Thanks for having the balls to do this!😆 I became convinced 15 years ago that speaker cables make a difference, not when it comes to finesse, but on pure electrical properties and capabilities. I had the typical name brand 150watt receiver. It played nicely with a lamp cord equivalent wire from Monster. BUT, when I braided up a well known cat5 recipe (of high capacitance) the receiver choked and shutdown within a minute or so. Then I built a high power MOSFET amp. With the Monster wire the sound was decent, but a bit thin. When I put the cat5 on the MOSFET amp the sound was simply spectacular in every category. As I've built better and better equipment over the past decade it becomes easier to address finesse, and to be able to sculpt finer details with my wire choices.
Outstanding. You are among the rare few that qualitatively and quantitatively measure AND listen, and then even measure again. Thank you for your painstaking, scientific, and comprehensive approach to these tests 🙏
Brilliant work and insights Jaap. Now go take that holiday! I recently bought LHY SW-10 switches and connected everything with the top Finisar SFP units and wow, what an upgrade. Every single digital and analogue cable I change alters the sound clearly, so needs some experimentation.
Thanks for this huge effort, guys! love to follow your findings. I bought a few jmyears back the Qed xt 40 , nothing fancy , but a decent copper cable and it made a huge positive difference. That everyone can hear. Not that the old silver plated was a bad cable. Just did not suit that amp speaker combination.
To all concerned, thank you for your hard work. My small 13 x 11.5 ft room might have nine speakers and two musical subwoofers. However, my priority has always been to have an exceptionally quiet room! Hence, after changing all my analogue, digital, and even some power cables multiple times. For my listening room, the shielding of a cable takes priority. Looking forward to your findings. After a thoroughly deserved holiday, of course
I used to be an electronic tech that worked in a component test lab. I tested transformers and capacitors to the Nth degree. An interesting shootout would be a comparison between say electrostatics and cables, horns and cables, ribbons and the different cables to see if one cable sounds better with a different type of speaker, so your viewers can get an Idea which cable might be best for there system and ears.
Shooting that signal down through a freq variant transfer, ... encountering influential reactance of inductance on one side, capacitance on the other, plus voltage drop as a by product, ... Of course cables impact the signal. Simply look at a Heyser Spiral to see what the signal is up against. All that's just the cable! Add connectors and the potential for additional corruptive influence increases. Nice work Much appreciated
In my second audio system, with the computer as a source and my modified KEF Q100 coaxial loudspeakers in near field, I have been using Kimber Kable 8PR since 2012. I could not resist the offer of €7/m from a professional store in Barcelona. I noticed a great improvement in everything compared to normal 2.5mm oxygen-free ones, especially in the bass. I have them finished now with KácSa connectors, which is the Hungarian manufacturer behind Furutech, and much more affordable prices. KáCsa BP-6201BR - BFA. That GEOMETRY is crucial is well known, no surprise. What also seems to have a lot of influence is the coverage. POLYETHILENE in 8PR and 12PFR. The other geometry to consider is star-quad, but I suspect KK's is the best. Danny Richie (GR-Research) cables have the same geometry and polyethylene as KK PR. And its cables for the the speakers inside are also POLYETHILENE. 👉Danny Richie: Finally! DIY Audiophile Speaker Cable Kits! th-cam.com/video/DfjQJxeTANE/w-d-xo.html
I see the accuracy with which you share the detailed measurements, the influence of the quality components and the size of the cable, this is a lesson that we really need to take note of, thank you for all the enlightenment.
I changed from Van Damme Blue to Supra Ply 3.4 (non s) after 25 years of listening, and yes, the hights are not harsh any more, overall the muddiness is gone, I love it.
The only rime I heard a difference in speaker cables were after I changed my 20 years old cales to new ones.Probably because of the old speakers being oxidised over the years
i really appreciate all of the work put into this review process. i will admit the majority of this is beyond my level of understanding, but I do know from experience that speaker cables and inter-connects affect sound signatures. i have replaced/upgraded all of my cables in my own main 2.1 rig and definitely hear sonic "improvements", mainly the high frequencies have more 'air & sparkle' where I ended up going more "toe-out" to achieve a balance with the low-end which seems a little thinner than before. - or I'm just making it all up in my head.
My experience, in my system, is the opposite - interlinks have very little effect on sound quality and speaker cables have a huge effect. Thanks for the video.
Jaap, I haven’t read any of the comments (though I can easily guess what some will include) but I first wanted to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU for putting in such an extraordinary amount of time, effort and hard work to do all of this 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 Second, you look exhausted man! So please try not to be so hard on yourself and take that well deserved break and regain your energy. Finally, I know you say you don’t care, but I can see it in your face that it must get to you (at least a little bit) when you get moronic comments from blinkered haters, especially when you’ve just put so, so much hard work into doing this, and sharing the fruits of your labour with all of us (for free!). People must remember that they’re not paying you for your time or for the privilege of sharing the knowledge you’re putting out there, which is there to be gained by anyone listening with an open mind - whatever decisions they may come to for themselves. Respect is so, so important - even for the people you maybe don’t agree with. We can all learn something from anyone, even if that isn’t the same as what you’re told. It would be a pretty dull and less productive World to live in if people stopped sharing knowledge for fear of having to deal with a deluge of unreasonable, disrespectful or hateful comments directed at them for their efforts! Anyway, I know you already know this - but it does no harm to remind everyone. Take good care Jaap and thanks again 👍
I have had very good experiences with Vovox and DNM reson cables. I bought used speaker cables for 35 euros and RCA cables, also for 35 Euros. Sounds better than Kimber VS!!! Very spectacular! Solid core "bell wire". Thanks for your wonderful videos! Greetings from Bavaria
When I swapped my mismatched braided copper, clear jacket speaker cables with Mediabridge Ultra 12AWG cables from Amazon i noticed a definite tonal change - seemed the whole frequency range lowered (more bass,. less shrilly highs). Even if makes no difference, I decided to do the same with my subwoofer cables - 2 different brands and thicknesses - again with identical Mediabridge Ultra subwoofer cables. Just though symmetry would be helpful. I should get them tomorrow morning. $20k is more than I make in a year. I wouldn't buy those unless (even if) I won the lottery! I have a mixed 7.2.4 system with Polk satellite surrounds and Klipsch everything else. Not high end, but I really enjoy what I have.
Good Work!! My personal experience I clip connectors and and go bare wire. Who knows what connector are made out of .( It's always a negative impact on sound) Interlinks are connector failure point prone as well. And proper shields as which in is terminated and how.
It’s not the matter of whether the cable makes difference or not. Because it does (better or worse). What matters is whether that price of the cable makes sense to that difference. Also as more expensive sound systems you have, the more likely you will end up with fancy looking cable which has gold and silver inside. 😅 You don’t expect a ferrari owner to use cheap 17” rims… You don’t have to spend much money on cables at all to enjoy audio. But it does affect.
Why I reckon cables and interconnects would sound different: I build speakers and design crossovers and I found that directly twisted crossover part connections sound better than soldered connections. And indirect wired and twisted connections (with standard cabling) sounds different again. Soldered joints sounds more "scratchy" in the top end and twisted cabling between the parts sounds a bit too "wissy" for me, not klangy enough. But directly twisted crossover parts connection sounds great and well balanced in the top end. Sounds really transparent (the naked sound). All my speakers have that (except if I want an effect or the components won't reach each other). My crossovers don't have many parts and if I make it with 3 separate groups (woofer, medrange and tweeter) (of a few parts each) I can get away with (contorted) directly twist-connected parts. And only solder the tip of the twist (that is 1 cm long) so the signal bipasses the solder. 😅 I love the sound, I have a NAD C356BEE amp and an Adiolab 6000A amp and some B&W 706 bookshelf speakers, and a few pairs of my made speakers, point source open driver speakers with a big fat 10" woofer (in the box). They are point source from 300 hz up, and dipole! Sounds come from nowhere and the image is on steroids! I built open FR plus woofer speakers and open 10" coaxials plus 10" woofer speakers. 😅
I have a sophisticated system my sound is cristal clear, everything you would expect from linier power to audiophile Silver plated interconnects. You sound like a right person to ask, although I already love my sound my speaker cables are more the 99p variety. I think I am more in the Market for Expensive Copper than silver etc. Do you have any advice for Premade cables between my Prima Luna Integrated valve Amp (6 Ohm output into Focal Aria Speakers.
Appreciate the time & effort put into your testing. Would really like to see the same effort put into blind A+B testing of cables against each other. Not trying to invalidate anything you did, just not convinced in a blind test there will be a statistically significant percentage of people whom can identify difference between cheap & expensive speaker cable. However, it's an individuals right to spend their money on whatever makes them happy... 😴
When will the simple realisation take post that it is (a) a hobby and (b) only applicable to people who have an interest in the matter. That part of the population is the part that is of interest, the rest is kind of moot if they can hear a difference or not. It proves nothing. Furthermore: we don't do "scientific tests" nor do we pretend we do. Also: what stops you or anyone else suggesting tests we should do to perform themselves? Get two cables, gather a group of people, execute according to the protocol that you think is a proper test. You do not need anything special: a streamer, an internet connection, an amplifier and a pair of speakers. That's all. I'm intrigued by that, why should we have to do this?
