Audiophile Cable

[ampeep]

if you choose to not believe in differences, that's fine. The listening was based on playing the same music - I'm not into test tones.

 

[ERD50]

if you choose to not believe in differences, that's fine. The listening was based on playing the same music - I'm not into test tones.

I didn't say I didn't believe it. I was just curious about the test conditions.

And as I said, a cable with different R, L, C characteristics can affect the sound. I don't think there is anything mystical about it. I can recall playing around with an equalizer - just pull the some of the lower-to-mid of the mid-range down a slight amount, and I think many people would describe that as a more 'detailed', 'open' and 'airy' sound. I think it's just a matter of getting some those lower frequencies out of the way, and the higher frequencies (associated with 'detailed', 'open' and 'airy') come through.

But it's awfully hit-miss to pick a cable that matches what kind of sound you are going for. And R, L, and/or C can be added to a cable for very little money - I just can't understand any correlation between $ and sound quality across proper cables. If I was inclined to try to adjust my sound with cables, I'd add a little proto-board to the cable and try different values of R, L and C in there.

Yes, the goal is the music, not test tones. But I like test tones to help guide me to what I think I'm hearing, and make some sense of it. If I found a difference between two cables, I'd like to know what's going on so I could reproduce it. What frequency range was boost or cut? There really isn't anything else a proper cable can do.

-ERD50

 

[dallas27]

No one on their death bed said "i wish i had bought better interconnects".

Are we really still talking about stranded copper?


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[ejman]

i wondered about the big difference between how the two sets of cables sounded, so I switched the connections. With different audio outputs, the difference remained between Monster vs. Kimber.

Also had my wife & friends listen to the cables and they also noticed the difference.

Actually, I do believe that there is more to this than our engineer friends say. I do hear a difference between my multistranded and solid core copper wires. Is it real? I dunno but I do like the more 3D soundstage I get with the solid core wire. The vocalist is further out in the room and there is just more distance between the front and the back of the image which creates a pleasant to my ears effect. There is more "there" there. Is it real, is it imagined, don't know but I do like the effect of the solid core wires so that's what I use. Could I prove this with electrodes attached to the tender parts? Dunno.

 

[ampeep]

I have what would be considered a mid-fi system, which is good enough to detect these differences. Probably wouldn't have noticed changes in my earlier systems.

It is definitely more than a change in equalization - some of the changes include imaging. For example, a singer's vocal would seem to be suspended several feet out into the room as compared to coming from between the speakers.

Don't know if such things can be measured....

 

[ERD50]

Actually, I do believe that there is more to this than our engineer friends say. ...

I'm open to any other plausible explanation.

I do hear a difference between my multistranded and solid core copper wires. Is it real? I dunno but I do like the more 3D soundstage I get with the solid core wire. The vocalist is further out in the room and there is just more distance between the front and the back of the image which creates a pleasant to my ears effect. There is more "there" there. Is it real, is it imagined, don't know ....

...
It is definitely more than a change in equalization - some of the changes include imaging. For example, a singer's vocal would seem to be suspended several feet out into the room as compared to coming from between the speakers.

Don't know if such things can be measured....

The brain uses timing differences and phase shift cues from each ear to locate sounds.

R, C, and L can affect timing differences and phase shift, so it is explainable. The 'imaging' or 'soundstage' itself is a perception that exists in our brain, so we can't measure that directly with instruments. But if observers reliably can identify that Cable A brings the vocals forward compared to Cable B, I expect that yes, we could correlate that with a change in R, L, and C in the cables. Knowing that, one could probably adjust it for a desired effect (withing limits).

... I do like the effect of the solid core wires so that's what I use. ...

Stranded versus solid just doesn't have a big effect on R, L, C in a proper audio cable. If there are real differences in the sound (verified in blind tests), it is likely due to some other shift in R, L or C in those cables, not specifically the stranded versus solid.

If a red car you drove handled better than a blue car you drove, you can't attribute that to the color.

