Post #15 by guitarguy.
3 Likes
When we put on live gigs, we use professional quality well made cables but nothing fancy at all. We even have to run them alongside mains and lighting cables as well. But we put on great sounding shows that professional artists are very happy to experience. If we had to use fancy cables we couldnât afford it and I doubt anyone would notice.
6 Likes
LOL, hilarious ! 
2 Likes
I wonder when high-end hi-fi started adding balanced XLR connectors to equipment?
I honestly fail to see the advantages in hi-fi, but for running 30 metres of mic cable on stage - entirely different situation.
1 Like
Correct⌠But I know why the do it⌠It gives more âprofessionalismâ to a sector that is full of you know what. A big fat connector like that sure needs to be better then an RCA one, not ⌠identical reasoning like those ridiculous fat speaker cables. The bigger, heavier, thicker it is, the more money they can ask.
3 Likes
My own trusted HIFI dealer, who sells very high end stuffs, told me that he heard no difference between RCA and XLR connectors, and told me not to waste money one it.
2 Likes
Hey, Iâm not advocating anyone go out and spend ridiculous sums on power cables - or ethernet or any other, but they can sound different in my experience (which means actual first hand doing) and not always for the better. Probably my most regretted purchase in hifi was a $375 (on sale) Shunyata power cable last year that made my Naim DAC V1 sound like crap. Overly bass heavy, receded midrange, nice treble but out of balance for the kit and room. Put it on the power supply for the streamer and fine there, no idea of the difference it truly makes, probably would be fine with something much less, but its done, set and forget, and it is a brand that holds its value pretty well. Made up a semi-DIY cable of similar build and better components to the cable Naim supply with their gear, for about a third of cost of the Shunyata. V1 fine again - set and forget. I tried and tried to like the Shunyata on the V1 over the course of a week, but it just wasnât a good match, so reverse expectation bias there I suppose?
Thing is, all these tweaks are additive - in other words they build on each other, and often if you donât kind of run down the line, you might not hear the results. Unfortunately the cost can go out of control, when it doesnât have to be. Iâve remained with the same DAC at the core of my main system for five years now, so I can hear the progression. Same model line of streamer as well, just upgrading. And from one vintage Naim amp to another. Speakers I have changed, and thatâs where one will hear the biggest difference. If I was swapping out DACs etc every three to six months then it would be harder to get a baseline. Taming power is probably the most beneficial fundamental to do first, all along the line. But one doesnât have to go crazy, but I also donât believe my hifi sits electrically unconnected from everything else, in a bubble. It would be interesting to hear of any experiences listening to different power cables or otherwise that you have had. Analog interconnects?
I understand how insulting this must be to your education and trained beliefs, but perhaps there are subtle differences in sound to be had that havenât been explained. Donât discount the ear/brain connections, and how they can differ from person to person. And how rich people spend their money is not really my concern. Or even not so rich. Itâs a hobby. More important and worrying things to save ourselves from. NFTâs that are set to use up small country equivalents of power to store web doodles is more rewarding of vitriol imo. Or giant pick up trucks, 10mpg, kitted out with accessories that have been scientifically proven not to make you any more virulent.
2 Likes
Iâll confess I use balanced cables. My preamp and acitves both have sockets and itâs a 5m cable run. They werenât really any more expensive and they reject noise though I doubt itâs a real problem for me. Mostly I like the easy to seat, locking interconnects and the slightly hotter signal. More a given the opportunity and price why not, approach.
4 Likes
In some circumstances it makes sense. For a 5 metre run, Iâd probably go with balanced as well, just to be certain.
2 Likes
Correct, XLR cables would be better if a long run is needed.
2 Likes
Charles, Iâve heard your âgolden earâ theory numerous times. But I have to disappoint you. Expensive interconnects or power cables are an obscenity, a despicable extortion exploiting the inability of moneyed audiophiles to deal with the laws of physics. The transmission of electrical signals through a wire is governed by resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L, and C). Thatâs all! (At least thatâs all at audio frequencies. At radio frequencies the geometry of the cable begins to have certain effects.) An audio signal has no idea whether it is passing through expensive or inexpensive RLC. It retains its purity or impurity regardless. There may be some expensive cables that sound âdifferentâ because they have crazy RLC characteristics that cause significant changes in frequency response. Thatâs what you hear, not the $1000 per foot / 3000⏠per meter.
And now some facts and a bit of science:
Inside a large and complicated loudspeaker system there may be as much wire, or more wire, than between de amplifier and the speaker terminals. It starts with the voice coils. A single turn of a 4-inch voice coil is over a foot / 30 cm long, and how many of those turns are there? And it continues with all the wires connecting the individual drivers to the crossover network, the wiring inside the crossover network (including large coils), and then the wiring from the crossover to the outside terminals.
Then of course, thereâs also a significant length of wiring inside the amplifier before the output is brought out to the terminals. In the case of tube amplifiers, add to that the great length of wire in the output transformer. You, as a cable cultist, have absolutely no control over the dimensions, geometry, or metallurgy of these hidden wires and cables - even if such dimensions, geometry, or metallurgy were of serious sonic importance. Itâs like being a health-food faddist at lunch but not at breakfast or dinner. Thus, before any discussion of engineering considerations, irrationality raises its bony head. Or did you think B&W or Sonus Faber wires the inside of their speakers with Nordost Supreme Reference Cables?
