Subwoofer Cables. How important is quality?

Any well-built OFC interconnect should be just fine. I have a slight preference for silver-plated copper for my sub.

I went from a cheap AQ xlr to Straightwire Crescendo to Quattro fil xlr. I found a difference with all three cables. I like the faster xlr on a subwoofer. The Straightwire is just fine too.

I feel the power cord and electrical is important if you have a powered sub.

My recommendation is to upgrade if you think that your subs are quality subs and your system budget allows for it.

Quality is very important in a sub-woofer cable (and everywhere else) and my hunch is there aren't many that believe it nor are there many quality-oriented middle-of-the-road ics/cables that will suffice.

I don't know much more than to say that some to many cables and ics produce a deficiency what's known as time-smear.

As I understand it, this time-smear occurs when a single signal enters into the cable/ic and by the time it arrives out the other end the same signal arrives at multiple times rather than at a single moment in time.

Hence among other effects, an ill-defined, muddy, and sloppy bass with no solidity or visceral impact. Just a sloppy earthquake-like rolling effect.

Several years ago, I had just installed the Audience Au24 speaker cables (and still am using) which did much to minimize/eliminate time-smear. At the time, I was using an 18-inch subwoofer and suddenly the subwoofer seemed disjointed from the full-range main speakers.

Audience suggested I try a pair of their inexpensive line of ics, the Conductor series, since all of their cables employ the same technology toward minimizing time-smear.

Sure 'nough, the sub-woofer's bass improved immensely and once again became a natural extension of my full-range speakers' bass. In fact, the difference was amazing.

It's not so much that you need a special 'sub-woofer' cable as much as you need a well-designed cable/ic for all of your equipment and speakers (and sub) that considers the reality of time-smear and does what they can to minimize/eliminate it. Time smear will have similar effects throughout the frequency spectrum. Not just the bass regions.

However, if the bass notes resemble mud, then time-smear in the cables is definitely a potential culprit.

-IMO

ill toss in my response here...

i think sub cables make a huge difference. if you would have asked me 6 months ago however, i would have told you that get a good shielded cable and its fine...

i run dual velodyne HGS15x's in my system. i had some decent RG6 silver cable by audioqest for a sub cable. it was pretty good stuff. i recently upgraded to synergistic research resolution reference sub cable. the difference was pretty huge. it sounded like a total upgrade in subs. one of the active shieldings got severed and i had to get it replaced. when i sent it in, i just used one of my old cables to power that one sub. it was SO much worse (after living with it for a month or two), i just turned off that sub all together and just used a single sub. it just didnt sound good at all without that cable anymore.

granted, these cables are $1k for a single 3m cable, but there are more reasonable cables out there. just borrow some from a dealer and test them out. try the new line of audioquest, or depending on your system and budget, look at the synergistic research ones. the res ref is HIGHLY recommended if you can justify it for your system.