WHY CABLES MATTER!

@cleeds

They’re not interested in conversation - they seek to disrupt it.

We’d love to see just some decent explanation of what’s going on. I’d be happy with some simple measurements. If there’s a subtle but reliably measurable difference in speaker output between the two cables, that’d be enough to convince me, and we’d have a solid explanation of what’s going on. I would expect the cable manufacturers to provide this data on at least a small selection of amps and speakers, not a task for end users. Although, I have a calibrated mic. and REW so I can do those sorts of things. I have done it with amplifiers, but never felt a need for cables because I never thought I heard anything. If there are important differences, these can be described by the cable specifications, just like the parameters on a speaker driver.

This article answers my questions. Cables can definitely make a difference. I don’t see why they need to cost a lot, but you may need a specific mix of resistance, inductance, capacitance with any given system to get a most desired result. In some cases you need some resistance in the cable to protect the amp! In my opinion this should never be the case, but I'm sure some will argue that making a speaker behave like that somehow makes it sound better.

https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/

@invalid 

I've had Polk sda2a speakers for over 30 years

I had that same speaker. I bought mine back around 1991 or '92. I liked them but didn't tend to use that crosstalk cable. I didn't understand how it was supposed to work and so I honestly never noticed the SDA effect. Many years later I set up my own SDA arrangement using four bookshelf speakers and it was highly effective. By then I understood the concept and knew how to set it up and what to listen for, but no longer had the SDA speakers. More recently I've used 3 speakers to get the same effect, mixed L-R, L+R, R-L. This has once again been done with little bookshelf speakers, but I just bought a 3rd horn tweeter so I'm on my way to getting it set up in a fully horn loaded arrangement.

asctim

We’d love to see just some decent explanation of what’s going on. I’d be happy with some simple measurements.

Who exactly is the "we" you apparently pretend to represent?

If some simple measurements would please you, feel free to make some of your own.

@cleeds 

Who exactly is the "we" you apparently pretend to represent?

If some simple measurements would please you, feel free to make some of your own.

The "we" are the ones you referred to as not interested in discussion, but would rather disrupt it. I'm assuming I might seem to be in that camp, but I really am interested in learning more about this, not just disrupting for disruption's sake. 

I will definitely make some measurements if I think I hear something change as a result of changing cables. For now, I'm happy with what I see on the Passlabs website link I posted.