The purpose of a cable.

[Brad - Virtual Dynamics]

I'm curious about what you think the purpose of an audio cable is.

I mean, the obvious answer is that its purpose is to transfer a signal, but the same could be said of your components as well, they also have a processing job to do.

When I see cables being described as bright, heavy, musical I can't help but stop and think of the time that I spend mixing music and the differences that can be cajoled out of the same set of information by fiddling with the EQ settings, distortion, reverb ect....

What do you use cables for? What differences have you noticed? What do you think of cable pricing, or the sub-industry of cabling on the whole?

Cheers,

-Brad

[Steve Toy]

I don't use them as tone controls. If my system sounds bright or lacking in bass drive I prefer to fix the problem at source rather than mask it (along with lots of musical info) with a coloured sounding cable.

At the moment I use Siltech SQ28 i/cs and Chord Epic Twin cable.

[jandl100]

I don't use them as tone controls.

I don't think you can help but use cables as tone controls - cables (if you are a True Cable Believer, that is ;)) simply do change the perceived tonality of a system - you need to get that overall equipment synergy (including cables) that works well for you.

I seem to change cables about as often as I change underwear (i.e. about once a month :lol:) - I find they are the easiest and cheapest way to tweak my system's sound.

Just recently, Virtual Dynamics Master something or other digital cable has been battling with a Chord Signature Digital cable, and losing! But that's just in my system and my tastes - I am sure someone else, hearing the same sound, may come to the opposite conclusion.

[jcbrum]

I make my own cables up, then I know they are ok, and don't distort the sound. It also has a cost advantage. Most work out at £5, some are £20, depending on connectors.

[Ashley James]

www.actionhardware.co.uk supplies most of the trade and has done for many years, so you can buy at very high quality cables at extremely competitive prices by going direct.

Speak to Ian Hartnell.

[hiredfox]

Stick Bybee quantum purifier filters on each line and all cables sound the same. That should tell you something. It tells you it's the RFI you're listening too not the cable. It makes you think that maybe wire is wire is wire

[Mike]

Stick Bybee quantum purifier filters on each line and all cables sound the same. That should tell you something. It tells you it's the RFI you're listening too not the cable. It makes you think that maybe wire is wire is wire

Yawn!...... :pat:

[alb]

All cables are surely coloured.
We don't know what the "true sound" before the cable is meant to be like. We can only pick cables that suit us best.

[Yomanze]

www.actionhardware.co.uk supplies most of the trade and has done for many years, so you can buy at very high quality cables at extremely competitive prices by going direct.

Speak to Ian Hartnell.

Know you're banned, but thank you nonetheless!

[combwork]

I got a pair of phono leads; unbranded but according to the seller "high quality at low (clearance) price" off Ebay. I tried them on record deck to pre-amp. Prior to this there was a faint but irritating hum that went up with volume. I'd tried different cables; the hum altered but was always there. Now with these new cables there's no hum. They're an odd design; normal signal plus ground for each channel plus a single thin insulated wire, unterminated and running between the paired signal/ground wires. The connectors aren't anything special; in fact they're a bit loose fitting.

What has changed? Just the cable. Therefore audible difference has got to be the result of the new cables. Or am I missing something..................?

[sastusbulbas]

May as well resurrect this post and ask!

WHY will cable manufacturers not provide conclusive evidence on claims?

One of the biggest irritations within forums is cable debates, where evidence against is readily supplied but cable manufacturers seem to crawl into the woodwork.

[StanleyB]

I was the technical manager for a company that was heavily involved with cable manufacturing for about 12 years. I had to design audio, video, SCART, sat, etc. type of cables. With video cables you have some parameters to work from, and SCART cables also have an official specification. DVI and HDMI cables do as well. Audio cables are however an open minefield. The impedance of the equipment connected at either end of an audio cable can create some weird audible results since there are no universal standards for audio impedance matching. So one cable can sound wonderful in one set up, but totally awful in another.

[Spectral Morn]

Not Frustrating.

This is a hot one, on some forums the equivolent of pouring petrol on a fire. Not here it would seem.

cabling is one issue that so far we can't get away with out. Even one box set ups need cables to the speakers.

When I first got into audio about 19 years ago, either I was innocent in mind or perhaps open minded but I could hear that cables made a difference to the sound. In my ignorance, I was unaware of the possible reasons for this. Unlike now, but I still have an open mind. Lets face it taking a pile of cables home to try is a lot easier than other bits of kit. However fitting some of the ridiculous creations out there to your kit is another matter. Cables that look like things you would find used for tying up ships to the plain strange. Any one remember Coogan Hall a hollow copper pipe, with an outer screen that didn't touch the cable(pipe except at the plugs). It was a good cable but unless you fitted it very carefully it would crack. I always wondered about the effect on the pipe when you bent it. Did that change the sound. Same goes for any cable does bending and shaping change how it sounds ?

