2. cables
  3. 158179-11588

Who says cables don't make a difference?

Funny, after all these years, people still say things like "you wasted all that money on cables". 
There are still those who believe cables don't make a difference.
I once did marketing for a cable line I consider to be about the best-Stealth Audio Cables. 
One CES, I walked the rooms with the designer/owner, Serguei Timachev. He carried a pair of his then new Indra interconnects. Going from room to room he asked the room runners to replace their source to preamp IC with the Indra. There was not one that was not completely flabbergasted and said that the Indras blew away what they were using. That was the skyrocketing of Indra and Stealth. The Indra became one of the best reviewed cables ever.
Serguei now makes the Sakra-an IC that blows away the Indra!
I don't understand why some still do not value cables as much as I.
mglik
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,998 posts
 
When I say that cables can’t add anything, they can only subtract, I’m pointing out the passive nature of wire. It is not an active component;
Take a piece of shungite and put it on the amplifier cover over the transformer.... Shungite is a "passive" piece of minerals....And observe the compression of the sound....

Now take a big chunk of quartz and put it on the same location and observe the clearing of the sound, a decompression but with too much accent in the higher frequencies now....


Third experiment put them together and report here your experience...

You will forget after that about ready made "scientific fact" about "passive" wire that are only engineering prejudice... You will discover why copper cable and silver one differ and can ADD something indeed....

:)

« "Science is history of science" said Goethe, i will add science is, at the beginning like at the end, nothing else» -Groucho Marx
lordrootman's avatar
lordrootman
374 posts
 
I believe that cables definitely make a difference because all the people spending 10k-70k are not stupid to do so without hearing any difference 
I’m only using stock power cord and SVS speakers cables and interconnects because they looks gorgeous to me
Also have Audioquest NRG4 power cord I got from eBay I bought them just for the looks 
i believe 20amp lines speakers cables and power cord  make a difference But I can’t afford it We still don’t have a proper to way to measure them I know measurements and performance is different it doesn’t always translate good or bad 

watch this video from audioholics 


https://youtu.be/Rgun97VK7y8

georgemgraves
15 posts
 
Mahgister-

It’s not that silver cables “add something” over their copper equivalents, it’s that silver subtracts less because it’s a better conductor and has less resistance and possibly less capacitive and inductive reactance.
And in my considerable experience, things like shungite, quartz, myrtlewood, and the like placed on top of electrical components such as amplifier transformers achieve their results through a pair of phenomena called confirmation bias and expectational bias. But if you think these things make your system sound better, then that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Me, I think taking the money that others spend on improvements of dubious scientific worth, And buying more music improves my system immensely. :)
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
" And in my considerable experience, things like shungite, quartz, myrtlewood, and the like placed on top of electrical components such as amplifier transformers achieve their results through a pair of phenomena called confirmation bias and expectational bias."

Great, this again... Or, maybe they do shield the system from electromagnetic interference.

In regard to your statement about cheap IC’s not "adding anything" to the signal... If only. They add a level of harshness & haze to the signal that CAN BE eliminated with a cable of proper design.
jjss49's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
jjss49
6,612 posts
 
imo cables matter

but it is also the easiest area to go overboard with lowest cost / benefit

lots of snake oil in the cable market, moreso than in components i wd say

cables prices vs production costs leads to highest margins in the industry, thus the greed/exploitation factor is the most extreme (in an industry where the average level of marketing bs is already fairly high)
More to discover