Proof that cables Do make a difference

[Randall Smith]

i will just say this, if a speaker that costs $13,000 outperforms a speaker that costs twice as much, regardless of the cables used, then something is wrong with the more expensive speaker. maybe its broken or maybe it isn't engineered well. cables make a difference, but they shouldn't be the focal point of a system. they should purchased to further tweak the system to your ears.

room-speakers-amp-source/DAC- preamp- power conditioning- cables

 

[mep]

I couldn't have said it any better Randall. We were given a very specific example of two speakers at two different price points made by the same manufacturer. I would say if you can get the cheaper one to outperform the more expensive one by any means, than it really probably is the better speaker even if it is cheaper assuming the more expensive speaker is not somehow defective.

 

[MylesBAstor]

i will just say this, if a speaker that costs $13,000 outperforms a speaker that costs twice as much, regardless of the cables used, then something is wrong with the more expensive speaker. maybe its broken or maybe it isn't engineered well. cables make a difference, but they shouldn't be the focal point of a system. they should purchased to further tweak the system to your ears.

room-speakers-amp-source/DAC- preamp- power conditioning- cables

Unfortunately that very well can be in my experience-just as the system is only as good as the weakest link. I've been listening to four or five speaker cables ranging in price from $3000 to $10K or so and it's amazing what happens when that cable locks in. You can make a 40K speaker sound like a piece of crap with bad cable and it has nothing to do with the speaker. In fact, the speaker is showing more of how bad the cable actually is.

I am curious; as a reviewer, don't you have a stable of cables around with which to review speakers? I noted you own the Rockport speakers; didn't you try a variety of cable with them before settling on your reference speaker cable?

The same is true for ICs; I've been blown away by one cable in particular that I'm reviewing and how much of a difference it actually makes.

 

[muralman1]

I know that speaker cables do make a difference-I want to be very clear on that. However, I just don't believe that two different speaker systems built by the same manufacturer where one of those speaker systems is much higher quality than the other that the cheaper of the two systems will out-perform the more expensive speakers if it has more expensive speaker cables attached to it.

Mep, you are right on. I remember arguing with a few cable stalwarts on Audiogon whether a $7k power cord could magically elevate a beginner system.

 

[Jeff Fritz]

You can make a 40K speaker sound like a piece of crap with bad cable and it has nothing to do with the speaker.

Myles, I think this statement really gets to the crux of the debate. My experience tells me that you can make any speaker, including a $40k one, sound bad through poor room acoustics/speaker positioning or by a poor match with an amplifiier that can't sufficiently drive the speaker. I've not heard an otherwise carefully set up and high-performing system rendered "crap" by cables.

I think this is where the "weakest link in the chain" argument breaks down for me. It ignores the weighting of the various component genres by assuming each is equal. Speakers and room acoustics do have a far greater impact on what we hear than do cables, IMO. I think that statement sums up the collective experiences of many here.

My personal experience is that cables do matter -- I agree on that. But not nearly as much as you or the other gentleman state. Often these cable claims are made by folks (perhaps not you) that have never even optimized in-room frequency response as a gut-check for what they hear. This is one critical element as tonal balance affects everything you put in the system. To go down the "cable is critical" road without doing the real basic homework like optimizing FR is wrongheaded to me and my ears. And for a reviewer it is simply the wrong methodology that can lead to suspect results.

I understand that your experience may not mirror mine. And therefore this debate won't be settled today. But ultimately we do have to vet these claims, particularly when reviewers and dealers are involved, and that's why I think these forums are great. We can still go out for a coffee at the next show and put it behind us!

 

[Randall Smith]

You can make a 40K speaker sound like a piece of crap with bad cable and it has nothing to do with the speaker.

are you hooking your speakers up to a car with a pair of jumper cables?

 

[terryj]

You can make a 40K speaker sound like a piece of crap with bad cable and it has nothing to do with the speaker.

Well, everyone seems to be quoting this part of your post Myles, so I thought I'd carry on the tradition. Apart from it being a rather silly comment for you to make, I will say no more but rather I'd like to comment on another part of your post that others have let slide, one that I feel is even more insidious and worrying, maybe more so because it seems others have not noted it??



Myles B. Astor
Senior Assistant Editor
Positive-Feedback Online
www.positive-feedback.com


See? not a comment from anyone else. Scary eh?

And we wonder why the state of hi end audio is as bad as it is??