I used to spend a fortune on Monster cables for my home audio, now I use powered Monitors exclusively with line level voltages as they sound considerably better than “speakers” connected via thick cables from a massive power amps. I went from 50 ft or so of huge Monster cable from power source to about 4-6 inches internal power source. I’m now a Genelec consumer (8351B + 7350A) with GLM/SAM for room calibration … considering many mixing studios where the recordings are made use Genelec GLM/SAM I get as close to the original mix as possible. However, I also doing video/audio work and play various keyboards/synths (KORG Pa5X, NI). I use Mogami line level cables exclusively. For mix compares I do have Sen HD650 going to a Rupert Neve headphone amp.
@@robainscough monitors are for producing not listening. you don't hear it as it was intended to be heard, you hear it as the audio engineer heard it for his purposes (aka to make it sound a certain way on normal/audiophile speakers). to each his own though
Thank you for a fine and serious initiative. I have more or less given up on finding the solution, but have gathered a lot of experience about which materials sound good, have lifelike sound and a realistic sound image etc.,eJ I optimise my parasitic components, which are everywhere in our devices and cables. The sound signature issue applies not only to cables but to all passive components. An alternative way to find differences could be to measure all the data we know from capacitors, coils and resistors etc. instead of looking for measurable changes in the signal from the whole cable. However, the mystery remains how these parasitic components cause such large changes in what we hear We can measure precision but not sound signature timbre soundstage rhythm fidelity, but using the right materials for parasitic components and components in general can make the sound more natural along with the construction, whose precision we can easily measure, it's harder to measure everything that really matters timbre soundstage fidelity rhythm , that we can only experience. Added: I recommend that instead of the usual hi-fi parameters evaluate whether a violin, piano, organ etc. sounds more or less natural and has the right size in the soundstage, that's what hi-fi is all about, but it requires a high quality unmanipulated music recording produced with few microphones and that is not easy to find. On the other hand, sound differences will be more apparent than in typical hi-fi recordings.
question with the noise what are we looking at ? 2 pictures of a scope without scale , the measurement are only good with a reference of what we are looking at.
Amazing work. Thank you so much for this! I love you guys! I'm wondering if you would consider reducing the sample size to maybe just 2 of your favorites and 2 of your least favorites (the most different sounding cables)and doing all those extra phase measurements you mentioned.
Great work..I have had Cheap and expensive..Very little difference in sound.If you want silence..Interconnects do make a difference..But ..If there is one area to focus on it's the preamp..use a quality passive preamp!..You will be amazed .In the end ..I'd rather spend the extra money for cables on good quality Vinyl...>Enjoy the music!
That’s also my experience that the impact of speaker cables mostly isn’t as high as it oftentimes is with interconnects. Nevertheless speaker cables DO matter as well. It shouldn’t be the weakest link in the chain.
The cables that made the most jaw dropping improvement in my system were the older Spectral Ultralinear II MH 770 speaker cables made for Spectral by MIT. The company MIT has recently come out with a $100,000 speaker cable, which has bass, midrange and treble controls on a box connected to the cables themselves.The guy on here that often reviews 6 figure $$ equipment, will be reviewing it. With the measurements now presented for all to see, this is what cable doubters were asking for forever, and the fact that there wasn't anyone trying to prove with measurements that cables can sound different, gave them their basis for.their argument. Most of them have their "theories", and don't even need to listen to cables...What will they think now, or does it really matter? Will they hide in the woodwork or come out with their dissenting opinions?
@@sidesup8286 MIT has mostly the same theory as Transparent. I reviewed a couple of them... Interesting stuff. But not really my sound to be honest. I guess it has to fit your system.
Eventually I returned the cable, as the Spectral by MIT cable was just too overloaded with warmth for my system. The overriding warmth went way into the treble. Bright sounding Columbia recordings sounded great, but too much of my collection sounded too warm. warm.The cable was amazing in every other way though. Including very black quietness and instruments sounding near 50% bigger & bass extending well down below what the speakers low frequency spec was. Tellurium is a very good cable.They claim advancements in phase response and everything does sound like it has more focus. There are battery pack items that run on 2 AA batteries which you can let the wires contact the outer sheathing of the cable. The sound gets a little sweeter and warmer. Supra Sword interconnect is the interconnect that made the biggest difference as far as interconnect cables.go.
Sometimes it’s better to not have all interconnects from the same line. I for instance am REALLY happy with an (old) Transparent Reference XL between my CD-Player and my preamp and a Stealth Indra between pre and power amp (both balanced/ XLR).
Why not simply a table with an inductance ranking? If you would have done so, you would have find out, that the Kimber 8TC has the lowest inductance -at least of the cables you use. So the Kimber 8 TC makes lesser signal degeneration than the other cables. You can also use old 36 string computer cable (Belden 2501?) and cross connect it. This would make even better inductance results.
It does makes a difference. I swapped 16 awg lamp cord for 12. Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers
The only reliable comparison and opinion regarding audio is a double blind experiment. Whenever someone does one, the result is that noone can hear such differences, like cables, or even normally functioning hifi components.
The connectors matter far more than the cable as long as the cable is copper which is the standard now anyways. If you have concerns upgrade the RCA connectors then stop thinking about it.
Yes, we are talking about a distance of 2 meters which is nothing. The most important upgrade you can do is is changing to balances outputs and inputs, like we use in recording studios. Then the only thing to be concerned about is the shielding, and a sommer Cable Galileo for example will be perfect.
I'm all-in on exploring what really matters when it comes to accurate and emotionally-moving music reproduction. I'm a drummer/percussionist and saxophone musician. So, from the MUSIC RECORDING & PRODUCTION viewpoint, I think it might be revealing and telling to pose, or AT LEAST CONSIDER & CONTEMPLATE, the following questions and information. From my many years of being a musician, IME, the Professional audio Recording/Mixing/Mastering Engineers that Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually LISTEN TO (including "audiophile" recordings) would use an *EQ* or other studio equipment to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR any other desirable effect or change in sonic quality or sonic character of the music they are creating/producing. Essentially NONE of these professionals would "SWAP" or "Change" their Speaker Cables OR Power Cables to do this, or to "lower the distortion and noise floor". Go look behind the Multitudes of inter-connected rack-mount studio gear in any of the most respected and revered pro studios, including their very expensive multi-channel studio-grade ADCs, DACs, and precision Master Word Clocks, and you will find that ALL of this gear is connected to the AC Mains power using the Generic UL/CE/NEMA listed & approved Power Cable that was Supplied By The Manufacturer. In my many years I have NEVER seen a studio or recording engineer use any type of "special" or "exotic" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables. @AlphaAudio Jaap, I'm curious what type of power cable Eelco Grimm provides with the Grimm Audio MU2??? For all of the EXTENSIVE research, design, and engineering that was put into producing and manufacturing such a high-end and expensive component, do you think Eelco would purposely sacrifice or "Gimp" its performance by supplying it with a "basic" off-the-shelf IEC power cable? SPOILER!: Look at the internal product photos of this unit on the Grimm Audio website. This unit is shown with a generic CE/IEC/NEMA AC power socket on the back panel. Now look at the INTERNAL Power Wiring that is connected to the internal PSU at the side corner of the blue PCB. Surprise! It's your basic off-the-shelf power cable and wiring...not braided, not oversized, not silver conductors, and no special shielding, etc. ...BASIC "off-the-shelf" power cord and wire! THEN take a look at the USB connection! For THIS type of device, this particular cable SHOULD BE of the Upmost Importance, correct??? And yet, Eelco chose a basic/standard 26 AWG USB cable...AND it isn't even "hard-wired" to the USB socket/jack on the back of the unit! The rear-panel USB jack has another USB Type-B female jack on the Inside that a separate, STANDARD and basic male USB Type-B "printer cable" is plugged into! I don't know of ANY other high-end device where I would think uber high-end cables would be chosen and absolutely necessary, yet they are clearly off-the-shelf and "nothing special"! There are usually Tens to Hundreds of studio-grade AC-powered equipment in any professional studio, and for some strange reason [/s], 99.9% of them don't believe that changing the power cables OR speaker cables will improve their performance or sound. Hmmmm? What do they all KNOW that we don't??? Honest question: IF the professional engineers that Record & Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually Listen To do not "swap" their speaker cables or power cables in order to achieve some sort of "synergy" or a particular sound characteristic in the music, should YOU as a listener bother to do this or worry about this??? In addition, roughly 90% of music is now produced using Active, Self-Powered Studio Monitor systems with Built-In Class D amplification (OMG!) where there are ZERO external speaker cables that can be swapped. AND, those Active, Powered Professional Studio Monitors are connected to the AC Mains using the manufacturer-supplied GENERIC POWER CABLE. So where does that leave this debate??? For example, quite a few respected Mastering Engineers use the *Kii Audio Three* active/powered/DSP monitoring system, or other similar industry-standard active studio monitors that have built-in amplification. NONE that I know or have seen have ever used anything but the supplied AC power cables, and they obviously can't and don't feel the need to change the internal speaker wiring. In fact, the manufacturers of these Multiple Thousand $$$$$ studio monitors would probably void the warranty IF they