[Davesrose]

I did a tear down of one and it was a male and female plug at either end with a straight copper wire between them, wrapped in tin foil and there was a pinch of sand inside the case. I guess the sand was the crystals.

Guess that makes it more legit than homeopathy: which can hock distilled water as "medicine".

 

[omegaorgun]

It is more important to just get a good cable with decent copper. Take Mogami, Canare, or Belden they are very cheap, and use high quality copper made in very advanced facilities. After that along with good quality connectors, it's good to have quality solder and workmanship.

Is there snake oil? Absolutely! Cables are also like audio jewelry, but no harm in giving your systems some bling and having peace of mind they are not the bottleneck or weak point.

It's down to how deep each person pocket is and how far they want to take it. There are many audiophiles with money to burn and if they feel good about the purchase and enjoy the system then good for them. I personally will pay up to $100 for a decent cable, but I also make my own.

You shouldn't be worried about the next guy, especially if you don't know him. One of the many joys of the audio hobby everyone has an opinion and must be heard, and I just think we like to argue lol!

It's up to the companies to prove with measurements that they have a superior product and we as consumers can and have the ability to make an informed choice, or not.

 

[bigshot]

I find that Amazon Basics works just as well as any other interconnect. Cables are what salesmen call "upsell items". "You've just bought a very nice set of speakers- you need cables of a similar high calibre!" It's baloney. Any cable that is properly manufactured and used for the intended purpose will sound the same as any other cable. The only reason to spend more on cables is for bling factor, or because you're constantly plugging and unplugging your cables and you need something particularly sturdy.

 

[BobG55]

I find that Amazon Basics works just as well as any other interconnect. Cables are what salesmen call "upsell items". "You've just bought a very nice set of speakers- you need cables of a similar high calibre!" It's baloney. Any cable that is properly manufactured and used for the intended purpose will sound the same as any other cable. The only reason to spend more on cables is for bling factor, or because you're constantly plugging and unplugging your cables and you need something particularly sturdy.

Fully agree. I also use AmazonBasics Cables. They‘re well made, sturdy & bottom line is, that’s all anyone needs. I also like their “look”. Some 15 years ago when I wasn’t as personally informed about the audio hobby, I took the bait. While purchasing a Cambridge stereo system [CD Player & Integrated Amp] at an audio store, the salesman began telling me about cables [inter connects]. He talked me into buying something called “Kimber Kable Ultraplate Contact Surface” copper cables for the modest sum of $300 CDN. These magical cables would improve the sound quality of my system and guard against any other electrical interferences within my household. “Wow” said I, at the time & couldn’t hand over my extra $300 fast enough.

Turns out that over the following months, I began wondering about what the guy had verbally sold me. Then some eight years ago I joined Head-fi & began reading the Sound Science forum out of curiosity. Over time what I began to learn and understand is that so many of what is sold in the audio hobby at high prices is not needed at all & won’t improve the sound quality. I’m not technically savvy and still don’t understand sound measurements and graphs & a lot of the inner technical audio science. That’s ok, I was like that with math in school also & I accept these personal shortcomings. But I did learn and have stopped spending money needlessly.

BTW, I’m including a photo of those “magical” Kimber Kables. One of the plug-in connector fell off some four years ago. I didn’t bother to get it fixed but I kept them to remind myself that I actually paid $300 for that. Also including my superb looking and basic everyday, good enough AmazonBasics cables on my Headphone Amp, Loki EQ and CD player.

 

[sander99]

They didn't bother to equip a $300 cable with strain reliefs? (No wonder the plug fell off.)

 

[Maxx134]

Turns out that over the following months, I began wondering about what the guy had verbally sold me. Then some eight years ago I joined Head-fi & began reading the Sound Science forum out of curiosity. Over time what I began to learn and understand is that so many of what is sold in the audio hobby at high prices is not needed at all & won’t improve the sound quality. I’m not technically savvy and still don’t understand sound measurements and graphs & a lot of the inner technical audio science. That’s ok, I was like that with math in school also & I accept these personal shortcomings. But I did learn and have stopped spending money needlessly

Yeah it sux that so much money is spent on all cables. I know friends that have spent literally thousands on headphone cable alone(!).
Many learn the hard way, but at least also learn what they prefer.

There are many more (visual) attributes of a wire or cable that will give you a preference over any possible sound attribute.
TBH if you don't have a capable reference headphones of elite status to be used as a monitor, I don't see how you could detect differences.
I do have my own method and do have my own preferences, and I believe the bottom line is, no matter what said here, you must make your own decisions and go thru your experiences to decide what you want.

