal requirements for granting of a patent. A claimed invention must meet patentability requirements of novelty, inventive step or non-obviousness, industrial application(or utility) and sufficiency of disclosure.”

From Wikipedia article titled “Patent Examiner”

@knownothing great observations on the selected posts. 

@nonoise 

Honorable mention for this post.

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2567101

@mike_in_nc 

Second best post of the year so far.

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2567236

@gladmo 

Best post of the year so far.

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2567236 

Mogami good.

Had a guy out in the desert in California somewhere do customized Mogami interconnects.

Highly recommend

@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.

+1emergingsoul

I hate shopping for speaker cables it's horrifying.