Is it real, is it imagined, don't know

Well, if you don't know if the effect is real or imagined, it's kind of tough to try to identify a 'cause'.


Audio cables are simple devices, and well understood (made complex by people who want to sell $$$ ones - just like financial matters are made complex by people selling a product to 'help' you). Speakers and room interaction get very, very complex. It's tough to pinpoint any specific sound change to any specific speaker quality, there is so much going on (magnets, voice coils, electrical and physical properties of those, the speaker cone and suspension, box volume, resonances, damping, venting, crossovers, interactions between all the drivers, and then how all this interfaces with the room size, reflections, and on and on and on... ), and room effects make it harder to get good measurements. It's tough. Cable simple.

-ERD50

 

[ejman]

Well, for many years I believed the result from a test conducted by a learned panel from Stereo Review magazine long ago that concluded that without the shadow of a doubt all amplifiers that have comparable distortion characteristics within a certain power output sound the same. Much latter I discovered it ain't necessarily so.

This was driven home to me some years ago when I found that I was loosing interest in listening to music after I bought a nice new amp. I would start and after a few minutes I found myself fidgeting and just couldn't wait to turn the music off. These were powerful SS amps I was using with my Magneplanars and the only change in my system. After some time I found that changing the amp for another equally powerful SS amp resulted in much more pleasing non fatiguing sound. Still listening several hours a day, opinion has not changed.

I don't have the means or the knowledge to test my solid core wire vs my stranded wire. I do know which one I prefer so that's the one I use. If the explanation lies in measurable differences in R,C, or L I certainly would not argue the point. On the other hand, If some one were to conduct the test and and the cables tested identically and then the tester tried to convince me that I was not hearing a difference then I would think the tester was full of BS and was not measuring for the correct factors. Same as with the amps.

 

[ERD50]

Well, for many years I believed the result from a test conducted by a learned panel from Stereo Review magazine long ago that concluded that without the shadow of a doubt all amplifiers that have comparable distortion characteristics within a certain power output sound the same. Much latter I discovered it ain't necessarily so. ...

I'd question their statement as well (though I don't recall reading that article myself - but it was a magazine article, lots of fluff in those). There is distortion and there is distortion. Our ears/brain are amazingly sensitive to some things. Some very subtle differences in distortion are very hard to quantify with a measurement - it might be a distortion that increases with certain ratio of tones played together, within a certain frequency band, along with a transient, or whatever. Though amplifiers are not nearly complex as speakers/room, they are complex. Non-linear active components, feedback, passive components that are supposed to be linear but aren't, many elements and parasitics - there is a lot going on.

That said, I do think that if a blind test reliably showed a difference between two similar amps, that there would be something physical there to capture - a reason, not magic. It might be very difficult to identify, but it would be there.

So yes, listening test are the proof. Regardless what the numbers say, if it doesn't sound good to you, it doesn't sound good to you!

But by understanding the numbers with our listening tests, we can scientifically advance the state-of-the-art in sound. The snake-oil sales just distract from that progress. And if we attribute the sound difference to the wrong things (like that red car was faster so red paint makes cars faster; or these solid wire cables sounded better so solid wires are better in cables), then we go down the wrong path. That does not help us advance the state of the art.

I don't have the means or the knowledge to test my solid core wire vs my stranded wire. I do know which one I prefer so that's the one I use. If the explanation lies in measurable differences in R,C, or L I certainly would not argue the point. ...

I think that's reasonable. You found what you like, you are satisfied, and that's the whole point. Enjoy!

And I'll stand by my claim that the differences would come down to R, L and C in the cable.

On the other hand, If some one were to conduct the test and and the cables tested identically and then the tester tried to convince me that I was not hearing a difference then I would think the tester was full of BS and was not measuring for the correct factors. Same as with the amps.

In an earlier post, I said "I won't 'argue' about what someone says they hear. That is perception, and I can't get in their head.".

