[kbuzz3]

Was curious as to folks opinions. Do most of you mix and match cables or do you go with the one house for all solutions

[John151]

I have had an electic assortment of low end cables, mostly because I did not think that cables were all that important.  However, after adding a Groneberg cable from Odyssey, I now have a different viewpoint on cables, and plan on having all Groneberg cables.

[Carlman]

I have had the best results with all 1 brand for IC's connecting source to preamp, preamp to amp... and SC's.  However, there are always exceptions... The amp, speaker, and speaker cable 'synergy' must work well.  If I had to do it over again, I'd say get that match correct first, then buy the matching IC's.  

However, you can always just go purely digital... no IC's, just a digital cable.  Less to worry about...

[_scotty_]

IMO speaker cables may be the weakest link in the chain. It seems that frequently this weak point  may obscure the differences between IC's.
Once you finally achieve a high level of information transmission  between the amp and the speakers you can  hear changes due to upstream components much more clearly. This being said, IC's from the same manufacturer who has figured how to get the speaker cables right may also
work well. I know of at least three cases from years past where similar
technological approaches to both interconnects and speaker cables yielded
good results.
Scotty

[ScottMayo]

Was curious as to folks opinions. Do most of you mix and match cables or do you go with the one house for all solutions

I use Blue Jeans Cable for most things, except optical cable - I get that from Radio Shack because quality is not an issue there, and it saves on shipping.

A well shielded cable, properly made, has no voice to speak of. If a cable has a noticable voice, it's mucking with the signal - and that's not a cable's job, IMHO. Opinions vary, though. If you need to cover up a harshness or other flaw in the amp, playing with cable voicing is definitely cheaper than swapping amps. (Well, usually ).

Mixing cables from different vendors should make no difference if they aren't voiced. I like Blue Jeans because 1) they publish what they use, without pseudoscientific explanations and 2) you can specify the color you want on the jacket, which is nice for complicated installations.

[_scotty_]

I have a chicken or the egg kind of question. How do you know you have a cable that is not "voiced" instead of one that is compensating for unrecognized nonlinearities from other components in your system.
Also how do you know you don't have unrecognized sources of masking in a system which prevent you from hearing differences between IC's, speaker cables and power cords.
 Basically where does accuracy of reproduction of the source material or high fidelity start in a audio system and where does it end.
Scotty

[muralman1]

I'm with ya, Obsession........

[ScottMayo]

I have a chicken or the egg kind of question. How do you know you have a cable that is not "voiced" instead of one that is compensating for unrecognized nonlinearities from other components in your system.

That's what measurements are for. If an interconnect is well shielded, has very low capacitance, low inductance and resistance in the milliohms, you can expect it's not going to mess with the sound.

[_scotty_]

Scott said

That's what measurements are for. If an interconnect is well shielded, has very low capacitance, low inductance and resistance in the milliohms, you can expect it's not going to mess with the sound.

Scott , are you sure? As I see it you have a Dilemma. You are engaged in a hobby whose goal is the continuous improvement in the reproduction accuracy of recorded music. Whether or not a step closer toward this goal is taken rests on the value judgement made by someone who actually listened to the DUT and arrived at a conclusion.  After the design phase and measurements of a new component the final analysis comes down to how does it sound not how does it measure. If you are  relying on  the measurements of a cable to tell you if what you are hearing is an accurate transmission of the information contained the recording instead trusting the evidence provided to you by your senses you have a flawed decision making paradigm. If you like what your system sounds like and you think it has higher fidelity when Bluejeans cables rather than some other type are used then it is obvious that you actually arrived at the decision to use Bluejeans cable based on how it sounds not on how it measures.  I am assuming that the rest of your system also consists of components chosen on the basis of how they sound rather than how they measure. Our entire hobby rests on the foundation of subjective assessments of progress arrived at by actually listening to the fruits of our labor and trusting our ears and the judgement we come to. Trusting in measurements to tell us when we have arrived at "perfect sound" is the sure path to a flawed result and an erroneous conclusion.
Scotty

[Carlman]

All properly designed sound cables sound alike, right?  It's all marketing and psycho-acoustics that we're hearing.  This is the truth and indeed fact.

 

Whatever... I think everything is 'voiced' whether it wants to be or not.  Otherwise, everything would sound the same... electronics included... and there would be only one brand of gear.

[TheChairGuy]

Oye, let me see if I got this right...

Cables matter - sorta' - if I use and or sell that brand

Subjectivity does - if it is my subjective bias

Specs do - but aren't useful when I don't think much of 'em

Opinions matter - only if I know there is fact to back it up

Facts matter - only if I have studied or aware of them

In summation, nothing in audio exists until ScottMayo endorses it.

Yup, okay, now I got it  

[PhilNYC]

Whatever... I think everything is 'voiced' whether it wants to be or not.  Otherwise, everything would sound the same... electronics included...

I agree 100%

and there would be only one brand of gear.

Microsoft?  

[markC]

What's up chair guy? Sit on a tack or something? You seem to be gettin' nasty as of late. Not that I care, just an observation.

[TheChairGuy]

What's up chair guy? Sit on a tack or something? You seem to be gettin' nasty as of late. Not that I care, just an observation.

Maybe something like that....or maybe it's 'man-opause' setting in at nearly 43  

It could also be my crap-ometer pinging into the red zone when a couple folks on this forum instruct us on what to buy and how and what we hear.  22 years in consumer goods sales kinda' makes that measuring instrument rather delicate.

