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What do audiophiles want from a cable?

What should a high quality interconnect or speaker cable do to the sound of a system? Make it more transparent? Improve the sound stage and focus? Soften unpleasant highs? Tighten the base? Bring out the mids?

To me, a good cable should reveal more of what is on the recording and more of the true nature of my components. So when trying new cables, I look for more detail and accuracy without becoming cold and clinical. This seems logical, and yet after reading reviews and trying a few of the cables in the reviews, I find that the cables that have received glowing endorsements are not especially transparent or revealing. They modify the sound, but they don’t take me where I want to go. I wonder if the reason I don’t hear what the reviewer heard is that I don’t know what to listen for. Am I too focused on cable accuracy and resolution, and not enough on actual sound quality? Or is it just a case of no two systems sounding alike so why trust a review anyway? Thanks.
mward
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,832 posts
 
Boy do we need November 8 to get here fast...
dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
Case closed. jmcgrogan2 was right. Hopeless.
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
Nov. 8 might let some of the cerebrospinal fluid out of the mystics heads

OTOH, some of them are saying they will 'revolt'
milpai's avatar
milpai
2,374 posts
 
OP,
In response to your original question, I am not going to say whether a cable should make your system warm or cold or clinical anything else. If anything, it should make your system more musical and make you want to listen to more music.
I heard a big difference in my system when I changed from my previous speaker cable to the current speaker cables. My system needs all the gain that can be extracted to the last iota. I do not know why, but I GOT this gain in my system and it sounded fabulous. I can explain the FIRST time I experienced a gain - it was because I moved from RCA to XLRs. But the SECOD gain was by simply by changing the loudspeaker cables - and that too surprisingly from bi-wiring to single wire + jumpers.
Whatever happened - my system is more musical now than what it was before. I think YOU should listen to the system in which the new cables re introduced. The reviews are just to get you started. There is a 100% chance that you will completely disagree with the reviewers - both professionals and regular users.
electroslacker
375 posts
 
My guess is that audiophiles see cables as similar to water hoses, and the goal is to increase the flow and remove the constriction. That's at odds with reality, since we're not dealing with electrons flowing into preamps, amps or speakers.  But anything that creates such an illusion can often find a market, and often command amazing markups over cost to produce.
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