But if you consistently ID'd the cables in a blind test, no way can I say you can't hear the difference. You proved it. So it would be up to me to identify the cause. I'm very confident that we would find a frequency/phase shift difference due to RLC. I'm very confident that we could make a cable out of stranded wire with the same characteristics, and that you would not be able to identify them from the 'originals' in a blind test.

My real point here is absolutely not to argue with anyone about what they like. My point is, it would be better to understand why one cable sounds better (assuming it really does sound better). Then we can make cables to your liking, rather than randomly picking high priced cables until you find what you are looking for (which is likely unique to your system, you are probably compensating for speakers/room - the BIG variables, so other people's opinions on their system really won't help you). Although I think a better approach is to make neutral cables, and insert a board into your system that allows us to switch in R L and C combinations if you feel your sound needs to be tweaked. Kinda like an EQ, but without the downsides of all those separate bands, active components, etc.

-ERD50

 

[Animorph]

An old speaker cable article by Nelson Pass explaining the RLC's of cables and interactions with speakers and amps. I remember a lot of articles like this. If you have difficult speakers or amps there could be audible differences among cables. If the speaker and amp are closer to ideal, or the distance is very short, the cable won't make as much difference as long as the resistance is low enough.

It reminded me that I do use a pair of Fulton Browns my dad gave me when he upgraded long ago.

https://passlabs.com/articles/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil

"Frankly, I found it difficult to assess the results except at the extremes of performance. For 10 foot lengths with properly terminated cables and speakers with inductive high frequency characteristics, the differences between low inductance cable and twin conductor are extremely subtle and subject to question. With a low output inductance amplifier and a Heil tweeter (whose impedance is a nearly perfect 6ohm resistive) the difference was discernible as a slightly but not unpleasant softening of the highest frequencies. Fulton or Monster cables were a clear improvement over 24 or even 18 gauge, though a little less subtle than I would have expected, leading me to believe that the effort associated with heavier cables pays off in bass response and in apparent midrange definition, especially at crossover frequencies. The worst case load, the modified Dayton Wright electrostatics, presented some interesting paradoxes: the extremely low impedance involved showed the greatest differences between all the types of cables. However, the best sound cables were not necessarily electrically the best because several amplifiers preferred the highest resistance cable. In one case, I had to use 24 gauge cable to prevent tripping the amplifier's protection circuitry."

 

[ls99]

I'd say 1000 mcm cables to the speakers should be distortion free.

 

[eytonxav]

While not the cheapest, I have found these cables to be high quality and reasonably priced:

Blue Jeans Cable -- Quality Cables at Reasonable Prices

 

[My Boss Is Springsteen]

I'm fat, dumb and happy with my Luxman amp, Tannoy speakers, Rega turntable and Rat Shack cables.

I'd rather spend money on records.

 

[robnplunder]

My experience as an audiophile on cables:

- Cheap cable can really effect the sound (quality, volume) negatively
- Audiophile level cables have subtle differences. But more expensive does not mean better sounding. It's like fine wine. You may not like $400 cable vs $40 while another may rave about it. If one likes a specific subtle change, the $400 cable may worth it. Otherwise, spending money on other components of the music system, including source.

 

[ERD50]

An old speaker cable article by Nelson Pass explaining the RLC's of cables and interactions with speakers and amps. I remember a lot of articles like this. If you have difficult speakers or amps there could be audible differences among cables. If the speaker and amp are closer to ideal, or the distance is very short, the cable won't make as much difference as long as the resistance is low enough.
....
https://passlabs.com/articles/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil
...

Some good info there. Thanks, I recall reading a number of the Nelson Pass articles.

My experience as an audiophile on cables:

- Cheap cable can really effect the sound (quality, volume) negatively...

I would rephrase that (and this ties in with the Nelson Pass article that Animorph linked. I would say:

[-]Cheap[/-] Any cable, regardless of price, can really effect the sound (quality, volume), if R, L, and/or C are high enough. I would not say 'negatively', that's subjective. For example, if a cable with high R causes a drop in high frequency response in a system that the owner felt was too 'bright', this could very well be perceived as an improvement in sound. If it flattened the overall response, you could also say it objectively improved the accuracy of the system.​

- Audiophile level cables have subtle differences. ...

