Just interested in peoples views on interconnects (between components, speaker cable, etc); is it worth spending money on them ?

Often reviewers refer to 'recreating the live experience' as the holy grail of a hifi; but if you go to a live gig, won't they use cheap cabling to connect their equipment to the PA system ?

It depends on what you believe and what you value. Some audiophiles spend a lot of money on cables and are content knowing that such exotic luxury goods are only valued and appreciated by the discerning sophisticated audiophile. Those with more common sense and/or some technical knowledge are going to have a rather different set of beliefs and values which may well be reflected in embarrassment should any of their peers see them owning those same exotic luxury goods.

Good read about cables and what matters, if you are interested.

PA systems are not designed for best possible sound quality, but rather for efficiency. The 'live experience' means you don't hear there is a sound system playing recording -- it rather sounds that the performance is happening on the listening room.

They're worth spending money on, but primarily because they aren't typically free

I'm content with the slightly-better-than-garbage Belkin PureAV-series interconnects. Am I missing out by not instead using Nordost interconnects? Perhaps, but unless someone (anyone) is willing to step up to the plate and actually quantify what I'm missing with the PureAV stuff, I'll stick with my lovely $15 Radioshack cabling and find comfort in the thought that I have money in the bank.


I've always thought that was a nonsensical notion. The "holy grail" of hi-fi is whatever you want it to be.

Anything which isn't el-cheapo "99cent crap" will already be optimal from a practical POV. Just make sure that there is proper shielding against interferences, that they are durably built (not because of soundquality, but so that they dont internally break, especailly near the plugs), etc. So in short, just "good durable standard cables". Those are more expensive than the el-cheapo ones, but not much - we're talking about price-differences of 5 EUR/12 EUR, ..... NOT 100 EUR or even 1000 EUR.

- Lyx

I agree with everybody else. Unless they are defective, cables will have little or no effect on sound. If there is any benefit to audiophile interconects, it is subtle. For example if you have $500 to spend on speakers and cables, it would be better to spend $490 on speakers and $10 on speaker wire, than to spend $400 on speakers and $100 on wire....

On the other hand, if you are going to spend $5000 on speakers and money is not a big concern, there is no "harm" in spending a few hundred on speaker cables.

For speakers, I use "standard" speaker wire and I try to use at-least 16-gauge*.

For line-level connections, I look for "100% shielded" cables. The package won't always be marked, but only very-cheap audio cables are not 100% shielded.

They won't be using "cheap" cabling, but they don't use audiophile cabling either. They typically use "heavy gauge" cables because they are more rugged. They are running lots of power, and for that, they need bigger speaker cables. And, depending on the set-up some of the speaker-wire runs might be rather long too. Again, this calls for heavier gauge wire. For low-level connections they mostly use "XLR" connectors and "balanced lines". That type of cable is also more rugged and costs more than a regular "RCA" cable.



* In case you don't know, the lower the gauge, the bigger the wire. i.e. 22 gauge wire is smaller than 16 gauge and it has higher resistance. (Although resistance is fairly insignificant for short-runs... resistance is measured in ohms-per-foot, and when it comes to speaker wire, lower resistance is better.)

Last time I bought any 8 core 4mmsq per core multi-strand cable was about £4 ($8) a meter which is pretty damn cheap in the grand scheme of things.

In my 25 years of amateur interconnect cable purchases, I've always noticed a very sharp 'knee' in the value-for-money ratio towards the bottom of the price range. The el-cheapo cables are probably adequate for a fixed installation where you're not going to be placing any repeated mechanical stresses of any kind on the connectors or strain-reliefs. Even after just a couple of dozen plug-in/unplug cycles, it's possible for the cable to fail terminally. I had it happen a few times before I learned my lesson.