I have tried many cables over the years and up until recently had never been able to subcribe to the one brand cable loom. However having a chat with someone in the cable business a possible answer to this came up. The answer is consistency. Many cable companies who claim to make cables don't( unless fitting plugs can be called making). Many seek out and try cables, select them, label them and claim to make them. Even within a range say model x the interconnect and speaker cable are not the same cable even though that claim is made. Just dip into the RS catalogue/range made(which is huge). I am by the way not saying all cables are picked out of the ones RS make (there are other sources of cables out there). Now I don't have a problem with this. If time and trial is put into listening and selecting fine but the price should bear that out. To ask to much is a bloody cheek. Now if you make it or at the very least make/design and ask someone else to make it then you can claim to make cables. There are very few out there who do this, very few( you would be shocked about who does and doesn't. Legal reasons prevent me from saying. But you know who you are. SHAME ON YOU).

So when I have tried cables in the past I have ended up with make X for linking source, make Z for speaker cable and so on. Only in the last few months have I found an exception to that with Atlas Marvos. Atls make Marvos from the same cable so the range of cables are consistent, through out. This goes for all their cables that I have tried. They design and have their cables made for them. No catalogue use here. So thats one issue that needs to be known, are the cable material used consistent within a range, my experience would suggest no, except in a few cases.

The other issues of length of material, type of material(silver, copper etc), type of plugs, Resistance and capacitance all make a difference to sound and vary with products in your system, as they too have these issues relating to them. This makes group tests a bit of a waste of time, as you will mostly get varying results with the same cables but different kit used and if you use one make of kit and many cables. This is a bit like group tests with speakers. Same room used will affect the results. Some speakers work better in some rooms rather than others.

How a cable will work in your set up, will depend on your kit. You will just have to try it and see how it sounds. Is it wrong to use cables as a tone control. Well that will depend on you and how badly mismatched your kit is.
If you have a well balanced system then cabling should be a bit easier to select. I have only rarely heard cables that can completely destroy the sound of a system and work with only a small range of kit. Most have a basic sound and are not as dramatic. But dramatic ones do exist. So the post one above is not wrong, just I haven't come across this to the same extent.

Most of us will select cables to match a sound preference or we will go with what is hot at the moment( sometimes without trying, very foolish). We all know what the hot 3 are Nordost, Chord and Kimber. I feel that you should consider cables at the very least in a similar way to picking the rest of your system when you are buying a complete new set up. If you are playing with cables as upgrades then you will have to just suck it and see and be prepared to be surprised at what works and what does not. But it is important to remember that many changes are just that and not improvements. The sound improvements cables can make is quite often subtle. Though not always, Ureka moments do exist. One thing you should also bear in mind is have the cables been run in fully. I know this is an issue too but most if not all cables benefit from running in IMHE. Also even if used they may also need a period of settling in (this is different to run in)-I don't understand that one but it can happen. Any suggestions as to why. Current needed to get the material loosened up to allow easier signal flow, perhaps ? Maybe thats BS, just an idea.

Above all have an open mind.

Regards D S D L

[Steve Toy]

What a superb post! Thorough and candid is what we need.

[doodoos]

Firstly I am a cable believer - they do make a difference that I can hear, especially mains cables. What I am unsure of is whether the differences relate mostly to the cable material/construction or to the quality of termination. No doubt it's a bit of both but I suspect termination is of greater consequence. So when I have time I will audition the Naim powerline which seems to use bog standard cable but high quality termination. As I don't use Naim equipment it should be interesting.

[niklasthedolphin]

Cables do not do the signal any favours.
They all add a little damage to the sound in each their way.

The purpose of choosing cables is not to find a cable that colours the music in the right way to suit one's taste, the purpose is to choose cables that do as little damage to the signals as possible.

I think HiFi nerds who loves music either are into that the sound reaching their ears should have the flavour and colour of their choise or they are into that music has to be as close to the original Analog Reference as possible.

Those belonging to the first category chose cables as tone controls and for the colour.

I belong to the second category where the Nirvana is to listen to reproduced music sounding as close to the Analog Reference as possible.

I try to eliminate the influence from the cables by using multicabling on my loudspeaker.

