When a pair of wires costs as much as the speakers to be used on (let's say Wilson Alexias in this case, a forum darling), can't we all just admit its bullshit?
Also, I will disagree with Myles in that I can't remember a cable "make or break" a system. This would never happen imo if you use good, basic copper cabling from a host of audiophile companies- won't break the bank either.
As far the designer credentials- I believe Ted Denney from Synergistics was a printer, now a self- proclaimed Tesla expert lol
Cables are part of the system, and, as such, are subjected to "sinergies" (more likely compatibility) with other components. You can ruin, or at least make a serious damage, to a good system by using the wrong cables, in the wrong places. And that has nothing to do with price.
I suggest you loan a Nordost Valhalla PC and try it on your CTH...
Disclaimer: I am a cable skeptic. I will try to word my concerns generically but if this generates a firestorm I apologize and request my post be deleted. Please note in this case I mean "concerns" literally. I am trying to understand the "other" viewpoint.
If a cable can "make or break" a system I'd seriously question the other components in the system. Cables are but one element in a system and they interact with the other components, meaning the source and load is a critical part of how a cable may influence the sound of a system. For a component, or group of components, to be so sensitive to the cable as to "make or break" the sound to me implies extreme load or source sensitivity, and that seems very undesirable. And unreasonable.
My conclusion is that my definition of "make or break" differs. For me, that would be a system I do not want to hear compared to a system that sounds good to me. On a 10-point scale, maybe a difference of 3 to 7? In this context, considering stratospheric prices and hopefully corresponding performance, perhaps "make or break" is the difference between 9.9999 out of 10 that justifies the system's price and performance, and 9.9990 that puts its performance comparable to similarly-priced systems or below and thus "breaks" the system in that it does not outperform its competition. Is that what we are talking about?
The scale of differences among high-end gear can be befuddling to those of us with ears of clay.
Confused plebe - Don
p.s. I read a review in Stereophile recently and the word "liquidity" was all over it, what the heck does that mean? In one case the author contrasted "liquidity" with a couple of other terms and I was totally lost.
I disagree generally with Keith, Frantz and Roger on the significance of cables, interconnect and speaker, in a system. I think they can make the difference between a 'good' sounding system, a 'very good' sounding system, and a 'superb' sounding system. and they can change the character of a system and bring it into or out of balance.
and even though I don't think this is strickly an issue of more $$$'s equates to higher performance, higher priced cables do sound better. however; I have found that 'uber' priced cables ($10k+ for a set interconnects, $20k+ for speaker cables), while sounding excellent every time I've heard them in systems, are not necessarily better than the lower rungs of cables at maybe half to one third that price. so looking at a price and expecting some sort of predictable performance is not correct. lots more money does not equal lots more performance. it may bring certain nuance that is unique to a particular cable.
and you do need to pretty much ignore marketing rhetoric and just listen. but if you are chasing ultimate performance then you will end up spending significant dollars on cables. but not crazy, crazy dollars.
the subject cables of this thread, the TaraLabs Grandmaster Evolution speaker cables at $42k for an 8 foot pair claim "boasting the greatest current-carrying capability of any speaker cable in the world". I like TaraLabs cables and expect that these speaker cables sound wonderful. however; I know that my Evolution Acoustics triple run speaker cables, at 1/4th the price, are easily equal or greater in current carrying capacity than the Grandmaster Evolution speaker cables. and the Evolution Acoustics cables are not cheap either, just not $42k.
does this mean that the Grandmaster Evolutions are bogus or don't sound great. no......it means you should ignore the rhetoric and listen if you are interested.
if you want to go the generic modestly priced cables then good for you, but unless you do the work to investigate you are simply guessing about how much performance expensive cables can deliver.
I think they can make the difference between a 'good' sounding system, a 'very good' sounding system, and a 'superb' sounding system. and they can change the character of a system and bring it into or out of balance.
Agreed, cables must be "voiced" within any system, no matter what the cost. Geez, I even "voice" my recordings based on certain cables. If systems are all "equipment" dependent, why should "cables" be any different.
But when a cable (or any thing) gets "reviewed" like a press-release, that a "transparency" that will ALWAYS get questioned.
I run short lengths of thick-gauge solid core type speaker cables shotgun, from amps to external xovers. The external / internal speaker wires are modded to accommodate my setup. It's a "voiced" decision, not just base on the equipment, but also how the equipment works as a team.
