Speaker Wire - Does it effect the sound quality??

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Crossie

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Oh I see what you are on about now - Spellings . I thought we were talking about speaker cables and electrical properties, silly me. I'm out of this thread.
 

dmclane101

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Electrical signals which travel at approximately 186,000 miles per second simply aren't affected by the very low freqencies of sound. Anyone imagining real difference in sound is playing unconscious mental games. I'm very clear for myself that sometimes a piece of music may sound wonderful played on a crappy system one day and sound lousy the next on an audiophile unit. Somedays I'm just too tired to care about anything but background music; other times Deutsche Requiem requires the max euipment and adjustment. I really think the way we experience sound is rather irratic; subject to mood and a desire to refine judgements that sometimes are simply imaginary
 

Frank Harvey

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Those that 'know' that cables make no difference at all - how did you come to this conclusion? Did you try loads and loads of cables, not hear a difference, then come to that conclusion? Then read up some scientific statements online that back up what you found? Or did you read up online of some scientific statements stating there's no differences, then try some cables and not hear a difference? Just curious, as the latter is open to 'expectation bias'...
 
T

the record spot

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Tried loads. Got pissed off after one review stated that the dynamics of one cable would transform my system. It didn't. Probably been through about ten or so interconnects. Three sets of speaker cable. I've had a bigger change in sound by moving the speakers around a bit by comparison. Compared to the very minor differences in cables, I know what I do first if I need to tweak.

The science stuff came later. Roger Russell, the St. Andrews university paper, etc, etc.

Incidentally, I haven't said that cables 'make no difference at all', just that any differences are minor compared to more noticeable changes elsewhere.
 

JamesMellor

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David@FrankHarvey said:
Those that 'know' that cables make no difference at all - how did you come to this conclusion? Did you try loads and loads of cables, not hear a difference, then come to that conclusion? Then read up some scientific statements online that back up what you found? Or did you read up online of some scientific statements stating there's no differences, then try some cables and not hear a difference? Just curious, as the latter is open to 'expectation bias'...

Sorry David , but I think the paper proves why there is a difference and explains it as fact , in speaker cables
 

The_Lhc

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JamesMellor said:
David@FrankHarvey said:
Those that 'know' that cables make no difference at all - how did you come to this conclusion? Did you try loads and loads of cables, not hear a difference, then come to that conclusion? Then read up some scientific statements online that back up what you found? Or did you read up online of some scientific statements stating there's no differences, then try some cables and not hear a difference? Just curious, as the latter is open to 'expectation bias'...

Sorry David , but I think the paper proves why there is a difference and explains it as fact , in speaker cables

I don't think David is disagreeing with you.
 

dmclane101

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I believe it's a simple, true statement that cables of sufficient guage are rarely if ever going to be the weak part of the system. The challenge is most severely on loud speaker systems (an old audiophile dictum, I suppose) that being what makes the transition from electricity to sound; what gets the sound out where it will be experienced in the real world.Electronics are so advanced today that practically any well engineered amp should be able to deliver pretty close to perfect input output accuracy.

Speaker design is where the engineering art really comes in. There's really nothing particularly special about a piece of wire except at much higher frequencies. Even broadband DSL which can pass around 10Mbs is often run on nothing more than 27# or so solid copper.

I honestly think that people just insist that if they spent a fair amount on equipment that somehow the cable's gotta' cost a lot. People magically think money = quality across the board.
 

chrissasfre

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:rockout: with wireless speakers it is a proven fact that if you hang a piece of anti static wool cord( it must be red) 2mm thick from the ceiling to the centre of the speaker it will be a huge improvement in the midrange. if not you must pull the cord in line with the woofer to improve bass and the same for the treble reducing the cable length and I have seen an improvement connecting a Christmas decoration to the end of the said string -----but be careful of playful cats and kids
 

andyjm

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Good grief, things must be desperate around here if we are having to resuscitate a 1 year old thread on speaker cables.

Dissapointing to see that the same old "yes they do, no they don't" is still going on. Still, just in the spirit of Christmas, the engineering answer:

Yes they do - of course speaker wires of different thickness and resistance can impact sound quality.

No they can't - speaker wires of generally the same thickness and construction will be indistinguishable from each other.

There, got it all covered. Now back to the turkey sandwiches.
 

