Speaker cables have shown to made a difference... does it matter?

[Snow]

If I ever leave the hobby it won't be because I can't hear a night and day difference in some stupid cable. It will be because of the over-blown hot air attitude expressed by you and others like you, who seem to forget that we're talking about a hobby. A stereo. Something to bring joy and not some bullshit way to make ourselves feel better than somebody else.

Now your just running your mouth and pure crap is coming out :yes: Attitude? your the one with an attitude a bad one. Point out one statement that I wrote that was untrue. I don't feel better than someone else because I have a nicer system than someone else nor do I attempt to make others feel bad about what they have, in fact I don't even have a signature stating what I have. Neither is It important to me what someone else owns which seems to be what you are implying.

In fact more often then not I get the most enjoyment out of gear that is way down on the audio food chain, some of the more exspensive gear I have owned has been so clean that it is sterile sounding and was not near as enjoyable as something that cost far less.

There are many hobbies out there that due to one reason or another my money is best spent elsewhere, for example my sense of taste isn't very good, I would have a very hard time telling the difference between a 5 dollar bottle of wine and a 5 thousand dollar bottle of wine, this being the case I would rather spend my loot on something I can actually detect a difference in and enjoy and owning something just to say I do isn't important to me. There are audio snobs out there no doubt but I am not one.

Me stating that if you cant hear a difference between different types of speaker cables then why bother was not and is not meant as a put down to anyone but simply good advice IMHO



REGARDS SNOW

 

[Brett a]

Bullshit again. It's not a shitty attitude it's a honest realistic attitude. Harms relations? I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking,

I don't know where you got the "converting" people thing. I'm just talking about being a decent person who can relate to others without insults and unnecessary divisiveness.

But it's become clear that that is something you just don't give a **** about...Duly noted.

I hope you feel better soon.

 

[Catcher10]

Guess I should have waited to post my experience till later.....

 

[Brett a]

Guess I should have waited to post my experience till later.....

It's OK. We were overdue for some cable-related douchebaggery.

 

[JohnVF]

Now your just running your mouth and pure crap is coming out :yes: Attitude? your the one with an attitude a bad one.



REGARDS SNOW

:thmbsp:Regards.

 

[terra1]

Guess I should have waited to post my experience till later.....

I was actually anxious to read report.

Glad to hear you like them and see the results - really nice looking connections.

The myth is to think one has to spend thousands let alone $400-800 to get results.

 

[Catcher10]

I was actually anxious to read report.

Glad to hear you like them and see the results - really nice looking connections.

The myth is to think one has to spend thousands let alone $400-800 to get results.

I agree.....I am glad I did this and its paying off nicely for this hobby of mine.

 

[Snow]

As I said above......I ordered a pair of Belden 5000 Series 10AWG Grey spkr cable from Blue Jeans Cable in Seattle couple days ago. I went and picked them up rather than shipping since I am in the Emerald City.

Blue Jeans does a great job and had them ready within 1 day. They have this unique "welding" technique for the terminations on banana plugs.....Its pretty cool, if anything it gives you a solid, durable connector that is said to improve low electrical resistance with this surface to surface connection.....I like it.

After I connected the new cable I began with my Zune player and digital media. About an hour into listening I really could hear a difference, on Diana Krall Live in Paris, her vocals became much more outfront and her piano was bigger. As I turned the volume up it only got better!
I put in a Porcupine Tree CD-The Incident and immediately I noticed the soundstage got wider and bigger, what I also noticed was the level of detail increased and instruments became more pristine, especially I could hear better detail in all the ambient noises that populate Porcupine Tree music...very 3D like effects.
What the cables also seem to be doing is giving me more bass, low end response to my digital and CDs, I like that, makes the sound full and robust and I think its what the Epic 2s were waiting for. These speakers have a great low end but now seems it just got a bit better.....The mids and highs are detailed, clear and clean.
Then I spun vinyl, I don't have the best TT, but the Nagaoka cartridge helps A LOT!! These cables gave me analog bliss....I must say I have not heard my vinyl sound this good before. Moody Blues-Days of Future Passed had a renewed 60's sound and again I was hearing little tidbits I had not heard before. I played vinyl till about 1am (my wife and kids are out of town) so I got a lot of breakin time, will continue today and see what else these cables give me.
So for me I am getting....
Better/More Low End
Wider Soundstage
Better Instrument Details
Lifelike Vocals

