Interconnects and non-believers

@uberwaltz, wow that's impressive. With all due respect, what the hell are you doing on audiogon? This site is for people who care more about evaluation then pleasure.

devilboy,

You seem to make some sweeping claims that cables always change the sound and act as tone controls. What do you base that upon?

I’m no engineer, but having watched electric engineers hash this cable debate stuff out for many years, many will tell you - (that is, ones who aren’t trying to sell you a cable) that for the most part, cable performance has been a well understood phenomenon for a long time and if you select a well engineered cable with the proper characteristics for the job (e.g. insulation, capacitance values, etc) all the signal will get through. There isn’t therefore any particular reason to expect a sonic difference if you are using two well engineered cables both suited for the same job. Sure, some cables can be engineered to sound different by altering certain parameters, but they can also work essentially identically.

In controlled listening tests, (blinded for sighted bias), sometimes cables seemed to be distinguishable, other times not. Many times people who have sworn that they could easily distinguish between a high end cable and cheap cable have not been able to do so once they didn’t know which was playing. (I’ve experienced this myself).

Apropos of the subject of interconnects, here’s one example testing a variety of interconnects (french site translated):

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=...

Note the measurements of the cables; they are so similar it should have helped predict the results of the blind tests: that the panel could not reliably distinguish between the cables when they didn't know which was playing.

So....do cables sometimes change the sound of a system? Seems plausible it can be the case for a variety of reasons. But do they always change the sound and are high end cables always distinguishable from lower priced cables? Apparently not.

@devilboy 

 No one however, has made an argument to support the idea that if you really want to hear what your components sound like, theoretically, your interconnects will be the same wire that’s inside of your components. Why hasn’t anyone giving me an explanation for this? Please, please enlighten me.

I believe that has been discussed before, and it's been pointed out by a quote from some engineer who makes amps that wires under 6" or so don't make much of a difference so long as it's of a high purity. It's also borne out by the use of traces on circuit boards: they're so short that they negate the need for wire. 

Which takes that argument one silly step further: why not just use traces between components?

The same argument has been made for speaker wire and I've tried it and found that using the same type of wire is not the way to go. I've heard much better using different cabling. What helps to make up the component of the speaker doesn't translate to what connects the speaker.

Also, yes all cables are tone controls but some, in some areas, do the least amount of damage to the signal, in effect, getting out of the way of the signal. Your argument is just semantics run amok. Lighten up. 

With all due respect, what the hell are you doing on audiogon? This site is for people who care more about evaluation then pleasure.

Where the hell do you get off saying that? This site is all about both. Just look at any of the thousands of threads.

All the best,
Nonoise

@prof, I never said cables always CHANGE the sound. I'm not saying that if you have 100 different cables you will have 100 different sounds. I'm saying that a cable will always AFFECT the sound, and unless it's the same cable that's inside the components it will add its own sonic signature to those components.
Just for an example, if the wire inside of your components is X and the wire connecting those components is Y, then wouldn't be logical to assume that you are adding something different to the signal?

@nonoise, you've got to be kidding me. Seriously you have to be joking.
 EVERYTHING about Audiogon is centered around the idea that entry level or mediocre equipment is not sufficient for enjoying music.
Otherwise everyone would have a Boombox and that's all they would ever need. Why the hell do we have preamplifiers selling for $10,000? If you need a $10,000 preamplifier to ENJOY music then you're an a**hole.

Come on man. You've been in the game for a long time like the rest of us. You know this.