are high-end speaker wires bunk? - Page 3  

That's a mighty fine question. The mentality I had at the time was this - I'm getting better than average equipment (read, "better than Best Buy or Circuit City"), so I'm going to get better than average cabling.

So I could have saved myself maybe $200 (I had two grocery sized bags of cables delivered with my system)... Now that I think of it, that honestly wouldn't have gotten pumped back into the system if it wouldn't have been included in my final tally at final purchase time. My wife would have made short work out of that at a clothing store. And I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather have some better cabling than an even more over-filled closet. :D

Do I regret my cable purchase? Nope. Maybe I'm anal about this, but it would have bugged me a bit had I spent all that cash for nice stuff and have skimped somewhere along the line. Besides, it's easier to go out with the wife and spend $100 on DVDs than it is to try to spend $100 on something "transparent" for my system (be it ANYTHING from a wife standpoint - not just cables) - even if it were black & white, night & day justifyable... And when it comes to cables, we will never, ever, all come to a concensus on that. ;)

In my home system I have a transport, an anti-jitter box, and a DAC. I can feed the anti-jitter box a digital signal and it has three active digital outs. My DAC has four digital inputs (2 coax, 1 AES/EBU and 1 AT&T ST glass). So I can switch between up to three digital cables instanteously, with all of them being naturally level-matched as they are digital signals. Thus it is simple to run digital cable comparisons. And the collective original list prices of these three pieces was $5500. No low-end stuff here.

So I have run a number of digital cable comparisons. I've had friends over with their cables. We had several of the cables recommended by The Absolute Sound and Stereophile, with list prices running up to several hundred dollars. To date, not a single person has been able to discern a high-end cable from a $5 Recotron 75 ohm video cable. In fact, we've rarely even completed a 10-trial or 16-trial ABX test because the listeners have admitted after a few minutes that there is absolutely no difference in sound and that they can't even tell when the switches are made unless someone tells them.

We've switched out transports and DACs a couple of times but with no change in the result.

This has been my favorite ABX test to run. It is easy and the realization that there is no difference is usually very fast and absolute. A person hauled over a $500'ish Illuminati and less than 5 minutes after we began, he had this stunned look on his face as he didn't have a clue as to which input used his cable and which had the Recotron.

The procedure goes that we drop in an excellent audiophile CD, a XRCD or Chesky Gold or something with a 5 star Stereophile rating, and retire to our listening chairs to soak up the beautiful sound from the expensive cable. After a couple of minutes, I openly switch to the Recotron, and listeners start pointing out the perceived differences. We eventually get into the double blind ABX comparisons, where the listeners are quickly reduced to pure guessing as to which is which and they usually give up after 4 to 6 trials.

We did play around with a lot of cables and did get some positive ABX results when using a cheaply made tin-plated audio interconnect as a digital cable vs our better cables. And I've had a few positive results when we've run into two level-matched DACs in DAC vs DAC comparisons, but no one has even been close to telling the difference between any two reasonably constructed video/digital cables.

Tom B.

The Scientific Method does work, and Double Blind Testing is a valid experimental technique. In fact, the only practice known to be entirely defective is the one practiced by almost everyone: 1) Spend some of your money on fancy cables 2) Install them yourself and 3) Hear the differences. Often this is accompanied by 4) Encourage others to hear the differences. The results of such evaluations are universally useless because they violate the Scientific Method.

I don't care whether you are a unemployed person or Bill Gates - when you have invested your time and money in "better" cables, you have a powerfull and virtually impossible to overcome impediment: you are expecting a difference, and the only question in your mind is "How much better will it be?" It is, in the simplest terms, a subconscious psychological motive that distorts reality.

Because some people have Faith in the idea that better cables mean better sound. And Faith makes everything possible.

Every time I get sucked into such a discussion, I swear it's the last time. Then I do it again....

Gary

Gary I think you've nailed it down pretty good. Could not agree with you more.

As to: "Every time I get sucked into such a discussion, I swear it's the last time. Then I do it again.... "

I am afraid I've done the same thing.

Keep the faith!