If I can pay even just two or three times as much and get perfectly adequate cables that seem to take decades to show any serious signs of deterioration through normal wear-and-tear, then I'll go for those as they satisfy my 'comfort zone' requirements in terms of what I personally look for in a product. I could go out and spend 100 times as much as I spent on my last installation for cabling, but I personally believe that you're very rapidly climbing the slope of diminishing returns. Quite possibly exponentially.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Not that I disagree, but has anybody done any serious blind testing of this?

(Last I heard on the powercables test a few weeks back was that somebody on Stereophile was able to ABX the cables as being different!)

AFAIK, there have been dozens.


Yeah, well i also read in the boulevard press that a black hole which is 400 LY away threatens to IMMEDIATELLY swallow Sol, and that governments should immediatelly act.

Sorry, after someone lied often enough, it isn't even worth it anymore to analyze their claims on a logical level, let alone check test setups..... since its already 99,9% certain to be bullshit. I'd trust any unknown stranger more than stereophile on audiotopics.

Here's one, done 25 years ago (yes, they already wondered about this back then):

Thanks for that! So to conclude once you reach 16 gauge, any old wire will do.



Not the magazine, merely a user of their forum and of course he could have simply guessed correctly.

My suggestion has always been to spend some of the money that one would spend on "audiophile" cable on a soldering iron, good solder and quality components and make some cables instead. At least you'll know the quality you're getting...

What about digital interconnects ? Or cables carrying digital data such as those transferring FLAC data from a hard disc ?

S/PDIF cables might matter, since the noise level may affect the recovered clock. But I would invest to a better (reclocking) DAC rather than cables to make cables unimportant.

Other digital cables don't matter. You just pass data around and if that doesn't work reliably, you have bigger problems and you can't play the audio in the first place...

I haven't been a DIYer for long, but this is one of the overwhelming factors that convinced me. Why pay big money and not know what you're getting when you can spend relatively little money and know EXACTLY what you're getting?

I think there is no audible superiority to be had with expensive cables so they are not worth it. I have always made all my own interconnects and speaker cables using high quality materials for their mechanical and aesthetic qualities.

James Randi, the magician, is offering a one million dollar prize:

"James Randi Offers $1 Million If Audiophiles Can Prove $7250 Speaker Cables Are Better"
http://tinyurl.com/2ncuhd

John Dunleavy was a very well respected electrical engineer who had several companies (Duntech, Dunleavy) which made some of the best sounding speakers you could buy. Before he got into audio, he was an expert in satellite communications:

He had this to say about cables:

"Speaking as a competent professional engineer, designer and manufacturer, nothing would please me and my company's staff more than being able to design a cable which consistently yielded a positive score during blind listening comparisons against other cables. But it only rarely happens - if we wish to be honest!

Oh yes, we have heard of golden-eared audiophiles who claim to be able to consistently identify huge, audible differences between cables. But when these experts have visited our facility and were put to the test under carefully-controlled conditions, they invariably failed to yield a score any better than chance. For example, when led to believe that three popular cables were being compared, varying in size from a high-quality 12 AWG ZIP-CORD to a high-tech looking cable with a diameter exceeding an inch, the largest and sexiest looking cable always scored best - even though the CABLES WERE NEVER CHANGED and they listened to the ZIP Cord the entire time.

Sorry, but I do not buy the claims of those who say they can always audibly identify differences between cables, even when the comparisons are properly controlled to ensure that the identity of the cable being heard is not known by the listener. We have accomplished too many true blind comparisons with listeners possessing the right credentials, including impeccable hearing attributes, to know that real, audible differences seldom exist - if the comparisons are properly implemented to eliminate other causes such as system interactions with cables, etc."

There are length limits on both S/PDIF and TOSLINK connections. This has been dicussed to death elsewhere on the forum if you search a bit.

Sure. I meant an "expensive" cable versus "normal" cable, where "normal" is something that should work just fine.

Hey, I work at RadioShack, and was wondering- would the RS "Gold Series" be fine, good quality? Indeed, what about the RS plain vanilla RCA cables?

