Do 'High-End' Audio cables matter?

[Armaegis]

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Unfortunately we can't make much of his measurements. He never did verify that they were repeatable, even though I asked a couple times for more graphs.

 
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Must have missed your relevant posts then.  I know Armaegis will report back.  Purrin and myself have been doing a few data collections and realized we needed to actually move beyond FR and CSDs to be able to offer anything more substantive wrt these 'topics'.
 

Um, I don't recall anyone asking me for more graphs. I was just tossing gas on the fire. Album here... http://www.head-fi.org/gallery/album/view/id/48568/user_id/136355
 
Tests done using computer headphone out looped back to the mic input, with a 75ohm dummy load. I did not specifically repeat the tests, though I did goof and forget to save a couple times so wound up repeating, and to my memory the results looked roughly the same.
 
I am a cable skeptic, but I've got pretty good ears and am willing to test my hearing when my repaired cables comes in. I've also got a pretty strong metallurgy background, so that's gotta count for something either way. Or not. Whatever.

 

[DigitalFreak]

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Um, I don't recall anyone asking me for more graphs. I was just tossing gas on the fire. Album here... http://www.head-fi.org/gallery/album/view/id/48568/user_id/136355
 
Tests done using computer headphone out looped back to the mic input, with a 75ohm dummy load. I did not specifically repeat the tests, though I did goof and forget to save a couple times so wound up repeating, and to my memory the results looked roughly the same.
 
I am a cable skeptic, but I've got pretty good ears and am willing to test my hearing when my repaired cables comes in. I've also got a pretty strong metallurgy background, so that's gotta count for something either way. Or not. Whatever.

Good to see a fellow arsonist on the thread.

 

[Head Injury]

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Um, I don't recall anyone asking me for more graphs. I was just tossing gas on the fire. Album here... http://www.head-fi.org/gallery/album/view/id/48568/user_id/136355
 
Tests done using computer headphone out looped back to the mic input, with a 75ohm dummy load. I did not specifically repeat the tests, though I did goof and forget to save a couple times so wound up repeating, and to my memory the results looked roughly the same.
 
I am a cable skeptic, but I've got pretty good ears and am willing to test my hearing when my repaired cables comes in. I've also got a pretty strong metallurgy background, so that's gotta count for something either way. Or not. Whatever.

I was under the impression he meant cheapskateaudio's graphs. We both should have been more clear.
 
But while we're on the subject, care to demonstrate repeatability? 

 

[Armaegis]

You mean my word ain't enough?

Kinda moot at the moment anyways since my silver cable is borked and I'm waiting on a replacement.

 

[Head Injury]

If you can explain the measured differences using your knowledge of metallurgy, that would work too.
 
Were these cables all of the same construction?

 

[Armaegis]

steel - stock HD25-1-ii Adidas
copper - stock HD25-13-ii (longer in length)
silver - custom made
 
As for measurement differences, well I don't even need strictly metallurgy to explain them. The steel cable had a slightly higher resistance, and I had to turn up my system volume a small notch in order to volume match. The copper and silver cable were at the same volume, despite the copper cable being longer. I'm sure there's going to be an inductance/capacitance difference as well, at least vs the steel, though I do not have the equipment to measure either. I suspect the copper and silver will be very close. 
 
Whether or not any measured differences are audible... eh, I have my doubts, but I'm willing to try. Maybe if playing specific sine test tones and frequency sweeps, I might be able to pick out something vs steel when listening at the distortion peaks where the differences in measurement are greatest. It would be very difficult/impossible to do so with music playing. And even moreso with copper vs silver where the differences are very small... but like I said I'm going to give it a shot. 

 

[Armaegis]

 
If I were to talk about metallurgy, um... I guess you'd have to consider the binding energy of the electrons in the outermost shells/orbitals, although a metallic bond doesn't really classify into the same types of atomic bond that you learn about in high school chemistry. Grain boundaries and orientations and specific crystal structures and dislocation density will also come into play. We'll just ignore the effect of alloying elements for now. All things considered though, none of those make a difference nearly on the same scale as using a different base material.