My old set-up allowed the use of 3 connections and the ability to swap and do either 'A' vs. 'B' or with a 'C' thrown in. My transport has muliple digital outs - e.g. XLR, BNC, RCA and it was very easy to go between 2 cables and have someone else set it up so I would not know which was which. I've tried the experiment many times (maybe 15), most often when I has engineers over explaining why there would not be a difference. The signal over a digital cable is not '1s' and '0s' and is transmitted in an analog fashion and is subject to problems, good or bad, the same as any analog interconnect. I've never had anyone not be able to tell any difference between the digitial cables I've had on hand. In a fair precentage of the cases the differences were minor. I've had most of the engineers who did not believe what they heard tell me that there must be a difference on the input or output devices (they wanted to tear apart my preamp or transport to prove their point) and upon switching the positions of the cables the same differences in the sonic qualities of the cables was present. I've also brought a cable I made to a group of non-believers who heard a difference in mine vs. a common store brand but still insisted I must have done something (e.g. deviate from digital cables specs) in order for that difference to be heard. So the bottom line is that I do what I like in my system and am not about to change anyone's opinion. I also think that as with any other component there is a cost/value ratio and it makes sense to buy something decent in the way of cables and save the money for a more cost-effective upgrade. There are many sites that offer decent quality cabling based on recommendations by J. Risch and others and in order to get something better would entail lots more money out the door for small improvements that could be spent on other things. There is also the other end of the spectrum for those people who will spend over $10k on cabling and I'm not about to change their minds either.

wow i ran my own test and used radio shack finest vs. my own kimber cable, sat my wife down who does not know the difference between speaker cable and fishing line and she picked the kimber cable over the rs. does anybody care? yeah i care cause i can return the rs wire and get my money back. by the way my wife is tone deaf.

So you did a very demanding audio test with a person who was tone deaf?

Why don't you have your wife administer a blind A/B for you, while you listen... and see what you choose.

If you still HEAR a difference in the Kimber, awesome. If not... even better.

The only test I've done with cable was a test I didn't mean to do. When I added a new preamp into my system, for some reason, I used two different types of interconnects (Monster and Linn) for the right and left channels of the front speakers. The soundstage was shifted to the right (i.e., the singer wasn't in the center -- he/she was to the right). I could not figure out why until I discovered that I'd used two different interconnects. I changed them to be the same, and the soundstage immediately went back to being in the center. Theoretically, two different interconnects should not make a difference (to those who believe that all wire is the same), but I heard a difference.

azistoohot makes an excellent point. Any test for measurements can't measure such things as soundstage width, depth and height and the timbre of real instruments in real space. That is preciselty why any tests, blind or otherwise, are useless. If the person listening can't detect the differences with their hearing capacity, there is no point to those individuals spending money for something completely useless to them. It is also silly to argue about what someone else can or cannot hear. I can't possibly refute anyone who says they can't hear a difference, I believe them. One should only spend money and invest time for those items in their budget that will make a difference to them.

were the wires equivalent in gauge, etc?

If so... that's impressive. I would definitely like to take part in one of these tests.

I wonder if we could get something set up at CEDIA this year??

(I live in Indianapolis, so it's easy.)

The problem with many of the tests I've seen is they have multiple participants at the same time. Stereo is an illusion that has a sweet spot. I realize some may be smaller than an old fat guy like me and fit more into certain space, but under such circumstances you won't be able to hear comparisons on how far, how deep and where the bass is positioned as compared to the singer. I've seen many people say that have had a bunch of people over at the same time and no differences where heard. Whenever I try to demo, it is one person at a time sitting in the sweet spot with a recording that I am familiar with and know where the positions of the instuments are on the soundstage. That is also how many good high end shops demo their equipment for a customer with a chair in the proper listening position. That is the only intelligent way to be able to tell with regard to that artificial stereo soundfield as to what equipment makes differences, if any, to it. One can tell tonal differences perhaps from different spots and certain other things, but in order to make a good comparison as to what something does or does not do, it should be from a position that allows one to do it best.

The claim that azistoohot made would require the two interconnects to have a substantial measurable difference. There is no way that a system's balance could shift to the left or right without a change in the signal strength. Such a thing is possible, one cable can have more resistance than another. Funny thing is though, even if they do, and you carefully level-match for the volume differences, then you still can't hear any difference.

