It can easily happen with very poor quality cables - the out-gassing of the synthetics of the insulator oxidize the surface of the copper wires to a point that its sound becomes horrible.
Cables and the Peter Principle
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It can easily happen with very poor quality cables - the out-gassing of the synthetics of the insulator oxidize the surface of the copper wires to a point that its sound becomes horrible.
Why would an oxidized surface make the sound horrible if there was no electrical junction at the oxidized part?
Tim,
Can you define what is "boutique wire" and nominate a few brands you consider that manufacture or sell "boutique wire" and those which are not? Perhaps your nice sounding adjectivization can create some bias in many naive readers, but audiophiles are immune to it.
BTW, no wise audiophile will tell you that a cable outperforms another one or brand X outperforms brand Z in absolute terms -but will tell you a cable in a defined system and room outperforms another one in his opinion. Surely others will agree or not.
For the purposes of this conversation? Anything from Monster up. They started the whole thing. They continue to be the volume leader. They aren't nearly exclusive enough or expensive enough for many, but they make a good cable. As long as it is no more expensive than a Belden or Radio shack of the same specs and build quality, it'll do. But I'll never give them any of my money because their business model is based on deceit.
Tim
I just went back and read the original post that started this thread and I found it to be well-written. Then of course the usual suspects piled on with the usual suspect arguments and completely derailed the train off of the tracks as they are wont to do. Maybe I could buy into the argument that cables are the icing on the cake with the exception of Spectral gear (and I detailed why Spectral is a special case in another thread). However, once you have baked a great cake, you can certainly detract from (if not ruin) the greatness of the cake if you frost it with some horrid icing. If you bake a terrible tasting cake, it doesn't really matter if you put a great frosting on it because your cake will suck so bad no one will want to eat it.
I previously stated in this thread why different wires can sound different with any given combination of components and it's based on electrical principals and not smoke and mirrors. Since no two wires are going to measure electrically the same and they will have differences in their impedance, capacitance, and inductance, how can anyone think that when these wires are attached to components which have different input and output impedances and are attached to speakers which are all different in their electrical behavior from one to another that they are going to sound the same? And no Tim, "tolerance" doesn't cut it. There is no such thing with audio gear. You are free to make your input and output impedance of your preamp and power amps whatever you want it to be. You are also free to make the nominal impedance of your speakers whatever you want them to be. There is no plus or minus tolerance that you must adhere by.
We might as well argue that all hamburgers taste the same because they all come from cows and beef is beef and how you cook and season the hamburgers has no impact on how they taste and if I give you a double-blind test you couldn't tell a White Castle hamburger from a Five Guys burger. And hell, maybe you couldn't taste any difference because your taste buds are shot just like your ears are.
Until someone can prove to me that all wires of a given gauge have identical resistance, impedance, and capacitance, I'm not buying into the theory that all wires sound exactly the same with components. You mileage and hamburgers may or may not vary (YMAHMOMNV).
I previously stated in this thread why different wires can sound different with any given combination of components and it's based on electrical principals and not smoke and mirrors. Since no two wires are going to measure electrically the same and they will have differences in their impedance, capacitance, and inductance, how can anyone think that when these wires are attached to components which have different input and output impedances and are attached to speakers which are all different in their electrical behavior from one to another that they are going to sound the same? And no Tim, "tolerance" doesn't cut it. There is no such thing with audio gear. You are free to make your input and output impedance of your preamp and power amps whatever you want it to be. You are also free to make the nominal impedance of your speakers whatever you want them to be. There is no plus or minus tolerance that you must adhere by.
We might as well argue that all hamburgers taste the same because they all come from cows and beef is beef and how you cook and season the hamburgers has no impact on how they taste and if I give you a double-blind test you couldn't tell a White Castle hamburger from a Five Guys burger. And hell, maybe you couldn't taste any difference because your taste buds are shot just like your ears are.
Until someone can prove to me that all wires of a given gauge have identical resistance, impedance, and capacitance, I'm not buying into the theory that all wires sound exactly the same with components. You mileage and hamburgers may or may not vary (YMAHMOMNV).
