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| Why do/don't "audiophile" cables improve sound? |
You don't seriously expect a definitive answer from this forum, do you?
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| I'm saying if cables made a noticeable difference, we could measure it. But we can not. So they do not make a difference. Unless there is some sort of unmeasurable "magic" property to cables that breaks the laws of physics. |
Different cables measure differently. They have different C, L and R and other deviations primarily resulting from the dielectric properties. But it's true: those don't reflect the characteristics some audiophiles believe to hear. However, different cables also cause signal-shape variations. They're just not accepted by EEs as a possible source of «cable sound», because they seem too tiny to be perceivable, and moreover most of them are apparently located in the ultrasonic range.
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In terms of audio reproduction, humans have it down to a pretty good science.
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Are you sure? I think at least 90% of the cable-sound skeptics believe in audible differences between different electronics components (amps, digital players). But if you look at their data, there's no reason for most of modern amps and CDPs to show sonic differences: ruler-flat frequency responses, negligible distortion and noise... So you really can tell which measuring values are responsible for which sonic characteristics with, say, solid-state headphone amps with less than 0.2 dB drop-off at 20 Hz/20 kHz, less than 0.1% THD and IMD and less than 1 ohm output impedance? I bet you can't, and it will be hard to find an EE who can.
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«Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. response may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference.»
Yes, those are all functions of the waveforms. People tend to give sound properties that it does not have. There is no magic to it. It is all about accurately produced waveforms. |
I fully agree with this. IMO width and especially depth of soundstage are the result of accurately reproduced waveforms throughout the whole reproduction chain, facilitating the left/right localization and the perception of
distance of the sound sources thanks to the high detail resolution, thus the differentiation between direct and reflected sound on the recording.
The above experience report is a hint that cables can indeed have an impact on signal accuracy.
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| Accepting something to be true when it is unproven to be true is intellectual curiosity. |
Bravo! Of course nobody will accept something to be true without corresponding experience. In my younger years I was a proud member of team cable-sound skeptics/deniers. But one day my «intellectual curiosity» drove me to replace the cabling of my speaker setup by some pretty looking high-end cables. The result was pretty unexpected: The sound had changed, and I didn't like the new characteristic at all. I was lucky that my dealer accepted a return, although not at full refund (not least due to the fact that my soldering at that time was less than perfect). A while later I had the idea that it might just have been the result of a mistuning of my carefully tuned setup, particularly because of the 3rd- and 4rth-order filters used in my then homegrown speakers -- which react pretty critical even to small changes in the chain.
Although the seed was sown, it took a while until my next cable experiment. I began to build my own cables. The more I dived into the matter, the more convinced I was that cables do indeed alter the sound in characteristic ways, depending on geometry and materials. After having made hundreds of interconnect, digital and headphone cables I now have a small collection of homegrown references. In some positions within the system I prefer them to the few commercial products I own, in others I prefer the latter. Particularly headphone cables don't seem to like my cable philosophy as much as my (clearly shorter) interconnects.
Actually of all sorts of cables headphone cables show the greatest sonic deviations to my ears -- I'm quite sure that even most of the dye-hard skeptics couldn't ignore them.
Although I'm generally open to hypotheses outside the classic physics (i.e. the current state of science), I'm fairly convinced that the perceived sonic differences are finally measurable, even with today's equipment. We just have to know where to look at. Obviously the conventional measuring criteria -- THD, IMD, S/N, FR, impulse response, decay spectrum... -- fail with cables. Well, it depends on the understanding of the term «conventional». After all phase measurements are quite common. They just don't seem to make sense with cables. IMO that's the track that should be followed. This implies that I consider the skin effect relevant for the audio band.
I had one experience which confirms this idea: A friend of mine had a set of
«GaborLinks», some metallic elements in a wooden box switched into the signal path with the purpose of manipulating the (high-frequency) phase response by means of the skin effect -- and this in the picosecond range. We had 20 or 30 different pairs to test. The astonishing result was that we were virtually unanimous in describing the characteristics with each pair of elements and had the same few favorites. The inventor (? -- at least a militant proponent; people who understand German may want to have a look at this
Hi-Fi Forum thread) of the idea, Uwe Machenschalk, equates the effect with cable effects.
So it seems to me that microscopic phase-distortion patterns (going hand in hand with corresponding microscopic frequency-response distortions) could be the cause for the cable sound. Something the conventional electroacoustics don't care about these days, although it would be within the reach of existing measuring instruments. This theory also corresponds with my own experiences as a speaker builder, namely during my extremely pedantic crossover-network tuning which seemed to show that even tiny, barely measurable phase and FR deviations matter.
I do understand that people with a scientific background who at the same time don't hear sonic differences with cables become convinced skeptics (or «nonbelievers», resp.). I just wish this approach wouldn't lead to the kind of sarcasm and enmity that's often to be encountered on this forum (as in others).
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For other things like my RCA interconnects, I will take the hit the connectors make so that I can keep them as I upgrade. Replaceable parts were such a great invention.