With these sorts of recomendations being made by the industry?

One can ONLY assume that an organ like PFO has, as some part of it's remit, to educate, to guide, to help and explain? (else it's purely entertainment for the reader, purely profit for the publisher).

And this is the sort of audiophile guff we can expect from the industry insiders?

God help the hobby.

And thank god for jeffs alternative view from within, a little piece of sanity holding back the tide...hopefully not vainly.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Well, everyone seems to be quoting this part of your post Myles, so I thought I'd carry on the tradition. Apart from it being a rather silly comment for you to make, I will say no more but rather I'd like to comment on another part of your post that others have let slide, one that I feel is even more insidious and worrying, maybe more so because it seems others have not noted it??



Myles B. Astor
Senior Assistant Editor
Positive-Feedback Online
www.positive-feedback.com


See? not a comment from anyone else. Scary eh?

And we wonder why the state of hi end audio is as bad as it is??

With these sorts of recomendations being made by the industry?

One can ONLY assume that an organ like PFO has, as some part of it's remit, to educate, to guide, to help and explain? (else it's purely entertainment for the reader, purely profit for the publisher).

And this is the sort of audiophile guff we can expect from the industry insiders?

God help the hobby.

And thank god for jeffs alternative view from within, a little piece of sanity holding back the tide...hopefully not vainly.

Well you're welcome to your POV. I'm entitled to mine that is based on listening in my system. If you don't agree fine. Enjoy your system while I enjoy mine.

And I suggest reading Jeff's comments again. He doesn't argue that speaker cables don't make a difference but as he says, "My personal experience is that cables do matter -- I agree on that. But not nearly as much as you or the other gentleman state." Jeff and I don't differ anywhere what you and I do.

And oh yeah, Dave Clark just bought a Ferrari with the money the mag earned last year --- not.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, I think this statement really gets to the crux of the debate. My experience tells me that you can make any speaker, including a $40k one, sound bad through poor room acoustics/speaker positioning or by a poor match with an amplifiier that can't sufficiently drive the speaker. I've not heard an otherwise carefully set up and high-performing system rendered "crap" by cables.

I think this is where the "weakest link in the chain" argument breaks down for me. It ignores the weighting of the various component genres by assuming each is equal. Speakers and room acoustics do have a far greater impact on what we hear than do cables, IMO. I think that statement sums up the collective experiences of many here.

My personal experience is that cables do matter -- I agree on that. But not nearly as much as you or the other gentleman state. Often these cable claims are made by folks (perhaps not you) that have never even optimized in-room frequency response as a gut-check for what they hear. This is one critical element as tonal balance affects everything you put in the system. To go down the "cable is critical" road without doing the real basic homework like optimizing FR is wrongheaded to me and my ears. And for a reviewer it is simply the wrong methodology that can lead to suspect results.

I understand that your experience may not mirror mine. And therefore this debate won't be settled today. But ultimately we do have to vet these claims, particularly when reviewers and dealers are involved, and that's why I think these forums are great. We can still go out for a coffee at the next show and put it behind us!

Hi Jeff,

Well I guess I just don't subscribe to the "weighting" principle just like I don't think anyone can say one product is 40% better than another. Just like every audiophile has their set of sonic preferences/tradeoffs that influences what equipment they buy. Otherwise, there would be a half dozen speakers out there. For instance, an upper midrange brightness is a deal breaker for me. Thank God that equipment and cable designers have left the era of "hyper detail" behind.

Color me in the camp that believes the source to be the biggest impediment. Crap in, crap out. How are you going to recreate the illusion of the recording venue even with perfect room acoustics if it isn't retrieved off the CD, LP or tape? How are you going to have good bass if it's not on the source and retrieved? You can have the best room bass response and if the equipment doesn't cut the mustard, it's all for naught. No for me, it's all about carefully balancing all the factors source, equipment, cables, room, AC, vibration isolation.

And the better the speaker, the more revealing it is of upstream issues (room excluded). I've found it absolutely amazing how much the Martin Logans sound with different changes that I've made to the system over the last couple of years. I still don't feel I've reached their ceiling performance yet. That begs the question whether it's better to buy a good speaker and then upgrade the gear around it rather than constantly being on a speaker buying spree.