Obviously Monster cables are a bit of nonsense- I just spent my week doing online courses on Monster stuff, and aside from learning about analog/digital audio, and which video is best, the rest was BS- talking in-depth about why Monster gives better audio or video than other cables, not to mention the bizarre "Monster Power" claims.

But don't tell my boss that


Back to my question- I've always used 3-5 dollar really crappy quality cable and wondered if RS or RS Gold would be any better, or even, sufficient.

And do any of the RCA audio cable terminologies- dielectrics, 24K carat tips for optimal signal transfer, and more (e.g. this Monster cable we sell at RS- http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=133 )- add up to improved performance, or even good ideas thereotically?

Compared to say:
(RadioShack Gold Series)
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...rentPage=search

(RadioShack "plain vanilla")
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...rentPage=search

I mean, I don't get horrible sound quality, but I do have a bunch of noise- I was almost swayed by those bogus "Monster Power" claims but thankfully came to my senses. Eliminating 99% of AC noise sounds like such a good thing though!
(I wonder if this would work:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...entPage=search)

Regards,
- Spike

I always go for budget cables because i am sure the difference is most likely zero.

The total cross sectional area of the copper wire on your speaker interconnects should never exceed the cross sectional area of the copper in the live and neutral wires of your mains cable; after all, how can an amplifier deliver power that it can't draw in the first place? [Author's note: This has been subsequently demonstrated as incorrect, please disregard]

Silver, Copper and Aluminium are all excellent conductors, in decreasing order. Gold isn't quite as good as those three, but has the advantage of never oxidising, which is the only reason it is used.

As far as digital interconnects go, it's all ones and zeroes at the end of the day, and if the signal that reaches the other end is recognizably a one or a zero then you'll be fine. Take a look at the single thread of copper wire that is used for 10 gigabit copper networks, now that shifts ten thousand million ones and zeroes per second at distances of up to 100 metres. Digital audio at 96kHz and 24 bits ber sample will move 2.3 million bits per second per channel. Conclusion: even the most tiddly bit of low oxygen copper (if well shielded) is capable of moving 4347 channels of high quality digital audio.

Conclusion: copper is suprisingly, but demonstrably, capable. Spend your money elsewhere.

Most people don't know how to solder well enough to get a real long-term reliable connection. Sure, it's easy to get two things to stick - but more care (and the right type of solder, and the right temperature) is required for a real reliable connection. If you can solder well, this is probably a really good approach.

A 15A mains cable in a 220V country can deliver 3.3kW. Driving an 8ohm speaker at 80W requires only about 3A. Sure, there are damping factors to worry about, but basing the sizing on your mains cable (different voltage, different performance requirements, different current) is a bit pointless.


In order of area, sure. In order of conductivity per mass (or per unit currency) Aluminium dominates (ask the transmissions department at your local utility if you don't believe me - transmissions cable in most countries is aluminium, with a steel core for strength and to prevent sagging). Aluminium has other disadvantages though, so copper really is the most sensible.

I agree with your conclusion - but remember that cable like Cat 6 (network cable) is extremely tightly specified and carefully engineered. Once again, pick a decent quality copper interconnect (made yourself, or by somebody else) and stop worrying.

3 Amps, and how is that relevant? It is the power rating (unit energy per unit time) that ultimately decides wether or not (all other things being equal) a particular piece of (pure) copper will be able to deliver against requirements or not.

If that's what you think, then you didn't understand the point.

Nice one cabbagerat. You were quick to mention intended usage somewhere else in this post: we're all building high fidelity audio systems, not power grids. Silver has the highest conductivity using the accepted definition of the word; followed by copper.

I'm not sure I'll bother remembering that actually, because I think it's fairly obvious. After all, it's just a very pure copper pair, insulated, twisted at a regular rate, enclosed with 3 other such pairs, all seperated by a nylon spacer and surrounded by aluminium foil shielding; not extremely tightly specified at all when compared to what is available on the interconnect market as manufacturing coaxial cable is also quite complex.

