Cable vs. Electronics: biggest bang for the buck

I have great respect for Nelson Pass and his regular posts here are always well worth reading. Unfortunately, I don't think the article referenced above is his most valuable contribution. The date 2/1980, means that it necessarily misses the great advances touted by the wire industry for the last twenty years. The analysis is the classic RLC/impedance matching analysis that has been the bane of those trying to find reasons to pay huge amounts of money for wire. It inevitably leads to the conclusion, in all but a very few instances, that there is no reason. This is why you so often hear cable proponants argue so strongly that measurements don't matter.

His conclusion seems to indicate that he could have been a great politician as well as a great audio engineer. After saying basically that he cannot "assess" the differences except at the "extremes" (he doesn't define extreme but leaves the impression he means very long runs of wire) he falls back on "who am I" to judge line and says money spent on "quality" cables is money "well spent." Never saying what a "quality" cable is or what is a reasonable amount of money to spend.

Was he running for office in early 1980? I'da voted for him had I known.

I remain,

Thsalmon, we are probably just looking at it from different perspectives i.e. you saying that the signal only degrades after it leaves the component and me thinking that it can be "better presevered" by using more suitable cabling. In effect, i think we are both acknowledging that the cable can't improve the signal i.e. "make something that is not there", but we can work with various cables to transfer the signal as best possible with the least amount of losses or colouration. If the cable was "making something that was not there", it would simply be a distortion of the signal. As we've all come to learn, some distortions can be quite pleasant and euphonic though : ) Sean
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Sean, What is the difference between a "Better preserved" and a "Degradation" of a signal? If it is not perfectly preserved, then it is a degradation. The point remains that a cable cannot improve upon a signal irrespective of impedence, capacitance or whatever. It can pass the signal as is or it degrades it. The "Perfect" cable would be one that passes a signal with no change (something we have not achieved.) I do believe in a synergy with certain cables with certain equipment. I'm sure that the interaction of electrical factors does account for this and forms a closer picture of the source(maybe.) A system is not going to be any better than its pieces parts. A bright CD player with "Good" cables will sound worse than it would with less accurate cables masking some of the brightness. Where the bad link is, it will have to be corrected or the sound will degrade through the rest of the chain. Each component is going to put its on signature on it for better or worse.
Obviously, the accurate thing is out the door. Accurate to what and by who's standard. With all the gear on the market (Including cables), the definition of accurate is really up for grabs.

Biggest bang for the buck? Argh! Tough question but - I would have to say the right cables can make a sad system sing and a great system sound utterly magnificent.

The margin of improvement by a single component in any system is far less - regardless of the quality of the component. Dumping a pair of Tenor's in a system comprised of a first generation CD player, radio shack preamp, and cheezy speakers is not going to provide the same results dollar for dollar as if the problems of the system were addressed with better suited cables. How much are the tenors? 20K? That's one heck of a cable budget! We may have money left over for better speakers!

There are many reasons for this - most of which *I* cannot explain. We often read how the electrical properties of cables, the preservation of signal, the capacitance, reactance and inductance all work to make it "better" but focusing on this is like looking at only one piece of the puzzle.

Here is an example. The new BMI Shark power cord is made of platinum. We know Platinum is a crappy conductor but people claim the Shark is an awesome "sounding" power cord. Likewise there are other cables (and components) which measure poorly yet sound very musical.

Why is this?

To get a better understanding of why cables make such a difference, one must first better understand the world around them. Everything is in play. While the preservation of a signal is important - there is truly so much more. Take a look at HyperPhysics to get a grasp.

Did I say cables can give you the biggest bang for the buck?

Using any type of wire based cables, we will never have "perfectly preserved" transfer of signal as far as i can tell. As such, i was saying that cables should be measured in the amount of "damage" that they do i.e. some cables are "better" because they do less "damage". As such, the one that does "less damage" is actually doing more to preserve the signal than the one that does more damage and degrades the signal to a greater extent. As Bob Crump stated, all wires are bad. Some are just "less bad" than others, in effect making them "better". I hope that you can follow my explanation and understand where i'm coming from.

Bare in mind that signals have MANY various aspects to them. While one cable might offer linear frequency response, the actual transient or phase response of the source trying to load into this cable could be quite poor. You can reverse that situation and have good transient or phase response with a non-linear frequency response. Juggling these and other variables is but a part of what finding what cable works best in a specific place within a system is all about.

As to "accuracy" being "out the door", i think that one can actually measure a good portion of what is "accurate" and what isn't. I'm not saying that we can take ALL of our cues from test bench measurements, but i do think that science and nature work hand in hand when done properly. Sean
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