A hard look at the effect of cables

Bring back the stereo console and have everything hard wired and stop all this craziness!

Wouldn't multiamplification come with many attendant challenges, including more (but shorter) wires, signal loss and coloring by two or three amplifiers instead of one, signal level matching across several separate frequency bands complicated by perhaps using different types of specialized amplifiers for each range, etc? Essentially some of the challenges one deals with now for subwoofers, and the jury is still out on the hi fi benefits of using a sub.

Don't know enough to understand how crossing over occurs in an active versus passive system - how similar or different is this process with amplification occurring before or after signal separation? Or is this really a non issue?

One could imagine the complexity driving costs quite high for this type of equipment. I realize that these products are already available - but seems like a manufacturers delight as they capture two markets with one product.

From my very novice perspective, the way I look at this series of articles is that:

1) speaker and amp matching for peak performance is difficult at best, and in the home audio world where design standards are loose, a hit or miss affair

2) speaker cables have a significant impact on the interaction and combined performance of these components, and

3) one way to reduce this effect is to use the shortest pieces of wire possible with reasonable resistance, capacitance and impedance characteristics in a configuration that effectively rejects EMF/RFI.

The fact the authors report on significant and distinct distortion signatures of different length runs of different wire types should indicate to most that wires make a measurable difference in both extreme and real life situations, confirming what most audiophiles have discovered at some point on their own. This information has me questioning my own 10 meter runs of speaker cable, but understanding why the switch from standard side by side stranded cord to a more complex configuration made a noticeable (but expensive) difference in sound quality.

It is doubtful to me that any of us will usher in a new era of active speakers as the dominant format as a result of this and other findings. I do think this information is as much about the relationship between amp and speaker design as it is about cables. In some ways this just further confirms what most audiophiles have already experienced, that it takes a long time and a lot of equipment swapping to find a match made in heaven, and happily or unhappily, cables can contribute (greatly) to that quest.

"Bring back the stereo console and have everything hard wired and stop all this craziness!".
Actually I think it's going in opposite direction. Wire has acquired such magical properties in recent years that soon we will be able to eliminate speakers, amps, sources, etc. and the magical cables will make music all by themselves.

"Wire has acquired such magical properties in recent years that soon we will be able to eliminate speakers, amps, sources, etc. and the magical cables will make music all by themselves."

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~argon/nanoradio/radio.html