Indeed, many of the claims made about interconnects would require measurable differences --- 'the bass was stronger', 'the sound was more laidback', 'the volume was louder and I had to turn it down', 'Cable X made my system too bright and it hurt my ears' and so on and so forth. Yet such claims are almost never substantiated by measurements. They are just more wood for the fire of psychoacoustic effects. And amazingly such claims are sometimes made for things like digital cables. How would one digital cable make a DAC produce more low bass than another digital cable (assuming both are properly made 75 ohm cables)?

After having participated in and conducted double blind testing, the one thing that stands out the most is how pronounced psychoacoustic effects can be and how impossible it can be to eliminate the effect in any way other than a properly conducted double blind test. There have been no claims made above that I haven't heard several times over from people who went on to fail double blind tests.

Tom B.

Oh, some might like hearing about another comparison that I ran. I borrowed a DAC just like mine from an audio shop. Then I ran my digital output from my transport to an anti-jitter box with a $300 digital cable. From the anti-jitter box on down, I configured the signal paths as follows:

Side A:
A-J Box to DAC1: $5 Recotron video cable
DAC1 power cord: Standard out of box
DAC1 to Preamp: Radio Shack HT interconnect
Preamp to High Quality A/B switch: Radio Shack HT interconnect

Also, this side used a DAC that had about 5 hours of usage (vs hundreds for the other one) so it wasn't "broken in." The A/B switch was custom made, used Cardas gold RCA jacks and was internally wired with Kimber Silver Streak wiring.

Side B:
A-J Box to DAC2: $300 AES/EBU digital cable
DAC2 Power Cord: $250 cord
DAC2 to Preamp: $500 interconnect
Preamp to Switch: $500 interconnect

Then from the Switch to the amp was another $500 interconnect.

Thus Side B had 5 huge cable/cord/break-in "advantages" and everything in Side B's path was of very high qualilty.

We then ran a proper double blind ABX comparison with the X chosen randomly (coin flip) and the person running the switch not in view of the listener, nor ever speaking to the listener during the test. A 3rd person told the person running the switchbox when to switch and that person did not know which cable was which.

Net result: All three listeners failed to discern a difference. Best anyone scored was 6 out of 10.

Tom B.

Musicians play music in real space. The size of a trombone or where it placed on the sound stage in relation to the other performers is not a factor that can be readily measured. This has nothing to do with psychoacoustics. A 75 ohm impedence means nothing about how a cable with sound or where they performers are sitused along the soundstage or even necessarily perform for video. You can have RG59, RG6, difference shields, center conductors, dialectrics, etc. Everyone has different abilities, some average, some poor, some great, some very good. This issue is about those who have the ability to know what music sounds like in real space and can discern differences and those who cannot. I've seen many people who have lots of time working in the audio field who may be very good at certain things but cannot discern certain things and feel the need to reduce everything to measurements is the proper explanation. Those who cannot hear a difference are not making it up and those who do are not either and there will definitely be those small percentages on each side influenced by their beliefs whether it be real or imagined.

Jeez....you just read my mind.

HighEndWire:
Of course we can't measure the soundstage width, or the stage height. That's the whole point of doing a listening test. Because we don't have anything that can measure something like soundstage, so we have the greatest tool we posses do it for us. But now you are saying that something inherent in a double blind test makes our ears/brain no longer be able to hear and compare these differences when we could before and will be able to after the test? Please indulge us all.

I should give this topic a rest, so unless I get enticed back in, let me close by saying that many audiophiles and reviewers claim that there are vast differences between cables. Differences that are readily apparent in the first few seconds. Differences that get picked up by their spouses in the the other room. Differences that have such dramatic effects that it can change a component from the not recommended list to highly recommended.

Let me ask, if these differences existed to anywhere near this extent, then why do the companies selling these magical wires never back up their claims with the results from a valid double blind test? Wouldn't it be in their best interest to actually prove their wires made a big difference? And if the differences were even a third of what people describe, it should be childsplay to assemble a group of golden-eared audiophiles where half of them could pass a comparison vs Radio Shack Gold cables in a $50,000 audio system.