In fact, many of the esoteric, high priced cables do have significant R, L, and/or C. And that can make them sound different in some systems. Some people may hear the difference (and some will imagine they do). Some may like the change, some may not. And it can be very system dependent as to if there is any change at all, and how the change presents itself. The impedance curve of different high end speakers can be very different, and will interact differently with different high RLC cables. But that difference provides a possible reason to pay for the esoteric cables. And a cheap cable can have high R, L, and/or C as well. Though I contend you could do the same thing in a far more controlled fashion with a few $ worth of RLC components and a basic, mechanically robust cable.

Now this has me wondering - is there an 'audiophile box' that lets you plug in RLC in different configurations? It would be like a hardwired, simple equalizer. It would provide some frequency shaping, but w/o all the downside of a multi-band EQ.

-ERD50

 

[ls99]

Some good info there. Thanks, I recall reading a number of the Nelson Pass articles.


......
Now this has me wondering - is there an 'audiophile box' that lets you plug in RLC in different configurations? It would be like a hardwired, simple equalizer. It would provide some frequency shaping, but w/o all the downside of a multi-band EQ.

-ERD50

Can alway try a capacitor, resistor and coil substitution box. Or Make one. Happy experimenting.

 

[ERD50]

Can alway try a capacitor, resistor and coil substitution box. Or Make one. Happy experimenting.

Yes, I could, but I'm just not motivated.

When someone says cable XYZ brings the vocalist more forward, OK. But every recording is different - is that how it was recorded? And what will it do on a different recording?

Again, if the listener is getting the sound they want with a specific cable, they are set. I'm pretty happy with the sound of my system with neutral cables.

What I should do is get back to reviewing room treatments. I know I have early reflections(*) that are messing with the sound a bit. Cables won't fix that, you need to kill the reflections. But my listening room is the living room, so I am limited in what I can do by aesthetics. Now that I think about it, I did experiment a little with putting some 'wings' of absorbent material on my chair, and that made a very noticeable improvement, and I could make that something that I only use when I'm doing serious listening.

(*) Early Reflections - I forget the details (google will bring it up), but one guide to speaker set up and room treatments was to stretch a string from the speaker to your ear in your listening position, and then add X inches to the string so it is now loose. Then, with both ends of the strings attached to those points at your ear level and the speaker (or with a helper), pull the string tight along its length (forming a triangle with the direct 'line-of-sight' between ear-speaker). If the string can touch any hard surface, that surface will deliver an early reflection which 'smears' the sound. So you want to move the speakers or treat that surface to be less reflective. That "X inches" length relates to the msec of delay. The longer delays are less problematical.

This is not voodoo. I had a test CD (which I can't locate, I think I borrowed it from a friend, but I think I found one on-line) with a track that was very unusual to me. Not the typical frequency sweeps. This track started with a quickly repeated burst of low frequency beeps (beep-beep-beep-beep-beep), maybe 8 in a row, and then it would step the frequency up a bit and repeat the 8 (or maybe it was a continuous sweep). Anyhow, the results were surprising. You expect to just hear these on/off burst tones boringly repeat as they ascend the scale, but at a few frequency points the beeps got all bubbly sounding, and you couldn't make out the individual beeps, like they were walking all over each other, like the timing was off. I thought there was something wrong with the recording, but when I listened with headphones, the beeps were distinct all the way through. I'm pretty sure this is attributed to the early reflections combining with the straight sound.

Does that affect the music? I believe it does. I need to get back to my room treatments!

