[Speedskater]

   Great advice .. There is a lot to say about the quality and durability of certain cables -- If you're investing hundreds or thousands of dollars into high end gear, might as well buy high quality cables that will last a lifetime.

Why would one think that high priced cable has as good as or better quality than major manufacture cable?
Why would one think that high priced cable will last longer than major manufacture cable?
 
*************************************
Quote:

Originally Posted by Adamsolympia /img/forum/go_quote.gif    ......................................
I should find some cables that are at least as durable as monster cables but without the high price tag, if possible. Monoprice.com might have just the right thing.
 
Excellent advice but put BlueJeans at the top of the list.

 

[cel4145]

If you look in this forum, http://www.head-fi.org/f/133/sound-science, you'll find a lot of good information about this kind of thing. It's been talked about A LOT but for many of us it comes down to suggestibility and science.

Good advice.

One of the things to consider about the cable debate is that there is definitely very strong evidence from testing that cables very rarely make any significant difference. I use the term "significant" because I think that's a different issue than no difference. The biggest difference will likely come from different materials (silver vs copper), but that difference might not be that important to you if you compared them properly. And the problem is that most expensive cables have not been tested using scientific methods to prove whether or not they actually work better at all than their cheaper cousins. So my point is that for all the boutique cables on the market, the likelihood that you'll get something, based on subjective reviews, that is actually better than something cheaper, is pretty low. For all you know, the $100 pair of RCAs that are popular don't actually sound better than a good $20 pair. People just think that they do, and price has been proven to make people think something is better when it comes to audio equipment. So buying expensive cables is kind of like buying an expensive lottery scratch card that you can never really know if you won. LOL

However, I am a fan of buying nice looking cables and good build quality cables because I like them, not because I necessarily believe in better SQ from them. For example, Monoprice, that is regularly recommended here, is a very good value for the price. But I do think that there are cables that look nicer and are stronger build quality, even though you could easily replace a Monoprice cable more cheaply if (when) one has a problem for less than buying the better build quality ones.

Good luck with all this. You have a lot to learn to tease out all the nuances of subjective audio equipment evaluation and its worth

 

[Adamsolympia]

  Why would one think that high priced cable has as good as or better quality than major manufacture cable?
Why would one think that high priced cable will last longer than major manufacture cable?
 
*************************************
Quote:

Originally Posted by Adamsolympia /img/forum/go_quote.gif    ......................................
I should find some cables that are at least as durable as monster cables but without the high price tag, if possible. Monoprice.com might have just the right thing.
 
Excellent advice but put BlueJeans at the top of the list.

That's just the thing, I never thought that about "high priced" cables and not sure why anyone would. I mentioned my thought that high quality , durable cables would be worth it (at a fair price, of course) .. I would never pay for specialized audiophile cables from companies that use pseudo-science to convince the gullible public how much better sound you get from them. (Unless they sponsor a blind study of their cables, vs the alternatives -- something that will likely not happen)  ...
 
When I see a cable like the $1000 lightspeed USB and the fact that many audiophiles actually pay that much for it - I don't think "I wish I could have one of those" -- I think - wow, Maybe I could build one of those and make some money selling it, lol   I've been thinking about coming up with my own design, separating the power from the data portion of the cable (In a way that'd not a rip-off of light harmonics) and selling it for much less than $1000... A grand for (probably less than $30 bucks) worth of material and a few dollars of work is the worst ripoff I've ever seen in any electronics industry. But hey, if someone wants to spend a grand on a cable - more power to em whatever floats their boat.

 

[Greamlin]

This is just my $0.02, but l perfer "custom" cables mainly for the look (l like to make DYI cables) and when all my friends or when family look @ them they are even more in shock (l'm still a newbie to the audiophile world)

 

[Chris J]

  As a brand new audiophile, I'm still learning the ropes. I've never had a hobby where so many fellow hobbyists have conflicting, contradictory information -- For example, some people give seemingly well reasoned explanations why Cables make no-difference what-so-ever (unless you have a very cheap cable to begin with, in which case they say a higher gauge wire might make a difference) -- Now that I've been reading and browsing the forums here, I see what looks like a majority (or large portion) here swear by high end cables, saying they completely transform the audio quality. Has anyone here done an ABX test on components like this to test whether it really makes a difference or if it's another placebo?