For the sake of people actually interested in the original topic, let's not be distracted: shielding is key, and all co-axial cables are very effectively shielded.

This is not correct. An amplifier delivers much lower voltages to the speakers than the household current that powers it. With a lower voltage, in order to deliver high power, you need to increase the number of amps being delivered. Cable thickness requirement is determined more by the current (amps) that it needs to carry than the voltage. Power, as measured in watts, is equal to voltage multiplied by amps. So if you have a device that uses 600w and the voltage is 110 you need 5.45 amps going through the cable. But if the voltage is say 50v, then you need 12 amps and a much higher cross section cable to carry it.

Some high power amps are capable of putting out 30 amps and more.

Have you ever seen the cables on an arc welder? They are very thick because the voltage they deliver is low to reduce electrocution risk but they can deliver hundreds of amps, but the mains cable supplying the arc welder is nothing like as thick because the voltage is higher.

Well, no. The losses in a cable are (assuming it's resistive, which isn't true, but will work for our purposes) P=I*I*R. The current (I), depends on the output voltage (or power) of the amplifier and the impedence of the speaker. For an 8 ohm speaker, delivering 3.3kW requires ~20A - so you need a cable which is a good deal thicker than your mains cable if you are drawing the full load. Most amplifiers, however, are only in the range of 100W (so maybe 150W input), meaning that if you use a standard mains cable it will be incredibly overspecified.

In conclusion: the losses in a cable depend on current. How much loss you can put up with depends on your application. Amplifiers contain transformers, which (in most amplifiers) turn low currents at high voltages to higher currents at low voltages. The applications are different, the current is different, so comparing the cross sectional area of the cord going into your amp to your speaker cable is pointless.

If you are concerned about damping factor, then you want to reduce the impedence of your cable as much as possible. In this case, you might want a cable with a large cross sectional area. Experiments, however, show that beyond a certain limit increasing the size of the speaker cables is a little pointless.


Please explain the point, then. Especially what you mean by "deliver against requirements".


Ok, fair enough - weight isn't an issue. Conductivity per unit currency is an issue, however, which can skew the ranking. There are plenty of other good reasons to use copper over aluminium, so I'm not going to argue. But seriously, what makes you think the physics of "high fidelity audio systems" are different from the physics of power grids? Some of the requirements are different, but most are very similar.


There is a lot more to accurately transmitting a high frequency digital signal over long distances than shielding. Over short distances (like interconnects) at SPDIF frequencies, you can use pretty much any old piece of coax. Over longer distances, you need the right cable with the right design. But that doesn't mean there is a correlation between "good" and "expensive" when it comes to cables for digital --- especially not in HiFi shops.

Not so. Cheaper coaxial cables are sometimes relatively poorly shielded by having the outer conducting copper strands merely laid longitudinally inside the outer insulator. Decent coaxial cable usually either has the outer conductor braided, or braided and supplemented with a foil underlay.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Indeed. A small thought experiment reveals you are correct: Amperes are essentially a measure of electrons per second; a fine wire may cary few amperes at extremely high voltage, but it simply will not be able to carry extreme numbers of amperes at low voltage, despite both having the same measure of power (volts x amperes)

I'll label the previous entries where possible to save confusion.

The vast majority of people do not have a sound system good enough to discern the difference in cables (if there is any difference).

I use a whole hodgepodge of cables in my system. However, I am building some pure silver interconnects. The silver wire is inexpensive, the silver RCA plus are not.

Will it make a difference? I've heard enough systems to believe that there is a difference, however subtle. Will I hear it? I don't know, but my system is fairly high-end and certainly good enough to tell. Will I be happy knowing that I've done the best I can? Yes.

The well documented human bias towards confirming your beliefs will probably lead to you hearing a real change in the sound of your system. There is unlikely to be any real difference, however.

I know what you mean, but if you do think there is a discernible difference, how about using the recording output of your amplifier to produce recordings and see if they can be ABX'd?

