Do 'High-End' Audio cables matter?

[uelover]

Quote:

But like I said, the differences are still audible with headphones.

I did not say that the differences are inaudible.
 
I say that the differences will be less pronounced - it will eliminate any placebo effects due to sight.
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

My message here is that if like me you can music nirvana without spending silly money on things that do not work, great. If you can find music nirvana with £500 cables and putting green pen lines round the edge of your CDs great.
 
But please allow both points of view to be fairly heard so that those new to hifi can make an informed choice. That way fewer people will be left dissatisfied with a superb hifi system, the dissatisfaction being cause by those who claim cables and other spurious products objectively improve sound quality.

 

[JRG1990]

I use a pair of superlux hd681 I paid £17.50 for as my main headphones, i've spent more than £17.50 on cables aswell.

 

[drez]

Quote:

What FLAC vs MP3 demonstrates is that there are diminshing returns for bit rates and codecs. We can prove that by use of blind testing which finds people can tell the difference between lowest and highest, but far less so between middle and highest. So imagine a graph with a downward slope.
 
If we do the same with cables we get a different graph, a flat line one as there is no benefit from cheap to expensive. ABX and blind comparison prove that.

It's not quite as conclusive as that.  Firstly I have not personally come across test with cables in headphones where comb effect does not play a part.  The tests with speaker cables/interconnects/power chords that I am aware of came up flat (as in no trend).
 
Those who do purport to hear differences in cables will probably also vouch that increase in cost does not universally improve performance - audio is a subjective business.  Personally I'm pretty sure no cable is worth over a couple of hundred dollars (even that is a bit much to be honest)
 
If it hasn't passed a blind test yet, the difference is demonstrably slight if not nonexistent.  Personally I am fairly confident I can pass a BT between the headphone cables I have on hand - but its certainly not easy, but neither is telling 128 from 320 MP3 at times (yes there are some tracks that are very difficult indeed to tell)
 
Is it a good idea to spend money on cables when your gear is mid-fi - probably not as it probably isn't very revealing as it is.  (yes my gear is still mid-fi as I see it)
 
But if you are handy with a soldering iron you can whip together a cable for less that $50 that you can test out, or just enjoy the aesthetic appeal of.

 

[Rebel975]

 
Quote:

 
but I’m not in a rush to prove you, or any of the trolls here, anything. if any of you were really interested in this you would’ve at least tried the cables. I could care less whether you believe high-end cables matter or not. it's pathetic.
 
enjoy another useless debate. I’ll go water ducks’ back in the park
 
 

 
Yikes. Why get so upset? You should expect to get called out for making a claim like that on this forum. What if I went onto a car forum and claimed that my Ford Pinto could go from 0-60 in 2 seconds flat? How many "prove it"'s would I get?
 
Besides- I WOULD like to try an expensive cable. I'm just not going to spend $300-$XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX to get one. If someone sent me a "high end" replacement cable for my HE-500's I'd gladly give it a try. I'd even give it a blind test, because I don't have any stake in the outcome. I haven't spend thousands of dollars on cables, after all.

 

[comperic2003]

Quote:

Shure530,
 
In my opinion good cables make a world of difference, but only trust your own ears my friend.  As for myself, I've gone through a lot of cables over time and now use Nordost.  Our downstairs system is wired up with Nordost Vishnu power cords and Heimdall interconnects and speaker cable.  Our upstairs system is wired with Nordost Shiva & Blue Heaven power cords and the new Blue Heaven interconnects and speaker cable. My personal opinion is that the power cords make the most difference, then the interconnects and lastly the speaker cable.
 
If you have a Nordost dealer near where you live go there and hear what they do for yourself.  Nordost is not the only good cable company out there, it's just what I feel is the best performance to my ears.  Kimber Kable, Cardas, Transparent and AudioQuest are all good cable companies and worth you taking a listen to.
 
Your ears will tell you the truth.  I hope this helps a bit.  May the best source be with you,
 
 
 

While my experience confirms the same findings, I have also found that marinating my speaker cables in an animal oil, preferably snake, can actually greatly increase the resolution of said cable to the point where it surpasses the power cord as the critical link in a gig's wiring set-up.
 
