Cables more hype than value?

Test this... Regina Carter - "Paganini: After A Dream"

03-10-13: Zd542
Measuring is just one scientific method. If all we are looking to do is confirm that 2 cables can sound different from each other, a well conducted listening test is just as valid.

I'd like to add to Zd's characteristically knowledgeable and level-headed post the self-evident point that analysis also has its place in the scientific method.

To cite a few examples, the first two of which are somewhat extreme but not completely unrealistic:

It is easily possible to demonstrate by analysis that the difference between 10 foot interconnect cables having capacitances of 50 pf/ft and 10 pf/ft is likely be audible to those with unimpaired hearing if used at the output of a resistor-based passive preamp having typically high output impedance.

It is easily possible to demonstrate by analysis that the difference between a 20 foot speaker cable having high inductance and one having low inductance is likely to be audible to those with unimpaired hearing if used with electrostatic speakers whose impedance descends to 1 ohm or so at 20 kHz (which is not uncommon).

It is easily possible to demonstrate by analysis that differences in phono cable capacitance will have a profound effect on the sonics of moving magnet cartridges.

So cable differences can be audible. The question then becomes how much less extreme can the circumstances become before reports of claimed differences are sufficiently implausible that they are more likely to be the result of the placebo effect or failure to recognize and control extraneous variables.

Obviously the answer will vary considerably from system to system and from listener to listener, and each listener will have to make his or her own judgment about that. My bottom-line feeling, however, is that as with most things in life the best answer is likely to fall somewhere in the middle ground between the ideological extremes.

Issues such as whether one think cables are priced fairly or how much of a difference they make, is for another thread. That stuff is just personal opinion; everyones answer is valid.

Not sure that those should necessarily be treated as separate issues. It often seems to be implicit in the arguments of those at the "believer" end of the spectrum that the existence of differences suggests that "more expensive" has a high likelihood of being "better." And the basic motivation of those at the "skeptic" end of the spectrum often seems to be to dispel that belief.

For the several reasons I expressed in my earlier posts in this thread, and perhaps for other more cynical reasons that could be cited, my belief is that the correlation between performance and price, while significantly greater than zero, should not be expected to be a strong one.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al, I of course agree, and called out cables needing to be application-appropriate earlier (only to have Nonoise twist my words around), but you know full well that's not what many of these folks are arguing for. They're arguing that two cables that measure alike can sound different. That even connectors can sound different.

To everyone else, regarding what we can and can't measure, I've got news for the non-technical among us, the level of design sophistication that goes in audio system cables, the frequency range and the voltages involved, are just so much child's play in modern electrical engineering. If you've got a new Intel-based PC you have 8 giga-transfer per conductor signals in it, using some incredibly complex signaling techniques. Just coming us with the design rules for circuitry like that takes years of research. Audio cables are first or second year BSEE stuff.

The only thing underlying the controversy with cables, IMO, is that one can interchange them. I don't hear anyone pondering audible differences in circuit board materials, single versus double-sided circuit boards, or the gauge or type of internal wiring, and I think that's only because you can't interchange them. Otherwise I think I would see posts about low-loss versus FR-4 circuit boards.

"I think that's only because you can't interchange them. Otherwise I think I would see posts about low-loss versus FR-4 circuit boards."

So True! They worry about the stuff that's 'easy' to 'upgrade'.

I just picked up a set of interconnects(installed between receiver and my McCormack amp) that made a pronounced improvement to my sound. If anybody could not tell the difference, they may as well just buy a setup from Best Buy and be done with it.