I have heard speakers rendered crap by cables. As I talked about, the original Straight Wire ribbon speaker cables destroyed the sound of my friends Magnepan MGIIIa rendering them unlistenable. There was no bass and the sound was harsh and bright (sound like caps too?). I would also add that I've yet to hear a silver cable that I could listen to ergo I couldn't stand the speaker's sound.

I will say, as I have in recent reviews, that the new MIT Oracle IC and phono cables have been a revelatory experience.

 

[Randall Smith]

I am curious; as a reviewer, don't you have a stable of cables around with which to review speakers? I noted you own the Rockport speakers; didn't you try a variety of cable with them before settling on your reference speaker cable?

As a reviewer, I have always made buying decisions based on neutrality. In the past, I have owned Nordost, Transparent, and now Analysis Plus cables. With my Rockports, I found the Transparent cables tilted a bit to the bottom end. An area the Mira's need little help in. I found the Nordost cables to balance that bottom end with a more open sounding top end. While I may favor one or the other, neither of those cables work for all speakers. That is why I purchased the Analysis Plus cables, they are very neutral. A speaker will sound the way it sounds with those cables and will not be tilted one way of the other. As a reviewer, I would think that a reader would want to know what a speaker really sounds like and not how I was able to tweak it to suite my personal tastes. If there is a midrange glare, I report it. Now I don't want to assume that you will not report what you hear or only report your findings once you have tweaked the speaker with a certain cable, but hopefully you see my point.

I spend more time dialing the speaker in within the room. I do this by measuring the in-room response and by listening. This is what works for me and for the guys who run our websites. Making claims that a speaker can be "ruined" by a pair of speaker cables is a bit of an overstatement. Sure, you can make a bright speaker even brighter, but with experience you gain knowledge. And with this knowledge, just like everything else, an audiophile should make buying decisions based on their personal taste and how well each purchase works together as a system. From speakers to the amplifier to the source and right down to the cables. Each piece of the puzzle matters, I just feel that the speakers matter the most.

 

[rblnr]

Myles, I think this statement really gets to the crux of the debate. My experience tells me that you can make any speaker, including a $40k one, sound bad through poor room acoustics/speaker positioning or by a poor match with an amplifiier that can't sufficiently drive the speaker. I've not heard an otherwise carefully set up and high-performing system rendered "crap" by cables.

I think this is where the "weakest link in the chain" argument breaks down for me. It ignores the weighting of the various component genres by assuming each is equal. Speakers and room acoustics do have a far greater impact on what we hear than do cables, IMO. I think that statement sums up the collective experiences of many here.

This is exactly my belief/experience as well.

I think the best approach is to start with a simple copper cable like Speltz. If the speaker sounds like crap with them, they're lousy speakers. Simple cables like this will let you know the character of your system, you can then try to tweak it from there with stuff with more complicated construction.

As said earlier, ideal way is to build backwards from the speaker and room -- cables are subtle icing on the cake. Without a system building method, you never know where you're at, what's doing what. So get your room and speakers first -- these will have the most influence on your sound. Then the amps that drive the speakers well, then the preamp, etc. Less and less weight on the overall sound of the system as you move backward, comparing apples to apples pricewise. Stick with straight copper, simple stuff to begin for all ICs, speaker cables. Likely this will sound 90% or more as good as anything, but more importantly perhaps, it takes a variable out of the equation. I don't want to mess with cables till I have a handle on the whole system. Otherwise what's doing what can't be IDd.

 

[MylesBAstor]

This is exactly my belief/experience as well.

I think the best approach is to start with a simple copper cable like Speltz. If the speaker sounds like crap with them, they're lousy speakers. Simple cables like this will let you know the character of your system, you can then try to tweak it from there with stuff with more complicated construction.

As said earlier, ideal way is to build backwards from the speaker and room -- cables are subtle icing on the cake. Without a system building method, you never know where you're at, what's doing what. So get your room and speakers first -- these will have the most influence on your sound. Then the amps that drive the speakers well, then the preamp, etc. Less and less weight on the overall sound of the system as you move backward, comparing apples to apples pricewise. Stick with straight copper, simple stuff to begin for all ICs, speaker cables. Likely this will sound 90% or more as good as anything, but more importantly perhaps, it takes a variable out of the equation. I don't want to mess with cables till I have a handle on the whole system. Otherwise what's doing what can't be IDd.

Let me put it another way. Would you review a 10K cartridge with a $500 phono stage? I've seen it done and I think it's ridiculous. Now that's not to knock the $500 phono section which would sound very nice in a system balanced around it.