 

 

[Steve Eddy]

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Maybe if playing specific sine test tones and frequency sweeps, I might be able to pick out something vs steel when listening at the distortion peaks where the differences in measurement are greatest. It would be very difficult/impossible to do so with music playing.

 
There shouldn't be any meaningful differences in terms of distortion between the copper and the steel.
 
Here are two distortion measurements made of a cheapie giveaway copper cable and a cable made with RG-59 which has a copper clad steel center conductor.
 
Freebie:
 

 
RG59:
 

 
The only distortion is the residual distortion of the Audio Precision System Two Cascade which was used to make the measurements.
 
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[khaos974]

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There shouldn't be any meaningful differences in terms of distortion between the copper and the steel.
 
Here are two distortion measurements made of a cheapie giveaway copper cable and a cable made with RG-59 which has a copper clad steel center conductor.
 
Freebie:
 

 
RG59:
 

 
The only distortion is the residual distortion of the Audio Precision System Two Cascade which was used to make the measurements.
 
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That's because the PCB traces of the Audio Precision are made of cheap, low grade copper, if they were made of UltraPure Copper (TM), or BlessedUnderMoonLight Silver (TM), the AP system would have immediately hown the difference

 
 

 

[Steve Eddy]

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That's because the PCB traces of the Audio Precision are made of cheap, low grade copper, if they were made of UltraPure Copper (TM), or BlessedUnderMoonLight Silver (TM), the AP system would have immediately hown the difference

 

 
HA! Touche!

 
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[Pudu]

 
There shouldn't be any meaningful differences in terms of distortion between the copper and the steel.
 
Here are two distortion measurements made of a cheapie giveaway copper cable and a cable made with RG-59 which has a copper clad steel center conductor.
 
Freebie:
 

 
RG59:
 

 
The only distortion is the residual distortion of the Audio Precision System Two Cascade which was used to make the measurements.
 
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If you had used visuaphile quality ink and paper you'd be able to see the differences on those maps. On my home rig I can easily tell the difference. I've double blind tested it and I can still see the difference while wearing two blindfolds.

 

[Steve Eddy]

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If you had used visuaphile quality ink and paper you'd be able to see the differences on those maps. On my home rig I can easily tell the difference. I've double blind tested it and I can still see the difference while wearing two blindfolds.

Uh, I hate to tell you, but Saran Wrap doesn't make for an adequate blindfold.

 
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[Armaegis]

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That's because the PCB traces of the Audio Precision are made of cheap, low grade copper, if they were made of UltraPure Copper (TM), or BlessedUnderMoonLight Silver (TM), the AP system would have immediately hown the difference

 
 

Back when I was working on my master's thesis, I needed some pure copper for my experiments. My source? grabbed a handful of scrap copper wire from a construction site. Tossed it under the electron microscope for analysis... 99.95% pure. Good enough for me.

 

 

[khaos974]

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That's because the PCB traces of the Audio Precision are made of cheap, low grade copper, if they were made of UltraPure Copper (TM), or BlessedUnderMoonLight Silver (TM), the AP system would have immediately hown the difference

 
 

Back when I was working on my master's thesis, I needed some pure copper for my experiments. My source? grabbed a handful of scrap copper wire from a construction site. Tossed it under the electron microscope for analysis... 99.95% pure. Good enough for me.

[troll]That's because the internal wiring of the microscope wasn't made of PureCopper (tm) [/troll]
 
 

 

[Steve Eddy]

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Back when I was working on my master's thesis, I needed some pure copper for my experiments. My source? grabbed a handful of scrap copper wire from a construction site. Tossed it under the electron microscope for analysis... 99.95% pure. Good enough for me.

 

Which is pretty much right on target for your basic Plain Jane ETP (otherwise referred to as "crappy" by some here) copper. Most of the rest is oxygen, which is used during the smelting process to scavenge impurities and take them out of solution which increases the conductivity of the copper to that of OFHC copper which must have a higher inherent purity to achieve the same conductivity because it can't use oxygen for scavenging.
 
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