found that the speaker wiring had been changed by the user. I would guess [sic] that MOST mastering engineers probably have pretty d@mn good ears and are Trained or have learned "how to listen" and how to evaluate or judge the Sound Quality to a much higher degree than most common listeners. Many of the best engineers are musicians themselves and obviously play/perform with many other musicians who play ALL TYPES of instruments. Therefore they KNOW exactly how most acoustic instruments sound in REAL LIFE and IF what they are hearing out of their Calibrated Monitors is Lifelike, or NOT. ;) In addition, tracking (recording) engineers have the live musicians and their actual instruments in the studio as a direct reference. But again, [for SOME reason] the ACTUAL RECORDING PROFESSIONALS and MUSICIANS do NOT feel the need or choose to use "special" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables. Try this: Pick your favorite and best sounding album or recording, then look up who the tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers were that worked on the recording(s) and ask each of them, "What Power Cables Do You Use"? They'll most likely respond with a funny and perplexed look on their face, LOL, like "WTF?". Sure, SOME of them MAY have a preference for using certain balanced XLR microphone or signal cables, but you will find that the vast majority are "okay" with using standard Mogami or similar "basic" brand-name cables. HOWEVER, ALL of these studio engineering Professionals DO use MANY different types (and multiple instances of) EQUALIZATION in order to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR to achieve any other desired sonic characteristic. And yet, the majority of "audiophools" still think that EQ is evil and/or always detrimental. 🤷♂
Wish you had included Furutech's DSS 4.1 cable also, but I know they are hard to get a testsample from.. I've tried a lot of speakercables, but the DSS 4.1 is superior to all others I've ever heard 😊
They'll find their way here soon enough. I wish I had made videos years ago when I had my store. All the time, I used to get, "I'm and EE, or I'm a recording engineer.". I used to trick them and it was the funniest thing you've ever seen. I had a cable demo set up on a CD player that had 2 identical outputs. Each output got a pair of cables that went to different inputs on a preamp. To AB them, all you had to do was select the inputs using the remote. When I told them they were listening to the same cable, except one was silver and the other was copper, they could hear no difference. (Even though the look on their face said otherwise.). They said they could hear differences between amps and preamps, so I went behind the equipment and told them I was switching amps. I didn't change a thing. I just played the exact same cable demo, but now they could hear the differences. And to make it worse, I wrote down the audible differences between the 2 cables on an index card. I handed them the card and told them they just described the audible differences between copper and silver cables, and they did a really good job because their comments always matched the description on the index card. "That doesn't count, you tricked me!". I lost count how many times I got that response. I always gave them the same answer. That's exactly what a placebo in an abx test is used for. They ran out of the store like Forrest Gump..
I am an electrical engineer. I've worked with digital and analog electronics for some time. With that said, I'm not sure how that's relevant to someone's ability to perceive the difference between different wiring used to interconnect a given amplifier to a given set of speakers. Yes, speakers are a reactive load with a variable impedance and phase shift depending on the frequency and, most importantly, the amplifier is somewhat ignorant of the load. Specifically, the amp is usually made by one company, with the speakers made by another, so each manufacturer has no knowledge of the specifics of the other that will be used in a given HiFi setup. In other words, the amp will have no knowledge of and therefore limited ability to compensate for the dynamics of the speakers it is driving. The question therefore is how does cables help with the situation. All cables will have some level of inductance which could add or counteract the impendence effect of the speaker, but it seems like the impedance would have to be significant and would likely just make the situation worse. There are extremely expensive cables with passive electronic components built in that seem to be designed to somewhat load the cable with reactive components, but that seems diffulct for it to be truly effective when it wasn't designed for a specific speaker load. At the end of the day it comes down to what difference a cable makes that the listener can actually hear and, to me, the only way to effectively test that is double-blind testing.
Doing a double blind blind test with commercial consumer oriented speaker cable is impossible (I leave it up to the reader to figure out why), plus double blind testing might be a validated way of testing in the pharmaceutical world, but it cannot be translated into audio research 1:1. I always have to laugh really loud when people put out statements like these. Do all dear commenters realise that listening to music using HiFi equipment is a hobby? And do you also realise that whether you believe that any part in that HiFi set you own makes a difference or not has zero impact on the enjoyment of another person? Lastly, it is not our purpose on this planet to convince you of anything. You either can read the article, watch the listening video’s we put out and make up your own mind, or you don’t. But whatever mental processes are going on in the minds of people to vehemently tell us we are a bunch of idiots and feel the need to tell us that we cannot hear what we hear beats me. It is not like you or us are saving the planet, it is listening to music and see how we can optimise that listening experience. And if you do it another way, good for you, enjoy. That’s all there is to it. Honestly.
Bedankt voor jullie moeite en het delen hiervan👍 Wat een hoop werk moet dat geweest zijn👌 Het Audioquest DBS "systeem" voegt nadelige invloed uit op het signaal volgens Audioholics...
I want to share my experience and a question: I have had the same speakers since 2001 and used very cheap cables. My speakers can be bi-wired and since I had enough speaker cable I decided to bi-wire the speakers, coming from one outlet of the amplifier. To my amazement the sound improved a lot. Jaap stated that a low impedance is very important and by doubling the cables I lowered the impedance. Could this be the reason why the sound improved? It was still the same cheap cable. Now I have proprietary speaker cables which sound again much better than the cheap ones, so I am happy.
The average speaker voice coil contains about 100 feet of very fine wire, which is somewhere between 28 and 36 gauge, depending on the speaker. Then, there are multiple drivers, a crossover network and the speaker cable. The load seen by the amplifier is the sum of the above. Putting a multi thousand dollar "fire hose" cable at the front of this load does very little, if anything at all, to affect the sound. The giant cable represents a tiny fraction of the load seen by the amp. "High End" cables are a marketing ploy, pure and simple, and not an honest one at that.
Are you sure about that? You might want to run your numbers again and what a poor cable and connectors can do to the damping factor/output impedance on say a Purifi Eigentakt.
Thank you for the test and it clarifies for me how some of the differences I hear correlate with measurements. What about power cables? In my experience over the years they can make more of a difference to the final sound than any other cable. I'd be interested in your results if you did such a test.
I recently cleaned the twin fuses in my vintage 1980s amplifier with alcohol. alcohol.Made a huge improvement. No reason to think premium fuses wouldn't do the same thing. Anything in the signal path leaves. it's mark.
@@TheAlphaAudiosome people think lower mass of a connector makes an audible difference - think of those hollow bananas out of sheet metal and made only for soldering vs those very solid WBTs or Furutechs with 2 bolts to fix the cable and a mechanism that enables tightening of the plug in the socket, overall probably 10x the mass of the hollow banana. In the world of high frequency electronics (MHz, GHz), an unnecessarily large lump of solder can influence characteristics impedance (I suppose by creating a discontinuity in impedance along the line), thus causing unwanted reflection. Really not sure whether there is any relevance in LF audio; having said that, all our systems play in the presence of HF EMag. fields, and everything becomes an antenna and picks up noise, so that a low impedance ground connection in HF sense is perhaps a good thing to have.
I found this helpful when trying to understand cables if you research Quantum electrodynamics it explains a lot of what happens in a conductor write down to cable burning being a real thing. Best of all this is real science that proves cables to make a difference. It's a very very good read but heavy with it being quantum dynamics
I would have thought that shielding was less important for speaker cable than it is for RCA cables (interconnects) owing to the proximity of RCA cables to other electrical equipment and other cables, especially power cables.
I can only praise your willingness to do all this testing. Mainly because the differences are small, even insignificant for most users, most of them do not even hear the differences. One is the tests, and the other is the use of the same cables in a home hi-fi system... where everyone has different hi-fi devices, room acoustics and also hearing abilities.
Everyone I know hears differences. I've had people who didnt even have audio gear, hear differences in cables demonstrated in my home. I can't even listen to my system without my preferred cables in place.
Is 40% to 50% improvement small or insignificant? Name an amp, or preamp that gives you that much improvement? 5% improvement is subtle but clearly audible. That's 5% times around 10. Even way less than that is a whole new listening experience.
Yeah, true, cable matters, I found out too and that sucks. Started using Wisa wireless system (Buchardt in my case) few years back, and I think I will stick with wireless in the future... XD Funny thing is providing clean power to the Wisa hub can still improve audio quality too, man, PCM really is some hard to deal with ancient tech.
Yeah... Wireless would be a solution. Active speakers as well. Power always has a great impact. Especially on digital. I guess it has to do with clocking/jitter.
@@TheAlphaAudio Do you purchase multiple copies of a single digital release to find the best sounding one? If protocols do not seem to work with digital interconnects, why would they with pretty much anything else.
I've discovered that I am not an audiophile. It seems the prevalent orthodoxy is for big, transparent, and detailed performance, which to my ears is very thin sounding. I prefer a more fleshy and cohesive sound. To each his own.
