Honestly, do you think Interconnects and Cables make a difference?

[MattSPL]

FrankHarveyHiFi:

To be fair though, once you're talking about cable that's 3 figures per metre, the aw of diminishing returns would've kicked in long ago, making the differences between them subtle. This where trained ears and a revealing system play their part. It is quite easy to buy cables that are too expensive for a system, which renders their benefits null and void, and also reveal weaknesses in the electronics.

I did hear a 6keuro primare/system audio setup at a show before with 10keuro worth of Nordost cables and it sounded amazing

 

[Anonymous]

FrankHarveyHiFi:

To be fair though, once you're talking about cable that's 3 figures per metre, the aw of diminishing returns would've kicked in long ago, making the differences between them subtle. This where trained ears and a revealing system play their part. It is quite easy to buy cables that are too expensive for a system, which renders their benefits null and void, and also reveal weaknesses in the electronics.

The thing is I do not see why the subtle and not so subtle improvements claimed for different cables should not be readily measurable and quantifiable. If they work it should be established fact not rely on trained ears or belief. Music can be measured, that is why it can be recorded. Hifis play the recording and their results can in turn be recorded. You can then compare a theoretically perfect playback with what the hifi actually produced. The recording and comparison to ideal perfect performance can be done at the cd output, at the amp output, at the speaker output. Any distortion added by the hifi can also be recorded and compared between cables, and sensors are a lot more sensitive than human hearing for doing the what it actually sounds like comparison which is the most important. I do not understand why any differences made by cables could not be easily proven.

If difference between cables are measurable they exist, if psycho acoustics says the differences are so small as to be inaudible the argument then shifts to who takes part in double blind tests to attempt to prove they are audible. When they are proven to be audible then many more people will buy hi-end cables, and manufactures of components may even package their products with these hi-end cables rather than lower quality ones that have been established to lower performance.

If these differences are unmeasurable, but people claim they are perceivable, then again they need double blind tests to prove it. If proved. These unmeasurable differences would have to be a form of distortion, as they could not be measured and so could not have been recorded on the source. If this distortion actually makes the hifi sound better, then ideally you want to end up with a means of recording it. If this distortion makes the hifi sound worse, you want to end up with a way of easily measuring it so it can be identified and eliminated.

At the very least being able to measure the effects would enable some cable manufactures to better design cables and have a better understanding of how they work. Rather than saying things like in theory it de-stresses the cable and relying on trained ears to gauge if a process like dct gives a worthwhile improvement.

 

[Craig M.]

knightout, i agree with what you're saying - it should be measurable. even when i brought an interconnect home from my local hifi shop it was more with the intention of proving to myself that they made no difference, but after changing them about i had to conclude that while slight, there was a difference. you can try to reason it out all you like, logic seems to have flown out the window here. best bet is just be happy with what you have and give up trying to figure it out.

 

[Anonymous]

igglebert:Ollie.:
ahhh, so you express respect by telling people they should grow up. brilliant.

Sorry I offended you igglebert. If you want to continue buying expensive cables, then go ahead. I'll let you in a little secret though - it makes no difference. Trust me..

Cheers but you didn't offend me. I've spent an average of £60 on each of my four interconnects in my system. I spent £90 on 2x 6m of Chord Odyssey 2 delivered. I got a free Chord mains cable with a What Hifi subscription which in itself was only £20, and I spent another £50 on mains stuff as an experiment.

A total of less than £400 to do everything isn't so bad as it's all decent quality. Every change has made a difference. Other tweaks have simply changed the sound and not improved it so they went.

Sorry Igglebert that reply was meant for someone else. I don't want to come accross as aggressive at all, but I believe the manufacturers are telling us a load of lies. This article on speaker wire is interesting..

This article on speaker wire is also a breach of copyright - REMOVED BY MODS

 

[Anonymous]

That is over 10 years ago, there are research papers printed by the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, for example AES E-Library paper Number: 6858 Audio Cable Distortion is Not a Myth! which covers speaker cables. My google fu fails me as I can not now find a copy that is free to read.