 
On a related note, y friend down in Burbank has heard amazing results after putting a dollop of peanut butter (avoid the crunchy kind) in between his amp and speaker wire.  He claims to have never heard music sound so rich and creamy before.  Once I find the purest grade nut butter available, I too am going to give this a try.
 
Happy listening!

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

The problem with USB is, if I send a 10.01MB FLAC file along a 1km USB cable, the FLAC file will still be 10.01MB at the other end, I don't think there are any "dead pixels" in a $2 USB cable, so to speak...

This statement doesn't even make sense. For a start, a 1km USB cable wouldn't even work. You'd get nothing at the other end. An ordinary passive USB cable is good to something like 16 feet. Second, how do you think USB streaming works? Do you think that the hard drive sends a 10MB FLAC file to a DAC, in its entirety, and the DAC checks to make sure the CRC value is the same as the one on the hard drive before it starts playing anything?
 
Do you believe that 50ns of jitter (the yellow line) would be inaudible? It should be, shouldn't it. The FLAC file is the same at both ends, bits are bits, its either a 1 or a 0, yadda yadda yadda.
 

 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Eliminating the need for a hookup entirely would probably net the greatest reduction in resistance, if that has an effect on the performance of the driver at all.
 

Agreed. Hard-wiring is always better, but it's not exactly convenient for testing different headphone cables on the same headphone. Using different pairs of the same model of headphone with different headphone cables hard-wired is also unfortunately not a solution, as different samples can and often do have slightly different response. The point I was trying to make is not that you need an LCD-3 in order to hear any difference between a stock headphone cable and a $600 DHC. It's about trying to make any differences that might be there as large and easy to spot as possible. The question is not "is it worth spending $600 on a headphone cable" the question is "is there ANY difference between a stock cable and a $600 headphone cable". If you're using a $50 headphone, I don't believe you can definitively answer that question.
 
When the Mythbusters tested the myth that you can outrun a speed camera, their initial conclusion was that no, you can't. They were wrong, they just didn't go fast enough. Saying that there's no difference between headphone cables by using a $50 headphone to test is like saying that you can't beat a speed camera because I went by one at 90mph, and it flashed. There's no reason to drive faster than 90mph. What? that's no conclusion at all. You could certainly start with a $50 headphone, and then ramp it up until you get to the LCD-3. If you test using the LCD-3 and you STILL can't hear any difference between a $2 cable and a $600 one, THEN you can definitively conclude that there is not one (at least that you were able to hear

)
 

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Do you believe that 50ns of jitter (the yellow line) would be inaudible? It should be, shouldn't it. The FLAC file is the same at both ends, bits are bits, its either a 1 or a 0, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, that depends. Has an audible level of jitter ever been established?

 

[Lenni]

Quote:

 
Yikes. Why get so upset? You should expect to get called out for making a claim like that on this forum. What if I went onto a car forum and claimed that my Ford Pinto could go from 0-60 in 2 seconds flat? How many "prove it"'s would I get?
 
Besides- I WOULD like to try an expensive cable. I'm just not going to spend $300-$XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX to get one. If someone sent me a "high end" replacement cable for my HE-500's I'd gladly give it a try. I'd even give it a blind test, because I don't have any stake in the outcome. I haven't spend thousands of dollars on cables, after all.

I don’t know. if I went onto another forum (cameras; bicycles; cars… whatever.) and start making comments like: spending more than $200 on a bicycle is not worth it; every bicycle is the same; you’re all fools… etc. (you get the point) - without having tried the gear I reckon I’d get banned. I haven’t tried, but that’s what I reckon would happen.
 
I must admit sometimes the comments in this forum drive me nuts - the sarcasm; the silly jokes - I find it kinda upsetting that I keep out of it altogether.
 
but you’re right. I shouldn’t get upset. awhile after I posted the comment I realised it was excessive and wished I didn't. I've no excuse. it was a mistake. I sincerely apologise.
 
you're also right at being skeptic. there's snake oil, and is far from easy to detect what is, but not everything is. even if you try a headphone cable and doesn't make any difference to you, it's wrong to conclude that every cable out there is snake oil, imo.
 

