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Do Equipment Cables Make A Difference?

Hey, lets give the poor guy a break! He didn't start this thread in this forum - it was moved here. So he probably searched General Audio Discussion or something like that, not realizing that TOL is the happenin' place at AK! :banana:

tentoze said:
Moved to a more appropriate forum.
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:)
 
GaryP said:
Hey, lets give the poor guy a break! He didn't start this thread in this forum - it was moved here. So he probably searched General Audio Discussion or something like that, not realizing that TOL is the happenin' place at AK! :banana:




:)
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yea you are right because I just now noticed this part. This forum is one of the biggest I have ever seen!


I am sure it does to some degree but have to agree with the poster who said "it can"
 
I think people tend to underestimate how important cables are in an audio system. Yes, many of the differences tend to be subtle, but IME the nature of these small changes is such that it can bring everything up to a whole new level. I have to disagree that capacitance, resistance, and inductance are the only major things that affect the performance of a cable. The type of dielectric plays a large part in this, as does the type of conductor used (copper does not sound like silver, it just doesn't, no matter how strange that may seem), such as stranded or solid. I've discovered this first hand, making my own interconnects.
 
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whoaru99 said:
You just have to be on the lookout for those with the "death grip" that can ruin your RCA jacks.
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I bought some Rocketfish to see if they were any good and they had the death grip, so much so it even loosened my RCAs after only five or fewer in-outs[1].


[1] Not the "old" in-out.
 
Someone mentioned AR brand cables

Are these Acoustic Research? I have a couple pair I bought for something like a quarter at a garage sale.Also isn't this the brand name of some of the "white van speakers" or do I just have my brand names mixed up:confused:
 
Cheap "expensive" cables!

When I moved to my new house 2 years ago, I packed all my gear back in the cartons and put all the interconnecting cables in one box. It took about six months after I moved before I started setting up my "Stereo Den". I started unpacking my gear and when I looked for my box of cables, I couldn't find it! :sigh:

I had no choice but to buy new cables! I was fortunate that I happened to venture into this little "Surplus & Salvage" Store that I check each time I am in the vicinity. This place is way out in the sticks and you never know what you might find there. It is a very neat and clean place, and well-organized. It is in the old cafeteria building of a school that was torn down years ago.

Lo and behold, what do I see hanging on hooks on the pegboard over in the "Electrical and Hardware" section? High quality audio-video cables! And the prices are cheap! He had these 3-cable video sets with red, blue, and green coded connectors and a 5-cable set with red, blue, green and a red/white coded connectors. These sets are "webbed" and you can separate them. I separated the red/white pair out of the 5 cable web and then left the red/blue pair together and then had several green coded by themselves. I applied red vinyl tape to half of the green coded cable and had several pairs of red/green coded cables. The cables are of great quality and have very nice black jackets.

Here's the best part! $1.35 each for the 3-cable sets and $1.65 each for the 5-cable sets! After I purchased all of what he had, he told me that he was glad that I had bought them, because he had hardly sold any of them. He told me that he had priced them low because he had bought them pretty cheap as part of a larger lot of stuff.

So I ended up using all new cables as I set up my gear in my new "Stereo Den". A few months later, I did find my box of old cables and when you compare the old to the new, it was probably a good thing! I need to perform a resistance and dialectric test between the old cables and the new ones. I will report the results.

I am going to stay out of the "expensive cable" discussion, but there is probably little doubt that my new cables are better for the sound than my 10 to 30 year old ones! The new ones are black and certainly aren't as visible as the old grey ones! I suspect there are a few other AKers might benefit as well from "updating" their cables. I was just lucky to find the new ones at a great price!
 
The first thing I had to look at, when I read the title of this thread, was how many posts the OP had... figured it HAD to be a newbie! :D We all went through a stage of asking this question (and some of us have never stopped asking it :D), and while it may be hard to find the threads with a given search engine or search words, there is a LOT of discussion about it, going back for years, not only on AK but also all over the web!

Anyway, cables CAN make a difference, although beyond a certain point, you need a very good, revealing system to be able to hear the differences.

The law of diminishing returns does set in at some point: you don't have to spend a LOT of money to get GOOD sound on MOST common audio systems.

