Why Do Cables Matter?

I was always wondering if PVC is not a really bad insulator for signal wires: the very large chlorine atoms with three pairs of unpaired electrons in their outer shell are bound to interact with the electro-magnetic field around a wire. But I did not act on my suspicion until I found XLR ICs with silver wire running in a PTFE tube and a shielding mesh of silver-plated copper. They are made in HK and the price was right and thus I bought two pairs from my DAC to my preamp and from my preamp to my power amps, replacing the Mogamis I had for years. I can only say that they did indeed make a significant difference, not ground-shaking but clearly audible and in a very pleasant way: more clarity and headroom, especially with solo voice (Shirley Bessey with "Big Spender", for example, where I can now understand each single word), but also deeper sound stage and dry and punchy bass. Overall money really well spent. Since then I began making my own speaker cables, by running a single 5N silver wire in a PTFE tube filled with Argon gas. The latter has a dielectric constant similar to air, meaning almost unimpeded signal transmission, but has no corrosive effects on the silver conductor. A small tank of Argon can be rented in any hobby brewery-supply shop, and after filling the cable I seal both ends with sticky heat shrink. These speaker wires work very well and are not at all overly bright, as many audiophiles claim it to be a silver drawback: great headroom and extension, clear voicing and again taught and yet powerful bass. So, form my own experimental experience I can attest that wires can indeed make a significant difference in the overall musical experience, but I would never spend more than a couple of $100 on them.

@reimarc 

Very interesting and smart.

I am sure your ICs sound good, the intressting question is how good? 

Have you compared the performance of your ICs to known brands in the market, or just to the Mogamis?

@thyname  @steakster 

Thanks for your kind words. I’ve occasionally found that what we sense as aggression or arrogance is often a cover for uncertainty and sincere confusion or the frustration of inability to communicate more clearly 😉🙏🏻

@donavabdear 

So glad you understood what I’ve tried to communicate 👌🏻 - if you’d like to read a little more of my thoughts regarding how to know when a component or room sounds realistic and accurate to any recording we had not experienced the actual sound engineering of, I just made another post in another thread @dean_palmer started on high fidelity - https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/when-are-speakers-considered-hi-fi-and-not-mid-fi?lastpage=true&page=2#2575397

I have over 70 speakers in my house and 4x dolby atoms systems so new expensive cable would cost a fortune

That’s an insane number of speakers for one single house. I understand your frustration @donavabdear . I agree with you, attempting to cable them all to function independently and simultaneously, including their electronics, will cost a fortune. But I guess helicopters noise from the ceiling sounds good enough for me in my modest 5.1.2 HT, so here is that. I have basic cabling in my lowly HT, I don’t really pay much attention to having a great HT.

My question for you is, out of those 70+ speakers, can you isolate the best two speaker you have (a matching pair) for stereo, 2-channel playback? Perhaps in a dedicated room for two channel audio, with dedicated 2-channel equipment (not multichannel). That should not cost too much in wiring. Only two speakers out of your 70+. Just a wild idea 😱

donavabdear

Audiophiles give me the impression that they can evaluate the proper mixing goal of the artist, producer and audio engineer by saying things like this or that sounds natural or to the presentation or the image is thus and so. It is impossible to make judgements like that if the image is bigger with a particular component or cable how do you know that's what was originally recorded. you can't.

That is why judgment about how a system sounds has to be made over time, and why I distrust "shootout-out" style demos. 

Extreme reverence over the "original recording" is a bit of a red herring. For enjoyment and demo purposes, I like to make my own recordings. But what microphones were used? How far were they from the stage? What mic preamp? Changing those things change the sound.

The notion that it is takes some exceptional, extreme talent or expertise to record, say, a famous actor's voice is absurd. Most people can recognize a familiar voice over a lo-fi cell phone. A real recording challenge would be a symphony orchestra, or a intimate jazz band.