The interconnect, power, and speaker cables operate differently in the system. Their impact on the system can vary because of the signal path. Generally for analog cables, the choice of conducting material, design of geometry, gauge size, impedance of the connectors and insulation have to be clearly selected to provide clarity, balance, and noise reduction of the sound signal and quality in different aspects: Tonality - manufacturers choose 7N copper or 5N silver as the conductor because of low resistance, but they can sound very different. Silver provides a crisp sound and good detail in the upper range, but it can sound bright when paired with monitor speakers such as B&W with diamond tweeter, whereas copper can sound a bit warm with bloated bass with English speakers. Companies like Siltech use silver wires with gold blended in, which gives a tonal balance that neither pure silver or copper can give. Noise level - the purity of the conductor is crucial to the clarity, otherwise the speakers would lose the detail in the music. As for power cord or speaker cables that transmit a lot of current with increased electromagnetic wave, the insulation layers have to be thickened to avoid interference from the surrounding. Think of a long transmission wire that becomes like an antenna in the listening environment, which can pick up a lot of radio signals in the air. Loss in detail - the connector material and impedance are also important for a cable as a signal transmission line. If the impedance of the connector or the material does not match, it can cause deflection or distortion of the sound signal, which will result in loss in detail. Some of you might have experienced this when using cheap spade or banana plugs at the speaker terminals. Interconnect vs Speaker cables - both are critical to the sound quality in a different way. The interconnect cable connects between the source (turntable or CD player) and the pre-amp, or between the pre-amp and power amp. If the quality of the interconnect cable is poor, the noise and distortion will be amplified by the pre-amp and the power amp, resulting in poor sound quality. The speaker cables carry both the power and the amplified signal to the speakers. A high powered system requires high quality speaker cables because the current is high especially at low impedance, be it 4 ohms or even 1 ohm. Any impure conductor with high resistance can lower the output power and cause the loss of details. It will get worse as the cable gets longer. Power cable - it tends to be more critical for a power amp with over 200w output per channel, because the amplifier would require up to 500w of power at high volume. People may not notice the amount of electromagnetic wave that is flowing through and around the power cable when the amplifier draws a lot of current from the power supply at home. If the source power is not clean and the cable is not good enough, the amplifier can longer function properly in delivering the amplified signal to drive the speakers. As a general advice, the owner of the system should evaluate the proper cost of the cables with respect to the quality as well as the power requirement of the components. In some cases, the user may need to try different cables in order to adjust to the tonality of the system.
Wow, that's a lot of words expressing "I have no idea about physics". For example: the noise floor of a speaker cable (home improvement store variety) is barely even measurable. Around 140dB signal to noise ratio. Improving that will do exactly zero. The "tonality" of a cable is also something that can't be measured. People tried! All cables at reasonable living room length have a perfectly flat frequency response, just as you'd expect from a piece of fucking wire. This only changes when we're talking about concert hall lengths.
@@ropeburn6684 Have you not heard about transmission line impedance and electromagnetic interference? These are both studied in introductory courses in physics and electrical engineering.
@@StereoDemo-t9b Transmission line effects are important for RF transmission over great length. For a few meters of cable transmitting really low frequency signals (aka audio), that's completely irrelevant. Ohhhh my cheap 3 meter RCA cable has a roll off after 100kHz! Boohoo I need better and more expensive cables! 😂
What was your favorite cable under 1000 that is good for taming sibilance. Been testing speaker cables all month over here. I felt the same way thinking that the speaker cable would make a bigger difference than an interconnect and I was wrong :))
It would be helpful to include the descriptions of the differences you heard instead of just stating they sounded dramatically different. Please make another video letting people know what sound characteristics change with cable swapping . So that way they can now understand what to listen for. 😊
I have a r8 tube amp a freya plus and hifi rose. Changing interconnects from the silver ribbon I had made a huge improvement. I thought I had good speaker wires going to my Verity speakers I made them. Then I got zu audio speaker wires, the improvement was better than adding any of the gear mentioned including expensive Tubes for the amps.
Very good test and video. But I don't want to give a leg or arm for cables. I think spending 50% of your sound system's total on cables is a good investment.
The day you can tell which cable is what in a blind test, I can spend sick money on cables, so far decent cheap cables in good quality will do the job fantastically, I choose to listen with my ears rather than my brain; )
Interesting research! I didn't believe in cable making a difference until i tried few cables and some made a really big influence! System was very entry level also. So from my experience with my system (had maybe 10-15 cables in last 20y), most cables don't make a big or any difference, but few do.
Think of conductors as a prism that separates an electromagnetic wave into a spectrum of frequencies. The structure and composition of the prism affects the speed and dynamic range of each frequency.
Thank you! Pay attention to cables Acoustic Revive. The light bulb converts the electromagnetic wave only into the visible and heating part of the spectrum, the entire complexity of perception by our brain
First of all, I recommend the ACOUSTIC REVIVE AC-TRIPLE C 4800 power supply without screen. Length 2 meters 500 hours of warm-up, you won’t regret getting into another dimension!
@@TheAlphaAudio thanks very much for the speedy reply, much appreciated. my concern is I will end up with a 4m coil of spare cable with the shorter run which cannot be great
Great work. Unfortunately, the lower part of the the impedance/phase vs frequency graphs are quite dark, making it sometimes very difficult to read the legend.
@@TheAlphaAudio I was referring to the article. Take, e.g., Audioquest. The legend has 11 entries with different shades of dark greens and blues. Due to dark gray background, I found it hard to see which is which.
Where can I hire a nerd to just tell me which cables are best for my stereo? lol this is insanely complcated, my entire stereo is only around $10k end to end including all sources and speakers. I hovering aroudn Cardas Clear Sky for like $600 for speaker wires. Thoughts?
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Getting my popcorn ready for this comment section. 🍿😂
Thanks for having the balls to do this!😆 I became convinced 15 years ago that speaker cables make a difference, not when it comes to finesse, but on pure electrical properties and capabilities.
I had the typical name brand 150watt receiver. It played nicely with a lamp cord equivalent wire from Monster. BUT, when I braided up a well known cat5 recipe (of high capacitance) the receiver choked and shutdown within a minute or so. Then I built a high power MOSFET amp. With the Monster wire the sound was decent, but a bit thin. When I put the cat5 on the MOSFET amp the sound was simply spectacular in every category. As I've built better and better equipment over the past decade it becomes easier to address finesse, and to be able to sculpt finer details with my wire choices.
The MOSFET was first patented 99 years ago.
That sounds fair, but Cat5 isn't 20k for a pair lol. Only a fool would pay 20k for speaker cables.
Outstanding. You are among the rare few that qualitatively and quantitatively measure AND listen, and then even measure again. Thank you for your painstaking, scientific, and comprehensive approach to these tests 🙏
Scoentific;)
Brilliant work and insights Jaap. Now go take that holiday! I recently bought LHY SW-10 switches and connected everything with the top Finisar SFP units and wow, what an upgrade. Every single digital and analogue cable I change alters the sound clearly, so needs some experimentation.
Great work! Really appriciate your efforts to bring some light to the cable discussions ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Welcome
Thanks for this huge effort, guys! love to follow your findings. I bought a few jmyears back the Qed xt 40 , nothing fancy , but a decent copper cable and it made a huge positive difference. That everyone can hear. Not that the old silver plated was a bad cable. Just did not suit that amp speaker combination.
To all concerned, thank you for your hard work.
My small 13 x 11.5 ft room might have nine speakers and two musical subwoofers. However, my priority has always been to have an exceptionally quiet room! Hence, after changing all my analogue, digital, and even some power cables multiple times. For my listening room, the shielding of a cable takes priority.
Looking forward to your findings. After a thoroughly deserved holiday, of course
The findings are already online. Posted on the website.
I used to be an electronic tech that worked in a component test lab. I tested transformers and capacitors to the Nth degree. An interesting shootout would be a comparison between say electrostatics and cables, horns and cables, ribbons and the different cables to see if one cable sounds better with a different type of speaker, so your viewers can get an Idea which cable might be best for there system and ears.
I find electrostatic headphones to be very transparent of everything in the audio signal chain, I use them to hear differences in analogue cables
And valve components vs transister.
Shooting that signal down through a freq variant transfer, ... encountering influential reactance of inductance on one side, capacitance on the other, plus voltage drop as a by product, ...
Of course cables impact the signal.
Simply look at a Heyser Spiral to see what the signal is up against.
All that's just the cable!
Add connectors and the potential for additional corruptive influence increases.
Nice work
Much appreciated
In my second audio system, with the computer as a source and my modified KEF Q100 coaxial loudspeakers in near field, I have been using Kimber Kable 8PR since 2012. I could not resist the offer of €7/m from a professional store in Barcelona. I noticed a great improvement in everything compared to normal 2.5mm oxygen-free ones, especially in the bass. I have them finished now with KácSa connectors, which is the Hungarian manufacturer behind Furutech, and much more affordable prices. KáCsa BP-6201BR - BFA.
That GEOMETRY is crucial is well known, no surprise. What also seems to have a lot of influence is the coverage. POLYETHILENE in 8PR and 12PFR. The other geometry to consider is star-quad, but I suspect KK's is the best.