 I'm going to dig through the forums to see if & where this question has probably been brought up before -- I'm just wondering if there are any educational resources anyone might recommend, where I could learn the basics on things like this -- especially where both sides of this debate might be equally addressed?  .. I'm prepared to start investing good money into this hobby,  I just want to get the most bang for the buck. Thinking about building a bottlehead crack for my next adventure If cables matter as much as some people say, perhaps I should invest in the more expensive solder and wires for this project.

Edit: I did find the threads where this has been discussed before ;  I'd still very much appreciate recommendations for educational resources, if anyone has any.  I'd like to learn as much as I can on my own, hopefully building confidence so I don't feel so lost and like a "newb" .    Thanks.

Cables really polarize a lot of people.

Oddly enough, there seems to be a lot of tolerance for tube rolling, Op Amp rolling and capacitor rolling.

 

[Speedskater]

Cables really polarize a lot of people.

Oddly enough, there seems to be a lot of tolerance for tube rolling, Op Amp rolling and capacitor rolling.

Well:
a] Tube Rolling can add euphoric coloration.
b] Capacitor Rolling just waste's money.
c] Op-Amp Rolling can turn a perfectly good circuit into an oscillator.

 

[Chris J]

:rolleyes:

Well:
a] Tube Rolling can add euphoric coloration.
b] Capacitor Rolling just waste's money.
c] Op-Amp Rolling can turn a perfectly good circuit into an oscillator.

A) I don't see why one 12AX7 is more euphonic than another 12AX7, maybe noisier, maybe more microphonic, but my question was really why do some audiophiles go crazy on other audiophiles when big $ are spend on cables, but not much is said about spending crazy money on "exotic" tubes?
B) Getting back to my original point, you can pay insane amounts of money for capacitors, oddly enough everyone doesn't go crazy when someone spends mega $ on exotic audiophile caps, but many audiophiles see red when someone spends an equivalent amount on cables
C) Or into an amp with excessive DC offset, or decrease the SNR, if you don't know what you're rolling in, etc, etc.
Relatively speaking, you can spend a fair amount on an Op Amp upgrade too.

Anyway, my original question was not a technical question.
The audiophile psychology is strange and arbitrary...:confused_face_2:

 

[superjawes]

Tubes can at least be interesting since they aren't passive devices. Cables are essentially resistors (with very low resistance) and behave normally as long as you have a high enough gauge (low gauge number) and operate below several gigahertz (so well, well within the audible range).

On tubes, I'm sure audiophiles would roll transistors as well as tubes if they could. Active devices are going to have datasheets because they react differently depending on various factors. It is entirely possible that a new tube sounds "better" to one person because it isn't a good fit for the circuit design, and the distortion that is added sound better to the listeners ears.

There's probably a listener's bias in most cases, but I still think it's more likely that a different tube will alter the sound than a better cable.

 

[cel4145]

:rolleyes:
A) I don't see why one 12AX7 is more euphonic than another 12AX7, maybe noisier, maybe more microphonic, but my question was really why do some audiophiles go crazy on other audiophiles when big $ are spend on cables, but not much is said about spending crazy money on "exotic" tubes?
B) Getting back to my original point, you can pay insane amounts of money for capacitors, oddly enough everyone doesn't go crazy when someone spends mega $ on exotic audiophile caps, but many audiophiles see red when someone spends an equivalent amount on cables
C) Or into an amp with excessive DC offset, or decrease the SNR, if you don't know what you're rolling in, etc, etc.
Relatively speaking, you can spend a fair amount on an Op Amp upgrade too.

Anyway, my original question was not a technical question.
The audiophile psychology is strange and arbitrary...:confused_face_2:

I doesn't sound like you are all that familiar with all these debates and the scope of them. There is controversy over these other things. However, the difference is so few people are buying exotic tubes and caps vs. cables, that it doesn't get as much attention. On the other hand, the expensive cable industry is big money in audio, and it has been for decades.

 

[superjawes]

I doesn't sound like you are all that familiar with all these debates and the scope of them. There is controversy over these other things. However, the difference is so few people are buying exotic tubes and caps vs. cables, that it doesn't get as much attention. On the other hand, the expensive cable industry is big money in audio, and it has been for decades.

+1

The cable issue is not unique to audio...in fact, I think the worst cable offenses, IMO, come with HDMI (or any digital standard). Cables (and speaker wire) are little things you need to make stuff work, they have nice, big margins in stores, and it's super easy for a clerk to pull something fancy off a shelf if the customer isn't paying attention. (One of my friends picked up a surround sound set at Fry's and the clerk handed him the monster speaker wire. Our other friend checked the prices, and it was nearly double that of the neighboring RCA "generic" speaker wire...we took the cheaper option.)

