[drphoto]

I switched out my Kimber 8TC on the deCappos to a wire loaned to me, just to see if it would smooth thing out a bit. (I don't know the brand of the new wire....it looks like a homemade deal from one of the popular designs)

Anyway, it did sound smoother, but I felt like everything sounded....well...slow. Now is this my imagination, or could this be for real?

[cryotweaks]

Yes, cables can sound "slow".

This is usually the characteristic one hears when:
1. leading edge transients are blurred
2. Bass frequencies appear to be over emphasized.
3. High frequencies are rolled off

I imagine you are hearing one or a combination of these.  Am I correct?

[Jon L]

8TC is one of those great bang-for-buck cables and hard to beat in that budget range.  It really was/is ahead of its time, using 16 separate copper conductors, each individually insulated in teflon.  

And yes, it's very easy to end up with a DIY speaker cable that sounds "slow."  Many factors can contribute, but main culprits are excessive inductance, lossy dielectric such as polypropylene, plastic, too large a gauge/too small a gauge, impure copper, etc, etc.  It's very easy indeed to end up with flabby/slow bass, veiled midrange, "smooth" but low-resolution.  Speaking from experience, it really takes time and effort to get it right..

[YoungDave]

Despite the highly subjective assertions of some audiophiles, I do not believe most of what I hear about cables - any cables.

I certainly do not believe in any "slow cable" phenomenon and I defy anyone to demonstrate it through actual testing.  I have always believed that in audio, testing does not tell the whole story, because we do not always devise the most useful tests, or even know all parameters to test.  But I say that the convers is not true - no unit that tests bad can sound good.  

There is a recent example of a Stereophile Magazine review of a $500,000 amplifier that developed a terribly large distortion at 1/10th of its rated output - yet the subjective listening reviewer loved it.  Of course, Stereophile reviewers have never seen a high-dollar item that they didn't love.  This approach reflects poorly on Stereophile Magazine.

I have spent years testing cables for high-reliability space and weapons programs, looking at risetime with a sampling voltmeter, etc.  I have seen risetimes on some special cables as fast as 4 nanoseconds.

Cables can make a difference, but most audio cables are "designed", "manufactured", and sold by copywriters and their bosses, who are the most scandalous charlatans in the audio industry.  Most cable claims are based on junk science or assertions that do not stand up to engineering analysis, and I think most cable "manufacturer", who merely relabel and package bulk cable procured overseas, do not even employ engineers.

So, in a nutshell, no, you cannot have "slow" speaker cables.

Now, let the flames begin!

[cryotweaks]

I think what drphoto was trying to say is that the sound was different when he changed cables.  In his own words he was trying to quantify that change in sound. The changes in sound quality were probably due in large part to a change in inductance, capacitance, resistance, and or dialectric absorption characteristic that his new cables exhibited.  I don't think anyone was trying to offer up a voodoo science explanation.

[YoungDave]

I think you are right, cryo.

I was thinking "slow", in terms of a 120-beat march playing at 119.5 beats/minute, or maybe a loss of coherence that makes the higher frequencies transmit thru the wire more slowly (out-of-phase) than the lower frequencies.

The idea of describing listening phenomena such as fuzzy or booming bass, roll-off of highs, or other impedance-related phenomena as "slow"  had not ocurred to me.  I would call that "distortion" in the sense of an unwanted change of the signal, and not in the more common audio sense of harmonic distortion.  

I certainly must respect any attempts to put cable phenomena into language accessible to the listener, once I get the idea about the parameters being described.

Cheers, All!

[mcgsxr]

Is it possible that Stereophile has never posted a bad review, rather than never heard a bad, expensive component?

Just a thought - if I were running their marketing dept, and was keen on retaining advertising, I might rather call up a customer to explain that we would prefer not to run the review, rather than field the phone calls from them after panning them in print...

Mark in Canada

[Marbles]

For a shitty review see:

http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreviews/255/

"The Richard Gray's Power Company 400S manifested the same voice or coloration no matter how I used it. It sounded like your windshield looks after a big rig blows by in a rainstorm: The first swash of the blades cleans things up, but the view remains rather obscured. Unfortunately, sweep after sweep, the view remained the same, as through the window of an old, abused New York taxi. Another analogy: Drop your forearm into a sandbox and sweep it broadly across the surface. That's what the 400S sounded like."