Each construction princip of a cable has it's own character of influence on the music and damage to the signal.

It works like a serial filter.

So when you attatch more cables in parallel you eliminate the filter effect as long as the character of the influence and damage from each of the parallel coupled cables are different.
They will be if the construction princip of the cables are different.

Construction pricips can be e.g.:
Flat cable
Single core
Multicore
Plaited or twisted cables
Material of choise like copper or silver etc

Another way to eliminate damage and influence is to temperature regulate the cables.
The lower temperature the less significance and influence from the cables.

You can also shield cables to prevent hum and radiated noise.

So far this goes for interconnects and for loudspeaker cables.

When it comes to power cables, the more quality is build into the power supply of a unit, the less influence a special selected power cable will have.

Make sure, though, that cables of each their nature (power, interconnect, loudspeaker, antenna, groundings, shields) do not meet, cross or run aside more than absolutely unavoidable.
Shields and Grounds CAN have determinant purposes and effect from being wounded around or following a selected other cable.

When it comes to pricing of cables, I know people let themselves cheat to hilarious point.

The proportion of influence on the end product of sound meating our ears are not reflected in the price range of cables.

Roughly speaking:

Transducers are those components with most importance for the character and quality of the sound.
Transducers are those places in you gear where electronic signals are transformed to acoustic (Loudspeakers) or where magnetism, acoustic or mechanical movement are transformed to electronic signals (Tape heads - microphones - cartridges).

The listening inviroment/room can have somewhere between 1/2 and 1/5 of the influence of the transducers.

Sources can have up to 1/5 of the influence of tranducers.

Amplifying units has around 1/10 influence compared to transducer.

Digital Sources or digital amplifiers have around 1/50 (and that will unfortunately be to the worse).

Signal and loudspeaker cables 1/100 of tranducers (again to the worse. No cables does sound any good).

Power conditioners, specialy manufactured power cables has less than 1/500 influence compared to transducer and will have most influence on gear with badly made power supply circuits and on set-ups with hum, grounding probs and "radiated noise".

Working tweaks will get in somewhere between the lot depending on the character.

So I wonder what goes on when cables are seen at prices like £ 10.000,- to be matched with cartridges at the price tag of maybe £500-1.000,- ??

I do not believe in cables.
I am convinced and I know they do affect the sound...................a bit.

"dolph"

[Spectral Morn]

With cable design everything makes a difference. It only stands to reason that if you have a very high quality conductor that putting a cheap plug on it will detract from the overall result. I heard this once when a local cable maker asked if he could use the shop I worked in to do some staff training. He has a basic cable and the same cable with wbt plugs. We played the music with both cables and the Wbt terminated cable was quite a bit better. This was before Next Gen plugs came out, so it was the old fave Wbt plug(locking one). It is good that some companies will allow this kind of option within a range. The difference in cost between the cables was £30, not much for the sound improvement.

Now will a good plug make a poor cable better than a dearer cable with a cheap plug, I suspect not much. I think the main problem with cables is that unlike say room acoustics very little is understood really about the various interactions
and issues. I know a lot of companies say they do and some make wild claims but in reality this subject needs a lot of research and it would have to cover every possible variable before any sort of base line standard model could be put forward. Has any one done this and with every product thats out there/or if not actual products then the kind of measurements that you can encounter?

Regards D S D L

[Spectral Morn]

I am not sure how to read your marking for what influences the reproduction.
However, I do agree that sources that use mechanical aspects in their technology have to be very well designed. However almost all products have some aspect in their design. The items you list mostly work on the basis of using vibration as part of their technology. Cartridges, Microphones etc these are very prone to vibrational impact and need good acoustic isolation to be applied. Feedback is a major issue. Never place a Turntable in a corner behind a speaker or opposite a speaker as this can be an issue. The cart acts as a microphone. Valves can also do this too.

One area I would disagree with you if I am reading your statistics right is the room. In my experience the single factor that has the biggest influence on an audio system is the room acoustics. If this is wrong for the system then it does not matter how good or how dear it is. It will sound amazing in the right room and awful in the wrong room.

Cabling and its design can be the thing that makes the difference but more often than not, it is just a chance thing that the cabling you try matches the conditions your kit creates. I will give you a non-cable example. I recently got a Audiovalve rkv head phone amp,the distributor suggested I should get the impedance matcher. I did not as I did not think it was something I needed. How wrong was I. The different headphones I had all sounded wrong and not as good as before. It was perhaps chance that these headphone happened to match the Head phone amps I was using. When I got the impedance matcher and set it to suit my Grado GR1000 suddenly I could hear what I had paid for. I think something similar happens with cabling. We know its a factor with turntables, carts and step up transformers as well as how those all link to the phono stage and just because the signals are smaller in this than in source items or amps or speakers, I don't think we should dismiss the impact we can hear with cabling in the rest of the system. Its maybe the case that we know less about this than we do other areas in audio.