-ERD50

 

[MichaelB]

Anyone still interested in the original post, there's an update by ARS Tecnica including some double blind testing. The audiophile’s dilemma: strangers can’t identify $340 cables, either [Updated] | Ars Technica

 

[ERD50]

Anyone still interested in the original post, there's an update by ARS Tecnica including some double blind testing. The audiophile’s dilemma: strangers can’t identify $340 cables, either [Updated] | Ars Technica

While I'm quite certain that a fancy, $$$ Ethernet cable will provide no audible difference over a basic spec-compliant cable, this test is pretty deeply flawed (and tests like this are not easy).

It appears they just used the laptop's DAC and audio output to drive some headphones? I did not see any mention of a separate high-end audio DAC and headphone amp. Laptops have decent audio quality outputs (as in 'not bad'), but I'd bet discerning listeners would detect a difference in quality between a laptop audio output, and a quality external DAC and headphone amp. And you would not need to spend mega-bucks for quality external components, maybe $200? But the laptop components are probably less than $5 total, and a laptop is a very electrically noisy environment with many challenges to great sound (multiple noise sources, clocks, etc, proximity of the noise, difficulty in grounding everything ideally).

It would be easy to make the claim that the noise levels in the internal circuits of a laptop would 'mask' any differences between the cables. I still doubt there is any difference, but this is not a good set up to discern differences. I doubt any true audiophile drives their amp/speakers from the headphone jack of a laptop (I have for convenience and causal listening, but I use a ~ $120 external DAC for my serious listening).

The cable seller claims that this Ethernet cable reduces the noise that can get into the audio circuitry, and that noise can interfere with the audio circuits. Now that claim has some theoretical basis, so I think it would be better to test for that specifically. As a poster in one of those articles mentioned, noise getting into the DAC is not a surprise to the designers. A high quality external DAC will be designed with noise in mind, and they will take steps to mitigate any audible effects. It's a stretch to think that an Ethernet cable with any sort of 'special' attention to noise reduction would make an audible difference in a good design that accounts for this kind of noise, but we could test for that:

My approach would be two separate ABX tests - first with the 'special cable' a constant, but with increasing levels of noise injected into the system. Record the point at which listeners detect an audible difference (and I'd suspect the point where a difference is detected is when they get errors, and the sound mutes - 'golden ears' not required!). Then repeat those tests with noise and a basic cable.

Would you find a difference in noise level rejection between the cables, and are those noise levels likely to be encountered in real life? That would be my test. As I said, this stuff gets involved and is time consuming, and ideally is repeated by different testers and different groups with similar results. That's why I tend to go with logical thinking and track down the stuff I know is an issue (like my room effects), rather than chase questionable issues.

-ERD50

 

[meierlde]

While I'm quite certain that a fancy, $$$ Ethernet cable will provide no audible difference over a basic spec-compliant cable, this test is pretty deeply flawed (and tests like this are not easy).

It appears they just used the laptop's DAC and audio output to drive some headphones? I did not see any mention of a separate high-end audio DAC and headphone amp. Laptops have decent audio quality outputs (as in 'not bad'), but I'd bet discerning listeners would detect a difference in quality between a laptop audio output, and a quality external DAC and headphone amp. And you would not need to spend mega-bucks for quality external components, maybe $200? But the laptop components are probably less than $5 total, and a laptop is a very electrically noisy environment with many challenges to great sound (multiple noise sources, clocks, etc, proximity of the noise, difficulty in grounding everything ideally).

It would be easy to make the claim that the noise levels in the internal circuits of a laptop would 'mask' any differences between the cables. I still doubt there is any difference, but this is not a good set up to discern differences. I doubt any true audiophile drives their amp/speakers from the headphone jack of a laptop (I have for convenience and causal listening, but I use a ~ $120 external DAC for my serious listening).

The cable seller claims that this Ethernet cable reduces the noise that can get into the audio circuitry, and that noise can interfere with the audio circuits. Now that claim has some theoretical basis, so I think it would be better to test for that specifically. As a poster in one of those articles mentioned, noise getting into the DAC is not a surprise to the designers. A high quality external DAC will be designed with noise in mind, and they will take steps to mitigate any audible effects. It's a stretch to think that an Ethernet cable with any sort of 'special' attention to noise reduction would make an audible difference in a good design that accounts for this kind of noise, but we could test for that:

My approach would be two separate ABX tests - first with the 'special cable' a constant, but with increasing levels of noise injected into the system. Record the point at which listeners detect an audible difference (and I'd suspect the point where a difference is detected is when they get errors, and the sound mutes - 'golden ears' not required!). Then repeat those tests with noise and a basic cable.

