cables and my experience

[admin_exported]

I have by all accounts a modest system sound quality wise (except possibly the amp), comprising of a creative sound card source, an arcam alpha 9 amplifier and wharfedale valdus 500 speakers.

A while ago I bought some (not exactly high end) qed cable for £3 a metre and did a blind test with my dad (a very sceptical man by all accounts about cables) and he instantly noticed a vast improvement in the sound from the unbranded old stuff which was the same thickness as the neew cable with the mid and high ranges sounding a lot purer, neither of us could tell a difference in the bass.

I have three 3.5mm jack to phone connectors, a £1.50 one, a £3 one and a qed performance (payed £10, think retail is £20) and from each one I can notice an improvement in clarity.

My question is how do you know how much to spend on cables to get the most out of your system? Would further upgrades yield further improvements? And at what point do upgrades become pointless. At a guess I'd say the point at which the internal wiring is as good as the external wiring but is it possible to know how good the internal wiring is in your speakers/amps?

 

[Inter_Voice]

It is nice to hear that you can hear a difference between a cheap and more expensive cables.

The rule of thumb is that don't spend more than 10% of your money on cables and interconnects against the cost of your hifi system. (but don't ask me the origin of this rule of thumb as I have no idea )

 

[Anonymous]

I would suggest that you stop spending more on your system when you stop hearing any improvement......

Or is it not that simple ?

 

[CnoEvil]

I would suggest that you stop spending more on your system when you stop hearing any improvement......

Or is it not that simple ?

That's far too sensible and logical..........where would the fun be in that

 

[idc]

Hi running123. Please detail how you did the blind test. It is rare to say the least to find someone who has passed one that has been properly conducted.

 

[Anonymous]

Some people are willing to spend £2k on a meter of speaker cable. Others will be happy with a coathanger. If you can hear the difference between higher bitrates of music, then you will probably benefit from better cabling. Otherwise you will probably get more benefit from upgrading your components instead.

(Just my $0.02)

 

[Anonymous]

Hi running123. Please detail how you did the blind test. It is rare to say the least to find someone who has passed one that has been properly conducted.

connected the old cable to one speaker and the other cable to the other speaker, moved the balance control for left to right and got my dad to say which sounded better (while blindfolded), he got the right one every time...and his hearing has seen better days), i didnt do the blind test myself but the difference was so great i didnt really feel the need.

I can also hear the difference between flac and 320mp3 about 8or9/10, do a blind test on wmp with someone else choosing the version of the same song. Interesting to note y dad could tell the difference between lose yourself by eminem in mp3 an lossless every time but preferred the mp3. (This was on lower bitrates, couldnt tell when it was above 192kbps).

 

[basshead]

hi running 123....

out of curiosity, what did the system sound like when the balance was in the middle? both speakers on but different cables. would the different sounds of the cables effect the overall sound? just curious

cheers

 

[Anonymous]

hi running 123....

out of curiosity, what did the system sound like when the balance was in the middle? both speakers on but different cables. would the different sounds of the cables effect the overall sound? just curious

The left side just sounded a lot clearer than the right side, a bit like the right side was playing through a sock. Sounded better than when both were on the same cable. Can't really remember any differences in overall sound, just sounded like two different speakers were playing...

cheers

 

[idc]

Please do the blind test again using ABX. There is an obvious clue in your test. Play a track with the new cable and then with the old, connected to both speakers. Do not say which one is which. Then randomly swap beteen cables about 10 times minumum and your father has to identify whether the new or old cable is being played.

If there is a volume difference between the cables, that should be evened out, or again there is too big a clue as to which is which.

 

[Anonymous]

Please do the blind test again using ABX. There is an obvious clue in your test. Play a track with the new cable and then with the old, connected to both speakers. Do not say which one is which. Then randomly swap beteen cables about 10 times minumum and your father has to identify whether the new or old cable is being played.

If there is a volume difference between the cables, that should be evened out, or again there is too big a clue as to which is which.

the difference was so big i dont think ill bother, it was day and night, there was no difference in the loudness it did occour to me, voice coil slapping with both cables with amp on reference volume and a 10hz tone on laptop on -4.35 for the new cable and -4.27 for the old one (same speaker).

as regards the phono cable 5/6 people at uni could tell the difference, and guessed which was the 1.50, 3 and £20 cable all correct, the other guy thought it was the same cable 3 times but he's a bit deaf.

maybe the difference was soo great becasue the other cable was shocking.

 

[idc]

Night and day, bah! So many say that and fail. I am getting the bits to make my own cable and do a blind test.

 

[Anonymous]

Night and day, bah! So many say that and fail. I am getting the bits to make my own cable and do a blind test.

Thats great but i didnt fail. The speaker with the new cable sounded better and 3/3 people who i checked with, who couldn't see which was which said it sounded clearer.