I am also not sure of the wisdom of being quite so varied in your mix of cabling material for use in one cable but I must confess that I am not a maker of cables so have not tried what you suggest. I suppose if you kept a similar design through out the applications you might have a consistency, I spoke about earlier. Any makers of cables want to comment on this?

Regards D S D L

[niklasthedolphin]

I am not sure how to read your marking for what influences the reproduction.
However, I do agree that sources that use mechanical aspects in there technology have to be very well designed. However almost all products have some aspect in there design. The items you list mostly work on the basis of using vibration as part of their technology. Cartridges, Microphones etc these are very prone to vibrational impact and need could acoustic isolation to be applied.

One area I would disagree with you if I am reading your statistics right is the room. In my experience the single factor that has the biggest influence on an audio system is the room acoustics. If this is wrong for the system then it does not matter how good or how dear it is. It will sound amazing in the right room and awful in the wrong room.

Cabling and its design can be the thing that makes the difference but more often than not, it is just a chance thing that the cabling you try matches the conditions your kit creates. I will give you a non-cable example. I recently got a Audiovalve rkv head phone amp,the distributor suggested I should get the impedance matcher. I did not as I did not think it was something I needed. How wrong was I. The different headphones I had all sounded wrong and not as good as before. It was perhaps chance that these headphone happened to match the Head phone amps I was using. When I got the impedance matcher and set it to suit my Grado GR1000 suddenly I could hear what I had paid for. I think something similar happens with cabling. We know its a factor with turntables, carts and step up transformers as well as how those all link to the phono stage and just because the signals are smaller in this than in source items or amps or speakers, I don't think we should dismiss the impact we can hear with cabling in the rest of the system. It maybe the case that we know less about this than we do other areas in audio.


Regards D Louth

Cables for the cartridge in your arm on the TT has great influence due to the tiny and vulnerable signals running there.

Do you change all your cabling inside amps, cd machines and FM tuners to match your external cable choises?

BTW.: A tranducer is a converter from e.g. acoustic to electrical impuls or from magnetism to electrical impuls or from electrical impulses to acoustic or from mechanical movements to electrical impulses etc.
It's also a tranducer in use when you get ultrasound treatment at the physiotherapist. It is converting from electrical impulses to ultrasound.

"dolph"

[Spectral Morn]

It is part of my overall post that all these things can have an effect on how cables sound. In an ideal, world yes the inside signal cables should be the same as the external ones(were possible. The problem with this is due to costs very few manufactures of kit will do this. In away this is a pity. Quite often the type and quality of cabling is not mentioned or thought about when it should.

How many peole bother to find out what cabling is used in the speakers they use. If they do, do they then use the same cable to hook the speakers to their amp. A lot of the time no they do not. By doing this you add another variable.

An audio system is a chain everything linked together and cabling is part of that factor, inside and without. Has anyone tried what Dolph asks about and if so what was the result ? Using the same cable inside and out ?

I read what you are saying about Transducers and of course they are important. My point was that they are prone to external influence and that can be added to the signal they are making. sorry if I did not make that clear.

I suppose your room is a sort of transducer too? It can take a mechanical signal(vibration) and depending on the frequency amplify the vibration, increasing the energy in the room. This will depend on how well your room is made and what type of materials are in it. Certainly years ago in my first system I tuned the system to the room and both worked together almost like a musical instrument.

Regards D S D L

[The Grand Wazoo]

From The Grave

[MartinT]

I don't use them as tone controls. If my system sounds bright or lacking in bass drive I prefer to fix the problem at source rather than mask it (along with lots of musical info) with a coloured sounding cable.

I think that summed it up quite nicely. Get everything in the system performing to optimum FIRST. Then, and only then, fine tune with cables to taste. There is no right cable, just different flavours of tonality/colouration.

[DSJR]

I think Mr Toy did fix his (audio) problems at source - he bought some Tannoy Turnberry's :lol: Much better than the shriekers he used before, although I noticed from pics that he'd turned the tweeter up a notch from "flat," unless I'm very much mistaken (probably am, so apologies Steve in advance :))

[Rare Bird]

How many peole bother to find out what cabling is used in the speakers they use. If they do, do they then use the same cable to hook the speakers to their amp. A lot of the time no they do not. By doing this you add another variable.