I am not of the camp to spend $500-$800 for cables..let alone $1500...these cables were inexpensive but a tweek that to me is paying well over its cost, which to me is what a tweek should do. Blue Jeans Cable also does a nice job with making the cables and also at any length since they are custom. The gold locking banana ends are super nice too.......Highly recommended without handing over your bank account.
Here are a couple pics.

Cheers!

Connections to the NAD amp

Connections to the Epos

It sounds like your getting a good run for the money spent :thmbsp: I believe that with speaker cables along with most other audio items the percentage of difference heard as the cost goes up narrows drastically at a certain price point.

And just because something cost more does not mean it is going to sound better to your ears anyways.

I know from my own personal experience that I got more pure enjoyment from my Pioneer SX-1010 than I ever did from my SX-1980 but that is just my experience others may prefer the SX-1980


REGARDS SNOW

 

[Catcher10]

What really amazes me is the bottom end that these cables are giving me especially on all my digital files. Its not as evident on vinyl...but my gosh off my ZuneHD and CDs its pretty hefty. I sit about 30 feet from my speakers and the bass is just getting thrown at me....at my couch distance of about 14' its very cool!!

I'm happy!

 

[Snow]

What really amazes me is the bottom end that these cables are giving me especially on all my digital files. Its not as evident on vinyl...but my gosh off my ZuneHD and CDs its pretty hefty. I sit about 30 feet from my speakers and the bass is just getting thrown at me....at my couch distance of about 14' its very cool!!

I'm happy!

Good to hear your happy with your purchase. Would you call it a night and day difference or just a slight improvement?

REGARDS SNOW

 

[Catcher10]

Not night and day...the NAD C356BEE give these Epos some nice lowend, but these cables are giving me more. Lets say I was a 6 before, I am a 9 right now.

The vinyl is just not as much for some reason, its better..but maybe a 7.5. Certainly much better than a slight improvement, at least for my setup.

The question is would I have gotten the same had I spent $500 bucks? I can only guess if I had $1500 speakers, maybe....but again I am sonically happy right now.

 

[Snow]

Not night and day...the NAD C356BEE give these Epos some nice lowend, but these cables are giving me more. Lets say I was a 6 before, I am a 9 right now.

The vinyl is just not as much for some reason, its better..but maybe a 7.5. Certainly much better than a slight improvement, at least for my setup.

The question is would I have gotten the same had I spent $500 bucks? I can only guess if I had $1500 speakers, maybe....but again I am sonically happy right now.

Ok makes sense to me. I agree with JohnVF that most likely the largest sonic improvements are going to be with amp preamp speakers and source first. For example the difference between 100 dollar and 500 dollar speaker cables are likely to be far less dramatic than the difference between 100 dollar and 500 dollar amps at least on the used market.

The most important thing is your happy with your purchase Enjoy :yes:



REGARDS SNOW

 

[Catcher10]

Ohh I agree.....amp-speakers have the biggest impact on sound improvements. I need a new TT and I am pretty much done revamping my system...this cable thing was a tweek I wanted to do but not at $500. I think I found a very good value with excellent payback.
I don't have highend interconnects, so I might try those next, but again not the high $$ route. I have Bestbuy Rocketfish gold plated i/c.....I'll start looking for new ones soon.

Regards!

 

[JBL GUY]

Originally Posted by Snow View Post
To all the people that cant hear a difference in speaker cables, both your time and money would be best spent elsewhere it's as simple as that Certainly it would be a waste of your money and time looking for and buying a better amp tuner TT or any other audio item because you couldndt hear the difference anyway.

