Tom Bombadil
AK Member
I assume nearly everyone participating in this forum has been in search of those magical changes you can make to your system to achieve a bit more audio nirvana. I've been buying and upgrading systems for 41 years. So many upgrades. So many tweaks.
Wondering what has been your biggest surprise, either in how much something changed your system or how little.
For me the biggest surprise was cables. All cables: interconnects, digital, power cords, and speaker cables. In the late 90s I was of the mind that cables made a difference, sometimes a very noticeable difference. I accumulated several different brands over the next few years. Kimber, AudioQuest, MIT, DH Labs, Tara, Blue Jeans, and several more.
I own multiple amps, preamps, DACs, CD players, and speakers. So I would move these cables around, listening for differences.
Eventually I decided to carefully analyze and evaluate all of my equipment, for the purpose of spending my money wisely. So I purchased some switching gear, got some friends and family to pitch in at times to run tests and switch components and cables, and slowly got around to testing a lot of gear. Over a 3 year period.
What I found out was that with few exceptions, I could not discern a difference in cables when evaluating the under blind conditions. That is, when not knowing what it was that I was listening to. This was under fast switch conditions of seconds between switches, minutes between switches, and in days & weeks between switches.
Now under sighted comparisons, I thought I heard significant differences, but they would always disappear under blind comparisons. (The same turned out to be true for multiple other people who participated in comparisons from time to time.)
I could find no synergy between cables and components. Good quality cables were always transparent between all of my gear. Along the way I used equipment from Conrad Johnson, Cary, Von Schweikert, Dynaco, Audio Alchemy, Parasound, Thiel, Audio Research, Rotel, Marantz, B&W, Krell, Theta, Harman Kardon, Bryston, Spica and others.
There were a few times when I was able to consistently ID a cable and in each time it was when I was compariing against a very low quality able. Like a cheap nickle plated A/V cable, a 20AWG speaker cable, a cable with corroded RCA jacks. One time vs a more expensive cable which turned out to have a very high capacitance. Otherwise I was unable to discern any difference between $1000+ audiophile brand cables vs $20 Radio Shack Gold interconnects or zip cord 12AWG speaker cables. Or a $700 power cable vs a $6 Belden power cord.
And no one else who participated with me, most of them in just one comparison each, although a couple of friends did a few with me, ever showed that they could consistently tell a difference either.
This was truly a great surprise to me. After a fairly long period of time, I had to conclude that no cable made a difference in any of my systems, at least as far as I was concerned. And I quit spending money on cables.
Wondering what has been your biggest surprise, either in how much something changed your system or how little.
For me the biggest surprise was cables. All cables: interconnects, digital, power cords, and speaker cables. In the late 90s I was of the mind that cables made a difference, sometimes a very noticeable difference. I accumulated several different brands over the next few years. Kimber, AudioQuest, MIT, DH Labs, Tara, Blue Jeans, and several more.
I own multiple amps, preamps, DACs, CD players, and speakers. So I would move these cables around, listening for differences.
Eventually I decided to carefully analyze and evaluate all of my equipment, for the purpose of spending my money wisely. So I purchased some switching gear, got some friends and family to pitch in at times to run tests and switch components and cables, and slowly got around to testing a lot of gear. Over a 3 year period.
What I found out was that with few exceptions, I could not discern a difference in cables when evaluating the under blind conditions. That is, when not knowing what it was that I was listening to. This was under fast switch conditions of seconds between switches, minutes between switches, and in days & weeks between switches.
Now under sighted comparisons, I thought I heard significant differences, but they would always disappear under blind comparisons. (The same turned out to be true for multiple other people who participated in comparisons from time to time.)
I could find no synergy between cables and components. Good quality cables were always transparent between all of my gear. Along the way I used equipment from Conrad Johnson, Cary, Von Schweikert, Dynaco, Audio Alchemy, Parasound, Thiel, Audio Research, Rotel, Marantz, B&W, Krell, Theta, Harman Kardon, Bryston, Spica and others.
There were a few times when I was able to consistently ID a cable and in each time it was when I was compariing against a very low quality able. Like a cheap nickle plated A/V cable, a 20AWG speaker cable, a cable with corroded RCA jacks. One time vs a more expensive cable which turned out to have a very high capacitance. Otherwise I was unable to discern any difference between $1000+ audiophile brand cables vs $20 Radio Shack Gold interconnects or zip cord 12AWG speaker cables. Or a $700 power cable vs a $6 Belden power cord.
And no one else who participated with me, most of them in just one comparison each, although a couple of friends did a few with me, ever showed that they could consistently tell a difference either.
This was truly a great surprise to me. After a fairly long period of time, I had to conclude that no cable made a difference in any of my systems, at least as far as I was concerned. And I quit spending money on cables.