Are High-End Cables a Scam?

[Scott Borduin]

This was an audiophile DIY mod some decades ago : removing the passive crossover from the speakers and putting it close to the amplifier using almost no wire, using long wires between the units and the crossover. It seems there was some truth in it ...

This would make quite a bit of sense, actually. Since the plausible non-linearities introduced by cables are primary related to interactions with reactive impedance, and since the crossover is a prime source of reactive impedance in a speaker, shortening the distance between amp and crossover would logically reduce any non-linearity. Any interesting electrical properties a cable has automatically get less interesting as the cable gets shorter Except, of course, in the case of cables which use "network" boxes ...

 

[FrantzM]

Tomelex

I am today of the opinion that once cables are electrically (and mechanically) adequate they sound the same. he purpose of my reply is not to state my position on the cables issue but to address some points I find salient in your reply. Allow me to quote, emphasis is mine:

I have conducted my own tests, with quality full range digital voltmeters and have observed the difference in frequency response at the amp output terminals and at the speaker input terminals, and in my case differences of up to 0.5 db could be seen with test tones.

the most important adverb here is "up" .. I could and would infer that the differences were smaller than that .. Can a person with good hearing reliably perceive 0.5 dB? I would think not.

It is indeed possible to build a cable that sounds very different .. A network will help in doing that and even there, frequency response variations may need to be much more than 0.5 dB; whether such constructs are accurate is not even debatable ... Some may prefer it and that is their right and prerogatives .. It remains however that the prices that are currently charged for some of these (after all crude) EQ components would (and do) place them in the category of scam for the vast majority of the planet population .... except for us, the audiophiles... An interesting category of people who find ways and all kind of rationale to help unethical manufacturers part them with their hard earned money

 

[RUR]

Can a person with good hearing reliably perceive 0.5 dB? I would think not.

Frantz, I think you'd be surprised at how easily even smaller differences can be heard, depending upon the bandwidth of the difference. With the TacT, I can and do make adjustements of as little as 0.1dB. If the bandwidth is wide enough e.g. I insert a 0.1dB increase over a "bump" 100 Hz wide, it can be pretty obvious.

Having said all this, using cables as, essentially, tone controls seems to me spectacularly inefficient.

 

[FrantzM]

RUR

I should have Tomelex also about the frequencies at which the differences manifest themselves... I remain however skeptical that a 0.1 dB correction is reliably audible ...
I hate to introduce the notion of "blind" thus preferring to use the euphemism "Knowledge removed" ... If you know you are making the correction then you are prepared to perceive and likely would "perceive" something... Remove the knowledge and I am close to certain that 0.1 dB is not audible ... neither would 0.5 dB

I have however witnessed 1.0 dB on a TacT and did notice it with knowledge removed .. so I know 1.0 dB is audible but 0.1 dB? .. unlikely ... We are in agreement with using cables as tone control by the way ... especially at the price we know (now there is a $40,000 one)

 

[RUR]

Understood, Frantz, and I'm certainly not doing it blind so all biases are in play. Perhaps Marty has done this blind.


Ken

 

[Speedskater]

This would make quite a bit of sense, actually. Since the plausible non-linearities introduced by cables are primary related to interactions with reactive impedance, and since the crossover is a prime source of reactive impedance in a speaker, shortening the distance between amp and crossover would logically reduce any non-linearity. Any interesting electrical properties a cable has automatically get less interesting as the cable gets shorter Except, of course, in the case of cables which use "network" boxes ...

None if the differences either heard or measured in cables can be considered "non-linearities". Nothing in a cable could cause "non-linearities". Any and all differences and/or errors in cables are linear.

 

[microstrip]

It is indeed possible to build a cable that sounds very different .. A network will help in doing that and even there, frequency response variations may need to be much more than 0.5 dB; whether such constructs are accurate is not even debatable ... Some may prefer it and that is their right and prerogatives .. It remains however that the prices that are currently charged for some of these (after all crude) EQ components would (and do) place them in the category of scam for the vast majority of the planet population .... except for us, the audiophiles... An interesting category of people who find ways and all kind of rationale to help unethical manufacturers part them with their hard earned money

FrantzM,

All the network cables I have listened only introduce frequency variations at frequencies much higher than 100 kHz - and yet they sound quite different.