Danny Richie (GR-Research) cables have the same geometry and polyethylene as KK PR. And its cables for the the speakers inside are also POLYETHILENE.
👉Danny Richie: Finally! DIY Audiophile Speaker Cable Kits!
th-cam.com/video/DfjQJxeTANE/w-d-xo.html
If I ever buy new cables, they'll be from Danny.
I see the accuracy with which you share the detailed measurements, the influence of the quality components and the size of the cable, this is a lesson that we really need to take note of, thank you for all the enlightenment.
Welcome!
An absolute heroic undertaking,, pfhhhh,, 🤪
Thank you ever so much for your time and work,, 💖🙏💖
I changed from Van Damme Blue to Supra Ply 3.4 (non s) after 25 years of listening, and yes, the hights are not harsh any more, overall the muddiness is gone, I love it.
The only rime I heard a difference in speaker cables were after I changed my 20 years old cales to new ones.Probably because of the old speakers being oxidised over the years
i really appreciate all of the work put into this review process. i will admit the majority of this is beyond my level of understanding, but I do know from experience that speaker cables and inter-connects affect sound signatures. i have replaced/upgraded all of my cables in my own main 2.1 rig and definitely hear sonic "improvements", mainly the high frequencies have more 'air & sparkle' where I ended up going more "toe-out" to achieve a balance with the low-end which seems a little thinner than before. - or I'm just making it all up in my head.
My experience, in my system, is the opposite - interlinks have very little effect on sound quality and speaker cables have a huge effect. Thanks for the video.
Thank you for all your good work. Sincerely, Ivan
Nice work again! 👍🏻
I am very satisfied with the Kimber 8PR for years now.
@@Grue_ni nice cable. Very calm sound.
Jaap, I haven’t read any of the comments (though I can easily guess what some will include) but I first wanted to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU for putting in such an extraordinary amount of time, effort and hard work to do all of this 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌
Second, you look exhausted man! So please try not to be so hard on yourself and take that well deserved break and regain your energy.
Finally, I know you say you don’t care, but I can see it in your face that it must get to you (at least a little bit) when you get moronic comments from blinkered haters, especially when you’ve just put so, so much hard work into doing this, and sharing the fruits of your labour with all of us (for free!). People must remember that they’re not paying you for your time or for the privilege of sharing the knowledge you’re putting out there, which is there to be gained by anyone listening with an open mind - whatever decisions they may come to for themselves. Respect is so, so important - even for the people you maybe don’t agree with. We can all learn something from anyone, even if that isn’t the same as what you’re told. It would be a pretty dull and less productive World to live in if people stopped sharing knowledge for fear of having to deal with a deluge of unreasonable, disrespectful or hateful comments directed at them for their efforts! Anyway, I know you already know this - but it does no harm to remind everyone. Take good care Jaap and thanks again 👍
Thank you for your kind words. Appreciate it!
He is correct. Speakers don't work very well without cables. If you pay more than 100 per pair you're mad.
Great overview of cables and really fascinating to hear how different types of cables measure and sound.
I have had very good experiences with Vovox and DNM reson cables. I bought used speaker cables for 35 euros and RCA cables, also for 35 Euros. Sounds better than Kimber VS!!! Very spectacular! Solid core "bell wire". Thanks for your wonderful videos! Greetings from Bavaria
Welcome!
When I swapped my mismatched braided copper, clear jacket speaker cables with Mediabridge Ultra 12AWG cables from Amazon i noticed a definite tonal change - seemed the whole frequency range lowered (more bass,. less shrilly highs). Even if makes no difference, I decided to do the same with my subwoofer cables - 2 different brands and thicknesses - again with identical Mediabridge Ultra subwoofer cables. Just though symmetry would be helpful. I should get them tomorrow morning. $20k is more than I make in a year. I wouldn't buy those unless (even if) I won the lottery! I have a mixed 7.2.4 system with Polk satellite surrounds and Klipsch everything else. Not high end, but I really enjoy what I have.
Good Work!! My personal experience I clip connectors and and go bare wire.
Who knows what connector are made out of .( It's always a negative impact on sound)
Interlinks are connector failure point prone as well.
And proper shields as which in is terminated and how.
Thank you guys for your work & efforts, it is much appreciated. I hope you have a great break away from all this testing
Thanks!
It’s not the matter of whether the cable makes difference or not. Because it does (better or worse). What matters is whether that price of the cable makes sense to that difference.
Also as more expensive sound systems you have, the more likely you will end up with fancy looking cable which has gold and silver inside. 😅
You don’t expect a ferrari owner to use cheap 17” rims…
You don’t have to spend much money on cables at all to enjoy audio. But it does affect.
Why I reckon cables and interconnects would sound different:
I build speakers and design crossovers and I found that directly twisted crossover part connections sound better than soldered connections. And indirect wired and twisted connections (with standard cabling) sounds different again. Soldered joints sounds more "scratchy" in the top end and twisted cabling between the parts sounds a bit too "wissy" for me, not klangy enough. But directly twisted crossover parts connection sounds great and well balanced in the top end. Sounds really transparent (the naked sound). All my speakers have that (except if I want an effect or the components won't reach each other). My crossovers don't have many parts and if I make it with 3 separate groups (woofer, medrange and tweeter) (of a few parts each) I can get away with (contorted) directly twist-connected parts. And only solder the tip of the twist (that is 1 cm long) so the signal bipasses the solder. 😅 I love the sound, I have a NAD C356BEE amp and an Adiolab 6000A amp and some B&W 706 bookshelf speakers, and a few pairs of my made speakers, point source open driver speakers with a big fat 10" woofer (in the box). They are point source from 300 hz up, and dipole! Sounds come from nowhere and the image is on steroids! I built open FR plus woofer speakers and open 10" coaxials plus 10" woofer speakers. 😅
I have a sophisticated system my sound is cristal clear, everything you would expect from linier power to audiophile Silver plated interconnects.
You sound like a right person to ask, although I already love my sound my speaker cables are more the 99p variety. I think I am more in the Market for Expensive Copper than silver etc.
Do you have any advice for Premade cables between my Prima Luna Integrated valve Amp (6 Ohm output into Focal Aria Speakers.
Appreciate the time & effort put into your testing. Would really like to see the same effort put into blind A+B testing of cables against each other. Not trying to invalidate anything you did, just not convinced in a blind test there will be a statistically significant percentage of people whom can identify difference between cheap & expensive speaker cable. However, it's an individuals right to spend their money on whatever makes them happy... 😴
When will the simple realisation take post that it is (a) a hobby and (b) only applicable to people who have an interest in the matter. That part of the population is the part that is of interest, the rest is kind of moot if they can hear a difference or not. It proves nothing.
Furthermore: we don't do "scientific tests" nor do we pretend we do.
Also: what stops you or anyone else suggesting tests we should do to perform themselves? Get two cables, gather a group of people, execute according to the protocol that you think is a proper test. You do not need anything special: a streamer, an internet connection, an amplifier and a pair of speakers. That's all. I'm intrigued by that, why should we have to do this?
A+B is subjective
I used to spend a fortune on Monster cables for my home audio, now I use powered Monitors exclusively with line level voltages as they sound considerably better than “speakers” connected via thick cables from a massive power amps. I went from 50 ft or so of huge Monster cable from power source to about 4-6 inches internal power source. I’m now a Genelec consumer (8351B + 7350A) with GLM/SAM for room calibration … considering many mixing studios where the recordings are made use Genelec GLM/SAM I get as close to the original mix as possible. However, I also doing video/audio work and play various keyboards/synths (KORG Pa5X, NI). I use Mogami line level cables exclusively. For mix compares I do have Sen HD650 going to a Rupert Neve headphone amp.
@@robainscough monitors are for producing not listening. you don't hear it as it was intended to be heard, you hear it as the audio engineer heard it for his purposes (aka to make it sound a certain way on normal/audiophile speakers). to each his own though
Thank you for a fine and serious initiative. I have more or less given up on finding the solution, but have gathered a lot of experience about which materials sound good, have lifelike sound and a realistic sound image etc.,eJ
I optimise my parasitic components, which are everywhere in our devices and cables.
The sound signature issue applies not only to cables but to all passive components.
An alternative way to find differences could be to measure all the data we know from capacitors, coils and resistors etc. instead of looking for measurable changes in the signal from the whole cable.
However, the mystery remains how these parasitic components cause such large changes in what we hear
We can measure precision but not sound signature timbre soundstage rhythm fidelity, but using the right materials for parasitic components and components in general can make the sound more natural along with the construction, whose precision we can easily measure, it's harder to measure everything that really matters timbre soundstage fidelity rhythm , that we can only experience.
Added: I recommend that instead of the usual hi-fi parameters evaluate whether a violin, piano, organ etc. sounds more or less natural and has the right size in the soundstage, that's what hi-fi is all about, but it requires a high quality unmanipulated music recording produced with few microphones and that is not easy to find.
On the other hand, sound differences will be more apparent than in typical hi-fi recordings.
I have owned many, many speaker cables and the Golden Helix from Mapleshade Audio is my favorite. They sound awesome on my system.
