DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

@glupson. It’s is something that I see not just on this forum but others as well. The ability or choice to spend more seems to be looked down own. I didn’t make my buying decisions lightly.  I did a lot of research and demoing before I purchased each piece. I paid a little more than most would consider.  But I love my sound. @dorkwad I actually use the same reference Cable as Doug Schroeder in parts of my system. Clarity Cable.  They half great treble extension, open midrange and soundstage, a little bump in the lower minds and the bass. Nice sound.  

Very cool, Calvinj.  I finally found the components I truly love the sound of.  The last thing I did was move the sound a little more organic with the choice of cables.  The Schroeder method of shotgunning the same cables so you have 2 sets of cables going to one component, made a great difference in the sound towards more realism.

glupson

Geoffkait: “A rich man has about as much chance of entering audio Nirvana as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle."

That must be a really big needle.

Why is being rich/able-to-afford so frequently mentioned as a negative trait on this forum?

>>>>>I don’t think it’s a negative trait per se. I think it’s negative only because expense of equipment or cables is irrelevant to most of the discussions about sound. Owning expensive equipment does not automatically mean the owner has found audio Nirvana or that his system even sounds good. Nor can he automatically win arguments based on the expense of his system. Even when he swears up and down his system sounds awesome. That’s what we call a logical fallacy. Asking someone to list his system is not really a way to find out what that system sounds like or to prove that system/cable X sounds better than system/cable Z. There are no shortcuts to Xanadu. 😛

calvinj
They half great treble extension, open midrange and soundstage, a little bump in the lower minds and the bass. 

>>>>An unfortunate typo. 😛

A couple of things.

First, have to agree with calvinj that Clarity Cable is a very fine cable that on performance should have much greater place in the audio world, and very sadly it doesn’t.

Second, agree with dorkwad about the Schroeder Method, in my humble opinion it is one of those procedures that absolutely and conclusively shows how cables can have a positive effect on audio reproduction ( so obvious no double bind tests required ). Frankly, lo res, hi res, expensive, modest systems will all benefit from this upgrade. In fact, as a friend said, if you can’t hear the benefit might be a good time to find another hobby like golf, or something, anything that doesn’t require hearing acuity ( slightly paraphrased and explicates deleted )

And one more thing. Basically agree with geoffkait above about how system components in and off themselves can or cannot define how good it is at audio reproduction. At the very least until there is some discussion about the acoustic environment they are used in. Lets remember that the room is the most important audio component and which provides the largest contribution to the "sound" of a system ( some have pegged that contribution at about 50% ). Put a potentially great system in a crap room and guess what, there is an almost certainty that the great system will sound like crap ( with diminished ability to hear detail, nuance, and change, both large and small etc etc etc ).