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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
pfreix's avatar
pfreix
23 posts
 

Biggest improvement I have heard in my system by far is the Bacch4Mac room correction and spatial 3D sound.  Simply amazing... once you have heard it you will understand.  

BACCH4Mac Overview and FAQ | Tom Martin Reports...

 

asctim
495 posts
 

One thing that I just became aware of is how a little impedance between the speakers and the amp can help tame peaky resonances in some speaker drivers, and reduce distortion as a result. Not sure how that ties in to cables, but I suspect it could in some way. Also tube amps, with their higher output impedance.

asctim
495 posts
 

@pfreix

I’m a big believer in interaural crosstalk reduction. I’ve not heard BACCH4Mac, but I’ve heard other methods of reducing crosstalk that I found very compelling. BACCH4Mac seems to be the current state of the art when used in a well treated room, and with appropriately directional speakers. Some people also add lots of ambience channels per Ralph Glasgal.

It’s certainly a very different approach to those looking for the cleanest, purest signal path in the system itself. Without crosstalk reduction, the signal arriving at the ears ends up being pretty messy. But some are just looking to optimize the two channel sound, crosstalk and all, as its own art form.

pfreix's avatar
pfreix
23 posts
 

you have to hear it to believe it.... best addition to my system by far... hard to describe

moto_man
370 posts
 

Here's one thing about cables -- they are heavily system dependent.  Lower end systems will not resolve enough to illustrate a difference.  Higher end systems will show differences, slight or more than slight.  Room acoustics affect the resolution of a system.  When cables make a subtle difference, that difference may be smeared by poor acoustics.  All that being said, I find it hard to understand how someone listening to my system cannot tell the difference between cables, and especially speaker cables.  I used Morrow audio SP-7's, and then replaced them with Shunyata Alpha v1's, resulting in what I would consider a "substantive change" for the better.  I then went from the Alpha v1's to the Sigma V1's, and again had an easily audible improvement.  A subtle improvement here or there add up to a decent improvement overall.  I am now a Shunyata fanboy after putting in an Everest power conditioner as well. So what does all of that say about audiophiles?  Not much, as audio is such a subjective thing.  I have heard people call a speaker "bright" that I would never ever call "bright."  People say cables don't make a difference.  Others say that they do.  I suppose that what all of this really shows is that people have to have an open mind in approaching all equipment and tweaks and find out what works in YOUR system, not just based on reviews or comments, because your experience is guaranteed to be different.

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