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].
There are many studios that use other than 'standard' cables. My company, Studio City Sound Corp, wired many in Los Angeles in the 80's & 90's It could be a significant investment. No bookings for up to a month, wire, labor mounted quickly for a large installation. Many freelance engineers carried their favorite cables, mics, pre's and EQ to sessions. All might be changed for a ballad vs a rocker. |
@audphile1 sure as heck has been pummeled and pulverized. +1 To each their own on this subject. Move along little doggies. |
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. |
Absolutely. Back in the early noughts, we tried a sampling of cables. One cable sounded like we had a whole new CD collection. Pass. The missus opined of another "That's the only wire where the clarinet sounds like a clarinet." She has perfect pitch and played clarinet. And for the 10^10th time, some people can't tell the difference between Petrus and Plonk. Ditto HiFi... |