The_Lhc

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chrissasfre said:
:rockout: with wireless speakers it is a proven fact that if you hang a piece of anti static wool cord( it must be red) 2mm thick from the ceiling to the centre of the speaker it will be a huge improvement in the midrange. if not you must pull the cord in line with the woofer to improve bass and the same for the treble reducing the cable length and I have seen an improvement connecting a Christmas decoration to the end of the said string -----but be careful of playful cats and kids

You see, these are the posts I hate in threads like this, if that's supposed to be funny it didn't work, it NEVER works, neither do any of those tedious posts like "If you change the power lead on your toaster the toast will be a deeper shade of brown" and rubbish like that, it just ISN'T FUNNY.
 

namefail

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The_Lhc said:
chrissasfre said:
:rockout: with wireless speakers it is a proven fact that if you hang a piece of anti static wool cord( it must be red) 2mm thick from the ceiling to the centre of the speaker it will be a huge improvement in the midrange. if not you must pull the cord in line with the woofer to improve bass and the same for the treble reducing the cable length and I have seen an improvement connecting a Christmas decoration to the end of the said string -----but be careful of playful cats and kids

You see, these are the posts I hate in threads like this, if that's supposed to be funny it didn't work, it NEVER works, neither do any of those tedious posts like "If you change the power lead on your toaster the toast will be a deeper shade of brown" and rubbish like that, it just ISN'T FUNNY.

The underscore Lhc thanks for today’s dose of dull, also the same effect can be had by leaving the bread in a little longer. And when does bread become toast? Can anyone help in designing a quantum theory similar to but not too alike to Schrödinger's Cat we could call it Hiwapha's Bread.

chrissasfre said:
you must pull the cord

Advise I shall take to me grave. :thumbs:
 

pauln

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The_Lhc said:
chrissasfre said:
:rockout: with wireless speakers it is a proven fact that if you hang a piece of anti static wool cord( it must be red) 2mm thick from the ceiling to the centre of the speaker it will be a huge improvement in the midrange. if not you must pull the cord in line with the woofer to improve bass and the same for the treble reducing the cable length and I have seen an improvement connecting a Christmas decoration to the end of the said string -----but be careful of playful cats and kids

You see, these are the posts I hate in threads like this, if that's supposed to be funny it didn't work, it NEVER works, neither do any of those tedious posts like "If you change the power lead on your toaster the toast will be a deeper shade of brown" and rubbish like that, it just ISN'T FUNNY.

That's a matter of opinion surely?

Seems to have touched a nerve though, you certainly bit hard. lol.
 

ursus999

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i have been conducting my own survey on the subject to try & decide who is right.on one hand you have the school who say they all sound the same,& the others who say there is a difference. i therefore bought in 12 of the most popular cables ranging from cheap to expensive. as i am elderly with more money than sense i acquired the services of 4 young local musicians as judges. the cables were used singularly, bi wired , & passive bi amped. the conclusion after several days of listening was that both sides were right. all the cables that used plain copper were almost impossible to tell apart. the silver plated ones were brighter & more forward in sound. the voting at the end was inclined towards chord rumour2, followed by kimber 8tc. , no one could hear any difference between chord silver plus & qed silver anniversary. it was interesting to note nordost blue heaven & red dawn came low down in preference.no difference was noted by bi wiring or amping.i am not using any of these cables, if you put "ETFE INSULATED WIRE 16AWG BLUE - STRANDED SILVER PLATED COPPER" on ebay this wire with the ends twisted together outshone them all. my system used was sony790 blue ray ethernet connected to my computer , arcm avr 360 into linn majik speakers. all testing was carried out using front two speakers only in stereo direct mode. hope i havent bored you with this .
 
yes. it does.

and so does a ton of other stuff too.

if you were to change a wooden floor for carpet, i know that would make a bigger difference to the sound than the cable.

but carpet shops don't sell carpet with acoustics in mind, so we buy speaker cable.

smiley-tongue-out.gif
 

Gazzip

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ursus999 said:
having spent 2 days reading speaker blind tests i think the true definition of "AUDIOPHILE" should be "IDIOT"

Having spent 30 seconds mulling over your statement I can only conclude that you are single.

2 days dude? Get a life... *lol*
 

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