Hi Neil
Very good point..I built my last system around the simple Kimber Kable wire.
All my equipment was internally rewired using Kimber 'TCSS' signal wire, power supplies with Kimber 'TCX'..Internal speaker wiring also Kimber 'TCX' external speaker cable Kimber '4TC & 8TC'..Basically the same wire from head to toe..Something i must get arround doing again..

Edit: oops forgot to mention the Kimber 'PSB-J' i used for interconnects

[MartinT]

Nice, Andr'e, you can do very much worse than cable your entire system with Kimber. Very reliable and tonally matched throughout their range.

[Barry]

This subject would normally be “red rag to a bull for me”, however such is the reasonableness of the OP and the carefully considered and worded replies that I thought I would chip in with my own thoughts and opinions.

Now as most members might know I am a cable sceptic and possibly a member of that most despised of groups: objectivists. So as not to upset or offend any trade members who are cable retailers, I’ll choose my words carefully.

First of all, I don’t believe cables have any intrinsic sound of their own. If changes in sound are perceived, then this is entirely down to how the cable interacts with the equipment between which it connects, and how well it screens or shields the delicate musical signals, with all the subtle information contain within them, from corruption by external electrical interference (from whatever source). Even having accepted that the interaction can have acoustic effects, unless your system is quite unusual, these effects will be small. Lets examine this in more detail.

One can quite reasonably say that any audio cable can be characterised by LCR measurements (pace Frank). That is, the construction and quality of the materials used will be effectively summarised by these measurements. The resistance of the conductors used and that of the insulation used as well as any dielectric loss will be represented by R. Likewise the geometry of the interconnect will represented by both L and C. Shielding efficacy is a little more difficult to quantify and depends on both the construction of the shield and of the material from which it is made. Strictly speaking it is quantified by a parameter called the surface transfer impedance that can be both calculated and measured. Measurements at the interfering frequencies expected (those radiated by switched-mode power supplies as well as AM broadcasts), are almost impossible to make owing to the long wavelengths involved, but I will come to this later.

Simply considering the LCR values, for virtually all cables these are sufficiently good so that unless the interconnect is made of the most peculiar of materials or has a strange geometry, or it is used in an unusual system, there should be virtually no difference between sensibly designed interconnects. I’ll provide a few illustrative figures.

Any sensible length interconnect ought to have a loop resistance of no more than 0.2Ω, which in the extreme case of connecting between say a source with an output impedance of 10Ω and the following item with an input impedance of 1KΩ, the ohmic loss would be less than 0.1dB. Whilst some solid-state gear can have output impedances even lower, it is rare for any item to have an input impedance as low as 1KΩ, so my example is extreme and pessimistic. Valve designs have a much higher operating impedance so the ohmic loss is even less.

We can dismiss inductance as any sensibly designed interconnect will have a loop inductance that is no more than a fraction of a μH per metre. Even at 60KHz (to allow all those harmonics that give a note its timbre to pass through), the reactance will only be about 0.1Ω. So what of the all-important capacitance (and unfortunately, usually the only parameter an interconnect manufacturer will quote)? Well again for a typical construction (including both the geometry and materials used) most interconnects will have values around 100pF per metre. Now this capacitance creates a low pass filter with the output impedance of the source to which it connects, but even if the source impedance was as high as 5KΩ (which it might be with some vintage valve gear) a 1 metre cable having a shunt capacitance of 100pF would create a low pass filter having a 3dB roll-off point at 318KHz. So unless you are using an interconnect with very high capacitance per unit length or very long lengths (and if the latter you ought to be using balanced line interconnections anyway) and you are using it to connect between an unusual combination of a source having high output impedance (possibly a valve design) with a following item having an unusually low input impedance (such as some solid state designs: the Electrocompaniet “2 Channel Amplifier” comes to mind) you will not have any problems.