Otherwise, I've never been happier in my life than right now.  Really  

[theborg]

I moved this into audio central, not sure why it was in critic's circle...

[electricbear]

If anyone out there can't hear the difference cables make then they must have one of two things going on.
a) either they must have terrible equipment
                            or
b)their head is so far up their butt that their ears are fully of c***p.

[_scotty_]

Whatever... I think everything is 'voiced' whether it wants to be or not. Otherwise, everything would sound the same... electronics included... and there would be only one brand of gear. icon_wink.gif

 My interpretation of what Carlman said is that every piece of audio gear has unintended and frequently unmeasurable nonlinearities with all too audible consequences.  My own personal goal has been to recognize and reduce these unintended contributors influence where ever possible in my system.
In a partial answer to my own earlier chicken and egg question.
I think the Ivor Tiefenbrun had it right with his emphasis on the source being
of paramount importance in the system.  If you don't put it in at the beginning it won't come out of the speakers at the end. How good your front
end is and how much it asks to rest of your system to do sets the performance bar.
As a friend of mine frequently says "I can jump as high Michael Jordan if we jump in my living room with an eight foot ceiling."  
Scotty

[ScottMayo]

If you are relying on the measurements of a cable to tell you if what you are hearing is an accurate transmission of the information contained the recording instead trusting the evidence provided to you by your senses you have a flawed decision making paradigm. ...

When it comes to cables, the job is to get a signal from point A to point B, unmodified. No cable does it perfectly, but luckily a pair of wires only has 3 attributes that matter, and they are all precisely measurable. Get something with low resistance (easy), low inductance (possible) and low capitance (possible if the manufacturer didn't try to get silly), add a good shield, and you're done. Belden cable fufills my criteria, the result doesn't sound wrong and the price is right. What I have is as neutral as is feasible and if it were more neutral, I wouldn't be able to hear the difference. One less thing to worry about, in my view.

I do trust my ears - in a blind ABX test. I also trust measurements - if the component is simple enough that reliable measures are the whole story. Unfortunately, that's pretty much only true of cables. I wish it were true of amps.

From what I've seen, people who trust only their ears and don't take care to shield themselves from their own expectations, end up on an endless and expensive quest of trying (and often buying and later selling) every overpriced tweak that comes along. Some people enjoy that sort of thing. Me... I'd rather listen to music.

[avahifi]

It amazes me that so many are willing to buy and report on the differences in musicality they hear from various expensive cables, but so few are curious enough to want to know WHY they are hearing differences.

Basic cable characteristics are length (too short is bung), termination quality (non standard terminations break jacks and make short circuits), flexability (too stiff and they pop out, causing open grounds and system destroying hum),  resistance, inductance, capacitance, and finally shielding (poor shielding causes hum and RFI dumped into your system).

It is important to understand that the cables in and of themselves DO NOT HAVE A SOUND!  The electrical load they represent modifies the linearity of the equipment driving the cable and that change in linearity is what you are reporting on hearing.

You can easily observe what the cable is doing by connecting it to the driving equipment, terminating it into an appropriate dummy load, and driving the equipment with high frequency square waves and observing what the cable is doing to the linearity of the equipment on a scope.

Once you see how badly a capacitive cable makes many amplifier or preamplifiers misbehave, you won't like that cable's sound so much any more.  A worse case was using Polk's very capacitive Cobra Cable with an early Threshold amplifier, which was designed without an output inductor as they assumed that the normal inductance of a speaker wire would be adequate isolation from a capacitive load.  Of course the combination tied the capacitive load (the Cobra Cable) directly across the amplifier terminals and the result was the amp went into full bore oscillation and melted.  Now anybody could hear the difference the cable made (and smell the difference too).

From a design standpoint, we try and make our equipment with very high current drive and as load insensative as possible to minimize the effects of whatever brand of cable you try and use, as any audible effects are likely bad effects.

We recommend cables and speaker wires with low resistance, low capacitance, good shielding, and standard spec terminations.  I know its not much fun, but you can get all this at Radio Shack.

PS  To provide better shielding in a strong RFI area, twist the speaker cables about 3 turns to the foot in an electric drill.

Frank Van Alstine

[ScottMayo]

It is important to understand that the cables in and of themselves DO NOT HAVE A SOUND! The electrical load they represent modifies the linearity of the equipment driving the cable and that change in linearity is what you are reporting on hearing.

I've wondered about this on and off. There are plenty of people who will swear blind that brand X made their highs higher and their darks darker. But I plug them into my gear and I get no change.

But thinking back, I've mostly owned or worked with Bryston and Audio Research amps, and both of these are pretty much arc welders in terms of current sources. Not too sensitive to what's downstream, and often called on to drive difficult loads.

It would be interesting to take a survey. I wonder if we'd learn that people who swear that cables, power cords and fuses all change the world, are running esoteric gear that runs nearer the edge of stability.

It's a theory, anyway. It might turn out that the hardheaded cable-schmable crowd is running meta-stable, flat-neutrality-or-bust rigs, and the "silver-made-my-whites-whiter" crowd is running much more delicate gear with a lot more reactivity.

Has anyone marketed an adjustable cable? Imagine a little box in the middle, holding an variable cap, a variable inductor, and a varistor. You could tune the cable to emulate any brand you liked.   Wait, I better patent this...