Another fact that needs to be faced from the start is that music, or any other audible program material, consists of frequencies from about 15 or 16 Hz to 21 or 22 kHz. (Iâm being very generous and therefore assume state-of-the-art recording and 16-year old hearing prodigies). Letâs expand that bandwidth to 50 kHz, since it doesnât cost us anything in an abstract argument and will make bandwidth fetishist happier. Surely, no information above 50 kHz needs to be transmitted by the amplifier to the speaker. Is a speaker cableâs performance above 50 kHz relevant then? Does it have to be a good microwave transmission cable? You know the answer, but keep it in mind.
Letâs also agree that a direct connection from the amplifier output terminals to the speaker input terminals - perhaps with 0,5m (inch or two) of bus bar or braid but without any cable as such - is the theoretical ideal and nothing can be more accurate than that. Ask a cable cultist whatâs better than pure silver cable, or any other cable, and heâll most unlikely to give you the obvious answer: no cable at all.
A length of cable between the amplifier and the speaker is, electrically speaking, a series inductance, a shunt capacitance, and a series resistance. Thatâs all it is, really, unless you get involved in second-order and third-order effects that have no influence on the transmission of audio frequencies over domestic distances, eg. skin effect (or also called radio-frequency resistance). Once you have characterised a speaker cable as an RLC circuit, you can predict with considerable precision its effect on the network which it forms with the source (the amp) and the load (speaker).
So I ran some tests today with an AudioQuest cable, a Monster cable and a Siltech Ribbon from The Netherlands (by far the costliest cable Iâve ever touched, made of extruded silver ribbon with perfect crystal structure, etc, etc. At approximately 2 uH per meter, it throws caution to the wind inductance wise, and a 5 meter length gives a measurement of a lowpass filter that even tin ears will easily hear. I was putting 10 uH between my amp and 4 ohm speaker. A rough calculation translated that to a 2.4 dB drop at 20 kHz. Thatâs accurate? Maybe to a golden ear.
So, what did I find?
No speaker cable of significant length is âaccurateâ in the sense that the signal is the same, or virtually the same, at the speaker end as at the amplifier end, but those with lower series inductance are more accurate than those with higher series inductance, as long as the series resistance is reasonable low. Metallurgy is irrelevant to accuracy, and construction is relevant only to the extend that it controls the series inductance per unit length. Price is also irrelevant, except that very low-inductance speaker cable is never dirt-cheap. Shunt capacitance is of little or no consequence as long as the amplifier is perfectly stable.
What about the sound? Well, speaker cables will sound the same or different according to their RLC characteristics, not according to the voodoo criteria of the cable cultists. Thus, if you inserted a small circuit board with the proper RLC values (costing about 5$/âŹ) between the amp and the speaker in the direct-feed signal path, you could obtain the exact response of that Siltech Ribbon cable, at a saving of thousands and thousands of dollars/euroâs.
So, whatâs the best thing to do? The answer must be practically staring you in the face at this point. Simply avoid long runs of speaker cable - any speaker cable, no matter how good you think it is. When youâre talking less then 2 meter (10 feet), the RLC values simply donât matter. Make the cable a 16-gauge or thicker - ordinary lamp cord is fine. Thatâs it.
Kind Regards,
Bruno.
29 Likes
And here endeth the lesson.
1 Like
Professor, I would love to perform a demonstration to you and then have your opinion. Here is a suggestion for a demonstration or tests that you can perform. Compare 2 power cables of the same model, 1 new and the other with at least 1000 hours, observe the differences, compare 2 power cables from different manufacturers, e.g. Audioquest and Shunyata with more than 1000 hours and observed the differences. Make sure the test is performed on a decent quality system. As a side comment, prices of high end audio cables are totally ridiculous. There is a law of diminishing returns that apply in spades, but fairly decent power cables make a difference in my experience, more so than speaker cables and interconnects.
1 Like
The lesson may have ended, but the learning sure as Hell hasnât 
7 Likes
Its an uphill battle teaching the flat earth society 
2 Likes
I am just here for the popcorn - this thread is as funny as the ones concerning âaudiophile switchesâ and MQA.
Out of curiosity, I checked out the Shunyata site and had a big laugh when seeing power cables for 1000, âspecialâ Ethernet cables for 900 or a so-called âpower conditionerâ for 5000. Hilarious!
2 Likes
Not sure itâs started, nor ever will 
1 Like
I tried this. One was a bit dustier and had what appears to be a dried up coffee stain on it. The other was cleaner.
8 Likes
You need to dig a little bit deeper. Its all happening below the surface. Its not a good idea to spill coffee over cables. A caffeine boost wonât make a difference 
Agreed, their prices are ridiculous. Shunyata has taken their pricing strategy to stupid levels. They did it because power cables do make a difference, playing on the gullibility of the audiophile communityâs who will pay any price for a small difference. The basic point remains, Power cables make a difference, but you do not have to pay these prices to gain benefits.