A New Believer


I have listened to many systems over the years, and have never appreciated the difference speaker cables can make to a sound. In fact, I was so skeptical of the sound changes they can make that I have always not bothered with any special type of cables, generally going for generic (and dare I say it) roughly made ANY copper wire plugged in to amp and speaker. Well, imagine my surprise when I decided to do a blind test and listen to what difference cabling can make. Wow, my Vand 3A Sig's had been getting strangled! (some of you guys may want to strangle me if I told you what connects I had been using). So I am now a firm believer, cables DO make a difference.
joshc
Interesting thread. It seems that even some believers have a limit to what they are willing to accept when it comes to the amazing purported properties of wires.

Perhaps there is such a thing as too much marketing hyperbole?
To T_bone:

'I think that the debate about how well wires carry signal is to some extent kind of silly'

The so called debate is whether or not wire can change the signal. Saying it can is silly. Saying it can change sound stage and detail and Lord, let us not forget mid-bass, is down right absurd.
All this can be proven by anyone. It just requires two people, both committed to finding the truth. One to install and change cables and another to listen, for days,weeks,months, then compare notes. The peoblem would be how to prevent the listener from seeing which cable is playing.

I thnk we don't give enough importance to the role eyesight and the awareness that a component has been changed, plays in what we think we hear.
The cables I use are not expensive at all. I have another set of moderately priced speaker cables that make my set-up sound bright and steely. Am I crazy?
To Blkadr:

You are hereby charged with 'listening under the influence'(of your brain and eyes) :)
04-12-11: Antipodes_audio
If the time relationships in a sound are unnatural then the brain is quickly fatigued trying to make sense of what it hears, and the music sounds confused. If the time relationships are accurate then the brain can make complete sense of what it hears, with singers/players/instruments occupying distinct and real spaces. These time-domain issues are two-fold; signal-smearing, and phase distortions...Unlike equipment design, cable design to get accurate timbre is not tough, but time-domain accuracy is hard, and every design is a trade-off.

Antipodes audio - I agree with you about the importance of time domain performance. You may be aware of this already, but there is a significant amount of science confirming that human hearing has very sensitive temporal resolution. Many estimates place the limits of human temporal resolution on the order of microseconds, and some estimates place it as low as 5 μs. That is a remarkable level of sensitivity.

Of course, it does not necessarily follow that our extreme sensitivity to temporal differences is a significant psychoacoustic factor in audio. But like you, I believe that it is.

Having said all that, I am still unclear about what design choices in cables influence their time domain behavior. Is it the materials? The geometry? The dielectric?

I'm not asking you to give up your "secret recipe," but can you share any generalizations about the virtues and vices of various design approaches?

Thanks,
Bryon