I am thinking that most consumers will NOT want a cable that has the word "basic" in it.
Many would rather buy a used brand they are familiar with.
I realize this has very little to do with sound, but instead the physical appearance of quality.
That's why copper doesn't have the attraction that silver does.

You can find some sweet silver cables/ interconnects for lower prices on eBay.
Even Chinese knock-off silver cable
look great these days.


If you decide that wire doesn't matter, then you might want to show that by buying a "basic" cable, but I'm shure most consumers would want to appease thier "placibo" urges instead, and get a visually perceived "better" cable over a "basic" cable.
Looks sells.

Placibo may be a dirty bad word, but since it's an actual influencing factor, might as well attend to that nagging influence ( in the mind), and make it to go away with a preference choice.
I would venture to say that if that Amazon cable said "Amazon Choice", or "Amazon Audiophile", it would "sound" even better! Lol.
It certainly looks solid regardless. Too bad the sales team struck out on the name, because in reality it is a minority the target base that prefer that "name".

Apologies if it seems like I side tracked, just pointing out the consumer & market bias.

 

[bigshot]

I'm shure most consumers would want to appease thier "placibo" urges instead, and get a visually perceived "better" cable over a "basic" cable.

That is entirely their problem. Those people would be well advised to steer clear of the Sound Science forum, because their placebo is going to take a hit if they post here.

 

[Ryokan]

I've recently bought a silver plated 8 core cable (second hand before a spend $$$) and prefer it over my Orb Clear Force copper cable when paired with my Andromeda's. I tried it on my W80's thinking I'd get the same result and make them slightly brighter as they're warmer than the others, but surprisingly didn't find this the case and quickly went back to the Orb which sounds better with them imo, (which I was glad about as I won't have too many cables being unused).
I concluded silver plated cables pair better with some earphones but not others, case closed! cables make a difference. Then I started reading this thread, and others on the science section. So now I'm holding off getting a very expensive (for me) silver cable that I've been eyeing, hoping for an even greater upgrade in sound for the Andro's, as it looks like I'm mistaken and there can't be any difference, even though I think I can hear a clear benefit to having different materials paired with different iem's. I know eyebrows will be raised but wanted to share my findings.

Edit: Another point was after changing to the silver plated cable I had to straight away turn the volume down for the same track.

 

[PhonoPhi]

I've recently bought a silver plated 8 core cable (second hand before a spend $$$) and prefer it over my Orb Clear Force copper cable when paired with my Andromeda's. I tried it on my W80's thinking I'd get the same result and make them slightly brighter as they're warmer than the others, but surprisingly didn't find this the case and quickly went back to the Orb which sounds better with them imo, (which I was glad about as I won't have too many cables being unused).
I concluded silver plated cables pair better with some earphones but not others, case closed! cables make a difference. Then I started reading this thread, and others on the science section. So now I'm holding off getting a very expensive (for me) silver cable that I've been eyeing, hoping for an even greater upgrade in sound for the Andro's, as it looks like I'm mistaken and there can't be any difference, even though I think I can hear a clear benefit to having different materials paired with different iem's. I know eyebrows will be raised but wanted to share my findings.

Edit: Another point was after changing to the silver plated cable I had to straight away turn the volume down for the same track.

There are two parts to your story.

First, Andro"s" are notorious all-BA IEM with the peak impedance of just few Ohms, for which about everything may matter, especially with portable amps - cables, the charging level of your source... A poor engineering design - one would think, but then for a hobby - it may be fun - testing different things (cable, amps) and finding the difference, and selling these things.

Second, on cable materials (copper, silver, plated, gold, graphene, palladium, rhodium, plutonium, unobtanium...) "matter" - it does not - no any good evidence was ever shown (sensitive detectors are available to prove subtle differences well below hearing limits - amplitude and frequency).
Then both from my background as a materials chemist and experience with 30+ cables and different impedance loads - only resistance matters, as it should be for conductors

Specifically for the plating - understanding how few-micron layer may possibly matter is one thing, yet another - copper wires needs to be protected to prevent from oxidation, and plating is the easiest and most common way, typically using some silver alloys. Then some of these wires are placed in brown copper-coloured insulation to satisfy audiophile demand for copper-looking cables - which makes it so fun to read how copper-plated cables are different

 

[bigshot]

How did you conduct your blind test, Ryokan?

 

[Ryokan]

How did you conduct your blind test, Ryokan?