The following links may also be of interest to you.

http://www.bruce.coppola.name/audio/cableInteractions.pdf

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#introduction

 

[Anonymous]

OK then Ollie, let us know where you live (I aint travelling to the outer Hebrides) and how the show down would be run and we can get it organised. I assume you're happy with me using the cables of my choice since they all sound the same, right?

 

[Craig M.]

that article just seems to reinforce that there is no "right or wrong" when it comes to cables.

one thing i will agree with you, is that the expensive ones are poor value, esp. when compared to spending that money on better speakers. i don't think reviews always help matters either, by describing differences as "night and day", when in reality it's much more subtle, and to some people probably not worth bothering with. i think also, you have to bear in mind not everyones hearing is the same. i saw a program about the violinist vanessa mae, she thought the reason she was so good at playing the violin was because she "felt the emotion" of the music more, but after testing her hearing, it turned out she could distinguish much smaller differences in pitch etc. then the average person. i should point out, i make no such claims about my own hearing.

i'm still to be convinced by mains cables, but i try to retain an open mind on such things as my own experience is hardly exhaustive.

 

[Anonymous]

Cidershed:OK then Ollie, let us know where you live (I aint travelling to the outer Hebrides) and how the show down would be run and we can get it organised. I assume you're happy with me using the cables of my choice since they all sound the same, right?

I'm in Ireland.

So you don't fancy a holiday so?

It's amazing Polk Audio declined to set up a listening test in their labs, citing the reason as it could affect their relationships with audio stores. Why were they so afraid? Companies don't seem to have a problem with people testing speakers and amps though. Why cables?

 

[MattSPL]

Ollie.:

Cidershed:OK then Ollie, let us know where you live (I aint travelling to the outer Hebrides) and how the show down would be run and we can get it organised. I assume you're happy with me using the cables of my choice since they all sound the same, right?

I'm in Ireland.

So you don't fancy a holiday so?

It's amazing Polk Audio declined to set up a listening test in their labs, citing the reason as it could affect their relationships with audio stores. Why were they so afraid? Companies don't seem to have a problem with people testing speakers and amps though. Why cables?

Where abouts in Ireland are you? Im in Ireland too.

 

[Anonymous]

MattSPL:Ollie.:

Cidershed:OK then Ollie, let us know where you live (I aint travelling to the outer Hebrides) and how the show down would be run and we can get it organised. I assume you're happy with me using the cables of my choice since they all sound the same, right?

I'm in Ireland.

So you don't fancy a holiday so?

It's amazing Polk Audio declined to set up a listening test in their labs, citing the reason as it could affect their relationships with audio stores. Why were they so afraid? Companies don't seem to have a problem with people testing speakers and amps though. Why cables?

Where abouts in Ireland are you? Im in Ireland too.

Cork. Where are you? This could be interesting indeed..

 

[MattSPL]

Ollie.:MattSPL:Ollie.:

Cidershed:OK then Ollie, let us know where you live (I aint travelling to the outer Hebrides) and how the show down would be run and we can get it organised. I assume you're happy with me using the cables of my choice since they all sound the same, right?

I'm in Ireland.

So you don't fancy a holiday so?

It's amazing Polk Audio declined to set up a listening test in their labs, citing the reason as it could affect their relationships with audio stores. Why were they so afraid? Companies don't seem to have a problem with people testing speakers and amps though. Why cables?

Where abouts in Ireland are you? Im in Ireland too.

Cork. Where are you? This could be interesting indeed..

Im in Dublin, but dont fancy doin a cable test to be honest as from whats been said in this thread, nothing would get solved

 

[Frank Harvey]

knightout:The thing is I do not see why the subtle and not so subtle improvments claimed for different cables should not be readily measurable and quantifiable. If they work it should be established fact not rely on trained ears or belief. Music can be measured, thats why it can be recorded.

How would you go about measuring soundstage depth? Width? Ambience? And how natural an instrument sounds?

 

[Alec]

Ollie.:It's amazing Polk Audio declined to set up a listening test in their labs, citing the reason as it could affect their relationships with audio stores.

