WHY CABLES MATTER!

So where is your white paper or IEEE report/findings...

tvrgeek

123 posts

09-19-2023 at 07:49am 

Many years ago when all this cable stuff came about, we did testing. Real engineers, one had an earlier career actually designing wire. Objective as much as we could afford, subjective where we could. Scope, Digi-Bridge, AF generator  etc. 

We used two systems. One was CJ tube P5, MV50 into Quads. Records of course. My system was a C&M amp , Hafler preamp, into Celeston 44's, modified with SEAS tweeters. 

Our conclusion that I have held fast until now is there are two kinds of cables. Bad ones and good ones.  I still hold that "truth" for digital cables. Almost for RCAs. 

For speaker cables, our testing convinced us that 14 or 12 AWG zip cord was darn near perfect.  None of the new boutique fire hose stuff was any better. We also tried several fads at the time like ribbon cables, bell wire ( solid core 16 gauge twisted)  etc. One was a ribbon made of twisted pairs. We found some could really upset my amp. ( marginal stability it turns out) 

White paper... geez, are you really going to bust his balls for providing his recollection of historical cable comparisons?  At least he provided some level of context. 

@mitch2 Yes I am. 

He can't resist  🤣

If I were starting over I might look at bulk AudioQuest Rocket-11 or the base Kimber.   In theory maybe better than Belden 5000UP. 

Then  Belden 1800uf  or Mogami W3080 for interconnects. 

I would terminate these myself. 

@tvrgeek 

So don't tell me crystal orientation in 10 feet of cable, though measurable, makes a sonic difference...But geometry and dielectric can.

When evaluating ancillary audio stuff, from cables, to fuses, to small add-on in-line digital boxes, etc., I try and first decide whether I actually hear a difference and consider whether the difference is actually better, or just different.  Then I think about the possible reasons why something works, or not.  It is best when what I hear aligns with plausible reasons for the difference/improvement, but it doesn't always work that way.

I agree with you about metal purity and generally believe soft annealed OFC (or OFE) at 100%+ IACS is good enough for audio signals (although it so happens all of my cables are made from PCOCC).  However, to your point about dielectric and geometry, I have found the speaker cables I like best use foamed polyethylene dielectric, and I do believe twisting and star-quad geometries used to lower noise and lower inductance are good for speaker and power cables.  I find it interesting that BJC states, "Our favorite speaker cable is the Belden 5000 series," which is a simple pair of twisted, stranded copper wires with PVC dielectric and a PVC jacket.  Also interesting is that the highest purity copper available in the Iconoclast speaker cable line is OFE or Oxygen-Free Electrolytic Copper (99.99% pure), although they do offer OCC, or Ohno Continuous Cast copper (99.99998% pure), in their interconnects.