If you are truly that hearing impaired why you are even on an audio forum is a mystery to me. If you have serious hearing loss than perhaps it's best just to purchase a set of big pro speakers with horns and the biggest ass whopper of an amp you can afford and destroy what ever hearing you have left at 120-150 db.


REGARDS SNOW


To those that are following this thread and might be considering investigating the possible sound quality differences in speaker wire or other pieces of gear.

The changes in the waveform envelope that happen due to a change in turntables and phono cartridges, for example, may not me the same as the changes had with a change is speaker wire.

The point is, there are many thresholds of differentiation in the human auditory system, and just because one might not notice a difference when comparing speaker wire, does not, by definition mean that one would be unable to hear a difference when one changes to another piece of gear.

Just remember that speaker wire is passive, it is not going to be able to add energy to the speaker signal, unless the manufacture has discovered how to extract energy from nothing, in which case they are in the wrong business.

The the turntable phono cartridge combination actually generates the signal. The other parts of the system are active, and as such are able not only to change the signal by decreasing the energy level of certain parts of the sound, the active components have the ability to increase the relative energy levels of various parts of the signal.

This may allow a person that is not able to discern a difference in speaker wire, to be able to discern a difference in the active components in their system.

These differences by be larger than the differences caused by a change in speaker wire and allow some to be able to hear a difference even though they could not hear a difference when changing speaker wire.

To take the example of a tuner, the 75 us de-emphasis curve on one turner may provide a more pleasing sound quality (or sound different) than another tuner.

We all know that no circuit is perfect.

The human ear is sensitive to very small differences in timing, on the range of a few microseconds and frequency response, from channel to channel. A piece of gear that has a better balance (in these terms and others), channel to channel may sound better (or different) to person, even if that person is not able to hear a difference in speaker wire.

So to use a very broad blanket statement is not correct.

I am not taking sides in this debate, just pointing out some common sense information.

I now return you to your normal programing.

 

[Snow]

Ohh I agree.....amp-speakers have the biggest impact on sound improvements. I need a new TT and I am pretty much done revamping my system...this cable thing was a tweek I wanted to do but not at $500. I think I found a very good value with excellent payback.
I don't have highend interconnects, so I might try those next, but again not the high $$ route. I have Bestbuy Rocketfish gold plated i/c.....I'll start looking for new ones soon.

Regards!

Maybe put a WTB listing in Barter Town for those, most of us have a number of extra IC's and IMHO they can make an even larger difference than speaker cables and you may be able to pick up a really nice pair much cheaper than new. :thmbsp:

Silver or Silver plated ones seem to have a brighter/faster sound as a rule versus standard copper ones which can vary from warm and lively to very dark at least that's been my experience.



REGARD SNOW

 

[Catcher10]

^ 10-4

 

[Mister Pig]

To all the people that cant hear a difference in speaker cables, both your time and money would be best spent elsewhere it's as simple as that :yes: Certainly it would be a waste of your money and time looking for and buying a better amp tuner TT or any other audio item because you couldndt hear the difference anyway.

If you are truly that hearing impaired why you are even on an audio forum is a mystery to me. If you have serious hearing loss than perhaps it's best just to purchase a set of big pro speakers with horns and the biggest ass whopper of an amp you can afford and destroy what ever hearing you have left at 120-150 db.


REGARDS SNOW

Pretty poorly stated, and quite combative to boot. But there is an element that I agree with. If you can't hear the difference, or your system is not that revealing, then high performance cables are a waste of money.