At least they were honest.

 

[Anonymous]

Doh! I ain't crossing the Irish Sea to part an Irishman with his resources. There's been enough grief caused from such behaviour in the past, lol. However, if you wanna visit Bristol to do the test on my system with my choice of cables, blind with a neutral person to oversee a fair contest, you're very welcome. I'll prove to you cables can be differentiated.

 

[MUSICRAFT]

FWIW

Speaker cable - at the moment i mostly use/stock/sell a generic cable at around £3/m.

Mains cables - at the moment all on our equipment is connected to the mains using the mains cables supplied with the components.

Mains extension blocks - at the moment all the mains blocks that i use are from Wilkinson stores around £5 each.

Interconnects - there are some cables that i can tell the difference and therefore i am happy to personally use them and also recommend them to my clients.

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft

 

[Anonymous]

I would agree that more expensive cabling is not necessarily better (synergy, personal taste etc), but different....definately.

 

[Anonymous]

I personally think that cables make a little difference but people tend to go way overboard in their description of the the differences.This just plays into the hands of non believers.Its the exact same with racks.

I think Joel once said in a thread that although the differences were small he was happy to spend for that small improvement.

To me that sums it up.

 

[Anonymous]

FrankHarveyHiFi:

knightout:The thing is I do not see why the subtle and not so subtle improvments claimed for different cables should not be readily measurable and quantifiable. If they work it should be established fact not rely on trained ears or belief. Music can be measured, thats why it can be recorded.

How would you go about measuring soundstage depth? Width? Ambience? And how natural an instrument sounds?

If you believe the effects were recorded in the first place, then comparison to the original recording shows how faithfully they have been reproduced. If you believe those effects are the product of or been enhanced by the hifi colouring the music then they can be measured by comparison to the original and to other cables. The effects might not be measurable at the cd output, the amplifier output or at the speaker, because they are partly dependent on speaker position and room acoustics. But for different cables to make a difference unmeasurable at the speaker but perceivable by the listener you would have to believe that the cable was having its effect after the speaker but before the listener by altering room acoustics, which would be odd.

Perception of sound stage depth, width, ambience are from what I gather dependent on positional cues like interaural time delay and interaural intensity difference, and the amount of direct sound and reflected sound you hear and the amount of reverberation, direction and frequency of and timing of reflected sound, etc.. Some of that information is recorded and can be checked for, but a lot is dependent on speaker colouration, speaker placement and room acoustics which should take effect irrespective of cables. How natural an instrument sounds is again going to be partly due to what been recorded. But since studio recorded music usually sounds bad in an acoustically dead room, it is again going to partly dependent of speaker colouration, speaker placement and room acoustics.

If you believe that changing cables dramatically effects room acoustics, so takes effect after the speaker but before the listener, you could added recording at the listening position for a/b comparisons between cables. Obviously you do not want to create a perfect reproduction at the listener position as acoustically dead rooms sound bad, so you can not compare the hifi at listening position with the recording and if the two are identical view it as a good thing, as it will not sound pleasant. You might also have to measure a lot more things like direction of sounds for a truly accurate comparison. It would be odd if cables made this claim, cables that improve sound merely by their presence in the room, no need to connect them to anything. But some hifi accessories do indeed make such claims like Brilliant Pebbles. Other products that may require the listener to wear them for best effect like the Van den Hull health ring room acoustic conditioner, maybe truly unprovable / disprovable by measurements and require double blind tests using a placebo copy.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello again,

I take you all back to my previous post about EARS.

Some sound engineers can hear what position bees are mating in from a mile away...............

Others don't notice if you approach them banging a pair of cymbals shouting more comprression please.

End of story.....................................................................

RIP Cable interconnect post

 

[Anonymous]

brittondave: Hello again,

I take you all back to my previous post about EARS.

Some sound engineers can hear what position bees are mating in from a mile away...............

Others don't notice if you approach them banging a pair of cymbals shouting more comprression please.

End of story.....................................................................

