Why Do Cables Matter?

I was always wondering if PVC is not a really bad insulator for signal wires: the very large chlorine atoms with three pairs of unpaired electrons in their outer shell are bound to interact with the electro-magnetic field around a wire. But I did not act on my suspicion until I found XLR ICs with silver wire running in a PTFE tube and a shielding mesh of silver-plated copper. They are made in HK and the price was right and thus I bought two pairs from my DAC to my preamp and from my preamp to my power amps, replacing the Mogamis I had for years. I can only say that they did indeed make a significant difference, not ground-shaking but clearly audible and in a very pleasant way: more clarity and headroom, especially with solo voice (Shirley Bessey with "Big Spender", for example, where I can now understand each single word), but also deeper sound stage and dry and punchy bass. Overall money really well spent. Since then I began making my own speaker cables, by running a single 5N silver wire in a PTFE tube filled with Argon gas. The latter has a dielectric constant similar to air, meaning almost unimpeded signal transmission, but has no corrosive effects on the silver conductor. A small tank of Argon can be rented in any hobby brewery-supply shop, and after filling the cable I seal both ends with sticky heat shrink. These speaker wires work very well and are not at all overly bright, as many audiophiles claim it to be a silver drawback: great headroom and extension, clear voicing and again taught and yet powerful bass. So, form my own experimental experience I can attest that wires can indeed make a significant difference in the overall musical experience, but I would never spend more than a couple of $100 on them.

@reimarc 

Very interesting and smart.

I am sure your ICs sound good, the intressting question is how good? 

Have you compared the performance of your ICs to known brands in the market, or just to the Mogamis?

@thyname  @steakster 

Thanks for your kind words. I’ve occasionally found that what we sense as aggression or arrogance is often a cover for uncertainty and sincere confusion or the frustration of inability to communicate more clearly 😉🙏🏻

@donavabdear 

So glad you understood what I’ve tried to communicate 👌🏻 - if you’d like to read a little more of my thoughts regarding how to know when a component or room sounds realistic and accurate to any recording we had not experienced the actual sound engineering of, I just made another post in another thread @dean_palmer started on high fidelity - https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/when-are-speakers-considered-hi-fi-and-not-mid-fi?lastpage=true&page=2#2575397

I have over 70 speakers in my house and 4x dolby atoms systems so new expensive cable would cost a fortune

That’s an insane number of speakers for one single house. I understand your frustration @donavabdear . I agree with you, attempting to cable them all to function independently and simultaneously, including their electronics, will cost a fortune. But I guess helicopters noise from the ceiling sounds good enough for me in my modest 5.1.2 HT, so here is that. I have basic cabling in my lowly HT, I don’t really pay much attention to having a great HT.

My question for you is, out of those 70+ speakers, can you isolate the best two speaker you have (a matching pair) for stereo, 2-channel playback? Perhaps in a dedicated room for two channel audio, with dedicated 2-channel equipment (not multichannel). That should not cost too much in wiring. Only two speakers out of your 70+. Just a wild idea 😱