Audio Cables: Why Every Self-Respecting Audiophile and Theater Buff Needs to Get Involved

What Every Audiophile Should Know and Never Forget

By Peter Aczel
Editor and Publisher

What is the number one determinant of sound quality in an audio system?
The recording you are playing, without the slightest doubt. The recording microphones, acoustical conditions, and engineering decisions at the recording site introduce much greater sonic variability than any hardware component in a half decent playback system. Buy well-recorded CDs.

What is the number two determinant?
The speaker system, again without the slightest doubt. Even the finest loudspeakers exhibit small irregularities in frequency response, the smaller the better but always audible. Significant differences in f³ (bass cutoff frequency), efficiency, power handling, distortion, wave launch geometry, and other characteristics result in easily distinguishable sonic signatures from model to model. This is a subject worth studying.

What is next in importance?
The listening room. So important, in fact, that it is hardly distinguishable from the quality of the speaker system itself. It would probably be more accurate to say that the speakers, the room, and the placement of the speakers within the room constitute a single system second in importance only to the program material.

For more on:

What about the amplifier?
What about the preamp, CD player, and other line-level electronics?
How important are wires and cables?
Where do vacuum tubes come in?

Click on the link below:
Paste This in Your Hat! - What Every Audiophile Should Know and Never Forget, Peter Aczel

High-end audio cables are touted as boosting the sound quality of high-fidelity audio systems. For sure, the cables will have an influence on any signal transmitted, since the audio signal passes through cables as it flows from the source to the amplifier, or from the amplifier to the speakers. Basic system frequency response can be computed based on electrical factors of the cables, and elements on both sides of the cables. These electrical factors are resistance, capacitance, and inductance. These are qualities that play decisive roles in the design of quality material cables for commercial and broadcast purposes. The pricier cables generally consist of exotic materials and engineering.

The Great High-End-Audio-Cable Fracas

Much contention among audiophiles has for its epicenter the net effect of high-end cables on audio systems. There are arguments that even audiophiles sometimes make mistakes in the quest for a superior listening; for example, in a double blind test it is almost far-fetched to differentiate astronomically priced, speaker cables from ordinary lamp cords or bargain 12AWG copper speaker wire.

Digital Cables

Digital cable design is not scot-free from the melee. High end cables are available together with marketing claims of "distortion-free signal transfer," thus ushering in many arguments to the contrary. Those in favor of this insist that since digital data transfers involve error correction, then any cable that can transfer bits naturally produces distortion free signals. The bit rates (about 1MBit/s) and distance covered by these cables are significantly lesser compared to other data transfer technologies such as gigabit ethernet.

Is there a way that this system can distort signals? Yes, according to one suggestion that says the timing signal is sent in analog form that if the wave is distorted by an incorrectly specified cable the incoming bits may be mismatched to a time bin, leading to distortion.

Consumers often ask when buying cables for their audio or video systems, "Why make a big fuss about cables anyway?" We all know by this time that these can be as expensive or more expensive than some of the hardware. To many, audio becomes too complicated since it seems all cables aren't created equal.

Let's try to dig first how audio cables function. There are two basic types of audio cables in your system. The first sort of cable is an interconnect, which is used to harmonize a variety of components (like a CD player to a receiver). The next type of cable is the loudspeaker cable, which is the wire from the receiver or amplifier to the speakers. Remember that both types carry the same data, but different amounts of energy. Interconnects bear a signal with minimal energy in it. These cables require an unremarkable stream of energy to send the information from the source, for example a CD player, to the amplifier. The low energy demand means that the signal in interconnects have very little current.

It is the opposite in the case of loudspeaker cables, on the other hand, because these field large amounts of energy. All of the energy needed to shift the speaker cones and make sound must go through the loudspeaker cables. This explains the high-energy needs in these cables and the relatively high current, which has a minimum of 10 amps.

Audio cables are a critical influence in communications because they can alter somehow the signal passing through them. Specifically, the cable itself may change the signal, or the cable may permit outside interference to affect the signal.

As stated earlier, interconnect cables bear an insignificant amount of current. As a percentage of the current, the voltage is quite big. Because of this current, capacitance is device, but not in the case of inductance. As the voltage shifts from being positive and negative, the capacitance weighs the voltage's shifting, causing delays. This can lead to audible distortion in the sound. Since interconnects carry low current, resistance is not much of a factor.

The signal in loudspeaker cables is practically the opposite of that of interconnects. Both cables have the same information, we've seen that, but in loudspeaker cables, the voltage is small and the current is large. The high current makes both resistance and inductance necessary in loudspeaker cables. With greater resistance comes greater a amount of energy that need to be borne by the cables. The resistance will not bring about any distortion, but it will pull down the volume of the sound, though. Inductance on the other hand, is a reason for distortion. As the current swings from being positive and negative, the inductance pushes down any current changes, thus being the reason for delays.

BUT will I hear the difference?

Cables do alter the sound going through them. Anybody will be able to hear and tell the difference, novice or not. Simply tuning in to your stereo will confirm this. If by shutting your eyes, it seems as if the music is NOT being played live right in front of you, it's already an insight into the fact that cables (among many other things) affect the fidelity of the sound. Of course, we hack this with some prudence: blame cannot just be passed on to the cables. Shaving and shaving away at the quality are some, if not every, component of your system. Making better the quality of your audio cables will raise the sound quality of your system, but as to how much quality is another long story.

Thus, no matter how much you spend on cables, the variations to the sound will be surprisingly (although it doesn't have to be, since this is a matter of physics :-) ) small. There will definitely be no outlandish things like musical instruments sounding like something else. However, a music lover will be quick to argue against the point of listening to something that, inadvertently mixed with a wee bit of another sound, is now producing an unbearable racket. From this type of grievances grows some very strong opinions about various cables.

From Peter Aczel's "The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio"

First: The Cable Lie

Logically, this is not the lie to start with because cables are accessories, not primary audio components. But this is the hugest, dirtiest, most cynical, most intelligence-insulting and, above all, most fraudulently profitable lie in audio, and therefore must go to the head the list.

The lie is that high priced speaker cables and interconnects sound better than the standard, run-of-the-mill (say Radio Shack) ones. It is a lie that has been exposed, shamed, and refuted over and over again by every genuine authority under the sun, but the tweako audio cultists hate authority and the innocents can't distinguish it from self-serving charlatanry.

The simple truth is that resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L and C) are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies. The signal has no idea whether it is being transmitted through cheap or expensive RLC. Yes, yu have to pay a little more than rock bottom for decent plugs, shielding, insulation, etc., to avoid reliability problems, and you have to pay attention to resistance in longer connections. In basic electrical performance, however, a nice pair of straightened-out wire cat hangers with the ends scraped is not a whit inferior to a $2000 gee-whiz miracle cable. Nor is a 16-gauge lamp cord at 18 cents a foot. Ultrahigh-priced cables are the biggest scam in consumer electronics, and cowardly surrender of nearly all audio publications to the pressures of the cable marketers is truly depressing to behold.

Click here for more of the other "Lies".