It strikes me that this is a very simple request. Yet, for some reason, it is never done. Hmmmmm ....


Tom B.

Unfortunately most of the cos. that sell the stuff put out a lot of marketing hype (if one reads it the conclusion can easily be reached that if you don't own their brand of wire you won't hear everything). I understand if they are not a cheerleader for themselves, no one will be, but they overdo it. A lot of audio products do have lots of hype, even equipment, and especially tweaks. Like anything else in the audio world, there are huge diminishing returns moving very high up the chain and yes people who spend huge sums of money sometimes don't want to see (or hear) the facts. I at one time spent lots of money, some of the stuff I bought used. When I sat and listened to a name brand $600 retail set of wires that sounded very good and I was able to make something I like a little better for less, I started making all kinds of stuff and looked at the marketing hype in a whole new light. I've been in someone's house who had all the top of the line Transparent stuff (who happens to own the same speakers as I do) and has something like $40k in wire. If I had the money to spend, I thought is sounded very good (but did not compare it to anything), I still could not justify it in my mind. He was happy and that is the bottom line. I've have also been in peoples homes who are very happy with Radio Shack 18 ga. wire. After all this is a hobby to be enjoyed. I've gone way past the point of tweaking and torturing myself and my system to death. I decided I did not look that good in straight jackets. The most overlooked component in my mind is the room itself anyway. I've heard the same systems sound good and bad in different places.

So going from 24 gauge yields an improvement, since both 16 gauge and Monster are superior to 24 gauge.

However, there's no improvement between the 16 gauge lamp cord and the 14 gauge Monster Cable.

I wonder where the saturation point is? Is it 18 gauge? All cables larger than 18 gauge sound the same? ...

If resistance were the only thing that mattered - then the 24 gauge should sound just like the 16 gauge - you'd just
have to use a little more amp power to counter the increased resistance.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

What the!

Looks like according to the general consensus here I wasted a lot of money on cables! All my cables are top of the line Monster Cable brand, i.e speaker wire, RCA, S-Video, Digital, Fiber and Component cables.

However according to the sales reps they were virtually a must have for best performance and the ones included with equipment were throw aways.

For the amount of money I have spent this comes as quite a disheartening reality check.

Socio- Well, its not entirely a throw away... the cheap cables that come with a lot of gear are junk and are susceptible to any number of losses due to RF because of poor shielding, poor connectors, etc... Your salesman was correct in telling you that the stuff that came with your gear should be replaced with a decent cable that isn't prone to RF,etc... However, spending mega-bucks on botique cables is what should be questioned...

Heh, I also used to believe that as long as you're using thick guaged braided wire there was really not much improvement from sound to expect from there. Then I tried solid core, and the difference was astounding - sounded like totally different speakers. Very liquid and vivid highs and mids, but looking for a more mellow presentation I went back to braided.

Finally I got tired of all bi-wired speaker cable and ordered a custom bound pair with biwiring built in for around $300. I cant remember the brand, but expecting no real difference I was stunned by how much better my B&W's sounded with them.

Can you spend more and get dramatic audio improvements? Yes. Are high end cables a con game? Usually, unless you have the high end equipment that's sensitive enough to really display the differences in cables.

Its been more years than I'd like to admit since I studied electronic circuits, but I think this is an over simplification. Something to do with the change in the load characteristics of the combined wire / speaker... inductive/resistive stuff... also amplifier output impedence to load impedence stuff...

All of this stuff is a vague memory today, but I do know that wouldn't be as simple as just increase the power to compensate for the cables. You need to get the cable resistance low enough that it doesn't affect the sound, and that means the longer the run, the lower the guage required.



Earlier in this thread someone was concerned about the internal wiring in their speakers being inferior to the cables they were using. Not really a big deal as we're only talking a few inches of wire vs the several feet in the cables.

The problem with the interconnect cables packaged with components is mostly due to inferior connectors. That is the major reason to upgrade them, to get decent gold plated connectors which properly attached to the wires.