I have had the pleasure of listening to Kimber Select , Nordost Valhalla, Transparent Opus MM2 and Shunyata Antares cables in my system. I even had the visit of two non audiophiles friends - that usually come to listen to music or to go to concerts, not hifi, and they were astonished with the differences, affecting even the level of perception of the interpretation of the scores. The tests were informal, and the results were system dependent, but one think was clear - they sounded different. None of them introduced appreciable frequencies responses in my system, measured with an RTA based on an EMU tracker 24 bits adc.

BTW, I hope that your last sentence does not apply to me, my audiophile friends or the manufacturers I listed, as well as those who participate in this forum

 

[Scott Borduin]

None if the differences either heard or measured in cables can be considered "non-linearities". Nothing in a cable could cause "non-linearities". Any and all differences and/or errors in cables are linear.

Well, I'm 30 years removed from my basic electronics classes in engineering school, so maybe describing those errors as non-linear is not exactly correct. Then again, if I believe wikipedia, maybe it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLC_circuit. You will agree that cables have resistance, inductance, and capacitance themselves, and that they are part of a circuit containing other RLC elements (loudspeakers, in particular)? And that they are required to pass signals that vary in amplitude and frequency through time? Is this statement from the wikipedia link then not true for cables?

The RLC filter is described as a second-order circuit, meaning that any voltage or current in the circuit can be described by a second-order differential equation in circuit analysis.

 

[FrantzM]

Microstrip

I try to shy away from debates about cables for simple civility purposes.. The thread title however invites one to post his/her opinion so I will try ... The experiences you have had is very similar to those I have had with very high end cables... Non Audiophile friends were also astonished ... by the perceived differences when I changed cables as well... Under their full knowledge .. I finally settled on Nordost many years ago and was satisfied ...

Fast forward about three years ago. I read a report on a Cable testing conducted with an uber-system.. In this report the subject was unable to recognize his own cables .. I tried the same and ..low and behold .. I wasn't able to differentiate between my previous reference ... once knowledge was removed ... and a 6 AWG cable .. by the way I am settling on thick cables they look good and everything is very low (R, L, C and arguably cost another "C") so ....

After more than 40 years in Audio ( I have been in it since I was a teen-ager) I would say that I can hear and I have trained myself somewhat to hear differences and I do hear differences ...

It is very painful for anyone to shed some previously (and ferociously , I must add) held conceptions but faced with my (and that of other audiophiles and non-audiophiles) inability to recognize my own cables, those that I chose over others and paid quite dearly for .. I changed my stance and it was almost painful, humbling if not outright humiliating ...

Thus my present position on these differences and their perception ... I have no doubt that there could be electrical differences ... whether they are perceptible is another matter ....once the cables are of electrical and mechanical adequacy ...

Now if you allow me ( too late I already did ) to paste a web definition of scam: victimize: deprive of by deceit The steadily increase of the price of audiophile cables whose claims are not apparently verifiable by blind testing point toward such dubious qualification .. I think the latest entry is $40,000... Will we finally see a $100,000 cable as I have speculated in another thread (or was it this one?) ? Don't hold your breath too long ... it will happen ...

 

[Speedskater]

Well, I'm 30 years removed from my basic electronics classes in engineering school, so maybe describing those errors as non-linear is not exactly correct. Then again, if I believe wikipedia, maybe it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLC_circuit. You will agree that cables have resistance, inductance, and capacitance themselves, and that they are part of a circuit containing other RLC elements (loudspeakers, in particular)? And that they are required to pass signals that vary in amplitude and frequency through time? Is this statement from the wikipedia link then not true for cables?

While your link is to a description of an oscillator circuit, it is still a linear circuit. Many cables (think CAT5 and co-ax) operate at extremely high frequencies so in any case oscillation is not a factor.

All the possible errors caused by factors like Resistance, Capacitance, Inductance, Skin Effect, Dielectric Absorption and so forth are linear errors.

 

[microstrip]

(...)

