Question for cable/wire naysayers.....

I felt this thread was trolling but it seems to have life. Good to see some healthy skeptics providing balance to the tin foilers who think the Holy Grail in audio are interconnects and speaker wire.

It is obvious that excellent audio equipment design should maximize the audio signal fidelity and minimize ALL other factors (cables, power, RF/EM noise, transformer Hum etc etc).

My answer to the tin foilers is: If you own audio devices that are incapable of minimizing (below audibility) extraneous factors then get rid of said devices and find something that actually works properly!!!

I had a very interesting experience yesterday - I went to a neighbours house and he demo’d his system - it was dynamic, spacious and clarity through the roof

His system was an old (20 years) 6 watt tube power amp and tube pre-amp with a consumer grade CD player CD player.

His wires were very mediocre IC’s and the Speaker Cables were 18 gauge lamp cord - yep - lamp cord!!!

The power cords on both units were 16 gauge, wired directly to the transformer

I had taken my custom built cables over for him to audition, so we went about replacing all of his cables.

At the end of the day, with all of the cables replaced we both noticed a discernible improvement, but given the quality of his original cables I was very surprised we were not hearing more of an improvement.

He told me that the amp was custom built to the point where the guy hand wound all of the transformers to his own spec and obviously too great care in ensuring the amp/pre combo was working at optimum levels

My amp on the other hand is a mass produced product from NAIM and if I had used his cables It would have sounded terrible.

So based on these observations I would have to say that the level of improvements observed is directly related the quality of the components in the system and how well they are designed and built.

There is also the "synergy" aspect to consider and the room that the system is in plays a huge role in whether improvements are observed.

The human ear is a fine tool for discerning change (good or bad or just different) and not everybody’s hearing is the same. Some people like me can be overwhelmed by the chatter going on in a room and some people, like my wife, can tune their hearing to a conversation three tables away across a crowded restaurant.

So given the many factors at play I am not surprised by the responses as to whether cables make a difference can be so varied.

Me? - I can hear the difference, so I am in the camp that believe cables DO make a difference based on my personal observations in my own system and those of friends. But I do not intend to expend a lot of time trying to convince others of that - so I save my opinions for discussions as to the possible "why’s" with "like minded" souls.

Regards - Steve

Was this on the road to Damascus?

The roads in Pleasantville all end at the edge of town. The roads in other towns lead to uh, other towns and even to cities.

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/the-truth-about-interconnects-and-cables

It's an old article, but simply written.  It's the basis for most naysayer's positions.