BTW, I am of the camp which believes that once you get the RS Gold interconnects and the 12 guage speaker cables you've spent enough on cables. That being said, I haven't tried the really expensive stuff nor participated in double blind tests, so I'll keep an open mind. Then again, I don't think I'd want to hear an improvement, because if I thought I did then for sure I'd spend a bunch more money on cables. I going to remain fat, dumb and happy (and wealthier) and stick to my guns and the cheaper cabling.

Cheers

Dr. Greenman:

You cannot simply use a little more amp power to counter the increased resistance, because the speaker is not a purely resistive load.

In addition, the narrower cable also could have more lead inductance, creating more signal loss at higher frequencies.

yes, you do not want to know whether you hear differences in cables, because this leads you to the dark side! I've just ordered some fancier cables. We'll see if I can tell any difference. I ordered them really for the connectors -- I have a set of Monster speaker cables that have crappy connectors on them, especially if you have a 1.5 year old running around to examine them -- you can put the boot right off and expose the internal wires. I want something that locks! Thus, I ordered some better connects, and, in return, got better quality wire and a much higher credit card debt.

I have an MSEE and I'm not too far out of school. Some of the claims of the wire manufacturers sound like complete hogwash to me. However, I do have some massive cables for some of my speakers -- these came as a deal with the speakers (both used), though. But when talk of "skin effect" and "bass frequencies interfering with high frequencies" come up, I have a hard time believing the hyperbole (don't get me wrong -- skin effect exists; it's the part where it wreaks havoc on signals that I don't get).

Bob -- a partial believer, but I need to win the lottery.

"All of this stuff is a vague memory today, but I do know that wouldn't be as simple as just increase the power to compensate for the cables. You need to get the cable resistance low enough that it doesn't affect the sound, and that means the longer the run, the lower the guage required. "

This is absolutely correct. As impedance of the cable goes up the amplifier starts acting more like a constant current source than a constant voltage source. This translates into a lower damping factor, which means less control of the drivers, but also that variations in speaker impedance will
now start to affect frequency response

I bought 50' of Acoustic Research 16ga speaker wire for $20 last night.

Someone send me your Kimber, or Transparent cables, at a P.O. Box, and I'll do some double blind testing or something.

I was approached by a Blue Shirt at Best Buy last night, as I was looking for $16 Recoton toslink connectors, and he tried to talk me up to $60 Monster cable...

The conversation went like this...


Him: The Recoton is our LOWEST quality cable.

Me: I know.

Him: Have you seen this Monster Cable fiber optic cable?

Me: Yes.

Him: Well, on the Recoton, the light can be reflected around in the cable, causing poor quality sound.

Me: I doubt it. As long as the 1's and 0's make it to the DAC, I'm pretty sure they sound the same.

Him: No, see how much thicker the monster cable is? If there was no difference, people wouldn't buy it.

Me: Exactly. Do you have anymore 6' Recoton cables?

They didn't... so I ended up with a 12 footer, for $20... which I don't like, but I'll hold onto it for awhile.

I'm trying to clean up my cables in the back of my equipment rack, 8 feet of excess fiber optic cable isn't the easiest thing to hide.

Here's an article that a friend of mine once sent me that discussed the effects of using different gauge speaker cables. I found it interesting.

Also the effects of resistance within a wire are not constant across the full audible bandwidth. A long run of #24 cable will measure differently across the 20-20K spectrum than a short run of #12, and will react differently into speakers of different impedence. So it isn't just a matter of changing the volume when it comes to selecting the proper gauge. This is a case of cables making an audible difference, that's why I try to preface my comments with statements there is essentially no difference between "well-designed, or properly-chosen cables." You can always force a positive test by comparing against a measurably inferior cable.

This why my general rule is to buy #12, or at least #14, and not worry about the rest.

Tom B.

** Begin Article **
Shortly after, I stumbled upon an old magazine article which discusses
the audible differences between speaker cables ("Speaker Cables: Can
You Hear the Difference?"; Laurence Greenhill; Stereo Review, August
1983, pp.46-51). At the time, I simply ignored this article, convinced
to be on the safe side with my "telephone cables" and not being a
proponent of "listening by numbers" in the first place. But recent
postings on speaker cables in rec.audio.* led me to reread the
article, this time with greater interest.