My 'test' was simply that I preferred the 'new' silver plated cable with the Andromeda's over the cable I've listened with for a few years which I'm used to and has the 'highest purity Japanese copper conductors!', but when I tried it on my Westone's it was meh and they sounded better (more coherent) when I re-attached the older cable. I will try them again but don't like to keep disconnecting the MMCX connectors and once I'm happy with the sound try to leave them alone.
The reason I risked ridicule in posting my findings is that: I had to lower the volume with the silver plated cable and found it didn't have the same affect on the other iem's, I expected to hear the same result with both earphones (especially as 'all cables sound the same') but didn't, which I thought was interesting and may prove a difference? I should add prior to trying the silver plated cable both my iem's are paired with the same model of cable, from switching to the 'new' cable I noticed a change straight away. Before trying the silver cable I have tried an ALO 'Smoky Litz' which I couldn't hear a difference with - it sounded as good as the Orb cables. Possibly a proper blind test would show different results, I was simply stating that I detected a difference and thought lowering the volume must prove something(?), especially when I've tried other copper cables and could tell no difference, certainly not enough to post about it on here.

 

[bigshot]

I'm afraid in Sound Science, subjective impressions might be useful as a starting point, they don't qualify as proof. I think you'd find that if you eliminated the possibility for expectation bias and perceptual error to affect your comparison, all the difference would disappear. If a cable passes a signal cleanly enough to not cross any audible thresholds, it isn't going to sound any different than a different cable that also is audibly transparent. There's no reason why a properly designed copper cable would sound any different than a silver one. All of the differences are far beyond the range of human ears. You should try a controlled listening test. It's very easy to do and we would be happy to help you test it to find out for yourself for sure.

Most people think that fancy cables have the ability to sound better than normal cables. But that is backwards. A poorly made and designed cable can certainly sound worse than a decent cable, but fancy cables can't sound any better than that. If two cables sound different, one isn't better than the other. The truth is that one must be defective.

 

[PhonoPhi]

My 'test' was simply that I preferred the 'new' silver plated cable with the Andromeda's over the cable I've listened with for a few years which I'm used to and has the 'highest purity Japanese copper conductors!', but when I tried it on my Westone's it was meh and they sounded better (more coherent) when I re-attached the older cable. I will try them again but don't like to keep disconnecting the MMCX connectors and once I'm happy with the sound try to leave them alone.
The reason I risked ridicule in posting my findings is that: I had to lower the volume with the silver plated cable and found it didn't have the same affect on the other iem's, I expected to hear the same result with both earphones (especially as 'all cables sound the same') but didn't, which I thought was interesting and may prove a difference? I should add prior to trying the silver plated cable both my iem's are paired with the same model of cable, from switching to the 'new' cable I noticed a change straight away. Before trying the silver cable I have tried an ALO 'Smoky Litz' which I couldn't hear a difference with - it sounded as good as the Orb cables. Possibly a proper blind test would show different results, I was simply stating that I detected a difference and thought lowering the volume must prove something(?), especially when I've tried other copper cables and could tell no difference, certainly not enough to post about it on here.

My humble suggestion would be to try to measure resistance of these cables using a simple multimeter, I read that many feel that there is a sweet spot in cable resistance for the bass/treble balance in "Andro" (I do not have Andromeda, but it is definitely my experience with other low-impedance multi-BA IEMs).

 

[Ryokan]

My humble suggestion would be to try to measure resistance of these cables using a simple multimeter, I read that many feel that there is a sweet spot in cable resistance for the bass/treble balance in "Andro" (I do not have Andromeda, but it is definitely my experience with other low-impedance multi-BA IEMs).

I will have to compare cables again, if the change isn't as noticeable I'll have to put it down to imagination, though I was confident in hearing a difference straight away but appreciate there was nothing scientific about my initial conclusion.

 

[Ryokan]

I'm afraid in Sound Science, subjective impressions might be useful as a starting point, they don't qualify as proof. I think you'd find that if you eliminated the possibility for expectation bias and perceptual error to affect your comparison, all the difference would disappear. If a cable passes a signal cleanly enough to not cross any audible thresholds, it isn't going to sound any different than a different cable that also is audibly transparent. There's no reason why a properly designed copper cable would sound any different than a silver one. All of the differences are far beyond the range of human ears. You should try a controlled listening test. It's very easy to do and we would be happy to help you test it to find out for yourself for sure.

Most people think that fancy cables have the ability to sound better than normal cables. But that is backwards. A poorly made and designed cable can certainly sound worse than a decent cable, but fancy cables can't sound any better than that. If two cables sound different, one isn't better than the other. The truth is that one must be defective.

That makes a lot of sense. Others have also said they can hear a difference switching to a decent 'silver' cable, not that that proves anything.