[quote name='cabbagerat' date='Jun 19 2008, 00:28' post='571853']

[/quote]The well documented human bias towards confirming your beliefs will probably lead to you hearing a real change in the sound of your system. There is unlikely to be any real difference, however.
[/quote]

That's what I'm afraid of. But, again, knowing that I've got the best I can do can't hurt. I just view it as an investment for years of listening. I think spending large $$ on interconnect or speaker wire is insane. Then again, the silver RCA plugs are $50 pair. I may just use them from the CD player to the preamp, and from the preamp to the amp.

The question that I always ask myself is "If I spent this money instead on better speakers, how much better off would I be?"

Hales Transcendence 5's...can't be too much better off than that!

Been around the block a few times on this one! Spent a lot of good money on it too. Thank god for the high end action sites, I only lost about 1/3 of what I spent. I would suggest that the el-cheapos may get you by but for "value" a decent cable is a good investment. I am not talking about the Moster cables and other snake oil, please understand... I switched to Canare cable and connectors .(Neutrik for XLR)and have been very happy. This is the stuff used by the professional audio and video industry. $ for $ a great value. I like to add my $.02 whenever I see the age old cable discussion.

Yeah, that's the thing with this hobby, isn't it? I've been trying to decide between Belden DIY (same as Canare, really), and DIY silver. Silver is the best conductor, but everyone, including my amp manufacturer, thinks that the Belden is fine.

The silver is actually pretty inexpensive, but the "good" Furutech connectors are $25 apiece. So it works out to maybe $115 per pair of ICs, again mostly the RCA connectors. That's not outrageous, especially when you consider that Belden/Canare with "good" (eg: Eichmann) connectors would be the same or more.

Spending anything more is, in my mind, crazy. I do buy into your logic that it makes sense to use what (most of) the industry uses. But I believe that silver is the best, for not a lot more $$$.

I don't know much about the tecnical part of things, but i built some interconnectors and speaket cables based on this article and they sound pretty good. This is good to try and save some money.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/whiteli.../moonshine.html


NH

I'm going for these:

http://www.venhaus1.com/diysilverinterconnects.html

What leads you to believe that the difference in resistance between silver and copper will have an effect on the signal? Given that, for interconnects, a low impedence source is used to drive a very high impedence sink, it doesn't seem as though a small change in the cable impedence will have an effect on the signal.


Are these people taking the piss? Are they honestly suggesting that they can hear the difference between brands of extension lead? Leads probably made from exactly the same cable in exactly the same factory in China? Have they ever considered the possibility that this could be caused by confirmation bias? Are they not aware of the general trend towards parsimony in science?

You do know that the difference in conductivity between silver and copper is only 6%? This is equivalent to a difference in wire diameter of 3%, which is far less than the difference of one gauge size.

> Are these people taking the piss? Are they honestly suggesting that they
> can hear the difference between brands of extension lead?

It depends a bit by what you mean by honesty. Is reading a fairy story to someone being dishonest because it is untrue?

The reviewers of ludicrous audiophile products like clever clocks, resonating cups, magic cables and the like on web sites like 6moons, PFO, etc... often make claims that are completely ludicrous and over-the-top about the performance of the product. The style of writing is also over-the-top and reads a bit like taking the p*ss to non-audiophiles. I have tended to take this as the author making it clear to non-audiophiles that they are telling stories. Audiophiles on the other hand, want to believe and want to be told about magic and things that baffle science. Is it dishonest to tell them the stories they want to hear?

OK, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but for luxury goods it is hard to raise much of an objection when fools are separated from their money.

Considering the cables I made my interconnectors from cost $7 for 40 feet. I's money well spent

Oh come on - speakers that cost more than cars - that's the thing!

Only half joking - given the "mark up" on audio goods, the individual drivers can still be measurably "better" above that price point. A $6k speaker has drivers that cost a few hundred $ in total to manufacture, at the very most.

Cheers,
David.


I think it might be more like a prostitute advertising love and passion, but selling mediocre sex.