Never heard of Golden Helix 2 Speaker Wires🤔 Are they fast and dynamic? Are they Colored, warm/cold?
Appreciate the objective measurements.
Welcome!
question with the noise what are we looking at ? 2 pictures of a scope without scale , the measurement are only good with a reference of what we are looking at.
Those are your words...
@@TheAlphaAudio yeah you usually read scopes and graphs without knowing the scale where looking at ?
@@joppepeelen Not sure what your problem is, for all measurements are in the written article. With scale and all info you need.
@@TheAlphaAudio aaah ok ! sorry i did not know there was an article ! in the videos they are absent , so thats why i asked.
Amazing work. Thank you so much for this! I love you guys!
I'm wondering if you would consider reducing the sample size to maybe just 2 of your favorites and 2 of your least favorites (the most different sounding cables)and doing all those extra phase measurements you mentioned.
Not anymore. The cables are back to the companies.
Interesting finding with the Kimber cable. I own the 8PR and I like it.
Great work..I have had Cheap and expensive..Very little difference in sound.If you want silence..Interconnects do make a difference..But ..If there is one area to focus on it's the preamp..use a quality passive preamp!..You will be amazed .In the end ..I'd rather spend the extra money for cables on good quality Vinyl...>Enjoy the music!
I can list all the cables in the world in a blind test, the sound difference is enormous, just like the emperor who is naked. I'm just kidding.
That’s also my experience that the impact of speaker cables mostly isn’t as high as it oftentimes is with interconnects. Nevertheless speaker cables DO matter as well. It shouldn’t be the weakest link in the chain.
Precicely.
The cables that made the most jaw dropping improvement in my system were the older Spectral Ultralinear II MH 770 speaker cables made for Spectral by MIT. The company MIT has recently come out with a $100,000 speaker cable, which has bass, midrange and treble controls on a box connected to the cables themselves.The guy on here that often reviews 6 figure $$ equipment, will be reviewing it. With the measurements now presented for all to see, this is what cable doubters were asking for forever, and the fact that there wasn't anyone trying to prove with measurements that cables can sound different, gave them their basis for.their argument. Most of them have their "theories", and don't even need to listen to cables...What will they think now, or does it really matter? Will they hide in the woodwork or come out with their dissenting opinions?
@@sidesup8286 MIT has mostly the same theory as Transparent. I reviewed a couple of them... Interesting stuff. But not really my sound to be honest. I guess it has to fit your system.
Eventually I returned the cable, as the Spectral by MIT cable was just too overloaded with warmth for my system. The overriding warmth went way into the treble. Bright sounding Columbia recordings sounded great, but too much of my collection sounded too warm. warm.The cable was amazing in every other way though. Including very black quietness and instruments sounding near 50% bigger & bass extending well down below what the speakers low frequency spec was. Tellurium is a very good cable.They claim advancements in phase response and everything does sound like it has more focus. There are battery pack items that run on 2 AA batteries which you can let the wires contact the outer sheathing of the cable. The sound gets a little sweeter and warmer. Supra Sword interconnect is the interconnect that made the biggest difference as far as interconnect cables.go.
Sometimes it’s better to not have all interconnects from the same line. I for instance am REALLY happy with an (old) Transparent Reference XL between my CD-Player and my preamp and a Stealth Indra between pre and power amp (both balanced/ XLR).
Interesting video. I'm glad you mentioned Ricable at 9:27! I use them and love it!
Why not simply a table with an inductance ranking?
If you would have done so, you would have find out, that the Kimber 8TC has the lowest inductance -at least of the cables you use. So the Kimber 8 TC makes lesser signal degeneration than the other cables. You can also use old 36 string computer cable (Belden 2501?) and cross connect it. This would make even better inductance results.
Well... Lucky you! We have put everything in a neat table in the full, written article on our website.
The capacitance isn't very good on that cable. Choose your poison.
It does makes a difference. I swapped 16 awg lamp cord for 12. Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers
The only reliable comparison and opinion regarding audio is a double blind experiment.
Whenever someone does one, the result is that noone can hear such differences, like cables, or even normally functioning hifi components.
Double-blind is subjective, to get valid results you would need 100's of tests. It's not reliable at all unless you do all those tests.
@@Pete.across.the.streetyou dont need 100s of tests. You already had 100s of chances to pass the first test, which you didnt.
Thanks for your summary. I’ll check out your paper.
The connectors matter far more than the cable as long as the cable is copper which is the standard now anyways. If you have concerns upgrade the RCA connectors then stop thinking about it.
Yes, we are talking about a distance of 2 meters which is nothing. The most important upgrade you can do is is changing to balances outputs and inputs, like we use in recording studios. Then the only thing to be concerned about is the shielding, and a sommer Cable Galileo for example will be perfect.
I'm all-in on exploring what really matters when it comes to accurate and emotionally-moving music reproduction. I'm a drummer/percussionist and saxophone musician.
So, from the MUSIC RECORDING & PRODUCTION viewpoint, I think it might be revealing and telling to pose, or AT LEAST CONSIDER & CONTEMPLATE, the following questions and information.
From my many years of being a musician, IME, the Professional audio Recording/Mixing/Mastering Engineers that Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually LISTEN TO (including "audiophile" recordings) would use an *EQ* or other studio equipment to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR any other desirable effect or change in sonic quality or sonic character of the music they are creating/producing. Essentially NONE of these professionals would "SWAP" or "Change" their Speaker Cables OR Power Cables to do this, or to "lower the distortion and noise floor".
Go look behind the Multitudes of inter-connected rack-mount studio gear in any of the most respected and revered pro studios, including their very expensive multi-channel studio-grade ADCs, DACs, and precision Master Word Clocks, and you will find that ALL of this gear is connected to the AC Mains power using the Generic UL/CE/NEMA listed & approved Power Cable that was Supplied By The Manufacturer. In my many years I have NEVER seen a studio or recording engineer use any type of "special" or "exotic" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables.
@AlphaAudio
Jaap, I'm curious what type of power cable Eelco Grimm provides with the Grimm Audio MU2??? For all of the EXTENSIVE research, design, and engineering that was put into producing and manufacturing such a high-end and expensive component, do you think Eelco would purposely sacrifice or "Gimp" its performance by supplying it with a "basic" off-the-shelf IEC power cable?
SPOILER!:
Look at the internal product photos of this unit on the Grimm Audio website. This unit is shown with a generic CE/IEC/NEMA AC power socket on the back panel. Now look at the INTERNAL Power Wiring that is connected to the internal PSU at the side corner of the blue PCB. Surprise! It's your basic off-the-shelf power cable and wiring...not braided, not oversized, not silver conductors, and no special shielding, etc. ...BASIC "off-the-shelf" power cord and wire!
THEN take a look at the USB connection! For THIS type of device, this particular cable SHOULD BE of the Upmost Importance, correct??? And yet, Eelco chose a basic/standard 26 AWG USB cable...AND it isn't even "hard-wired" to the USB socket/jack on the back of the unit! The rear-panel USB jack has another USB Type-B female jack on the Inside that a separate, STANDARD and basic male USB Type-B "printer cable" is plugged into!
I don't know of ANY other high-end device where I would think uber high-end cables would be chosen and absolutely necessary, yet they are clearly off-the-shelf and "nothing special"!
There are usually Tens to Hundreds of studio-grade AC-powered equipment in any professional studio, and for some strange reason [/s], 99.9% of them don't believe that changing the power cables OR speaker cables will improve their performance or sound.
Hmmmm? What do they all KNOW that we don't???
Honest question: IF the professional engineers that Record & Produce ALL of the Music that we Actually Listen To do not "swap" their speaker cables or power cables in order to achieve some sort of "synergy" or a particular sound characteristic in the music, should YOU as a listener bother to do this or worry about this???
In addition, roughly 90% of music is now produced using Active, Self-Powered Studio Monitor systems with Built-In Class D amplification (OMG!) where there are ZERO external speaker cables that can be swapped. AND, those Active, Powered Professional Studio Monitors are connected to the AC Mains using the manufacturer-supplied GENERIC POWER CABLE. So where does that leave this debate???
For example, quite a few respected Mastering Engineers use the *Kii Audio Three* active/powered/DSP monitoring system, or other similar industry-standard active studio monitors that have built-in amplification.
NONE that I know or have seen have ever used anything but the supplied AC power cables, and they obviously can't and don't feel the need to change the internal speaker wiring. In fact, the manufacturers of these Multiple Thousand $$$$$ studio monitors would probably void the warranty IF they found that the speaker wiring had been changed by the user.
I would guess [sic] that MOST mastering engineers probably have pretty d@mn good ears and are Trained or have learned "how to listen" and how to evaluate or judge the Sound Quality to a much higher degree than most common listeners. Many of the best engineers are musicians themselves and obviously play/perform with many other musicians who play ALL TYPES of instruments. Therefore they KNOW exactly how most acoustic instruments sound in REAL LIFE and IF what they are hearing out of their Calibrated Monitors is Lifelike, or NOT. ;) In addition, tracking (recording) engineers have the live musicians and their actual instruments in the studio as a direct reference.
