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Cable design is a lot like creating a pizza

If you look at the construction of an RCA cable it can be very simple or can be very complicated. Eg. Audio quest higher end interconnect cables are extremely creative, the diagram on their website is visually stunning.

Ultimately, Cable design in many cables involves coloring the tonal signature. Cooking a pizza is all about making all the ingredients come together so it tastes amazing. Some do it a lot better than others and Pizza is a lot cheaper.

For cables, There are conductors, drain wires, shielding, Airfilled tubes, different gauges, etc…. Then there’s the copper strands which can be very detailed and numerous and twisted. So much going on.

With pizza you have cheese and sauce and spices and the dough and it’s all mixed together with all kinds of variation. Ultimately the sauce makes or breaks the success of a pizza slice.

With audio cables, hi end Cable designers are endlessly trying different ways to do all this. In the end they find something that sounds kind of nice. They may not know exactly why it does sound the way it does.

So that’s my take on Pizza design and cable design.

jumia
rodman99999
6,206 posts
 

@holmz -

       I have no doubt that there are many using cables as tone controls, which simply goes to show: cables CAN/DO make a difference in reproduction.

      However: everyone I know that uses high-end cables, regardless of position in their system, is attempting to do as little damage to their signal* as possible.

                             *the goal = neutrality/faithful reproduction

"Making measurable things referred to as faith is a bit of an oxymoron."

     The Church of Denyin'tology uses measurements, based on 19th Century Electrical Theory, as the foundation for their faith. 

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 

@holmz Well, I was talking about the US, but yeah Italy kinda makes good pizza too. And no, despite having a few very good BBQ restaurants you’re absolutely correct that NYC can’t hold a candle to the south when it comes to BBQ. I still stick by my assertion that it’s tough to get a decent bagel outside of the NYC area and pizza absolutely gets worse in the US as you head west or south from NYC. Sticking to my guns there.

@soix 

 

The bagel situation is not good in Australia. St. Kilda should have some.

But pizzas are a cooked up thing. And it equates cables with some alchemy of trial and error with a complete discounting of electrical theory.

 

@rodman99999 what is the more modern theory that you are alluding to?

rodman99999
6,206 posts
 

@holmz -

"what is the more modern theory that you are alluding to?"

     Read my 08:03pm post (that you quoted at 10:14pm) for clues.

     

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 

@rodman99999 The time shows up as local time.

Maxwell pretty much defined the theories that are used in transmission lines. But what part of a stereo systems is like a transmission line?
Are maxwells equations correct in most settings, but wrong in audio?

jpmanomet
36 posts
 

"It serves to illustrate how ridiculous cable design is. Especially if they can’t explain what they’ve done Beyond marketing rhetoric.

This also applies to preamplifiers and amplifiers. And here even more complicated, and many are profoundly confused as to why components sound the way they do."

@jumia

Agree 100%. It’s incredible how much money is made from cables transferring a low voltage audio signal. The recipe and ingredients are constantly changing in order to fleece the audiophile sheep of their disposable income. The more they spend the better they feel. Then there are the common sense, practical types who build their own cables with quality materials that get the job done just as well at a small fraction of the cost. They are often mocked however by the elitists who’ve spent a weeks pay with results no better.

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