Would you find a difference in noise level rejection between the cables, and are those noise levels likely to be encountered in real life? That would be my test. As I said, this stuff gets involved and is time consuming, and ideally is repeated by different testers and different groups with similar results. That's why I tend to go with logical thinking and track down the stuff I know is an issue (like my room effects), rather than chase questionable issues.

-ERD50

Of course once you go to an external sound card and an usb cable, then the issue of the quality of that cable could emerge.
As to the ethernet (and/or wireless connection). it might be possible to compare direct streaming with using network shares to handle the music. If you use network shares then the music comes over in blocks as the player reads the next block of data and then the receiving computer gets that block and presents it to the player. In this mode as far as the player can tell the file looks like a local file. (Indeed a third possible test, a local file vs a networked file, vs streaming). (Although if you watch the net traffic in streaming you see the file buffered into local memory and the net traffic stopping for a while before resuming again).

 

[ERD50]

Of course once you go to an external sound card and an usb cable, then the issue of the quality of that cable could emerge. ...

But isn't that how a digital high-end system would typically be configured? So shouldn't that be the test case?

As to the ethernet (and/or wireless connection). it might be possible to compare direct streaming with using network shares to handle the music. If you use network shares then the music comes over in blocks as the player reads the next block of data and then the receiving computer gets that block and presents it to the player. In this mode as far as the player can tell the file looks like a local file. (Indeed a third possible test, a local file vs a networked file, vs streaming). (Although if you watch the net traffic in streaming you see the file buffered into local memory and the net traffic stopping for a while before resuming again).

In any case, if the cable seller is claiming their cable cuts noise that could get into the DAC and affect the audio, isn't that what we should test for? I'm not sure it is relevant whether the data is sent in blocks, gets stored in a buffer in RAM or anything else.

-ERD50

 

[meierlde]

In any case, if the cable seller is claiming their cable cuts noise that could get into the DAC and affect the audio, isn't that what we should test for? I'm not sure it is relevant whether the data is sent in blocks, gets stored in a buffer in RAM or anything else.

-ERD50

Since the data is buffered into the computer, the sound card gets the data as a dma transfer (memory to memory). If there were jitter on the ethernet cable, or wireless link, it would be absorbed by the buffering process. (Unless you think any ethernet jitter gets preserved in memory).
So the audio data is sent to a buffer and that buffer is loaded to the sound card a bit later. So given how things are done its not clear how ethernet jitter could get to the sound card in the first place given the buffered nature of how things actually work.

 

[ERD50]

Since the data is buffered into the computer, the sound card gets the data as a dma transfer (memory to memory). If there were jitter on the ethernet cable, or wireless link, it would be absorbed by the buffering process. (Unless you think any ethernet jitter gets preserved in memory).
So the audio data is sent to a buffer and that buffer is loaded to the sound card a bit later. So given how things are done its not clear how ethernet jitter could get to the sound card in the first place given the buffered nature of how things actually work.

I see the confusion. The way I read the article, is they were just talking about noise in general getting into the DAC, not jitter specifically. Noise getting into the DAC could cause audible problems, but as I said earlier, I'd expect a good quality DAC to be immune to the kinds of noise you'd get from a basic Ethernet cable in the system, and the differences in noise levels with some 'super' cable versus a basic cable would likely be small anyway.

I agree with you, jitter would not be preserved in memory (or most other chains for that matter).

I'm highly suspicious of their claims of noise differences between a 'super' and a basic Ethernet cable having audible effects. But I think it can be tested as I described. I'm not going to bother

-ERD50