But again, [for SOME reason] the ACTUAL RECORDING PROFESSIONALS and MUSICIANS do NOT feel the need or choose to use "special" aftermarket power cables or speaker cables.
Try this:
Pick your favorite and best sounding album or recording, then look up who the tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers were that worked on the recording(s) and ask each of them, "What Power Cables Do You Use"? They'll most likely respond with a funny and perplexed look on their face, LOL, like "WTF?".
Sure, SOME of them MAY have a preference for using certain balanced XLR microphone or signal cables, but you will find that the vast majority are "okay" with using standard Mogami or similar "basic" brand-name cables.
HOWEVER, ALL of these studio engineering Professionals DO use MANY different types (and multiple instances of) EQUALIZATION in order to achieve "a more full and rounded sound" OR to achieve any other desired sonic characteristic. And yet, the majority of "audiophools" still think that EQ is evil and/or always detrimental. 🤷♂
Amazing work. Thank you so much!!!
Howdy. Nice.
I would like to add that it is assumed Hi End gear is used and the listeniing room is good.
Regards.
Of course.
Wish you had included Furutech's DSS 4.1 cable also, but I know they are hard to get a testsample from..
I've tried a lot of speakercables, but the DSS 4.1 is superior to all others I've ever heard 😊
Great! Finally we got proof that cables can affect on FR.... at least when freq. is higher than 4 MHz.
I guess you didn't read the article.
Where are the comments beginning with "I am an electrical engineer..." ?!
They'll find their way here soon enough. I wish I had made videos years ago when I had my store. All the time, I used to get, "I'm and EE, or I'm a recording engineer.". I used to trick them and it was the funniest thing you've ever seen. I had a cable demo set up on a CD player that had 2 identical outputs. Each output got a pair of cables that went to different inputs on a preamp. To AB them, all you had to do was select the inputs using the remote. When I told them they were listening to the same cable, except one was silver and the other was copper, they could hear no difference. (Even though the look on their face said otherwise.). They said they could hear differences between amps and preamps, so I went behind the equipment and told them I was switching amps. I didn't change a thing. I just played the exact same cable demo, but now they could hear the differences. And to make it worse, I wrote down the audible differences between the 2 cables on an index card. I handed them the card and told them they just described the audible differences between copper and silver cables, and they did a really good job because their comments always matched the description on the index card.
"That doesn't count, you tricked me!". I lost count how many times I got that response. I always gave them the same answer. That's exactly what a placebo in an abx test is used for. They ran out of the store like Forrest Gump..
@@AT-wl9yq 👍
Like DB? Some of the other ones claiming to be electronic technicians, claim to be astronauts on space channels.
I am an electrical engineer. I've worked with digital and analog electronics for some time. With that said, I'm not sure how that's relevant to someone's ability to perceive the difference between different wiring used to interconnect a given amplifier to a given set of speakers. Yes, speakers are a reactive load with a variable impedance and phase shift depending on the frequency and, most importantly, the amplifier is somewhat ignorant of the load. Specifically, the amp is usually made by one company, with the speakers made by another, so each manufacturer has no knowledge of the specifics of the other that will be used in a given HiFi setup. In other words, the amp will have no knowledge of and therefore limited ability to compensate for the dynamics of the speakers it is driving. The question therefore is how does cables help with the situation. All cables will have some level of inductance which could add or counteract the impendence effect of the speaker, but it seems like the impedance would have to be significant and would likely just make the situation worse. There are extremely expensive cables with passive electronic components built in that seem to be designed to somewhat load the cable with reactive components, but that seems diffulct for it to be truly effective when it wasn't designed for a specific speaker load. At the end of the day it comes down to what difference a cable makes that the listener can actually hear and, to me, the only way to effectively test that is double-blind testing.
Doing a double blind blind test with commercial consumer oriented speaker cable is impossible (I leave it up to the reader to figure out why), plus double blind testing might be a validated way of testing in the pharmaceutical world, but it cannot be translated into audio research 1:1. I always have to laugh really loud when people put out statements like these.
Do all dear commenters realise that listening to music using HiFi equipment is a hobby? And do you also realise that whether you believe that any part in that HiFi set you own makes a difference or not has zero impact on the enjoyment of another person?
Lastly, it is not our purpose on this planet to convince you of anything. You either can read the article, watch the listening video’s we put out and make up your own mind, or you don’t. But whatever mental processes are going on in the minds of people to vehemently tell us we are a bunch of idiots and feel the need to tell us that we cannot hear what we hear beats me. It is not like you or us are saving the planet, it is listening to music and see how we can optimise that listening experience. And if you do it another way, good for you, enjoy. That’s all there is to it. Honestly.
Bedankt voor jullie moeite en het delen hiervan👍 Wat een hoop werk moet dat geweest zijn👌
Het Audioquest DBS "systeem" voegt nadelige invloed uit op het signaal volgens Audioholics...
Amazing work ! And free for us ? Congrats !
@@phfen Thank you. Glad you like it!
Thanks for going out there and providing and publishing experience and data. This is one of few unbiased channels out there for audio.
I want to share my experience and a question: I have had the same speakers since 2001 and used very cheap cables. My speakers can be bi-wired and since I had enough speaker cable I decided to bi-wire the speakers, coming from one outlet of the amplifier. To my amazement the sound improved a lot. Jaap stated that a low impedance is very important and by doubling the cables I lowered the impedance. Could this be the reason why the sound improved? It was still the same cheap cable. Now I have proprietary speaker cables which sound again much better than the cheap ones, so I am happy.
This is really excellent work guys!
Hey, curious, were there any silver cables in your testing?
Thanks. Yes... We had silver cables. Check the article for more specs.
Yes, but can you hear it in a controlled ABX test?
Exactly, and if you can then bring the measurements to back your findings - if you want to have any credible objectivity
🤦🏻♂️
ABX tests are subjective. They are useless
The average speaker voice coil contains about 100 feet of very fine wire, which is somewhere between 28 and 36 gauge, depending on the speaker. Then, there are multiple drivers, a crossover network and the speaker cable. The load seen by the amplifier is the sum of the above. Putting a multi thousand dollar "fire hose" cable at the front of this load does very little, if anything at all, to affect the sound. The giant cable represents a tiny fraction of the load seen by the amp. "High End" cables are a marketing ploy, pure and simple, and not an honest one at that.
@@indyvin Ok. Thanks for the explanation
Are you sure about that? You might want to run your numbers again and what a poor cable and connectors can do to the damping factor/output impedance on say a Purifi Eigentakt.
Thank you for the test and it clarifies for me how some of the differences I hear correlate with measurements. What about power cables? In my experience over the years they can make more of a difference to the final sound than any other cable. I'd be interested in your results if you did such a test.
It's not planned at the moment. I am a bit done with testing cables now ;-). Maybe later.
I want to see you test fuses.
Will not do that... Because I wouldn't know how to do that...
I recently cleaned the twin fuses in my vintage 1980s amplifier with alcohol. alcohol.Made a huge improvement. No reason to think premium fuses wouldn't do the same thing. Anything in the signal path leaves. it's mark.
honest... straight.... too bad we are far far away
You can always drop an email via our website.
Impedance is inconsequential in cables with most speakers.
Every piece of the system including cables and the room only adds distortion. Just choose the distortion that pleases you
That is also a way of looking at it! :-).
Awesome work!
I am really interested in how mass of the terminus affects the cable.
I would be interested to add that into your next series of tests
Not sure what you mean...
@@TheAlphaAudiosome people think lower mass of a connector makes an audible difference - think of those hollow bananas out of sheet metal and made only for soldering vs those very solid WBTs or Furutechs with 2 bolts to fix the cable and a mechanism that enables tightening of the plug in the socket, overall probably 10x the mass of the hollow banana. In the world of high frequency electronics (MHz, GHz), an unnecessarily large lump of solder can influence characteristics impedance (I suppose by creating a discontinuity in impedance along the line), thus causing unwanted reflection. Really not sure whether there is any relevance in LF audio; having said that, all our systems play in the presence of HF EMag. fields, and everything becomes an antenna and picks up noise, so that a low impedance ground connection in HF sense is perhaps a good thing to have.
I found this helpful when trying to understand cables if you research Quantum electrodynamics it explains a lot of what happens in a conductor write down to cable burning being a real thing. Best of all this is real science that proves cables to make a difference. It's a very very good read but heavy with it being quantum dynamics
It also explains why the dielectric can make a big difference to the sound as well as the geometry
I would have thought that shielding was less important for speaker cable than it is for RCA cables (interconnects) owing to the proximity of RCA cables to other electrical equipment and other cables, especially power cables.
Great research, very inspiring.
The actual material of the conductors and connectors will have a sound affect too.
Great work!
Alpha Audio Can you also test the Kimber 8TC for its noise, dynamics and bass compared to the Kimber 8PR?
Thank you so much!
We did. Check our website for all measurements.
Super explanation
Amazing work
I can only praise your willingness to do all this testing. Mainly because the differences are small, even insignificant for most users, most of them do not even hear the differences. One is the tests, and the other is the use of the same cables in a home hi-fi system... where everyone has different hi-fi devices, room acoustics and also hearing abilities.