Connection quality at every juncture represents a potential bottleneck, which I consider just as important as the cable itself. To that end, I find it consistently funny when I audition some "hi-end" system in which a "great" speaker cable supposedly made all the difference in the world, but the connections were obviously compromised.
I am not sure we disagree on speakers. They are IMO after the room the most important part of an audio system. It is my contention that your speakers will play well music in your room with a lowly HT receiver. I do not mean by that they would match the full complement of electronics you have. I amnot of the persuasion that all electronics sound the same. I have maintain that electronics do sound different and do make their contribution known in a system often to a surprisng degree and I am a fan of powerful amplifers. Not much disagreement there. The scale is however not linear and it comes a point where we are dealing with flavors rather than performance .. As for cables, I have made my opinion known too often here and this is not the issue I am debating. I question the pricing and the whole rationale behind them and from those who suggest great progress in cables or even in material science.
I also do not like the classic appeal to authority that some use to sustain the more expensive = better rationale. I will not go into pointing toward the specific posts on that. As a preemptive strike, jealousy is also cited as if those who don;t believe that more expensive + better cannot afford the wares . Classic appeal to emotion when there is a paucity of facts to sustain one's view.
I believe this is a given in a discussion about the quality of an item to mention the price. Especially when we are getting in a territory where for the price of this cable one can build a serious complete, full range stereo system , you could even add a TT and a R2R in the mix. Complete! e.g Atmasphere Ultraviolet that could serve as the preamp for this system .. That is what we are talking about here and the question remains what this cable does that is so unusual as to justify its most unusual price tag. I believe a certain amount of skepticism is healthy and conclusive to better audio reproduction. I dare add that before the relatively recent cable craze what many believe to be the best recordings ever, were made using run of the mills cables and monitored through zip-cord ...
I disagree generally with Keith, Frantz and Roger on the significance of cables, interconnect and speaker, in a system. I think they can make the difference between a 'good' sounding system, a 'very good' sounding system, and a 'superb' sounding system. and they can change the character of a system and bring it into or out of balance.
(...)
Well stated. But most people will disagree on what we feel it is a superb sounding system, stating we are just imagining thinks. Unless people have experimented the ultimate capabilities of stereo reproduction, they will stick to the more technical and immediately impressive aspects, ignoring the effects of a proper choice of cables, that unfortunately most of the time costs a lot.
I am not sure we disagree on speakers. They are IMO after the room the most important part of an audio system. It is my contention that your speakers will play well music in your room with a lowly HT receiver. I do not mean by that they would match the full complement of electronics you have. I amnot of the persuasion that all electronics sound the same. I have maintain that electronics do sound different and do make their contribution known in a system often to a surprisng degree and I am a fan of powerful amplifers. Not much disagreement there. The scale is however not linear and it comes a point where we are dealing with flavors rather than performance
last month i had the new (pre-production) version of the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp in my system for 10 days. if your idea is right, there should have been marginal differences heard when switching from old to new versions of the dart pre. it was an amazing, crazy difference between the 2. and now, a month of listening later since it's gone i'm still longing for my new one to arrive. and this is just a preamp. i'm not saying that if i bring my 8 year old Rotel Reciever (which sounds really really good) from my family room in my house and plug it into the 'big rig' that it won't sound 'nice'....maybe even 'very nice'. but it will be a huge difference. might there be someone out there that would not appreciate the difference in performance? maybe. i suppose i read their posts right here daily. but not anyone who i listen with.
.. As for cables, I have made my opinion known too often here and this is not the issue I am debating. I question the pricing and the whole rationale behind them and from those who suggest great progress in cables or even in material science.
I also do not like the classic appeal to authority that some use to sustain the more expensive = better rationale. I will not go into pointing toward the specific posts on that. As a preemptive strike, jealousy is also cited as if those who don;t believe that more expensive + better cannot afford the wares . Classic appeal to emotion when there is a paucity of facts to sustain one's view.
