[Davesworld]

A cable is Neutral if it's not in Drive or Reverse

james

 Thank You! I was tempted. Electrons have no memory of where they have been. Barring impedance issues when using an analog interconnect and digital to some extent, no cable should have a sound at all. Of course the level of disability and remoteness of the person building the cable, the better it will sound as if by magic. If built by a blind person on a tiny island in the South Pacific, the sound will bring tears to your eyes. if that person dies, the sound will immediately be twice as good and you will explode with passion.

 On a serious note, there are some areas where material DOES matter, keeping electrolytics out of the audio path in circuits and crossovers is the biggest one, speaker cable of sufficient gauge so as to give the amplifier better control of the speaker is another. If the output impedance of a component is higher than the input of what it is feeding, you will get an unnatural roll off at the high end of the range. I can think of so many design considerations that will give equipment better or worse sound to the point that the interconnects are so far down the scale it's not even on the chart. If I didn't like the sound of my amp, the first thing I would look at is which op amp is used on the input and go from there, I would not suspect cables unless they are so poor that even a coat hanger is better.

 

[Davesworld]

The hijack idea: three types intrigues me.
I am a realist, of the three.
More by elimination of purist, I know i am not a purist. I do not need every CD or LP to be exactly what was recorded.
I am not an idealist, as i do not have the need for that sort of 1950's ideal sound Thick, fat midrange, warm and cozy. yuck.
I think i 'more like the typical Japanese audiophile, in that i like clarity.
So by default i wind up in the middle as a realist. I take what I get as long as it sounds pretty real to me.

The Japanese part brings up bad memories. For years the Japanese flooded the market with amplifiers that used excessive amounts of global feedback well in excess of 20db. They measured great as far as THD and IM but the issue was that you traded open loop harmonic distortion for closed loop phase distortion. The result was a a nails on the chalkboard sound in the upper midrange. No wonder people preferred the overly warm colored sound of old cheaper tube gear at the time. The warmth was actually caused by poor quality output transformers giving a bloated undamped bass. Having said all that, in 1979 I was saved from both by a Luxman amplifier so I neither had to deal with nails on the chalkboard or tubby sounding cheap old tube gear. In the 80's most Japanese companies addressed this with upscale lines, Pioneer Elite and so forth. Prior to this, companies like Nakamichi and Luxman were the exception to the rule and great they were.

[*Scotty*]

Deftone,I would say you can't know absolutely if a cable is neutral. The applied value judgment will always be context specific. You can always subscribe to an internet consensus viewpoint and buy what people tell you is neutral in their experience.
  You may be successful in this approach if you own Bryston gear
and take Bryston owners advice about what works for them. Two variables that may work against you are your loudspeakers and your room. Their advice is at least a starting place.
This is a long-winded way of saying good luck, YMMV.
Scotty