Check out the DIY cable threads for ideas on how to make good-performing cables at much lower cost than their ready-made counterparts in the audio stores. Mogami and Belden cables are often used in these, and which jacks you can use depend on your budget and preferences.

Alternatively, "pro" cables are often cheaper than "audiophile" cables, but have broadly similar sonic quality characteristics; they probably tend to offer the best "bang for buck".

While you don't have to spend a lot on cables, avoid the really cheap ones such as the ones included free with most gear, or sold in drugstores, supermarkets, etc... They ARE bad.

A/V or video cables, like the 3-wire and 5-wire ones 70salesguy was talking about, are often great value-for-money. In order to carry a video signal well, they need to have certain characteristics, and these often work out well for audio cables. But the prices are generally lower, since most people hooking up their HT A/V system are not willing to pay an "audiophile" premium. Also, they are mass-produced in MUCH higher numbers than 'audiophile' cables, which helps keep their prices down. If you have an old turntable in your system, you'll probably want to read about "Petra" cables, which fall into this category.

That's as much as I'll say here, since this topic has been beat to death by many (including myself) before, in many threads. Search some more, and you'll find plenty buried around. It's an age-old controversy in the audio field.
 
Cables

I went by the Surplus & Salvage Store Friday and picked up 2 more of the 5-cable sets for $1.65 each. That was all he had in the store at the time, but he said he had more in his warehouse and to come by again next week. He is only open 3 days a week.
 
I had to replace all the phono cables to the high end cable's that is turned inside the outer sleave, that they claimed reduced the capacitance, inductance, and resistance, what a big improvement, but there again, depends how long your cables need to be, mine had to go over 15ft.
 
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Unless the cables have bad solder joints, steel jacks, or failing wire attached by one strand to the connector, they are fine.

The cable can make some small differences with a turntable, since a cartridge has a high-impedance, low-level signal, but line-level audio signals can travel through about anything decent without any problem.
 
I had a lot of trouble with cables when they get old a channel drops out or intermittent hum etc, probally crimped ends that start to oxidize, ordered a roll of special internal twisted cables to reduce capacitance, but most important is that the cable is all soldered to the RCA female plugs, did that myself. I think that new cables work so well is that the old ones are oxidized, stretched [it happens] etc
 
DragonMaster said:
Unless the cables have bad solder joints, steel jacks, or failing wire attached by one strand to the connector, they are fine.

The cable can make some small differences with a turntable, since a cartridge has a high-impedance, low-level signal, but line-level audio signals can travel through about anything decent without any problem.
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On high resolution equipment, quality interconnects make a huge difference! This also goes for power cords and speaker cable!
 
Number 6 said:
On high resolution equipment, quality interconnects make a huge difference!
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Is this because of increased or decreased inductance? Or perhaps there is more or perhaps less resistance? Then again, maybe the capacitance is increased (or maybe it is lowered) by the "quality" of the interconnect?

Or is there some other, as of yet undiscovered, property that "quality" interconnects possess?
 
i have to agree with what most people are saying. but to add in you need to look at your surrounding do you need to worrie about radio frequency interference. if your longest cable is going to be between 3-6 foot i wouldnt spend a lot. but monster has a budget series. audio research has some nice cabels. if you need a cable in the 10-15 foot range i would invest in to a nice cable not the highest quality but one that has decent sheilding and a proper core to it. any thing over 20 feet is going to be hard to find but if you need them stear away from radio shack 20 gauge rcas that only cost like 5 bucks a simple baby monitor of cordless phone will cause interference. ebay is propably going to be your best bet.
 
goandy89 said:
i have to agree with what most people are saying. but to add in you need to look at your surrounding do you need to worrie about radio frequency interference. if your longest cable is going to be between 3-6 foot i wouldnt spend a lot. but monster has a budget series. audio research has some nice cabels. if you need a cable in the 10-15 foot range i would invest in to a nice cable not the highest quality but one that has decent sheilding and a proper core to it. any thing over 20 feet is going to be hard to find but if you need them stear away from radio shack 20 gauge rcas that only cost like 5 bucks a simple baby monitor of cordless phone will cause interference. ebay is propably going to be your best bet.
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Your BEST bet is right here!
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=239120
tal
 
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