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What Speaker Cables Taught Me About Audiophiles

Hold on tight because none of this story ends up where you think it will.

Ages ago I did a half-blind speaker cable test with friends in the building who loved Jazz. The amp was a Yamaha P2100 with Focal profile speakers. Cables were Mogami vs. Wireworld. Source was a CD player through a Theta Casanova preamp / processor (oh how i miss it).

I thought i was going to impress my friends with how great the Wireworld Silver 7s sounded. In particular the imaging I thought was so much better than through the Mogami Sound Runners.

To the surprise of many "scientists" here, my friends did in fact hear a noticeable difference between the two sets of cables. They absolutely preferred the Mogami.

I was a little shocked. I tried very hard to keep a poker face, and not guide them either way while switching. They could not see which cables were connected from their listening location.

What happened? Did they not understand how much better the imaging was with the Wireworld?

Well, actually they did and they didn’t care. Richard and his wife did notice that but felt that the loss of treble and beat was not worth it. Hands down for them the Mogami was the clear winner.

What this taught me was:

  1. Speaker cables can make a small but noticeable difference
  2. The improved imaging came at a cost of treble energy
  3. Most listeners wouldn’t make the trade. They’d rather have the tempo and foot tapping experience over my precious deep into the room imaging.

Over time of listening back and forth between my Wireworld collection and Mogami or DH Labs pure silver IC’s and Mogami speaker cables I’ve given that up. I think my neighbors were right. I’d rather have the beat and energy. It’s a fetish I was giving up far too much for.

I'm definitely not encouraging you to overhaul all your cables, but rather saying that we audiophiles need to be conscious that sometimes our preferences are unique to our culture and that the "normal" consumer may not share them at all. 

erik_squires
yyzsantabarbara
4,909 posts
 

On my Magnepan speakers I was reading that people were having great success with 10AWG Blue Jean cable because of the sound profile of the Maggies. Some technical detail that I am not going to repeat here properly. I got out my wallet and bought 2 sets of these cables for $220 total. The Mini needs 2 sets of cables.

The cheaper Blue Jean on the Maggie sounded as good as I had heard on the Magnepan LRS+ with my single set of Audience FrontRow speaker cable. I cannot test the FrontRow on the Mini even though I have 2 sets because I have spade termination on one set. The Mini and LRS+ are close enough to make an apples-2-apples comparison. I am now selling 1 set of my FrontRow that cost 20x more.

I also compared the Blue Jean cable on my Yamaha NS5000 speaker, and the Blue Jean was loose and flabby and rather bad. I am keeping the FrontRow on that speaker.

Today I am comparing the Mini + Blue Jean + with my CODA #16 amp. It is the best I have heard the Mini’s. A shame I cannot test the FrontRow on this setup, but I do not think it will change the sound much.

devinplombier
182 posts
 

One thing that fascinates me is how the less a component matters to sound quality, the more people are willing to fight over it.

Forums are infested with statements like:

"my $275 wall outlets made a transformational difference in soundstage depth"

"my new $14000 network streamer revealed a noise floor of such inky blackness I never before experienced in my 75 years as an Audiophile"

"If you can't hear the difference my digital streamer's $4000 power cable makes, you either bought your crappy system at Goodwill, or you're deaf, or most likely both"

"I had barely plugged in my new $800 linear power supply into my USB switch that my wife ran out of the kitchen asking did you buy new speakers again?" (ever noticed how with these guys the wife always runs out of the kitchen, and never from her PhD dissertation? But I digress)

Etc, etc.

On the other hand, conversation about components that do matter is largely, if not always, pleasant and non-confrontational. There are exceptions of course, but when was the last time you saw folks trading insults over amps or preamps, or having some kind of pissing contest over speakers?

Unlike in real life, in the audiophile world the more worthless the battle is, the more willing people are to fight it. Why is that?

 

antigrunge2
1,426 posts
 

It stands to reason that a speaker cable designed to accomodate power hungry, low efficiency 4ohms or below speakers will sound different from one designed for 16ohms 100db efficient horn speakers. Horses for courses as always. There is no generically great speaker cable.

overthemoon
425 posts
 

Here’s what I am noticing - we all have preferences. 
 

I have experienced differences in systems and various components in my system (including cables). Ultimately I trust folks reading this are enjoying music as much as more than they ever have. 

Ag insider logo xs@2x
bruce19
259 posts
 

@devinplombier  I heartily agree. In my former life in academia it was axiomatic that the less there was to fight over the fiercer the fight. Maybe it was like that with cave men too.

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