I think everyone will hear differences on a decent system. The question is: how important are the differences to them.
Everyone I know hears differences. I've had people who didnt even have audio gear, hear differences in cables demonstrated in my home. I can't even listen to my system without my preferred cables in place.
Is 40% to 50% improvement small or insignificant? Name an amp, or preamp that gives you that much improvement? 5% improvement is subtle but clearly audible. That's 5% times around 10. Even way less than that is a whole new listening experience.
Yeah, true, cable matters, I found out too and that sucks. Started using Wisa wireless system (Buchardt in my case) few years back, and I think I will stick with wireless in the future... XD
Funny thing is providing clean power to the Wisa hub can still improve audio quality too, man, PCM really is some hard to deal with ancient tech.
Yeah... Wireless would be a solution. Active speakers as well. Power always has a great impact. Especially on digital. I guess it has to do with clocking/jitter.
@@TheAlphaAudio Do you purchase multiple copies of a single digital release to find the best sounding one? If protocols do not seem to work with digital interconnects, why would they with pretty much anything else.
Fantastic job!
I've discovered that I am not an audiophile. It seems the prevalent orthodoxy is for big, transparent, and detailed performance, which to my ears is very thin sounding. I prefer a more fleshy and cohesive sound. To each his own.
You can still be an audiophile and not love analytic sound. Audiophile means 'the love for sound / music'...
@@TheAlphaAudio Thank you. I guess I'll just be an outlier. Cheers!
You’re not an outlier. Just a potential Audio Note / Tannoy fan :)
You are awesome! 🙌
The interconnect, power, and speaker cables operate differently in the system. Their impact on the system can vary because of the signal path. Generally for analog cables, the choice of conducting material, design of geometry, gauge size, impedance of the connectors and insulation have to be clearly selected to provide clarity, balance, and noise reduction of the sound signal and quality in different aspects:
Tonality - manufacturers choose 7N copper or 5N silver as the conductor because of low resistance, but they can sound very different. Silver provides a crisp sound and good detail in the upper range, but it can sound bright when paired with monitor speakers such as B&W with diamond tweeter, whereas copper can sound a bit warm with bloated bass with English speakers. Companies like Siltech use silver wires with gold blended in, which gives a tonal balance that neither pure silver or copper can give.
Noise level - the purity of the conductor is crucial to the clarity, otherwise the speakers would lose the detail in the music. As for power cord or speaker cables that transmit a lot of current with increased electromagnetic wave, the insulation layers have to be thickened to avoid interference from the surrounding. Think of a long transmission wire that becomes like an antenna in the listening environment, which can pick up a lot of radio signals in the air.
Loss in detail - the connector material and impedance are also important for a cable as a signal transmission line. If the impedance of the connector or the material does not match, it can cause deflection or distortion of the sound signal, which will result in loss in detail. Some of you might have experienced this when using cheap spade or banana plugs at the speaker terminals.
Interconnect vs Speaker cables - both are critical to the sound quality in a different way. The interconnect cable connects between the source (turntable or CD player) and the pre-amp, or between the pre-amp and power amp. If the quality of the interconnect cable is poor, the noise and distortion will be amplified by the pre-amp and the power amp, resulting in poor sound quality. The speaker cables carry both the power and the amplified signal to the speakers. A high powered system requires high quality speaker cables because the current is high especially at low impedance, be it 4 ohms or even 1 ohm. Any impure conductor with high resistance can lower the output power and cause the loss of details. It will get worse as the cable gets longer.
Power cable - it tends to be more critical for a power amp with over 200w output per channel, because the amplifier would require up to 500w of power at high volume. People may not notice the amount of electromagnetic wave that is flowing through and around the power cable when the amplifier draws a lot of current from the power supply at home. If the source power is not clean and the cable is not good enough, the amplifier can longer function properly in delivering the amplified signal to drive the speakers.
As a general advice, the owner of the system should evaluate the proper cost of the cables with respect to the quality as well as the power requirement of the components. In some cases, the user may need to try different cables in order to adjust to the tonality of the system.
Wow, that's a lot of words expressing "I have no idea about physics".
For example: the noise floor of a speaker cable (home improvement store variety) is barely even measurable. Around 140dB signal to noise ratio. Improving that will do exactly zero.
The "tonality" of a cable is also something that can't be measured. People tried! All cables at reasonable living room length have a perfectly flat frequency response, just as you'd expect from a piece of fucking wire. This only changes when we're talking about concert hall lengths.
@@ropeburn6684
Have you not heard about transmission line impedance and electromagnetic interference? These are both studied in introductory courses in physics and electrical engineering.
@@StereoDemo-t9b Transmission line effects are important for RF transmission over great length. For a few meters of cable transmitting really low frequency signals (aka audio), that's completely irrelevant. Ohhhh my cheap 3 meter RCA cable has a roll off after 100kHz! Boohoo I need better and more expensive cables! 😂
You forgot one of the most important manufacturer: Cardas
I send them and e-mail. Didn't get an answer.
What was your favorite cable under 1000 that is good for taming sibilance. Been testing speaker cables all month over here. I felt the same way thinking that the speaker cable would make a bigger difference than an interconnect and I was wrong :))
Sorry, can't recall. I did not note that down in my listening notes.
Duelund DCA might work well here
It would be helpful to include the descriptions of the differences you heard instead of just stating they sounded dramatically different. Please make another video letting people know what sound characteristics change with cable swapping . So that way they can now understand what to listen for. 😊
Did you read the article on the website with the listening notes and measurements?
@@jmtennapel No I did not even realize there was an article with written data. Where’s the link 🔗 for that?
@@hiresaudiocosta873the link is in the description box below the video.
Congratulations for the outstanding work you have done here. Thank you very much. Cheers
im just here for the comments..
thank you sir
I have a r8 tube amp a freya plus and hifi rose.
Changing interconnects from the silver ribbon I had made a huge improvement.
I thought I had good speaker wires going to my Verity speakers I made them. Then I got zu audio speaker wires, the improvement was better than adding any of the gear mentioned including expensive Tubes for the amps.
@@shadowofpain8144 with tube amps the difference is huge...
Thank you!
Very good test and video. But I don't want to give a leg or arm for cables. I think spending 50% of your sound system's total on cables is a good investment.
@@christee2908 50% is already a lot. Most will stop at 10% or 15%.
Brilliant
How about the wires inside the speakers , do you all change those or it is considered part of the design. How about driver voice coils?
@@mosman1210 you cannot change what's in the speaker. Unless you are into DIY of course.
Good job!
Hi thanks for your interesting video.
The day you can tell which cable is what in a blind test, I can spend sick money on cables, so far decent cheap cables in good quality will do the job fantastically, I choose to listen with my ears rather than my brain; )
very subjective
What instrument are you using to test the cables for noise and variations of signal degradation?
Check our article. Everything is explained there.
Interesting research!
I didn't believe in cable making a difference until i tried few cables and some made a really big influence! System was very entry level also.
So from my experience with my system (had maybe 10-15 cables in last 20y), most cables don't make a big or any difference, but few do.
Think of conductors as a prism that separates an electromagnetic wave into a spectrum of frequencies. The structure and composition of the prism affects the speed and dynamic range of each frequency.
Nice analogy.
Thank you! Pay attention to cables Acoustic Revive. The light bulb converts the electromagnetic wave only into the visible and heating part of the spectrum, the entire complexity of perception by our brain
First of all, I recommend the ACOUSTIC REVIVE AC-TRIPLE C 4800 power supply without screen. Length 2 meters 500 hours of warm-up, you won’t regret getting into another dimension!
Congratulations on a job very well done. 👏
Cables is like food, each to there own taste.
Thanks for this test, is it ok to have different lengths eg one speaker 3m and the other 7m (hifi is on the side of the room),
@@mrkitewine7700 better keep them the same length. This is because of impedance difference.
@@TheAlphaAudio thanks very much for the speedy reply, much appreciated. my concern is I will end up with a 4m coil of spare cable with the shorter run which cannot be great
@@mrkitewine7700 not if you wind it too tightly. But a slight 'loop' on both ends isn't a problem.
How do I use this information to know what cable to buy 🤔
@@aussie8114 we wrote an extensive article about it. You can read it on the website.
I will appreciate a video or artical based on 1-2 options per price range...
Great work. Unfortunately, the lower part of the the impedance/phase vs frequency graphs are quite dark, making it sometimes very difficult to read the legend.
You can check them in the article.
change the cable of your monitor and you will read it
@@TheAlphaAudio I was referring to the article. Take, e.g., Audioquest. The legend has 11 entries with different shades of dark greens and blues. Due to dark gray background, I found it hard to see which is which.
@@weetjeweetje4054 ok
Where can I hire a nerd to just tell me which cables are best for my stereo? lol this is insanely complcated, my entire stereo is only around $10k end to end including all sources and speakers. I hovering aroudn Cardas Clear Sky for like $600 for speaker wires. Thoughts?
Try some cables and trust your ears.
Thanks!
Thanks a lot!