OK, so we’ve got the LCRs out of the way, what of the shielding efficiency; in my opinion the only real way an interconnect can have any effect on the audio signal? As I mentioned a parameter that quantifies this (though not completely) is the surface transfer impedance. This is difficult to measure but at the long wavelengths we are considering is, for a solid shield, for all intents and purposes the same as the DC resistance of the shield. Now the operative word here is ‘solid’, that is one where the braiding has a very high optical coverage – no loose weave, as used on the old VHF television systems, and not lapped shields used on the cheapest of interconnects (unless they are supplemented by a semi-conducting sheath underneath the lapping). This why a lot of modern interconnects used for satellite TV as well as many audio interconnects use a foil shield, or an aluminised Mylar layer with a drain wire. But even with a reasonable single layer braided shield having a DC resistance of 0.1Ω/metre and using the lowest impedance systems the shielding efficiency will be ~95dB. This again is pessimistic and will largely determined by the quality of the connectors used – despair all you who use the execrable ‘bullet plugs’. But to put this into perspective, unless you live near a radio transmitter, an airport using a powerful air traffic radar, or insist on leaving your mobile phone (switched on) on or near your cables, you should have little to worry about. There is one other aspect of cable construction that can have an effect on shielding efficacy, and the only mechanism that can make a cable directional, that of so-called semi-balanced construction. If using cables having this form of construction, because the shield is connected to the outer conductor of the connector only at one end of the interconnect, it is important that this is at the point of lowest electrical impedance as regards the RF interference. This will not necessarily be at the source.

So what of “designer cables” with their construction and post-manufacture conditioning? Do we choose silver or copper, or anything in between? Well silver has only an 8.6% improvement over copper regarding its conductivity and a ratio of 0.99999999 regarding magnetic permeability. Whilst this will make a very small change to the (much misunderstood concept of conductor skin depth, and a parameter much enjoyed by certain interconnect manufacturers), unless you use cables whose thickness or diameter is greater than 0.5mm don’t worry. ‘Quadrifilar’ plaiting; use of Litz wire; stranded conductors using strands having diameter ratios equal to the Golden Section, are all construction techniques offered by some interconnect manufactures. Whilst these techniques can be of some use at RF frequencies, I cannot believe they are of any benefit at audio frequencies – and being difficult to implement will make the construction costs expensive.

Turning to the insulators used, well it can be argued that nothing is better than air (apart from a vacuum), but all modern thermosetting polymers used have very good dielectric properties (reasonable relative permittivity and very low dielectric loss).

I cannot comment on the efficacy of cryo-cooling, or of the benefits of using LC-OFC or even UP-OCC copper, as I’m not a metallurgist. My understanding of cryo-cooling is it might be similar to annealing and of some benefit, but I do wonder if the understandable advantages of long copper grain lengths and the consequent reduction of grain boundaries and ‘current hopping’ offered by the other casting techniques, will be largely lost once the conductor is handled.

Anyway to bring this polemic to some sort of conclusion, I would say that whilst repeatable differences between interconnects can be heard, any sensibly designed, well made cable using good quality connectors will display minimal changes. If you find changing an interconnect completely changes the character of your system, then I would say that either there is something very odd about the interconnect itself, or you have an unusual (and/or unbalanced) system. I can well believe that cable differences can be heard, but if significant, I would humbly suggest that finding a cable that sounds “good” is ‘papering over the cracks’ and suggests that there is something more fundamentally wrong with your system.

So having got this off my chest (and I haven’t yet touched on mains cables or speaker cables) and lest you think I’m an insufferable objectivist who only listens to square waves and test tones – I’m off to listen to music, which after all is what it’s all about!

[Reid Malenfant]

Fantastic post Barry :clap: I tend to agree that as long as sensible cabling is used to connect audio components together that carries audio then there shouldn't be very much difference between them. That doesn't mean that there may be slight differences though.

Where i find bigger differences is in cables carrying digital signals ;)

However i'm not going there as that isn't what the OP was about :cool:

[Tim]

Great read Barry, thanks for taking the time :)

[MCRU]

Neve seen such long posts concerning such a minefield of a topic before, and 2 posters banned early on as well!

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, now more than ever cable sellers are everywhere and it is a very competitive market, I rely on my skills built up over 10+ years on giving the customers the best cable for his given budget be it £30 or £1000, I consider myself an audiophile and am a cable addict, I would be even if I did not sell them but I am able to mix and match on a weekly basis and am still looking for cable solutions for my system. Cables especially mains are more important now than ever with all those pesky i-phones and wi-fi, RFI is everywhere!
Even though I am loathe to admit it Kimber PBJ is superb when used as a dc cable, it made a real difference to my new squeezbox PSU, its good the the AOS is a cable friendly forum, long may it remain so.:)

[Macca]

As always an excellent and well reasoned post from Barry.

My contribution is purely subjective. I have a box full of RCA phono streo interconnects aquired over the years. By far my favourite is a .5 m set of Audioquest Turqouise. No matter what kit I am using (and there has been a fair few changes over the years) I come back to this one. Why? Because it is the only one that I don't 'hear' in the sound.