Fast forward about three years ago. I read a report on a Cable testing conducted with an uber-system.. In this report the subject was unable to recognize his own cables .. I tried the same and ..low and behold .. I wasn't able to differentiate between my previous reference ... once knowledge was removed ... and a 6 AWG cable .. by the way I am settling on thick cables they look good and everything is very low (R, L, C and arguably cost another "C") so ....

FrantzM,

I have some doubts about DBTs on short term to access sound quality. I have tried a few blind tests using an hazardous relay system controlled by a computer and found that if the test is carried with a music I selected to enhance the difference in my system I am easily successful , but using an unknown music I fail most of the time. Usually only after a few weeks I am able to have an opinion about equipment.

I would suggest you try an experiment - make a DBT with your cables versus 9 AWG ones. If you do not distinguish, compare the 9 with 12 , and so on until you hear a difference. Please tell us where you heard difference.

When I have the time I will set an experiment - I have some meters of rusti AWG 4 iron wire . I will clean the extremities to bright metal and compare them with AWG 12 copper - same resistance. Do you think it will sound the same?

 

[DonH50]

DA does cause distortion...
Cables are best represented by a distributed RLCG model...
I would guess the copper and iron will sound the same...

 

[mep]

I would guess the copper and iron will sound the same...

Really Don?

 

[DonH50]

Yeah... Of course I don't know the rest of the system. I have heard differences among cables (speaker and interconnect), but it's very dependent upon the system and the cables. It is much easier to measure than to hear, IME.

I did participate in some speaker cable testing some time ago so I know some of the answers from that experiment (which involved a variety of amps and speakers, and numerous listeners over about a three-week period). I'll refrain until others have a chance to address microstrip's challenge.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I have no doubt DBT is a complicated endeavor ... I have never performed a DBT but I have performed Blind tests and the results in cables, especially speaker cables are sobering...

To answer Don ... I do not consider Microstrip last post as a challenge ... I have done enough of the blind tests to be convinced that differences between cables are minute enough to be deemed insignificant ... If Microstrip find the differences between cables great enough to warrant the price some are priced at fine .. More power to the cable manufacturers and to him for enjoying these ...

I remain somewhat amused by how much digging goes through for the search for differences when it comes to cables ... The spectrum of attitudes displayed is wide : From the invalidity of DBT to complete rejection of Science ... Most of the same people who profess to trust our ears but not science, would gladly admit that our eyes can be fooled, that our senses can be fooled ... Yet when comes the time from the very same people to consider the same fore tier ears .. then the doors slams shut, the foot comes down .. NO!! Our ears can't be fooled ... One can only smile at such act of faith, since it is certainly not a matter of Life and Death ... People are entitle to their opinions .. It becomes a different matter when these opinions are presented as facts ...

 

[JackD201]

Yes Frantz, you are absolutely right. It's not a matter of life and death. It's also up to the individual to accept or reject any opinion presented as facts.

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

I have a short cable story. Today I replaced some cheap RCA interconnects between my Oppo BDP-83 and my switcher and Carver C4000 preamplifier, with Monoprice cables which are about as thick as battery jumper cables.
My intent was to eek out a little more noise floor. Wow! Was I surprised. Hum and hash went down at least 10dB! This is only evident when listening to ultra high dynamic range material, like my ULTIMATE FIREWORKS Blu-ray disc, which has more than 85dB of dynamic range. When setting the levels for the ambient levels to be live, normally there would be a lot of hum and commutation noise evident with the volume cranked that high. With the Monoprice cables in there, the hum was barely audible, revealing just the hiss of the Oppo's analog output stages. The overall noise level was so drastically reduced that the fireworks video is now very listenable due to the absense of distracting noise.
The Monoprice cables have such a heavy shield that the resistance is very low. Also the gold plated connectors make a very tight fit, further ensuring low resistance ground return connections.
I'm not sure that I'll hear any difference with normal musical material, but the lowered noise floor is just dandy!

 

[Gregadd]

My mom refuses to take genric medicine. She swears she can tell the difference.

 

[FrantzM]

My mom refuses to take genric medicine. She swears she can tell the difference.

 

[mep]

My mom refuses to take genric medicine. She swears she can tell the difference.

I had a doctor that refused to write prescriptions for generic medicines because he swore they were never good as the name brand medicine.