If you believe the advert then you might imagine that you're getting more than you really are.

So the lies help you to get what you want, if only in your head.


Is this wrong? It depends on what level people buy into the fantasy. If they know the trick, maybe it's OK. However, if they buy in completely, then they have been conned - you may say "a fool and his money - so what?"

The thing is, they have been damaged in other ways. In my analogy, the result could be that they never know what love really is. In the hi-end audio world, the result could be that they will learn to disbelieve science and believe in magic, which could have catastrophic consequences if carried over into other parts of their lives.

Cheers,
David.

Oddly enough stereo interconnects is the only cable I've ever spent more than a few quid on. I just wanted to give it a go. I don't think I can post what I thought because of the ts and cs on here.

Speaker cable is a different matter, after looking at the quality of cable actually used in the speaker itself I decided it wasn't worth spending money on them!

> If you believe the advert then you might imagine that you're getting more
> than you really are. So the lies help you to get what you want, if only
> in your head.

Agreed.

> Is this wrong? It depends on what level people buy into the fantasy.
> If they know the trick, maybe it's OK.

If they know the trick then it does not work. It is more a question of what the people that know the trick think about it. Some get indignant on behalf of those being tricked and some do not.

> However, if they buy in completely, then they have been conned - you may
> say "a fool and his money - so what?"

Being conned depends on your knowledge and viewpoint. Many of those foolish audiophiles are quite happy with their magic cables and would strongly dispute that they have been conned. A cable supplier (out of earshot of audiophiles) would say they are selling a cable and an illusion that works since audiophiles do hear differences. An editor of an audiophile publication (out of earshot of audiophiles) is also likely to talk about helping to sell the illusion.

Are the only people that can see a con those that cannot see the illusion?

> The thing is, they have been damaged in other ways. In my analogy, the result
> could be that they never know what love really is. In the hi-end audio world,
> the result could be that they will learn to disbelieve science and believe in
> magic,

Disbelieving science and believing in magic (although it is not given that name) as it applies to audio is what defines audiophile. It is what distinguishes it from the older high-fidelity approach to home audio and the current "proaudio" approach to audio.

> which could have catastrophic consequences if carried over into other
> parts of their lives.

Not at all. This way of thinking has exploded over the last few decades precisely because the real world no longer bites individuals who act on such irrational reasoning in the way it would when the world was poorer.

On the contrary, we could probably come up with lots of examples where disbelieving the science can be harmful.

One example I can come up with is seat belts. All of the statistics show that wearing seat belts dramatically improves the odds of surviving a crash, but there are still people who heard of one example where someone survived because they were thrown clear, and because of that they refuse to wear a seat belt.

Any more examples?

Edit: If this is too far off topic then feel free to disregard.

There are also many - though, less known - examples where "believing" in what is called "science" caused widespread myths. What you ignore in your example, is that the "error" which those "few people" make, isn't "disbelieving in science" but simply believing something regardless of available information plus inability to efficiently analyze information. Your example doesn't show the "truthfullness" of science, but simply the inefficience of being dishonest and unable/unwilling to properly analyze information.

honestguv's argument is valid. How much people can afford to lie/believe depends on how severe the consequences of them are. This is why humans have a long record of only thinking and acting honest at the last possible chance - in other words, being forced to choose between imminent honesty and imminent disaster.

I suppose "science" includes "the scientific method": hypothesis, experiment, result, conclusion based on evidence (not belief).

Cheers,
David.

That still leaves lots of ways to cheat. There is no methodic replacement for honest intentions.

"There are also many - though, less known - examples where "believing" in what is called "science" caused widespread myths."

Yes. Remember the one about nuclear power providing free energy: forever. Or how about BSE not being transferable to humans. Anyone convinced that GM crops will feed the world? And don't underestimate "magic". Ask any "primitive" tribe if their medicine man can cure the sick/bring rain/etc.

At the end of the day anyone with an agenda will use any means at their disposal to back up their view