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High End and cables and tin ears....

First of all, most of my gear is of the non-commercial kind. In other words, you can't go into your usual places and buy it. I've ordered it online or had it custom made. That said, it isn't so much on the high end but better than the average bear's setup.

My question is, how high end of system do you need to really hear the difference cables can make?

I use Signal Cables in my system. They sound good to me. I've a got a friend that swears he can hear changes when we try out different cables. I can't hear a difference. I may be blessed with not being able to hear the difference and therefore not getting the need to get new cables.

Signal Cables makes several different kinds of cables. Mine are the starter cables, if you can call them that. They do a good job for me.

Which brings about another question. If I can't hear that big of a difference, if any at all, how low in the audio ladder can I go before I finally notice that it doesn't sound good anymore? If I get some really cheap Radio Shack cables will I hear a difference in quality? I've had some Radio Shack cables in my system before for test purposes but I can't tell the difference in one night's use. I need several weeks to get the full treatment.

Is having ears of tin a blessing in disguise?
matchstikman
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
It may be a good time to avoid the hi fi merry-go-round.

Signal cables are pretty good from what I have read, just keep them and buy music instead!
matchstikman OP
205 posts
 
My friend points out the differences all the time and I just can't here them. Of course, he is younger than I am and I've heard that as you get older you lose the ability to hear certain frequencies. I don't know if that is true.

For now, I am off the hi-fi merry-go-round. I've been on it and it can be a death spiral.
dcrugby
96 posts
 
if they sound good to you, you're golden.

i've definitely heard $1000 cables.

one thing that a cable like a radio shack might not be able to do is prevent hum, though, i wouldn't think they're particularly well shielded or carfully soldered or crimped...
jeffb28451
129 posts
 
First, Thanks to Tom Hoffman at Advanced Audio in Cary in for teaching me to trust my own ears. Not many other retailers in this business have the guts to do that, but that's my point...

I was just upstairs, listening to some crazy Silver Ribbon cables (never imported, maker dislikes US market, slabs of silver, with exotic silver shielding) that run WAY over $1k per meter on loan from a friend/potential seller/agon buddy vs. a cable I got from another etc., etc. for $175, (used MAC Mystics). I was using BEL "the Wire" until a month or so ago.

Here we go: Oh, by the way, I use a spool of 24 gauge silver/cotton wire from VH audio for speaker wire.

The Wire: worked great in several systems (I change gear a good bit and enjoy it) nice cable, fabulous for the price. Previous cables used and replaced: Transparent Ultras, Purist Colossus/Dominus, etc, Siltech 88 and 110. So they're at least fairly good, esp at the price.

Current: MAC Mystic ( with thanks and apologies to Steve): Was there a difference: yes, at first, the MACs sounded horrific: suck-outs, bumps, humps. Unuseable, frankly. Then I bought a Audiodharma and cooked the crap out of them. Well? They are now in my 6 digit system. Night and day, Smooth, extended, quite natural.

Silver Ribbons: Jesus Christ on the cross! The drums are explosive, bass pedal points are incredible. Wait, do I hear?...Vocals not quite as clear as the MAC's. Oh-Oh, do they do midrange properly, is that a suck-out I hear? Is this a rock and roll cable? That bass sounds like my old Kubicki with my old 10 space bi-amped rack and lens horns, great! Wait a minute, what if that's a Jazz? Well, then that would just be wrong, right? Doesn't the acoustic sound a bit more natural on the MACs? Well, yeah, but it's eq'd in a studio, so maybe...blah,blah, blah.

Franks cables are great at every price point. I heard his stuff in a friends marvelous (and expensive) system and used them for a good while in one of mine. Franks a hell of nice guy and so's Steve with MAC.

Imai San, of Audio Tekne, a marvelous gentleman, told me bluntly once that his step up wouldn't work with my cartridge of the moment. "Slow down and buy more music". "Take a walk by the river".

If Franks stuff sounds great to you, it did to me too. Enjoy.

Stick around long enough and listen to lots of stuff and, if you're not careful, you'll be a crazy propeller beanie wearer (like me), wondering how old the caps in the mixing board were during the mix down, and why a Neumann is such a popular mike, given it's pinched midrange, instead of being moved (still 40 years later) by Clapton's second solo in Crossroads, Cheap Trick at Budokan, ANY Sarah Vaughn, or how great the new Eno/Burn, Wilco stuff is.

Mom (the ultimate right brainer) always asked how I could bitch after a concert. "Music is either beautiful or not beautiful", she said. Is it really that easy?

If you're not careful, once you go past that point, it can be a one way street: listen, enjoy and don't spend the kids college money on new wires...even though a second mortgage for these Silver things is starting to make since to me the more I think about it:)
dcrugby
96 posts
 
weird, part of my first post got cut off there, maybe i used some symbols that aren't recognized by the forum software...

what i tried to say is that i've definitely heard some sub-100 dollar cables that sound better than some over-1000 dollar cables, so cost isn't the determining factor on cables, for sure.
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