I believe this is a given in a discussion about the quality of an item to mention the price. Especially when we are getting in a territory where for the price of this cable one can build a serious complete, full range stereo system , you could even add a TT and a R2R in the mix. Complete! e.g Atmasphere Ultraviolet that could serve as the preamp for this system .. That is what we are talking about here and the question remains what this cable does that is so unusual as to justify its most unusual price tag. I believe a certain amount of skepticism is healthy and conclusive to better audio reproduction. I dare add that before the relatively recent cable craze what many believe to be the best recordings ever, were made using run of the mills cables and monitored through zip-cord ...
last month i had the new (pre-production) version of the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp in my system for 10 days. if your idea is right, there should have been marginal differences heard when switching from old to new versions of the dart pre. it was an amazing, crazy difference between the 2. . . .
version 1, the old one, has been my reference preamp and phono for 8 years. i think still competitive with the best out there after 8 years....if maybe not quite on top any more. mine had been updated to the latest boards and phono. so 'sounds like crap' would not be how i would view it.
the new one simply moved my reference point waaay out there.
Like Don asked, is the difference one of 9.9999 out of 10 versus 9.9990 out of 10?
i'll let my previous comments stand, and avoid any numerical description. here is a post i made in another thread about my perceptions of the new dart preamp.
version 1, the old one, has been my reference preamp and phono for 8 years. i think still competitive with the best out there after 8 years....if maybe not quite on top any more. mine had been updated to the latest boards and phono. so 'sounds like crap' would not be how i would view it.
The universal use of extreme, superlative adjectives [by just about everybody] would make an outsider think the quality of recorded/played back music has exceeded the live performance.
i respect that is the path you have choosen.
a question; what would you do if you happened to hear cables which significantly improved performance?
personally; i follow my ears wherever that leads me.
Many people don't know this little factoid, but when Aluminum tweeters were first invented and became all the rage George Cardas responded with a speaker cable design that came to be called the Golden Cross. Because the proliferation of aluminum tweeters (and their associated ringing) had a fatiguing effect, the purpose of the Golden Cross was to temper the treble energy. I don't know if this is the first documented attempt at "system matching" as far as cables go. But it certainly would qualify for the argument.
Personally, I don't think two wrongs make a right. So this type of "system matching" does not appeal to me. But I do fully understand where people are coming from when they express such.
Mike Levigne touched on something that I don't think anyone else has noticed yet, at least not mentioned. His triple run of Evolution Acoustics cables are probably very nearly the same gauge as the Tara Grandmasters. (At those gauges, I'm hard pressed to think any difference actually matters.) And I've heard from other Evolution owners that simply doubling up the runs of speaker cables does make a marked improvement. The interesting thing to me is that the Grandmaster seems to be not much more than an internal doubling up of some of their lesser models. If you compare their top four or five models, the only apparent difference is in the number of conductors. The "0.3" starts with 144. The Omega GOLD has 168. The Omega Evolution has 224. And the Grandmaster has 288.
I'm sure Tara would say that there is a difference in the quality of the conductor between the "0.3" and the Grandmaster. But the descriptions between the GOLD, Evolution, and Grandmaster are identical. With the exception of the number of conductors. So double up a run of the "0.3" and there you have the equivalent of the Grandmaster. Nothing special about that. No major technological breakthrough. Just more of the same.
I remember when Kubala-Sosna were first gaining traction there were a number of reports that doubling up their speaker cables made big improvements. The Emotions are something on the order of a 4 gauge for a single run. So anyone who loves K-S can start tripling up their Emotions and join the pissing contest! hahaha
The universal use of extreme, superlative adjectives [by just about everybody] would make an outsider think the quality of recorded/played back music has exceeded the live performance.
so when Usain Bolt lowers the 100 meter world record by a tenth or two of a second it becomes 'amazing' in a relative sense. previous records were lowered by hundreths of a second.
but really; who cares about a tenth or two????
answer; the many hundreds of guys who have dedicated their lives to run the fastest 100 meters in particular....and track fans world wide in general.
and who defines what constitutes amazing?
those sufficiently interested in the pursuit of excellence for their particular reasons.
I disagree generally with Keith, Frantz and Roger on the significance of cables, interconnect and speaker, in a system. I think they can make the difference between a 'good' sounding system, a 'very good' sounding system, and a 'superb' sounding system. and they can change the character of a system and bring it into or out of balance.
and even though I don't think this is strickly an issue of more $$$'s equates to higher performance, higher priced cables do sound better. however; I have found that 'uber' priced cables ($10k+ for a set interconnects, $20k+ for speaker cables), while sounding excellent every time I've heard them in systems, are not necessarily better than the lower rungs of cables at maybe half to one third that price. so looking at a price and expecting some sort of predictable performance is not correct. lots more money does not equal lots more performance. it may bring certain nuance that is unique to a particular cable.