In the article, three cables (11-gauge, 16-gauge and 24-gauge) were
put to controlled listening tests using an ABX comparator. All three
cables were 30 feet long and essentially showed the same one-wire-
per-conductor construction (the 11-gauge cable was a specialty speaker
cable; gauge extrapolated). The relevent listening tests can be
briefly summarized (In the ABX comparator system, "X" is either "A" or
"B" --- the "testee" has to predict which of "A" or "B" unknown "X" is
--- , the two results being equally probable. So remember that random
predictions, or guessing, are likely to be correct 50% of the time):

5. With pink noise, the 24-gauge cable was distinguished from either
of the two heavier cables almost 100% of the time, i.e. well
above the psychoacoustically significant point (75%). Unanimous
comment from the listeners: audible decrease in sound level.
In fact, 1/3 of the amplifier output power was not reaching the
speaker, for it was dissipating in the cable (insertion loss).

6. With choral music, sonic differences between the 24-gauge and
11-gauge cables were identified correctly 69% of the time, i.e.
to statistical significance (3 listeners out of 11 did it to
psychoacoustical significance).

7. With pink noise, the panel distinguished the 11-gauge from the
16-gauge cable 65% of the time, with 3 panelists scoring over
75% (the internal dissipation was about 4% larger in the 16-
gauge cable).

8. With choral music, the listening panel as a whole was essentially
guessing (49%) when asked to differentiate the 11-gauge cable
from the 16-gauge cable (3 listeners out of 11 scored above 66%
but below psychoacoustical significance).

NOTE: The above tests were done with levels UNmatched.
----


The author of the article opined that wide-dynamic-range musical
material decreases the ability of listeners to distinguish small sonic
differences between cables. He also mentioned that, besides producing
sound level differences, the high resistance (impedance?) present in
thin cables like the 24-gauge can interact with the speaker's
impedance, affecting audibly the speaker's frequency response. Indeed,
in a matched-level test of 24-gauge vs. 11-gauge with pink noise, 4
listeners out of 11 still heard differences in at least 75% of their
trials (unfortunately, a similar listening test wasn't performed in
the 16-gauge-vs.-11-gauge comparison).

With shorter cable runs in test #8., the overall cable impedances
would have been lower and the tester would have found a (critical)
length below which the "testees" can no longer perceive (to either
psychoacoustical or statistical significance) audible differences
between the 16-gauge and 11-gauge cables for that particular amp-
speaker setup. For the same 30' cable runs in test #8., the use of
14-gauge zip cord instead of 16-gauge would have resulted in less
impedance differences and in more (if not mere) guessing from the most
reliable listeners. 14-gauge zip cord was used against costly biwired
cables in recent controlled listening tests that ended in a draw
("Wired Wisdom: The Great Chicago Cable Caper"; Tom Nousaine; Sound
and Vision, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1995, pp.73-76; Errata: Vol. 11, No. 4,
p.5).

Ick...damping factor is yet another word in the audio world that makes me shudder. :)

clau and Kabillyhop,

You two completely missed my point!

I agree with you - it's not as simple as pure resistance exactly because the speaker is a complex load [ I'm using
the word "complex" here not to mean complicated - but in the mathematical sense - consisting of a real and imaginary
part - or in this case a resistive and reactive part. ]

I posed that last sentence of my post the way I did - starting with "After all...." as a "reducio ad aburdum"
argument. [ I guess I'll have to refrain from being subtle - and only be pedagogical from now on. ]

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

OK, fair enough. So to answer your original question, assuming it was not rhetorical, the "saturation point" depends on the lengths of the cables used and the impedances of the speakers. Tests have shown that human hearing cannot discern level differences of less than 0.3dB or so. Different speaker cables that cause a level difference of less than that at any frequency will not be distinguishable. That's why I believe 2 cables that measure essentally the same will sound the same. On the other hand, if one compares a 1,000 feet run of 24 ga. lampcord vs a 10 ft run of 12 ga. cable, one can detect a difference with most speakers.