 

[jcx]

not in the digital domain - bits ARE bits, if they arrive in the correct values, order then the digital comm link jitter can have only indirect effects on DAC output jitter, then only if the clock is derived from the digital link - no longer the case with USB Audio Class 2 async standard - if only Microsoft would go ahead and implement it in the OS standard drivers
 
but older USB Audio receiver PLL are pretty good, the best chips give single digit-to-sub ns jitter on the recovered clock for the DAC - the clock for the DAC is what matters - not the data link jitter
 
in DBT tests the thresholds for jitter ( DAC clock ) audibility are 100+ ns

 

[Pudu]

removed

 

[danroche]

Quote:

 
When the Mythbusters tested the myth that you can outrun a speed camera, their initial conclusion was that no, you can't. They were wrong, they just didn't go fast enough. Saying that there's no difference between headphone cables by using a $50 headphone to test is like saying that you can't beat a speed camera because I went by one at 90mph, and it flashed. There's no reason to drive faster than 90mph. What? that's no conclusion at all. You could certainly start with a $50 headphone, and then ramp it up until you get to the LCD-3. If you test using the LCD-3 and you STILL can't hear any difference between a $2 cable and a $600 one, THEN you can definitively conclude that there is not one (at least that you were able to hear

)
 

The problem I have with this reasoning is that you are beginning with the assumption that "There ARE audible differences in headphone cables" and are waiting for experiments to rule out every single possibility where this might be the case. This never ends. You can always move the goalposts if a test suggests otherwise. The cable could always have been nicer. The headphones could always have been more revealing. The hearing of those doing the testing could have been better. Whenever you frame the conversation by challenging the skeptics to prove a negative, you've built yourself an automatic escape clause.  The abominable snowman could have been hiding behind the one tree you DIDN'T look behind.   I could just as easily challenge you to prove to me that ingesting large quantities of pop tarts DOESN'T make your hair turn blue. Maybe the subject didn't eat enough pop tarts?
 
 
 

 
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

I don’t know. if I went onto another forum (cameras; bicycles; cars… whatever.) and start making comments like: spending more than $200 on a bicycle is not worth it; every bicycle is the same; you’re all fools… etc. (you get the point) - without having tried the gear I reckon I’d get banned. I haven’t tried, but that’s what I reckon would happen.
 
I must admit sometimes the comments in this forum drive me nuts - the sarcasm; the silly jokes - I find it kinda upsetting that I keep out of it altogether.
 
but you’re right. I shouldn’t get upset. awhile after I posted the comment I realised it was excessive and wished I didn't. I've no excuse. it was a mistake. I sincerely apologise.
 
you're also right at being skeptic. there's snake oil, and is far from easy to detect what is, but not everything is. even if you try a headphone cable and doesn't make any difference to you, it's wrong to conclude that every cable out there is snake oil, imo.
 

I think that a closer more accurate example would be going onto a wine forum and stating that under blind testing wines are much harder to tell apart and proving that with examples. You would upset some, but I would hope others accept the science. But if you went on and stated all wines taste the same you would correctly be riddiculed and maybe banned.
 
I am sorry if I have made comments that have upset, but I it takes a few broken eggs to make an omlette.

 
I have become such a sceptic I am now on the Sceptic Society's forum. It is not just audio, but medicine, history, politics, science that is being plagued by nonsence and myth and conspirancy and pseudoscience.
 
I agree that if you try one headphone cable and cannot hear a sound difference it is wrong to conclude that all are snake oil. That is a non sequitur. But if you go with proper, verifiable and repeatable testing you can conclude that the reason why some people hear a difference with some cables in some equipment some of the time is nothing to do with the cable and it electrical properties. The reason is all down to the listener and the likes of placebo and psychoacoustics.

 

[Gwarmi]

The real divide appears to be that those among us who renounce cable differences do abide by
the fact that there are differences between headphones and even amps and DAC's.
 
Here's the problem, that in itself is a form of bias and placebo by simply being an enthusiast
in the first place, sure the measurements prove this to be so but to a 'virgin green ear' this
does not always translate into reality.
 
I have had a few people listen to my rig and adopt the very same 'snake oil' views when
compared to their own Apple i-buds.
 
They don't wish to be antagonizing in any way ~ their ears are simply telling them a subjective
truth ~ to them, we're all imbeciles hanging onto a placebo and a prayer