I'm not responding to any particular post but just sharing some experience. After shelling out some considrsable coin back in 1990 for some then new fangled cables and liking the improvement in my system with all the regular descriptors,I have formed some truths about them that work for me. I think some differences can be heard by the design of the shielding and how the shielding is grounded. I have tried some expensive cables and by comparison there is a difference in the noise floor of the system and also the size of the soundstage.both width and depth. It wasn't uncommon that inserting one different brand of cable would collapse the soundstage and reduce clarity. After living with a set of "core" cables from the same producer inserting a good shielded cable such as Gepco would not create any drop in the quality of the reproduction. So my conclusion is don't mix your core cables ie Amp,preamp,source or Dac. I do use Gepco on all my slave preamps and RTR's which is welcomed because those cables usually are more then 12 feet in length.
I'm beginning to wonder if there is a relationship to the type and value of one's system in both sound quality and price and the ability to hear differences between different cables. It seems that those who carp the loudest that there are no differences in cables either won't tell you what gear makes up their system, or their ears are shot at 13 Khz, and/or they don't really have much in the way of cables in their system in the first place and really would have no idea if cables could make a difference in their SQ.
I don't want to appear to pick on Tim, but I'm going to use Tim as an example. Tim has been very outspoken that competently designed cables won't make any difference in the SQ and it's all the work of fertile imaginations and expectation bias. Tim has a rather unique system in that it's 100% digital based with self-powered speakers with a built in DAC and it fits on top of his computer desk. Because of Tim's unique setup, he has no speaker cables. The only interconnect he has is the one that ties his Mac computer to his speakers' DAC input. I don't know how long it has been since Tim had a conventional stereo system, but it's apparent that with his current configuration that he is not in a position to judge whether or not cables could make a difference on a conventional high-resolution stereo system. It's hard to understand why someone who has no current relevant experience listening to different ICs and speaker cables would want to argue they possibly couldn't make a difference in your system unless they just love to argue.
One thing I will give Tim credit for is that he did tell everyone what gear makes up his system so that when he gives his perspective on SQ, we can have some understanding of what he is listening to. Some other people who love to carp on WBF choose not to tell you what gear comprises their system so you really have no idea what their experiences are and where they are coming from. Just as I am leery of people who sell expensive gear on Audiogon and they have no feedback, I'm leery of people who make absolute statements about what others can or can't hear when they won't share with us what they are listening to and through.
I don't want to appear to pick on Tim, but I'm going to use Tim as an example. Tim has been very outspoken that competently designed cables won't make any difference in the SQ and it's all the work of fertile imaginations and expectation bias. Tim has a rather unique system in that it's 100% digital based with self-powered speakers with a built in DAC and it fits on top of his computer desk. Because of Tim's unique setup, he has no speaker cables. The only interconnect he has is the one that ties his Mac computer to his speakers' DAC input. I don't know how long it has been since Tim had a conventional stereo system, but it's apparent that with his current configuration that he is not in a position to judge whether or not cables could make a difference on a conventional high-resolution stereo system. It's hard to understand why someone who has no current relevant experience listening to different ICs and speaker cables would want to argue they possibly couldn't make a difference in your system unless they just love to argue.
One thing I will give Tim credit for is that he did tell everyone what gear makes up his system so that when he gives his perspective on SQ, we can have some understanding of what he is listening to. Some other people who love to carp on WBF choose not to tell you what gear comprises their system so you really have no idea what their experiences are and where they are coming from. Just as I am leery of people who sell expensive gear on Audiogon and they have no feedback, I'm leery of people who make absolute statements about what others can or can't hear when they won't share with us what they are listening to and through.
