WHY CABLES MATTER!

Hello all,

I have no intentions of insulting anyone, but...

For years, I used a pair of silver cables I made myself (~$100) for my CD player (CAL Icon 2 to Klyne System 7 ver. 4 pre-amp), a pair of Discovery cables to my amps (Lectron JH-50 and Conrad-Johnson MF2550), and a pair of long Mapleshade cables to my ProAc Response 3.8 speakers. Some time ago, I replaced all IC’s with Odin II IC’s and Valhalla speaker cables I purchased from Hi-Fi Store on AliExpress. After less than a half an hour that it took me to install new IC’s, I started to evaluate the sound. I listened hard, but I could not convince myself if I heard any difference. I thought before that my system sounded very good and I was not surprised – I admit I was very skeptical about effects of cables for years and this just confirmed my previous skepticism. Then, I installed the new speaker cables and played a CD I listened for decades. I got this CD as a bonus when I purchased my Lectron JH-50, the first piece of high-end equipment I ever got. The year was 1991! The CD was Two of a Kind by Karin Krog and Bengt Hallberg. This is a very natural sounding music and I listen this CD quite often. The music with my new cables sounded more rich and more dynamic, the bass was deeper and it all sounded better to my ears. The difference was small but I believe I heard it. The localization of instruments on the stage got a little more diffuse (and this I heard very well), but the beauty of sound convinced me this was better. When I listened through my new IC’s I was using the old thin Mapleshade speaker wires and apparently, they were the main problem in my system. So, I dropped them in the garbage, and went to bed happy that I made improvement to the sound of my system and I admitted to myself that my previous belief that cables were irrelevant was wrong.

Next day, I returned to my music room with anticipation – am I going to enjoy my better sound more than ever before? Of course, I will… everybody says so! So, I played the same songs that I always do when I want to get impressed. I have loved them for years because of their beauty and their sound and I knew them well… So, what did I hear? They had sounded awesome before, and they sounded awesome again. Did they sound better? I could not tell. My aural memory betrayed me! So, did my system really sound better? I could not tell that either but I concluded a day before that it did, so I felt the new cables were worth of keeping in my system. They were quite inexpensive so I did not make a fool of myself by spending some major amount of money expecting a miracle from several pieces of wire.

However, I must admit, the change in sound I heard when I replaced the cables was small. I had to listen for the sound to hear them. And, while I was listening for the sound differences, I lost my connection with music – I heard more sound than music. I play acoustic guitar and, when I listen to the music, I listen for the song, structure of the song, chord progression, fingerpicking pattern, lyrics, bridges, voice, pronunciation… I try to learn the song while listening. While focusing on these items, I do not hear cables. I already concluded that my system sounded better so I do not have to hear these tiny differences every time - I can now continue to listen the way I prefer and focus on music.  

Listening to cables does not make much sense to me and I will never try any expensive cables no matter where they are made and what they are made of. Am I missing some major effect that only expensive cables can reveal (expensive cables sound better, don’t they)? I doubt and I do not care. My love is for music and, for the way I listen to the music, it is irrelevant what different cables may sound like. I listen to the songs, not cables. This is why cables do not matter to me.

 LectronJH50

The 3 primary things that affect cable sound are capacitance, inductance and skin affect followed by materials like; jacketing, connectors, solder.... Not every cable designer uses the same amount of each.

Several years ago I was gifted WireWorld TOL series 8 prototype speaker cables XLR interconnects, and mid level power cords. Overall they did not make magic in my system at the time. Eventually, I replaced all of them with Ali-E Odin II gold knock offs which sing better. I also upgraded the CD transport and power cords from the lessor WW PCs to a huge sonic improvement. at some point I will reinsert the WW X>R and speaker cables just to test how I feel with them now.

Or as one the posters stated EVERYTHING MATTERS

hth

@audioisnobiggie 

I use hardware calibration for my monitor. My software tells me how accurate the colors my screen puts out are. If I swap digital cables, it shows me a different measured result

That's very interesting! Is the difference easily visible as well? Is this issue with cables a well known phenomenon in the video industry? I have a new TV that has far better color than I've had on previous TVs. I have it hooked up to various devices and haven't noticed a difference in color if I watch the same Apple TV show through my Apple TV box or directly off the TV's built-in app. I haven't looked that closely but they look very similar, close enough for my eyes. I know there are differences in color perception. My parents couldn't tell if the color was way off, and that surprised me. I can tell if it's way off but maybe not if it's just a little off. 

@cleeds

They’re not interested in conversation - they seek to disrupt it.

We’d love to see just some decent explanation of what’s going on. I’d be happy with some simple measurements. If there’s a subtle but reliably measurable difference in speaker output between the two cables, that’d be enough to convince me, and we’d have a solid explanation of what’s going on. I would expect the cable manufacturers to provide this data on at least a small selection of amps and speakers, not a task for end users. Although, I have a calibrated mic. and REW so I can do those sorts of things. I have done it with amplifiers, but never felt a need for cables because I never thought I heard anything. If there are important differences, these can be described by the cable specifications, just like the parameters on a speaker driver.

This article answers my questions. Cables can definitely make a difference. I don’t see why they need to cost a lot, but you may need a specific mix of resistance, inductance, capacitance with any given system to get a most desired result. In some cases you need some resistance in the cable to protect the amp! In my opinion this should never be the case, but I'm sure some will argue that making a speaker behave like that somehow makes it sound better.

https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/