A while back I was using all Linn amplification and Linn cables. A mate (who was using the supplied patch cords on his rig) asked me if improving his interconnects would improve his sound. So, saying nothing, I lent him six quality interconnects including the AQ Turq.

A month or so later I caught up with him. And what? After trying all the cables and with zero input from me, which one had he settled on?

Yep, you got it.:)

[Alex_UK]

Great post, Barry. I'm more in the sceptical camp with interconnects - as long as good quality wire, connectors and construction are present, I struggle to grade them appropriately, but probably my system is not good enough to reveal the differences.

Having said all that, having just tried some of the "off the reel" Belkin speaker cable, the difference compared to my current Belden/Mark Grant was immediately obvious to my cloth-ears, and IMHO not a good difference!

[Marco]

Like others have said, Barry, great post, and thanks for taking the time to write it. Perhaps it should be referenced in The Library? :)

Ok, I'd just like to tackle this:


Now as most members might know I am a cable sceptic and possibly a member of that most despised of groups: objectivists.

Obviously AoS is very much a subjectivist site, and those values form a core part of Our Ethos.

Although we understand the important and influential role science has in audio, we also know that it isn't the 'be all and end all'. There is still so much more to learn that science can't currently fully explain, and so ultimately the final arbiter is our ears.

However, I'd like to state quite categorically that on AoS we do not despise 'objectivists'. At least not the non-cynical ones!

There's nothing wrong whatsoever with being an 'objectivist', providing that you're not cynical or dogmatic about it, and have the humility to respect opposing views, without the need to demean or ridicule the valid subjective experiences of others. We only 'poke' the bad guys.

There's also bugger all wrong with being a sceptic - scepticism is healthy!!

Barry, if you consider yourself as an 'objectivist', then you're a fabulous advert for the breed, as you're always open-minded, pragmatic, never dogmatic or cynical, knowledgeable and always willing to learn something new and acknowledge when someone else has greater expertise than you in certain areas.

I think that you simply remain true to your scientific background and teachings, and so epitomise the values of real scientists - people who deserve great respect, and not the pseudo types and technical 'jobsworths' who infect other forums with their blinkered bile and agendas.

As such, it's a pleasure to have you as part of our community - and never less than a delight to read your contributions. If only all 'objectivists' were like you mate, then the on-line audio community would be a far better place....

Let's hear it folks for Barry - a most respected and valued member of AoS! :mex: :champagne:

Marco.

[Reid Malenfant]

Let's hear it folks for Barry - a most respected and valued member of AoS! :mex:

Marco.
:clap::clap:

I think you'd call it realism, maybe i'm wrong, but the gap between objectivist & subjectivist must be a little more "planted" :eyebrows:

Oh, in the real world i mean :)

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

First of all, I don’t believe cables have any intrinsic sound of their own. If changes in sound are perceived, then this is entirely down to how the cable interacts with the equipment between which it connects, and how well it screens or shields the delicate musical signals, with all the subtle information contain within them, from corruption by external electrical interference (from whatever source). Even having accepted that the interaction can have acoustic effects, unless your system is quite unusual, these effects will be small. Lets examine this in more detail.

One can quite reasonably say that any audio cable can be characterised by LCR measurements (pace Frank). That is, the construction and quality of the materials used will be effectively summarised by these measurements. The resistance of the conductors used and that of the insulation used as well as any dielectric loss will be represented by R. Likewise the geometry of the interconnect will represented by both L and C. Shielding efficacy is a little more difficult to quantify and depends on both the construction of the shield and of the material from which it is made. Strictly speaking it is quantified by a parameter called the surface transfer impedance that can be both calculated and measured. Measurements at the interfering frequencies expected (those radiated by switched-mode power supplies as well as AM broadcasts), are almost impossible to make owing to the long wavelengths involved, but I will come to this later.

Simply considering the LCR values, for virtually all cables these are sufficiently good so that unless the interconnect is made of the most peculiar of materials or has a strange geometry, or it is used in an unusual system, there should be virtually no difference between sensibly designed interconnects. I’ll provide a few illustrative figures.

OK, so we’ve got the LCRs out of the way,
I produce 3 interconnect cables that measure identically according to the makers of the raw cable. They all sound different and progressively musically better, and I can prove it to anyone who wishes to hear it.

[Barry]

Like others have said, Barry, great post, and thanks for taking the time to write it. Perhaps it should be referenced in The Library? :)

Ok, I'd just like to tackle this:



Obviously AoS is very much a subjectivist site, and those values form a core part of Our Ethos.