Another observation most hi end cables producers offer different levels in the sonic signature or performance that customers can choose from. Your budget is such and such and you can have a upgrade path in the future. This is very convenient for both sides and frankly I really don't enjoy. I always thought this was the gimmick part of hi end cables. Now one cable might have more shielding or silver or whatever,but in a high resolution system the grounding minus the materials used will always be the most important part of your interconnect system.Good consistent grounding is the foundation for great sound. YMMV
Fair enough. I can answer the questions implied here. It has been a little over 2 years since I was working in a high-end AV store, sold all levels of Monster and Audioquest, attended Monster and Audioquest training, and came back to the store and tested the "theories" taught in that training on multiple systems of pretty high quality, up to McIntosh electronics and Martin Logan, B&W and Vienna Acoustics speakers. I came to my conclusions through pretty extensive experience. \Tim
Tim-I appreciate the response. Unless the store you worked in wasn't busy and you had plenty of time to listen in solitude in a relatively quiet environment, it's hard to understand how you could have ever had the chance to reach any meaningful conclusions. I doubt that any of the systems in your store constituted a reference for you. This is quite different than having a stable reference at home that you are quite familiar with and having the chance to swap out cables and listen to music in peace and solitude and forming your judgements over a period of time. Stereo stores usually have some degree of customer traffic (if not, they usually don't stay in business very long). With traffic comes customers and salesmen yapping. The components in stores change often and systems are rarely stable for any length of time. My point is that you cable-swapping in a store was less than an optimum environment to make meaningful judgements about the ultimate quality of cables.
Yes, I knew about the skin effect, but thought it was only an issue at RF. This needs further investigation...
And I can count the number of stores that had any system properly set up and sounding good on one hand
Still, even if this is the case, it suggests that the differences between cables are far less than differences between amps, speakers, cartridges, etc. And given that you could significantly upgrade those other components for what some cables cost, audiophiles should probably be more careful with their purchasing decisions.
I don't think anyone is arguing that amps, speakers, and cartridges will make more of an immediate difference in the sound you hear than changing cables. And having said that, some will argue that you can't hear any differences between amps either. The point is that all of the components combine to form a system and some components are more electrically compatible when putting together a system than others.
Strict agreement with that sentiment, however, would render the story of The Emperor's New Clothes pointless and meaningless. Which would mean you were being disrespectful to the people who do see some point to the story of The Emperor's New Clothes. You would be implying that they are imagining things, seeing something that is not there. Which would be very bad manners.
If I remember the story right, the fact that the emperor was a sucker was clearly established and the emperor's subjects knew the emperor wasn't wearing anything but were afraid to say a word lest they be drawn and quartered, all except the boy.
Cable differences HAVE been established both quantitatively and qualitatively. One need only look at IEC and AES standards which dictate impedance and geometry. That ALL cables sound the same is a statement that is easily falsifiable. That is a very different statement that cables with very close classical measurements, shielding properties and connectors will have differences that are inaudible in any environment.
You clearly haven't worked in a retail audio store. Weekdays, other than lunch hour, can be deadly quiet. And I don't know if this was an unusual store, but equipment didn't change out that often. Annually, for the most part. I had my favorites, and when the store was quiet and I got to listen to music or experiment with things like cables, I always went to them first. During those two years, I listened to that system much more than I did my own at home, and probably more hours than most music lovers. Was it a stable reference? I got to play it four or five hours a day and pay very close attention to it maybe an hour a day on average. Was it an optimum environment? It really doesn't matter. No minds are going to change here.
Tim
I never really knew how quiet my system could be until I purchased cables. I probably got lucky because all I went by was talking to the cable designer on the phone. Once I listened though, there was such a profound difference between the Monster I was using and Walter's cables,my whole thought process changed about audio. That was 23 years ago and now I look at how equipment is built and designed,all my preamps and amplifiers are dual mono,half are point 2 point and half are PCB. I focus on these because I have found those of that type to be potentially very quiet. Right now my best preamp is 60 years old. So do all amps sound the same, maybe if the system has faults,but a low noise,high resolution system that is assembled with care and matched for low noise,distortion will leave no doubt that not all equipment or cables are created equal.
Skin effect was studied for audio cables. Also we should consider that an oxide is an insulator, creating a kind of litz wire with very etched surfaces. Oxidation will change the AC electrical properties of the cables. If the wires are very thin, such as with Mogami cables, the resistance and inductance will change significantly, changing the R/C/L relationship.
Some cable manufacturers use Litz wire techniques for cable building - I owned the Mark Levinson Strings. The cable was a nightmare to terminate properly - even the screen was built using Litz wire techniques. I once built my own IC cables, using about one hundred strands of teflon insulated very thin wirewrap silver/copper wire. I was very sad because they sounded horrible in an all Quad system.
I read about this subject long ago - apologies for not remembering the details.
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