But I do not agree with the hearing impaired point. Nobody starts with a trained ear, and they have to learn the skills to set up a system, tune a room, pick gear that meets their needs and wants, and learn what wire packages work well in the context of their system. Also, the hearing impaired can experience the differences between cables and equipment, to insinuate that they can't is wrong. I know many of them use it as justification, but it really is more of a crutch in my opinion. If your hearing tops out at $13K, you can still hear the differences between gear and wire. On more than one occasion I have had new people over to the house with "untrained" ears and self professed poor hearing. When they were given specific reference points to listen to, they clearly and admittedly identified what the differences were between components and wires. So I don't write people off when they have hearing issues, they can still enjoy great hi fi.

Bullshit. I never said that you or anyone else could or should hear huge differences in speaker cables, I said a difference. I stand by my claim that if your hearing is so impaired that you cant here a difference at all then most likely your not going to be able to hear a difference between amps preamps tuners CD players or any other audio item other than perhaps loudness. If this is the case then your money is likely better spent in a different hobby.

Bullshit again. It's not a shitty attitude it's a honest realistic attitude. Harms relations? I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking, I could care less whether you or anyone else can hear a difference big or small. Either you do or you don't hear a difference and no amount of me trying to convince convince someone is going to help and the ones that don't have an open mind never will.

For most people that can actually hear a difference the gain is small compared to other things in the chain but as you go up in the food chain with your other components the odds are greater that you will hear a difference in speaker cables simply because the gear is is capable of revealing those differences.

I'm sure you have read where people say they prefer a certain set of speakers because all there albums sound good and others state that once they get a new piece of gear that good albums sound really good and bad albums sound really bad.

Odds are that the noticable difference may be very slight if detectable at all with some gear but if you have a very revealing quality system then add a nice set of cables the difference can be huge unlike your statement.

(I'd infer from your statement that better speaker cables are like upgrading from an 8 track player to a R2R. And it just isn't like that.)

It indeed can be just like that given the right gear and the right set of cables :yes: There may only be a 5% difference in sound on a cheap non revealing system but the percentage may jump to night and day with the right gear.



REGARDS SNOW

Referencing the bold parts of the text. Cables operate in context of a system, some refer to them as the equivalent of a component. Not sure if I buy into that idea whole heartedly, but there is a degree of truth there...and a symbiotic relationship. High resolution components will show what a cable system can and cannot due. On the other hand, poor cabling will hamstring the electronics and not allow them to reach their full potential. It's a two way street, and one cannot excel without the other. One thing that is important to note. There are a certain degree of improvements that can only be realized by high performance cables. They cannot be had from stepping up to another level of gear. While you may get better sound by buying two levels up in amp or source, that piece still cannot be all that it can be without a suitable package of wiring. To repeat myself, one does not excel without the other.

But you have to choose wisely. Price is not a reliable indicator of performance or quality. Cables do sound different, just like every other component in the audio chain. I suggest to others that they take the time to listen for themselves, and make up their own minds. Only then will you know what cables are right for you, your system, and your budget. I have heard $500 interconnects I like better than $3000 ones, and I am secure enough in what I hear to make the choices that satisfy me.

Regards
Mister Pig

 

[Mister Pig]

That's exactly the kind of attitude that brings the hate down on our subjective end. To be honest, I've never heard huge differences in speaker cables, either. Very subtle differences, yes. But nothing game changing or night and day for me. But those subtle differences were enough to investigate further, and eventually realize that my money is better spent elsewhere in the chain. That doesn't mean I don't think people should go all out on them if they do hear huge differences. But my defense of them isn't from thinking, personally, that that changes are all that huge in the context of every place else that you can put your money. I see them as a last addition, a final small tweak. I know some disagree and think they're really important...and that's great. But I'm certainly not going to suggest that they find another hobby because I think they're too focused on the minutia over the big picture (saying that just for comparison with the above).

John you are a good friend, so hopefully this post won't piss you off. You have a great stable of gear that is for certain, but you have been neglectful of your cabling choices. Now your experiences say that you have not heard a night and day difference, but I also wonder if you have worked as hard at this part as you have on the gear side. I have had cables that would fall into your description, and I have had ones that were outstanding! The differences CAN be dramatic in a transparent system, if it is a well designed cable. You know my thoughts on this VH Audio Cable, from my experiences its remarkable.