Although we understand the important and influential role science has in audio, we also know that it isn't the 'be all and end all'. There is still so much more to learn that science can't currently fully explain, and so ultimately the final arbiter is our ears.

However, I'd like to state quite categorically that on AoS we do not despise 'objectivists'. At least not the non-cynical ones!

There's nothing wrong whatsoever with being an 'objectivist', providing that you're not cynical or dogmatic about it, and have the humility to respect opposing views, without the need to demean or ridicule the valid subjective experiences of others. We only 'poke' the bad guys.

There's also bugger all wrong with being a sceptic - scepticism is healthy!!

Barry, if you consider yourself as an 'objectivist', then you're a fabulous advert for the breed, as you're always open-minded, pragmatic, never dogmatic or cynical, knowledgeable and always willing to learn something new and acknowledge when someone else has greater expertise than you in certain areas.

I think that you simply remain true to your scientific background and teachings, and so epitomise the values of real scientists - people who deserve great respect, and not the pseudo types and technical 'jobsworths' who infect other forums with their blinkered bile.

As such it's a pleasure to have you as part of our community, and never less than a delight to read your contributions. If only all 'objectivists' were like you mate, then the on-line audio community would be a far better place....

Let's hear it folks for Barry - a most respected and valued member of AoS! :mex: :champagne:

Marco.

Thank you Marco, and others, for your kind comments. Shucks, I'm :o

Even though I tried to be as objective and factual as possible, it is still my opinion and therefore not really suitable for the Library, well not according to my own very rigorous acceptance criterion as a Librarian. Perhaps later I'll rewrite it and offer it for proof reading by my fellow Librarians.

I might have also appeared to be unduly self deprecating in that, to my great surprise, I found during a blind testing session, I could repeatable and reliably hear differences between some interconnects. Again to my surprise and embarrassment, not only could I hear differences but along with other auditors, I preferred my own cables! But I must say the differences were not major.

One of the bête noirs I have is the obscene prices some interconnect manufactures ask for their wares and the scientific (and irrelevant) 'technobabble' they use to persuade the innocent that they know what they're talking about so as to justify the costs. :steam: (Hand on "heart" you know who I'm talking about. :eyebrows:) For this reason, and because I resent paying a lot for something I can make, I have always preferred to assemble my own interconnects.

Now some have neither the inclination nor perhaps the skills to make their own cables and have to buy them. Clearly it takes time to carefully prepare and assemble an interconnect: I find it takes me about half an hour per cable from start to finish. I don't know what the typical time rate is but let's say I spend £50 on materials (the majority of which will be for the connectors) and at £50/hour, a stereo pair of interconnects ought to cost not much more than say £120.

It must be said that are some very well respected cable manufacturers who offer quality products at reasonable prices (and we all know who they are :)), but interconnect manufacture is becoming, to the detriment of these honest practitioners, an easy avenue by which to "make money for old rope".

Rant over (for the time being)

Regards

[Barry]

I produce 3 interconnect cables that measure identically according to the makers of the raw cable. They all sound different and progressively musically better, and I can prove it to anyone who wishes to hear it.

Hello Richard,

At no time did I say that audible difference cannot be heard, rather that such difference will be small and down to how the interconnect interacts with the equipment between which it connects.

One of the problems is gleaning sufficient electrical information about a cable from the manufacturer. They are all remarkably laconic in this regard.

Do your cables use the same quality connector on each of the three varieties? Are they wired in the same configuration? Is the shielding/screening/braiding the same for each cable? Any deviation can cause a change of quality.

I'm going to be off-line for the next week. This is is not a 'brush off'. Perhaps we can resume the discussion upon my return?

Regards

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I have also designed the interfaces that the cables are connected to. So they are all interacting with the same circuit and the differences are not small.

The problem is that some equipment resolves differences more than others, if yours doesn't then you don't hear it. IMO that is the root behind a most of these arguments.

Anyway I have yet to fail to show the differences to anyone blind or not, though I wont get involved in the contorted bollocks of double blind.

Within acceptable parameters connectors of the same type are of little importance, there is a lot of bullshit about some of the ridiculously expensive plugs. It is the cable that makes the sound of a cable. Now different types of connector fine yes they do make a difference. Din is a disaster, RCA phono is acceptable, XLR is good but too bulky for home audio and unnecessarily robust, BNC is very good but a bit bulky, SMA is by far the best in size strength and security of contact and sound yet next to no one has heard of them.

They have to be measured correctly because they are built to US military RG regulations. And they are sub groups used for wiring radar heads and data transmission in US military aircraft.