 

[cel4145]

+1

The cable issue is not unique to audio...in fact, I think the worst cable offenses, IMO, come with HDMI (or any digital standard). Cables (and speaker wire) are little things you need to make stuff work, they have nice, big margins in stores, and it's super easy for a clerk to pull something fancy off a shelf if the customer isn't paying attention. (One of my friends picked up a surround sound set at Fry's and the clerk handed him the monster speaker wire. Our other friend checked the prices, and it was nearly double that of the neighboring RCA "generic" speaker wire...we took the cheaper option.)

Oh, and it's even worse sometimes with what newbies walk away with in advice from audiophile forums. In the last couple of weeks, someone posted that they their new cables for their Audioengine A5s seemed to make the sound a little worse when they were hoping for an upgrade in SQ. And between boutique power cable, USB, and interconnects, they had purchased cables costing as much as the A5s :eek:

When someone has a $6000 2 channel home audio setup or a $2500 headphone listening station, I can understand spending several hundred dollars on cables (or even a bit more) because you are trying to find a way to get another 1% improvement in the sound, and you've already reached that extremely diminishing rate of returns on the rest of your equipment and might have to double your investment to get anything better. I'm not convinced that they'll find that 1% necessarily, but the logic works.

But this myth that spending ton on cables for a low-fi or mid-fi helps significantly is just so sad to see recommended to others when they could put the money toward better speaker/headphones (best) or better electronics.

 

[Tablix]

Ask any studio if they have silver cables for their mic

 

[Music Alchemist]

    As a brand new audiophile, I'm still learning the ropes. I've never had a hobby where so many fellow hobbyists have conflicting, contradictory information -- For example, some people give seemingly well reasoned explanations why Cables make no-difference what-so-ever (unless you have a very cheap cable to begin with, in which case they say a higher gauge wire might make a difference) -- Now that I've been reading and browsing the forums here, I see what looks like a majority (or large portion) here swear by high end cables, saying they completely transform the audio quality. Has anyone here done an ABX test on components like this to test whether it really makes a difference or if it's another placebo?
 
 I'm going to dig through the forums to see if & where this question has probably been brought up before -- I'm just wondering if there are any educational resources anyone might recommend, where I could learn the basics on things like this -- especially where both sides of this debate might be equally addressed?  .. I'm prepared to start investing good money into this hobby,  I just want to get the most bang for the buck. Thinking about building a bottlehead crack for my next adventure If cables matter as much as some people say, perhaps I should invest in the more expensive solder and wires for this project.
 
Edit: I did find the threads where this has been discussed before ;  I'd still very much appreciate recommendations for educational resources, if anyone has any.  I'd like to learn as much as I can on my own, hopefully building confidence so I don't feel so lost and like a "newb" .    Thanks.

 
Instead of going into a long spiel about all the things I've heard about in my research, I will leave you with a link describing the importance of cables in high-end audio.

 

[cel4145]

Instead of going into a long spiel about all the things I've heard about in my research, I will leave you with a link describing the importance of cables in high-end audio.

I would describe such arguments as largely cognitive dissonance driven based on expectations of performance due to money spent and the influence of others telling one that performance can be improved. Unfortunately, actual "research" does not actually support that guy's observations. But JBL/Harman Kardon has confirmed through research that people will chose more expensive equipment and better looking equipment to sound better, even though when they have been proven otherwise not to be when the opportunity for that bias has been eliminated.

The Internet is certainly great, though. It's possible to find a purely subjective based evaluation supporting almost any opinion. In case anyone didn't know, some flavors of dry dog food taste good. Anyone ready to go out and get some for dinner?

 

[superjawes]

Instead of going into a long spiel about all the things I've heard about in my research, I will leave you with a link describing the importance of cables in high-end audio.

Here's the thing...that article does not mention any measurement. He says the cables helped, and then he describes the effects in vague terms. No microphone in the room, no O-Scopes on the signals, and no apparent way of controlling the variables between tests. (Was everything connected properly before? Did something else get unplugged from the power strip? Did something move in the room?)

I really don't want to dive into a debate on cables (let's not abuse deceased equines), so I'll just say that cables are a very discrete, "it either works or it doesn't" component in the system. As long as you know the bare minimum you need, it's easy to get the most out of your wiring.