As regards the phono cable I did a blind test with friends and 5/6 people guessed correct.

 

[idc]

How did you do the phono cable test?

 

[Anonymous]

idc why bother? I have cables worth £200 for the interconnects to double that for the speakers. I've tried three figure cost wise cables for interconnects, and my conclusion is that, if there is a difference, it is so small I'd need to see tech tests to confirm.

People hear night and day differences. Fine. You will never, ever convince them that there is no difference, because, to their ears, there is. When recent threads prove that faith beat science in every way, what else is there to say?

As I've said often, cables can be made that will sound different. The disappointing thing is that most do not. OFC vs silver? They'll sound the same. What will make a difference is manufacturers deliberately adjusting capacitance and resistance or adding some sort of filtration. Even then, with cables in length on average less than 3 m, the odds of an audible difference are minimal.

The thing that reallly puzzles me is that I would have thought the aim was to make cables that are entirely neutral, as in have zero impact on the sound. The error seems to me in thinking that cables are tone controls, because they are manifestly not.

I'm out of the cable debate now. Caveat emptor.

 

[noogle]

+1

 

[Frank Harvey]

Maybe people can answer the questions in the OP's last paragraph, rather than questioning his sanity.

 

[jaxwired]

I don't know why I have to keep telling you people...when it comes to cables, there IS a hard and fast rule: anybody that spends more than me is a sucker being duped by hucksters, anyone that spends less is a rube foolishly missing out on their systems best performance (might as well put a pillow over your speakers).

 

[Anonymous]

Im not here to debate my sanity, the phono blind test was done by swapping the cables while people were blindfolded and people had to say which was the most, middle and least expensive one. 5/6 got the order correct on all three. Statistially that result is significant and there is less than a 5% probablity the results are due to chance. The person who could not tell is a dj and is half deaf anyway.

Maybe there are no differences between mid or high end cables costing say £500 and £2000 per metre (I would suspect in almost all systems there are not due to the quality of the internal cabling used in the speaker), all I know is the extremely budget cable I upgraded to for a whopping £12 for 4 meters made a big difference over the old one. I have no idea how old the old cable was or how much it cost as I got it free with the speakers, I suspect it was over 10 years old. There was even a differrence in the colour of the copper wire, the old cable was noticably duller.

As regards the phono cable the qed performance cost me £10 so in total less than 10% of the system cost went on cables.

The rca to rca I use for the sub was £2, couldnt tell the difference between a £20 one and a £2 one. Its only on when the musics on REALLY loud anyway and it only plays below 55hz.

If you choose to doubht that cables made a difference in my system then I would question your sanity given that there is <0.5% chance that cables did not improve the sound of the speakers (when combining the two results).

 

[Anonymous]

And for the record I'm not making these probabilities up, im doing a science degree at a russel group university.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not trying to come down on one side of the fence or the other (in the overall scheme of things) but could it be that the genuine differences being heard were not so much to do with the inherent properties of the respective cables, but because the ten year old, discoloured cables were suffering from (say) oxidation, and this was affecting the quality of the connection and therefore signal? In other words, maybe the old cable cleaned up could also have produced real, audible differences?

You seem perfectly sane to me.

 

[eggontoast]

My question is how do you know how much to spend on cables to get the most out of your system?

While I remain sceptical about your results as I think this would be the first blind test which has resulted in a conclusion such as yours

The answer to your question is simple, keep spending until you can hear no difference.

 

[Alec]

Another cable thread! Joy unconfined!!!

 

[the record spot]

My question is how do you know how much to spend on cables to get the most out of your system? Would further upgrades yield further improvements? And at what point do upgrades become pointless. At a guess I'd say the point at which the internal wiring is as good as the external wiring but is it possible to know how good the internal wiring is in your speakers/amps?

To give my answer on your questions in order they are asked:-

1) How do you know? It depends on your belief as to what level of efficacy they have on your equipment and at what point the audible level threshold is reached. You either believe or not and thereafter apply the amounts you think are appropriate.

2) Would further upgrades yield further improvements - it depends, if you are thinking about spending A LOT, then you would be better to change the component than the cable. There's a limit to what one bit of copper in a nice shiny casing will do over another.

3) Cable upgrades? I'd say they become pointless when you're spending more than you need to when they've done their job of carrying a signal between two components for the distance you need the cable to reach.

Others will differ and I based my conclusions on several years trying out different cables on different systems, only to discover that the £8 cables made no difference from the £85 DNM Reson Bullets or the £70 Audioquest Copperheads.

 

[Anonymous]

In other words, maybe the old cable cleaned up could also have produced real, audible differences?

You seem perfectly sane to me.

This occoured to me, I made a new end from previously unexposed wire, which sounded better, but still, the blind test was done with the newly exposed wire, the colour was still not as bright as the qed cable. even in the middle the copper was not as bright.