Fellas...I NEED YOUR ATTENTION!!! :-)

I am in this ongoing debate with a guy (an experianced and VERY knowledgeable former electrical engineer who has been in the custom A/V industry for 8 years now) about cables and wire.

Here's his stance in short (I know he'll read this and give his full theory, or maybe not!)

For audio...good cables are a waste of time and money...the $.59 bulk interconnects that come with the satellite receiver, are every bit as good as say, a $500.00 pair of Tara-Labs, Ixos, AudioQuest, or BetterCables very top of the line. When connected to EXACTLY the same gear, there will be NO audible improvement. He maintains it may sound DIFFERENT, but not better. A single piece of romex would therefore work as well here...

For speakers... He maintains that, with the exception of current flow, and the possibility of melting the conductor, a single strand of Cat 5e will make trasmit the same sound as the most expensive cast cable known to man....as long as you don't melt the cat-5, it would sound the same as the super expensive stuff....

For video...he asserts there would be a SMALL difference in picture quality, as better metals, in the correct ratios, will transmit different kinds of video better...but again, no enough to justify the cost difference...

I beleive just the opposite on everything. I base this on my experiences, and having observed the results, in several of my own tests in the day-to-day world.

Just curious now what do you guys think, and why?

avdude
site admin
www.integrationpros.com

Before the techies bash me, I'll be the first to say I am not the most technical guy in the business. Here's my argument.

1. I've heard the difference. I have traveled to many manufacturers (speaker, AV gear, and cable companies) and have been shown the difference in double blind tests. I have experienced it many of times on my own personal jobs.

2. If there were no to little difference in quality, I believe Monster, Tributaries, IXOS, and many others would have a hard time staying in business competing with companies making $2.00 interconnects.

3. Anyone not selling quality cables must be making too much money. Customers spending big $$$ on or products and services will not mind investing the extra money for cables. If your customers do mind, then you’re not selling it right. I do believe you need cables to make the product work. Unless your using FM (F****** Magic). Show them the difference in just the physical appearance and they will invest in it. Your doing them a justice and putting much more $$$ in your pocket

My 2 Cents

not my area of expertise.

but I think you are both right and wrong (AVdude and friend)

For one thing the minute someone says


then there is no debate, since what is better (and how much better) becomes subjective. If you prefer the sound of more expensive cables, and there is a difference, then it is better for you

As to my opinion. There can be a difference between cables. The extremely cheap ones tend to be made cheaply (the wire might be OK, but usually they tend to have cheap connectors and are badly soldered). On the other hand I think after a point, you are not paying for better cables but conned by better marketing.

as to

the question is do they sound better, you might want some specialized cables just for the look, but that was not the question that was asked.

Well his statement has so many "exceptions" to it, that it is probably true. Romex or Cat 5e will carry the same sound, yes, but will it be the same quality. A telephone will carry the same sound but not the loudness nor the quality wanted. Video will be a little better with higher priced cables, true, isn't that what you are paying for. A 12" picture tube carries the same picture as a 60" television, and on a 60" TV would you notice a little better picture. You certainly could overlook the poor picture on a 12" TV.

Some extreme high priced products produce improvements in video or audio that I could not personnaly comprehend, and they would be a waste of money for myself. But, the customer is aways right, if he/she wants these products who is going to deny them the privlege of buying them.

Actually, on a 60" you notice the problems with the picture, to wit NTSC was designed to be displayed on a set with no more than a 20 inch diagonal.

Perhaps his "different" could be better to him when all those messy dynamics, and punchy bass, are reduced by using CAT5 for speaker wire. As mentioned, as soon as the criterion is "different" and nobody is listening to see if it is better, then there can be no real argument.

We are going for better.

And I agree that once you get rid of the garden-variety (I call them garbage-variety) cables, the slim giveaways that come with many components, you are likely to see and hear the most dramatic improvements in the first twenty to fifty dollars, and very little improvement after that. For that matter, very little change (again, "different," not considering better or worse).

As to selling cables because the client wants them because they look good, WATCH OUT. You have dropped your own awareness of the fact that people want sizzle on their steak, and you are not even talking about the steak. Since you are in the steak business, remember to add sizzle, but be sure you are not putting sizzle on a (add your own crude term in this space).

Here's a question for everyone I have always had on this debate. I am not a firm believer in cables making a difference in the quality of the sound. Also note, I am not a prfessional installer but a guy who only does simple systems for family and friends and who gets paid in beer only. So, there are my qualifications, or lack of any.

If I look inside any of my audio and video gear, the wires in side are all 18-20 gauge max. Inside the speakers, the wire diameter is also small. So, can the interconnect cables do that much better? Only so much information can go into them from the source and the speaker wires can only accept so much as well.

Could it be compared to a water line. Supose you hade an interior house water pipe of 1" that fed to an outside house with a diameter of 12" and this was hooked up to a sprinkler head whose inlet piping was only 1". Would more water come out of the sprinkler head using a 12" hose verses a 1-2" hose?

Over simplification but this is something I've pondered before.

Mark

I agree on some things, and disagree on others...

