2. cables
  3. 184733-96626

Why Do Cables Matter?

To me, all you need is low L, C, and R. I run Mogami W3104 bi-wire from my McIntosh MAC7200 to my Martin Logan Theos. We all know that a chain is only as strong as its' weakest link - so I am honestly confused by all this cable discussion. 

What kind of wiring goes from the transistor or tube to the amplifier speaker binding post inside the amplifier? It is usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper. Then we are supposed to install 5 - 10' or so of wallet-emptying, pipe-sized pure CU or AG with "special configurations" to the speaker terminals?

What kind of wiring is inside the speaker from the terminals to the crossover, and from the crossover to the drivers? Usually plain old 16 ga or 14 ga copper.

So you have "weak links" inside the amplifier, and inside the speaker, so why bother with mega expensive cabling between the two? It doesn't make logical sense to me. It makes more sense to match the quality of your speaker wires with the existing wires in the signal path [inside the amplifier and inside the speaker].

 

 

kinarow1
ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 

@jasonbourne71 

Cables have electrical properties LC&R, the building blocks of filters.

If one use a cable with a very high reactance such that it rolled the amplifier output beginning @ 500Hz and 2KHz, it would be audible.

ALL cables modify the signal passed through them. If they didn't, we could use zip cord for everything. The fact that we have 75Ω, 50Ω, 300Ω, ad infinitum cables for specific purposes gives lie to the assertion only transducers have a sound.

Whether the changes are audible depends on many things, beginning with the CBLF.

Reductio ad absurdum, transducers can have no sound because all they do is move air.

ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 

audiophiles should know that no recording studio uses boutique expensive cable

There are many studios that use other than 'standard' cables. My company, Studio City Sound Corp, wired many in Los Angeles in the 80's & 90's

It could be a significant investment. No bookings for up to a month, wire, labor mounted quickly for a large installation.

Many freelance engineers carried their favorite cables, mics, pre's and EQ to sessions. All might be changed for a ballad vs a rocker.

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,263 posts
 

Dead horse. Kicked, beaten, mutilate and FUBAR. This was what this thread was destined for and it reached its destination 3 pages ago. 

recklesskelly
330 posts
 

@audphile1 sure as heck has been pummeled and pulverized. +1 To each their own on this subject. Move along little doggies.

asctim
495 posts
 

I think we should just keep kicking this horse. It’s dead so it don’t mind. Has anybody ever heard a really bad effect from a cable or connector? I have! I tried some passive line attenuators on the output of a pro level dac to lower it’s output for a consumer grade pre-amp. That sounded truly awful. It was much better to digitally attenuate. I also got pretty bad sound from some 30 foot RCA interconnects. I can’t even remember why I needed those at one time, but I’ve still got them! - You know, I think those cables had a stereo phono plug on one end and RCA outputs on another, and I was using the headphone out of an iPod into a pre-amp from across the room. A lot of problems there.

Another truly terrible sound came from trying to use y-splitters on the dac output in an attempt to mix channels. Dac didn’t like that.

So, if I can hear the effect of RCA interconnects when they are 30 feet long, maybe some people can still hear the effects at only 3 feet long. I’m really glad that I don’t hear anything that bothers me with decent 3 foot single ended interconnects. This assumes there’s nothing wacky about the impedance matching between the two devices being connected. If that’s the case, then all sorts of mayhem and cable effects may revealed.

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