and you do need to pretty much ignore marketing rhetoric and just listen. but if you are chasing ultimate performance then you will end up spending significant dollars on cables. but not crazy, crazy dollars.
the subject cables of this thread, the TaraLabs Grandmaster Evolution speaker cables at $42k for an 8 foot pair claim "boasting the greatest current-carrying capability of any speaker cable in the world". I like TaraLabs cables and expect that these speaker cables sound wonderful. however; I know that my Evolution Acoustics triple run speaker cables, at 1/4th the price, are easily equal or greater in current carrying capacity than the Grandmaster Evolution speaker cables. and the Evolution Acoustics cables are not cheap either, just not $42k.
does this mean that the Grandmaster Evolutions are bogus or don't sound great. no......it means you should ignore the rhetoric and listen if you are interested.
if you want to go the generic modestly priced cables then good for you, but unless you do the work to investigate you are simply guessing about how much performance expensive cables can deliver.
Maybe Don will chime in here,but some high end cables have a resistance of 2 mili ohms per foot,which would take sophisticated test equipment to measure. I know one manufacturer that does measure. Also electrical interference and how well the cable shields against it will effect the sonic quality. Depending on the makeup of the conductor wire the cable would sound different than another. Also how the geometry design of the cable and shield will effect the sound of the cable. Most cable companys offer different grades depending on the "level of sound" of the cable. I would think if the cable manufacturer used mu metal in the construction of the shield to improve common mode rejection that would increase the cost over tinned copper braid. Also the size of the cable will increase the power to the speaker voice coils.
In the end I have found that removing EMI from the equipment itself trumps all cable design,as long as the cable is of low resistance and double shielded,that should suffice except for the power handing capacity of say a speaker cable or a power cable.
One must also understand that a cable can effect the "gain" of a system. So that needs to be taken into account when listening and comparing cables. The level of EMI in the system effects the "gain" also.
so when Usain Bolt lowers the 100 meter world record by a tenth or two of a second it becomes 'amazing' in a relative sense. but really; who cares about a tenth or two????
That's one of the best analogies I've yet read, Mike! For decades the WR was lowered by hundredths of a second. Then Usain comes along and does a full tenth. RELATIVELY speaking, that was HUGE! So huge, in fact, that it bordered on unbelievable. Of course, I'm a Track nut. So it's even bigger for me. Trying to convey what he did to my swimmer friends proved futile. Kind of like this audio thing. haha.
That's why I'm sort of in the middle. I see why some audiophiles drip with hyperbole. And I see why others call it all BS. Because some of the differences we experience are very moving. And yet, there is still a ton of BS in this industry.
Many people don't know this little factoid, but when Aluminum tweeters were first invented and became all the rage George Cardas responded with a speaker cable design that came to be called the Golden Cross. Because the proliferation of aluminum tweeters (and their associated ringing) had a fatiguing effect, the purpose of the Golden Cross was to temper the treble energy.
Didn't know that, but in light of auditioning a few top Cardas cables against their older models, that's plausible. I once contacted Cardas about the improvement his newer cables may have on my system in comparison to my older generation models. They advised, very respectfully I might add, without any hype, that I should stay the course.
Mike Levigne touched on something that I don't think anyone else has noticed yet, at least not mentioned. His triple run of Evolution Acoustics cables are probably very nearly the same gauge as the Tara Grandmasters. (At those gauges, I'm hard pressed to think any difference actually matters.) And I've heard from other Evolution owners that simply doubling up the runs of speaker cables does make a marked improvement. The interesting thing to me is that the Grandmaster seems to be not much more than an internal doubling up of some of their lesser models.
The larger the diameter of the wire conductor the lower the resistance and the greater the power to the speaker voice coil. I might also add that multiple cables does not equal one larger cable in terms of resistance.
K, but few speakers cable I've witnessed travel to the voice coil by themselves, they hit the connections and that's the end for them, next up are those many tiny xover "wires" (or god forsake an xover fuse), which cut the signal and pass it over to the speakers own internal "wires" ... then the voice coil.
K, but few speakers cable I've witnessed travel to the voice coil by themselves, they hit the connections and that's the end for them, next up are those many tiny xover "wires" (or god forsake an xover fuse), which cut the signal and pass it over to the speakers own internal "wires" ... then the voice coil.
ahhhh .... yes, to the "speaker connection", but rarely to the voice coils. Lower resistance as a whole, is not simply a measure of the speaker cables.