RIP Cable interconnect post

The sensitivity of the listeners ears vs sensors. The music was not recorded by the sound engineers ears. They used equipment. So any audible but unmeasurable sound must be noise not in the original recording. If you believe that sensors are less acute than human hearing, I think you are wrong. But it would be easily provable with double blind tests. If they can not hear the difference in controlled double blind tests then they are relying on something other than their ears.

As has been pointed out time and again people can not rely on their sense and the conclusions they draw as being correct, unless they can be validated. To believe the sound engineer can hear what position the bees are mating in from a mile away, I would not just take his word for it on faith, I would have to see the bees and be sure the sound engineer could not see the bees and had not been tipped off on purpose or accidentally by a third party about the bees activity, and that he could hear the bees repeatedly so it was not just coincidence. That is why people are called cable believers and cable skeptics.

 

[Anonymous]

on another forum, a well know UK retailer conducted a test with a few people off the street to determine if they could hear differences ...

it is against house rules to give a link of another forum here, but here is a copy & paste of the final verdict
It's also a breach of copyright to cut and paste great chunks of text from another forum - MODS

----------------------------

there are online hearing tests .... on the same forum where I pasted the above test, there is a test to check your hearing .... there are 12 tests which start from 8kHz to 22 kHz (increase by 2 kHz for each test)

I can only hear up to 12 kHz .... on the comments, some people (mainly youngsters) say they can hear up to 20 kHz ...

even though I can only hear up to 12 kHz, I do hear changes in speaker cable as mentioned on my previous post on this thread

 

[the record spot]

Young people would say this as typically, younger people do have better hearing, or rather more acute as it's not had a chance to be messed up by the natural ageing process, or industrial noise, etc, etc. I'd trust their take a lot of the time I think.

 

[Anonymous]

knightout:brittondave: Hello again,

I take you all back to my previous post about EARS.

Some sound engineers can hear what position bees are mating in from a mile away...............

Others don't notice if you approach them banging a pair of cymbals shouting more comprression please.

End of story.....................................................................

RIP Cable interconnect post

The sensitivity of the listeners ears vs sensors. The music was not recorded by the sound engineers ears. They used equipment. So any audible but unmeasureable sound must be noise not in the original recording. If you believe that sensors are less acute than human hearing, I think you are wrong. But it would be easily provable with double blind tests. If they can not hear the difference in controlled double blind tests then they are rellying on something other than their ears.

As has been pointed out time and again people can not rely on their sense and the conclusions they draw as being correct, unless they can be validated. To believe the sound engineer can hear what position the bees are mating in from a mile away, I would not just take his word for it on faith, I would have to see the bees and be sure the sound engineer could not see the bees and had not been tipped off on purpose or accidentally by a third party about the bees activity, and that he could hear the bees repeatedly so it was not just coincidence. Thats why people are called cable believers and cable skeptics.

Thats made me laugh lots........................................

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Craig M.:maybe try through some more revealing kit? i thought the same as you until recently, maybe you need to grow up and stop posting unnecessarily aggressive posts.

His kit is revealing enough. I don't think that the OP is doing anything more but incite a reaction and get a few people ruffled. If he thinks that interconnects and speaker cable make no difference, he's lucky. In my mind, I know that they do. Adding Chord Odyssey to my speakers lifted the level of quality obviously. And good balanced cables over budget RCAs like Crimson, Cobra 3 and VDH The Name showed a considerable improvement.

 

[Anonymous]

Gerrardasnails:Craig M.:maybe try through some more revealing kit? i thought the same as you until recently, maybe you need to grow up and stop posting unnecessarily aggressive posts.

His kit is revealing enough. I don't think that the OP is doing anything more but incite a reaction and get a few people ruffled. If he thinks that interconnects and speaker cable make no difference, he's lucky. In my mind, I know that they do. Adding Chord Odyssey to my speakers lifted the level of quality obviously. And good balanced cables over budget RCAs like Crimson, Cobra 3 and VDH The Name showed a considerable improvement.

That's not true at all. I just don't like it when manufacturers tell us a load of lies.. So you're on for the blind test so?