Pro Cables vs. Audio Cables....Are We Being Duped?

It seems to me that the studio recording engineers would use the best available cabling for recording purposes. Why do we spend 10x as much for playback cables?

Most "Pro" cables are more concerned with longevity and standing up to abuse rather than the actual materials used. Copper is copper, shielding is shielding, etc... to MOST people in the Pro Sound industry. As such, the dielectrics on most "Pro" cables are VERY different from "audiophile grade" cables, wire geometry may be different, the grade of copper or silver may be different, etc... As such, the "audiophile" cables SHOULD cost more but not THAT much more.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I am NOT defending the "wire bandits" in ANY way, shape or form. Most "wire companies" take off the shelf components from REAL wire & cable manufacturers, have their names put on them and then use some "fancy" connectors on them. That is why i am a BIG proponent of DIY cable designs. Unless a design uses a LOT of very precise configuring or braiding, you can probably build better cables than what you can buy for 10 times the price. Sean
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Except for the run from a mic or di to mic preamp (where an exceptional cable might be worthwhile), everything else in a recording studio is running at +4dbM (pro level) rather than -10dbV (home level). -- Quite a difference.

I'm one of those people who went out and bought or demo'd
Transparent and MIT cables. They can make a difference.
My experience; I owned at the time of "the great experiment"
Threshold T2 preamp, T400 amp, Krell KPS20i cd player. MOST
IMPORTANT, THE ROOM!! 7.5' ceiling,13'x 21' The floor is con
crete as were the walls. The wall behind the speakers was
block covered over with fake stone. This worked GREAT! With the Snell Type B's six feet apart and two feet out from the wall, they were perfect. I used Transparent reference balanced between preamp and cd player and between amp & preamp. I used Reference speaker cables. The sound was as good as I've ever heard from a set of speakers. I tried stepping down one set of interconnects to "Ultra". A heard
less tight bass and the sound stage was not as open. When I tried stepping down to Super bal interconnects, the level
of soundstage, imaging, focus and bass also decreased. I didn't care for any of the MIT at the time and I'm soory as I can't remember which models whey were. Moster Cable etc.
were ALL a joke in this test. I couldn't hear a difference between ANY of their cables. My friend borrowed all of these
Transparent cables to try in his system. We could not hear a difference in ANY of the cables in his system or room.
He had Infinity IRS beta's, VTL 300MB's, My Krell 20i and Adcom monoblocks. The Krell 20i also had no significant improvment in his system. His gear was on a third floor attic maybe 7.5 x 16 x 24. My conclusion is that the room
is paramount in importance. If your setup doesn't sound good
already and you try changing out cables and experience
a minimal effect, your room is probably the problem.

Well maybe I should offer my two cents worth - as I have
owned and operated a video editing and media duplication
company for the past twelve years.
First and foremost it should be understood that there
is a wide range of "professional" audio and video cables
out there. Some cables are manufactured and sold to pro-
fessional audio dealers. More often than not, most of these
items are available only in certain lengths; and are
typically of lesser quality.
Other cables - usually the decent stuff - is custom
built using the higher end connectors (such as Neutrik or
Canare) and high end wire from companies such as Belden
and Mogami.
Also, cost figures into all of this. It's one thing to
put together a higher end audio system with possibly four
or five sets of interconnects and a set of speaker cables.
It's an entirely different matter when say you are wiring
up five or six sets of balanced audio cables in each of
several rooms. Not to mention running a couple dozen sets
of RCA cables to duplication machines.
In my own operation, I tend to use lower end RCA cables
from XLO and MIT to our duplication equipment. THERE IS A
DIFFERENCE vs. some of the lower end "pro grade" stuff. I
can hear the difference! And keep in mind I do this five
or six days every week!
In my own set up at home, I use the Transparent Musicwave
interconnects and love it vs. some of the "pro" stuff I've
used in the past. My Thiel speakers tell me I'm getting
much better dynamics with the Transparents; so I'm happy
with what I'm using.