Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Very expensive cables
From: deanaj@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (A. J. Dean)
Date: 14 Sep 92 17:10:34 +1200
Organization: Electrical Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

zaphod beeblebrox (miliu@sdcc13.ucsd.edu) wrote:
: In article <1992Sep9.181941.13496@ncsu.edu> kester@mte.ncsu.edu (Dan Kester) writes:
: >Two things to note: First, the system has to be good enough to hear the
: >difference.  With a $500-$1000 system, the free cables are probably fine.  With
: >a $5000 system there will be an audible difference between cables.  Second,
: 
: With probably any system under $2000, the few hundred dollars that
: could be used to buy expensive cables for all the components could
: be used on the speakers instead.  This will improve the sound of the
: system more than any cable can.  With interconnects and speaker
: cable, there is definitely a point of diminishing returns.
: 
: 			Zaphod

Have to have my say to this thread...
I've always really been of the opinion that the speakers are the
most important part of a system. You can always instantly hear the
differences between speakers, and it's usually so obvious that you
don't need to go any further. As far as the rest of it goes (my
opinion again) things are invariably more subtle (tho in some cases
the problems _sound_ worse).

Speaker cable is definitely one of these - manufacturer's claims of
"vast improvement in bass" "astounding... " "you've never heard
xxxxx before..." and so on are as far as i'm concerned massive
exageration. Spend 1/10th the price on speakers and you will notice
it for sure. Spend 1/10th the price on some recomended expensive cable
and you won't be anywhere near as 'offended'. Though I'm pretty sure
speaker cables do make a difference. (unlike some people...) I have
actually quite recently had a play with a top-end system (ending
in Mirage M3 speakers - quite nice), changing speaker cables, etc.
Thinnish wire from another stereo in the house made a definite
subjective change from the $500 cables (oscar?? constant impedance
things) which I could only notice in the bass - usual story, it
sounded more 'ill-defined' as the cliche goes, sort of twangy
or reverbatory. Didn't have a chance to do a blind trial because I
didn't really want to ruin the gold connectors, plus I don't know
if I would have wanted to because the difference wasn't obvious,
just noticeable, and could have been affected by lots of things,
and I didn't want to look like a fool in front of everyone by getting
it wrong! Plus I think blind trials leave a lot to be desired in
terms of sensitivity to differences, etc. The procedure and conditions
can often mask the truth so you don't end up any further.

I was previously fairly skeptical (being an elec engineer)
but with these tests the speaker wire story fell into place for me:
The sound quality improvement of good speaker wires over cheapies
is pretty small. But then again, once you get out of the rubbish, the
same can be said (by me, again) for spending many $k on other parts
of the system. So if you have a $20k system (head in clouds stuff for
me...) even buying cables which cost $4000 would be economically
sensible if cheaper ones made the $20k system sound
like a $10k system. Not that I would complain either way, which is the
point I'm trying to make! (Hopefully someone will demonstrate those
concepts to me by buying me a good system...).

Playing with different CD players also gave pretty much the same
results (actually the CD player story fell into place which bumped
the speaker wire one into place along the way...). How our ears
detect the differences I don't know. I can sort of explain it by the
fact that before the sound information reaches any sensors or
(nonliner) processing in the brain, it undergoes an extremely
accurate transformation from time domain to frequency components
(vaguely approximating a fourier transform) in the ear's mechanical
bits (cochlear I think). This would work in the same way that a
spectrum analyser allows you to see things that are undetectable
on an oscilloscope.

Plus in this sort of talk there are a lot of people who really don't
know what they are talking about as far as real listening experiences
go, and there is an opposing group who yap on about technical matters
with an understanding which has got more holes in it than a {thing
with lots of holes in it - can't quite think of one now}. Worse still
are those who know nothing about either of them. But there's nothing
wrong with them having their say (MicroDisclaimer in case 2 many holes
get picked in this post) as long as they are not trying to sell
something.

Hmm, bit long.

Antony. (deanaj@elec.canterbury.ac.nz)
PS: I can't read news too much, so if you want to make sure I read
a reply, please mail me indicating so...