I know its only your opinion. But this idea that cables can be used as tone controls is a bit misleading. Yes cables do affect the signal, some more than others. No audio component is perfect, and cables do not sidestep that limitation. So it is reasonable that cables can have a sound a person prefers, or does not. But they are not tone controls, and shouldn't be used or even explained that way. Some are just better about getting out of the way of the signal than others, some reflect the desires of the designer, and some are just built to make a good deal of profit. How to wade through the cable jungle and find the right one is a tricky task, as hard as anything in hi fi to do. The ideas of capacitance, resistance, and inductance provide one method of evaluation, but it does not appear to tell the whole story.

One day I hope you can take the time to make a systematic search of the cable landscape and find out what interests you. From your own posts, you say this has not been a huge priority for you, and your cache of wires may have had a respectable price tag to them, but do not seem to be chosen with the utmost of care. Of course you have NEVER claimed to be an authority on this topic, and just pass along your observations and opinions. Which is what most of us do really........

But I do hope one day you can take a closer look at this part of the hobby.

Regards
Mister Pig

 

[JohnVF]

Yes, my cable adventures have been of the "Oh, you have that used? I'll take it to try out". And I actually did invest heavily into several difference balanced cables, and really enjoyed the differences I heard (I especially like the Straightwire Crescendo). The issue being that I no longer have a preamp with balanced inputs/outputs.

That said, I like what I use over very basic stuff. I think I just have a different definition of "night and day" because even my entire system compared to the most expensive systems I've heard, isn't a night and day difference. What I'm considering relatively subtle might be night and day to somebody else, as I do acknowledge differences. And I'm not at all unhappy with the sound I have, so I haven't chosen to investigate improving upon something that in all honesty, I'm completely happy with. I will get to it, as I'm inherently curious about different aspects of this hobby. I just have been busy upgrading things to get to the point where I'm finally at cables (well, even though I already have quite a bit in them, even in the unbalanced land...).

As for tone control...I will describe some of them as such as that is how I've used the few that I've heard differences in, and they have been quite useful to me that way, and I think would be to others. The most notable is the Nordost Blue Heaven. It did wonders in opening up my Marantz SA-11s2 CD player. I don't think that anything is neutral, and if you're starting out from one place, why does it hurt to push things towards something that sounds more correct to you?

 

[Mister Pig]

Yes, my cable adventures have been of the "Oh, you have that used? I'll take it to try out". And I actually did invest heavily into several difference balanced cables, and really enjoyed the differences I heard (I especially like the Straightwire Crescendo). The issue being that I no longer have a preamp with balanced inputs/outputs.

That said, I like what I use over very basic stuff. I think I just have a different definition of "night and day" because even my entire system compared to the most expensive systems I've heard, isn't a night and day difference. What I'm considering relatively subtle might be night and day to somebody else, as I do acknowledge differences. And I'm not at all unhappy with the sound I have, so I haven't chosen to investigate improving upon something that in all honesty, I'm completely happy with. I will get to it, as I'm inherently curious about different aspects of this hobby. I just have been busy upgrading things to get to the point where I'm finally at cables (well, even though I already have quite a bit in them, even in the unbalanced land...).

As for tone control...I will describe some of them as such as that is how I've used the few that I've heard differences in, and they have been quite useful to me that way, and I think would be to others. The most notable is the Nordost Blue Heaven. It did wonders in opening up my Marantz SA-11s2 CD player. I don't think that anything is neutral, and if you're starting out from one place, why does it hurt to push things towards something that sounds more correct to you?

It can be said that there is more than one goal in this hobby, and that people have varying ways of measuring success. While it would make things simpler if everyone thought like me, it certainly would be less diverse. My intention was to provide an alternate POV, rather than saying what is right and wrong. Carry on my friend, and have fun with your gear, for you certainly have a collection that is drool worthy.

Regards
Mister Pig