Speaker wire matters, but only up to a point. There's no need to run 10 gauge Monster cables bi-wired to a system that will only see 90dB tops. The voltages that are being pushed through at those levels will be carried by 14 gauge wire with no difference in sound.

But, running smaller wire will cause degradation of signal over distance. The happy medium is in the 14 gauge range...

When you go to a concert, if you've ever seen the cables attached to the speaker arrays, you'll see some huge multicables... BUT... inside those 'snakes', you'll find 14 and 12 gauge wire- and this is on a system that is designed to push 110 dB. The average run for those cables is 100 feet, which is farther than 90% of the home theater applications.


as for the AV cables... the only thing Monster, Tara, etc cables have to offer is shielding from outside noise, where the $2 cables don't have that.

But, on video cables, I'm really picky... Some video cables just plain suck (Monster video cables suck).


Packaging rocks on the name brand cables... You can get a 'rainbow' cable that is made for multichannel audio applications... It's not much better than a $2 AV cable, but it has a MUCH higher markup, and peofits ARE the name of the game, eh


(o, yeah.. btw... a quick qualifier on the concert thing... When i'm not doing home theaters, or lazing around being a slacka, I work for a concert lighting company based in San Francisco... i've been doing that for almost 20 years now)

Ahl,
There is some power. Crest 9001, Crown MA5000.
There is some WOOF for your subwoofers! Been there myself.
Let's see, 3000 watts at very high voltage and current ratings sent over 12 gauge SO cable.
Remember that impedence is a determining factor as well. The lower the impedence the higher the current.

My 375 horsepower 350 runs on 87 octane, but it kicks ass on 93 or higher. And it definitly sounds different.
If I wanted to always run 87 octane in it, then I wouldnt have spent the exTRA BUCKS ON the "goodies on the inside"
My point is that any high performance equipment (hot rod, audio, whatever) works best when all the right components are used. We have all heard the saying "its only as good as the weakest link"

Would I use "2.00 rca's on a walmart system, sure, would I use the same ones on a Krell system and B&W 802's? I dont think so.

My 2
cb1

There's one big difference, which even the hardiest of no-brand-name-wires afficionados will agree matters: the length of these wires. Inside the amp/receiver and speakers, the wires are, on average, maybe a foot or so long.

Often, high-end users place their amps near their spekers, even at the expense of long line-level interconnect cables. Why? V = E x R. Higher current causes greater voltage drop over a given resistance. Decrease the resistance, and higher current is required to cause a given voltage drop.


Absolutely. And the longer the hose, the more the extra diameter helps to reduce flow loss.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

I don't quite agree with this analogy. 87 and 93 octane are proven to perform differently in their intended application. A simple dyno test will show the difference. Try and find any way to reliably compare the audible difference in copper.

A speaker/interconnect cable represent a complex load on the driving amplifier consisting of resistance, capacitance, and inductance, the last two being frequency dependent. Any cable which inherently exhibits these qualities is going to alter the sound quality in some subtle or sometimes not so subtle way.

That is why the design with the best chance of success is where the designer has control of all three parts and designs a powered loudspeaker.

Dennis

Dennis

I was an audio technician, repairing all brands of stereos, long before I sold and installed them. As such, I was pretty skeptical of "high end" speaker wire. To a technician, wire is wire.

Later, we sold gear, and our sales rep for the speakers we sold gave me some monster speaker wire to try out.

I used one receiver, one CD, two identical pairs of speakers; the only difference was that one pair of speakers was fed by 18 gauge wire, the other by Monster cable.

There *WAS* a difference, and not subtle, but distinct. Definitely a better bottom end, which, since it is the high current part of the signal, I could have guessed. What surprised me THOROUGHLY is that the sound stage cleared up with the better cable -I could pick out where instruments were on the stage very distinctly, while the 18gauge was very muddy and indistinct. So I believe in BETTER cable but not necessarily $10/ft. cables. Remember, this is the extremely suspicious skeptic talking.

Next I tried interconnects. I honestly could not tell the difference in interconnects. However, I believe that anyone can benefit from better interconnects. The "emergency" cables that come in the box are prone to intermittents at the point the wire enters the plug, and they also oxidize over time.

Keep in mind, not everyone has the same level of discernment in sound. I think I have a pretty good ear. But, I also think there are a lot of people who have BETTER hearing than me.

My son is shopping for violins. He has played violins from $500 to $8500. I can tell differences in them, some are clearly not very good, but when I get to the good ones, I can't tell which is best. He takes them to his violin instructor who plays in about four different symphony orchestras, and she is ready to buy one and burn another, and it only takes a half a minute of playing in some cases to tell the difference. She has that better ear.

So, don't blow off the audio nut - I believe he hears things the rest of us don't. But don't be foolish enough to think a CAT5 can carry the current needed for good sound that a good grade speaker cable can.

=Tom

There are NO differences between >reasonably< decent cables and it has been proven a hundred times over. People can NEVER hear the differences they claim to hear in SCIENTIFIC double blind tests.

This message was edited by QQQ on 11/12/03 22:00.

Nevermind :-).

This message was edited by QQQ on 11/12/03 22:00.