If I'm a reviewer, I want the best equipment/system surrounding the DUT to ensure that I'm hearing what the equipment being reviewed is capable of, not an issue around it.

As I said before, I don't think I've achieved everything that the Summits can do by a large shot and that's been evident from listening to reel to reel tapes and my new cj amps.

 

[KeithR]

Let me put it another way. Would you review a 10K cartridge with a $500 phono stage? I've seen it done and I think it's ridiculous. Now that's not to knock the $500 phono section which would sound very nice in a system balanced around it.

If I'm a reviewer, I want the best equipment/system surrounding the DUT to ensure that I'm hearing what the equipment being reviewed is capable of, not an issue around it.

As I said before, I don't think I've achieved everything that the Summits can do by a large shot and that's been evident from listening to reel to reel tapes and my new cj amps.

Myles- where do you stand on room acoustics?

It seems many of my audio friends who are crazy about cables, have never experimented with room treatment(s). I think Jeff Fritz is making that point abundantly clear--and i can say, that when my room was treated with Rives help (only L1)---that i noticed about a 3x incremental difference in sound, way more than ANY component i've ever owned, perhaps except speakers.

I'll post up my latest cable stuff in the other thread...still having difficulties

Cheers

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles- where do you stand on room acoustics?

It seems many of my audio friends who are crazy about cables, have never experimented with room treatment(s). I think Jeff Fritz is making that point abundantly clear--and i can say, that when my room was treated with Rives help (only L1)---that i noticed about a 3x incremental difference in sound, way more than ANY component i've ever owned, perhaps except speakers.

I'll post up my latest cable stuff in the other thread...still having difficulties

Cheers

Hi Keith,

Where do I stand Well I think I'd have to turn in my credentials if I said it was unimportant

Yes, in theory, room acoustics is very important; in reality, my experience has been that the cure often proves worse than the disease. It seems that every five years or so, acousticians come up with a new method to improve the sound of small spaces (forget concert halls); the worst example being the LEDE room. Barf.

Over the years, have worked with people such as Art Noxon on articles on improving room acoustics. Today's buzz word is DSP; color me unimpressed to date. Again the cure is worse than the disease. Tomorrow it will be something else.

So in the end, I think that probably one take home msg about room Rx is taken from medicine; just because a little bit is good, doesn't mean that me is better. The other is that every room and speaker is different and that the solution must be different. But I've heard people set up speakers and get damn good sound by ear. YMMV. If you've had serious room issues, your money may be better invested in treating the room; if you have a relatively good sounding room, you're money might be better spent on other parts of the system. In my room, I use Cathedral sound panels and some pillows from Michael Green at some room nodes. They seem to help esp. with dynamics.

So where do I stand? In the end, room treatment is often a compromise unless the room is built from scratch. But it's one of many factors to be considered in getting the most out of one's system.

 

[rblnr]

Let me put it another way. Would you review a 10K cartridge with a $500 phono stage? I've seen it done and I think it's ridiculous. Now that's not to knock the $500 phono section which would sound very nice in a system balanced around it.

My issue with this re: cables goes back to the weighting concept and the notion that I find less correlation between cable performance and price than I do in other components.

 

[MylesBAstor]

My issue with this re: cables goes back to the weighting concept and the notion that I find less correlation between cable performance and price than I do in other components.

OK substitute entry level phono stage.

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Sound is conveyed to your ears through the air. The room dimensions and surfaces determine how that air reacts to being driven by transducers. You better believe it's just about the most important "component" in the room, as it were . The room air is a fantastically complex, and power, analogue filtering device. Ignore it at your peril. Spending some bucks on this component can give tremendous results.

Shelling out, say, $5K on a better DAC or amp or speakers is commonplace; spending the same amount on room acoustics is infrequent. Sure, the acoustics are intangible, or rather invisible, but they pretty much control what you hear.

From Chris at ASC... for starters, how about placing the speakers 29% of the way into the room, same ratio across? They like this placement, and it certainly worked wonders for me.

 

[mep]

Well, 29% is pretty close to the Pearson rule of thirds.

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Yes, but it's much, much better. Get out that laser level and measuring tape The level is for pointing the speakers once you've got the tweeters at the 29% spots.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Well, 29% is pretty close to the Pearson rule of thirds.

Or Cardas's.

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=26&pagestring=Room+Setup