How Big of a Difference?

IF you have money to burn through, the best cables I have heard were Goetz and Western Electric's or Dueland's imitations which may sound even better than the originals. 50 years ago Western Electric cables delivered clear voices from coast to coast. You could, assuming that you knew the person at the other end, easily discern who you were speaking to through thousands of miles of cable.. Goetz cables need to be zobeled to ensure that your amp doesn’t go into oscillation at frequencies above your ability to hear it and burn up. You can't be sure that aresistor or capacitor lead won't break, and you won't likely even know that your amp is in trouble until it's too late. They are now selling counterfeit Western Union cable, so I have gone to Dueland for all my new cables. Some will warn you that the tin will create a diode effect. I don't care if it does, cables present their own load to the speaker, hence Goetz cable's capacitance burns up some amps. Regardless of what they claim I've tried home made concoctions, and expensive cables and most just made things worse. The Dueland cables just work, and I can't explain the theory because getting the proper resistance, capacitance, and inductance, crunching those numbers ignores the amp and speakers which are also part of the circuit. As the cables appear to perform regardless of the circuit I just don't care about the why, I am just thrilled to have cables that work. Perhaps I should get the Dueland cables for the speakers, but my old Western Electric cables are the real thing, and I am content with them as speaker cables and Dueland for all my ICs.

12 gauge solid occ copper for speaker cables +1

To answer your question, based on my personal experience, Yes cables make a difference.  For the sake of comparison, I run Tidal on a crappy old Windows based laptop. This feeds a Schiit Yiggy ( Gen 1 ), to a Rogue pre and a Had Inspire. My speakers are first generation Zu Omens. So our front ends are very close. I run a USB cable to the Yiggy. First I used a cheap cable from my old camera. Then an Audioquest Cinnamon. I had a noticeable improvement. After a couple months I tried a Cardas Clear usb, and again a noticeable improvement. So comparing the Cardas to the cheap camera cable there’s a significant improvement. As far as speaker cables I’ve always used banana connectors. First I used 12 ga bulk speaker cable in copper then silver. Next I used Anti Cables level 3, and now I use Morrow level 4.  There was an annoying brightness with the silver 12 ga. From the 12 ga copper to Anti Cables to Morrow 4 I experienced an improvement each time. My opinion is that in my system silver cables are too bright. The Morrows bettered the Anti Cables with better sound stage, but tonality was about the same. In regards to power, I run Morrow Level 4 and use a Richard Gray 1200 power filter. I never used the stock power cords. I started with a mixture of Pangea, Silnote and a digital specific cord. All of these cords had a price point of $100 Ea. So with the Richard Gray already in place, I really didn’t notice an improvement adding the Richard Gray or my Current Morrow cords. However at this point I swapped the heavy power cord that came with the Gray for a Shunyata Venom HC 20 amp cord. That made a very noticeable improvement in the whole system. I also have Hubble medical outlets. For a sound quality comparison please consider this. I have a modded Thorens TT with a Grado Prestige cartridge. When I spin my best vinyl and do an A-B with Tidal, the sound from my crappy laptop is very close to the turntable. Now keep in mind this is limited to specific recordings like Pink Floyd/ DSOTM, Supertramp/ Crime Of the Century, Alice In Chains/ MTV Unplugged, to name a few. This does not apply to all my vinyl Vs streaming Tidal. I’ve also done considerable tube rolling and have a 15x18 room with a vaulted ceiling and heavy shag carpet, heavy drapes and large fabric covered  furniture. So my room is fairly forgiving with my system. You have nice gear and obviously know what your doing, so I assume you have equal quality speakers that are properly placed. So I’m of the opinion that all cables matter, but some make only a slight difference. I’m cost driven, so I’ve never tried the expensive stuff, but I’ve tried to match the level of my gear. People that have helped me with my system are of the opinion that any big improvement would come at a significant cost. One of the other things that I noticed is the very long break-in time  Morrow cables take, especially the interconnects . So this was my experience and my suggestion is that you take advantage of the free trial many manufacturers offer and remember to allow for break-in time.  My Morrow IC’s took 400 hours. Happy Listening and please feel free to PM if you want to chat. Happy Listening, Mike B. 

In my experience, with some blind testing, yes, speaker cables make a difference. No it's not always good and always too expensive.

@johnnycamp5 - I hope the following provides answers to your questions

I always wondered about the improvements from cables but never (not yet) went down that road.

My biggest unanswered questions are on “power cables” Are these more like a “device” than just the correct quake cable?

And what about the approx. 100’ of romex cable in between your service panel and Gigi rig?

 

Do the high end power cables somehow eliminate those cheap, solid core copper lines?
These are sincere questions …not trying to be a wise guy.…

First - that 100’ of romex is actually pretty good at conveying electricity

• It is solid core - not stranded cable. In power applications stranded cables cannot handle as much current as solid cables, so when those transient spikes hit, a stranded cable will not work as well as solid core
• The copper in Romex is actually pretty good quality, so don’t mistake the cheapness of romex for poor quality
• the line from the distribution panel to the outlet should be a continuous run without any breaks
• so a dedicated line is a better approach than perhaps other outlets that may be part of a spur that attaches to more than a single outlet

Please don’t shoot the messenger with this next comment, but this is how I interpreted the explanation given to me,

• where you have a connection point, (e.g. the wall outlet), the only "electrical attribute" present at that connection point is the VOLTAGE.- Current only comes into play once a load is connected
• So when you plug in a power cable, the current in THAT CABLE is impacted only by the cable’s electrical attributes (see below)
• so if you use a crappy power cable into your component, the result would be quite different than if you used a very good cable
• Even though everything else is EXACTLY the same
• What does carry forward to the component is noise, because noise is a fluctuation of voltage, which is present at every junction point

So if you consider the "construction" of a really great cable

• most use UP-OCC copper and the best use a solid core wire, which translates to faster response to transient current demands - so better dynamic performance
• most use advanced insulation types (e.g. foamed teflon) which has a lower dielectric constant value, which results in less noise being generated within the conductors - so improved clarity
  • Basically, each conductor acts like a capacitor and the charging/recharging of the insulation as the voltage swings through +ve and -ve cycles, creates noise within the conductor - crappy cables use wire with a higher dielectric constant and therefor produces more noise
• finally, the very best cables employ a cable geometry that either puts space (e.g. an air gap is best) between the individual conductors in order to prevent induced noise between conductors OR use a geometry that reduces the amount of parallel conductors in the cable. Braiding is an example of a more advanced cable geometry and it results in a lower noise floor

For other examples of cable geometries take a look at the following links

http://image99.net/blog/files/54c02c12532d31f960ee85a6ed674b01-83.html

https://www.in-akustik.de/en/cables-and-accessories/reference-air/power-cables/

I hope that provides some insight into the inner working of a good power cable

Regards - Steve