A non confrontational cable thread? We will see...

Exactly, Ham Sandwich. When the pulses in a digital stream for example get rounded, so flank triggering no more can read properly, jitter is introduced, and the signal is degraded. This is common knowledge. The nulls and ones are no longer read properly in the time domain. From my work as an electrician: We no longer have a proper input on the engine rpm's; precision is lost.

 

The article I linked to has a section on cable jitter. You might want to read that section.

 

And what about people who hear differences in low cost cables?

 

Yes but there was no wife involved in this test. If so she would´ve heard a degradation before the degradation occured. Wifes are funny that way.

 

So are you behaving as you do because this thread is something that you believe you can influence, whereas you’re currently unable to influence the people who lie behind the frustration that you feel?

If so, then please either solve the real issues in your life or determine that they’re insoluble.

Either way, you should feel better.

Then take your own life forward in a positive direction.

Once you’ve done that, you might look at this discussion differently.

 

Yeah, what about them? What point are you attempting to make?

 

if it wasn't a blind test it could have been confirmation bias:

Why Do We Favor Information That Confirms Our Existing Beliefs?

It's very tough to overcome our innate biases when evaluating something as hard to quantify with our senses as sound.
One of the cables could have been defective as well! I just ordered 4 balanced analog cables recently, one of the 4 was bad but not non-functional, it just knocked the signal level down by about 2 db. It happens.

 

“This is the kind of admission I'm seeking from people who spend great sums of money on cables.“

 

Why would anyone ' willingly ' use inferior cables?? Doesn't make any sense.

Synergy.

 

As an analogy I buy ‘own brand’ pharmaceuticals as the active compounds are the same. I just don’t pay for the marketing budget and pretty package.

 

I buy M- used off of eBay.

Like new - Dirt cheap - and perfect.

 

Why do people who can't hear the difference or won't even try typically have very bad/cheap systems?

 

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE:
Where instead of big differences in cables; there aren't any at all.

CABLE COMPANY AT SHOW: "Hi sir, can I help you? Our cables sell for $5,000 but dealer cost is only $2000".

AUDIO DEALER: "I see. Interesting. Are they superior in sound quality"?

CABLE COMPANY REP: "Not at all, but people will pay you $5,000 for them".

AUDIO DEALER: "OK, I'd like to become a dealer. Here's $6,000 for 3 of them. Not many people in my area, as usual, spending big money on audio anymore, but I have 3 great customers who buy $20,000 preamps and $30,000 power amps from me. I bet they would all buy one".

GOOD CUSTOMER: "Those $5,000 cables he sold me do not make any difference at all. I used to buy $25,000 preamps and $30,000 power amps from him. No more buying anything from him any more".

OTHER CUSTOMER: "Me either".

LAST CUSTOMER: "Same Here".

AUDIO DEALER: "I have lost all my best customers".


THE END

 

But on the flip side of the coin, why do expensive pieces of audio equipment still come with cheap, ordinary cables if these fancy ones really make that much of an improvement? High-performance sports cars come from the factory equipped with high-performance summer tires instead of a cheap set of all-seasons, so if cables are where the rubber meets the road with audio equipment, why wouldn't high-performance audio equipment come with high-performance cables instead of a set of cables that probably cost them a few pennies each from China?

 

What expensive gear are you buying that comes with interconnect cables?

None of the audio gear I have in my system came with interconnects. Some didn't even come with a power cord, expecting that audiophiles would supply their own.

 

The biggest thing I notice with some better cables is blacker/ quiet backgrounds. I may not know what great cables sound like, but I sure know what bad cables sound like.

 

Every cable sounds a little bit different. But don't confuse different with better ?

 

Some very expensive speaker cables have enough extra bass and deeper bass, that you might have to disconnect the subwoofer. It might overload the room. When this happens, some people have found that their bookshelf speakers at the sides have taken on enough bass to be used without the subwoofer now.

Grover Hoffman cables have been mentioned. He believed in using natural materials for the cables outer sheathing. Best materials for that have been highly scrutinized to decrease or eliminate the skin effect. No longer do most serious cable makers just sheath their conductors with rubber. Many different materials are used. Strands of wire inside the cable touch each other and electromagnetically interfere with each other. They have found ways to decrease this, and the sophistication of a cables inside shielding is one of its most important aspects. Also many advanced cables have a combination of both thinner and thicker diameter strands which are beneficial at carrying different frequencies. Generally speaking, today's audiophile cables (vs. audiophile cables of 20 years ago) are less obviously hifi-ish, the best ones sounding like they are not even in the system. More open and transparent to low level detail and cleaner. Generally when listening, they sound like they disappear more, like they are in the system less; which is a good thing. Which is why comparing them with your old cables is important, because little colorations and irritations are often not realized until their absence, when you hear something that does not have them, or is much more free of them. Then you can curse yourself for not upgrading sooner. I know of one guy who tape recorded about 100 albums, then after getting a superior interconnect felt compelled to re-record them all over again. A lot of work, but he says it was worth it.

 

They provide the customer with the cheapo cables just to get them up and going out of the box. The high-end car buyer is different from the high-end audio buyer. They know the audio buyer is going to replace the cheap cables with superior ones. The upscale car buyer demands the car be supplied with quality parts from the git-go. The buyer of a Benz or BMW would flip if you put $160 Firestone tires on their car that they paid $80,000 for.

 

I've heard some awful name-brand interconnects.

 

Nah thanks, a great sub would be cheaper and give me real performance .

 

This is a great example of a REAL improvement that better interconnects can make: better shielding results in lower background noise.

Note that, as usual, this doesn't apply to digital interconnects.

 

It was a very interesting article, thank you. You'll note, however, two things: minor cases of jitter are generally inaudible, and serious cases of jitter begin to sound like wow and flutter. No one in this entire thread has described anything that sounds like wow and flutter.

 

Well, when I bought a couple pairs of Morrow cables to try out, I really wanted to like them, as they would have saved me a ton of money wiring the rest of my system with them, over the cable I did have.

But they didn't sound as good. No matter how much I wanted them to.

 

Just to go back to this statement;

Let’s assume that this statement is true. Now a cable can’t provide gain for a start, so any changes in frequency response would be losses. If the losses were great enough throughout the frequency range to result in the apparent gains in bass frequencies it would be acting as a very crude filter. A filter which cannot be controlled and presumably would vary due to the length of cable in use.

I would not want this.

Professionally I use hundreds of thousands of meters of cable of varying types across a broadcast infrastructure carrying analogue and digital audio along with SDI video, over copper, fibre and IP. If any of these cables were behaving like this they would not be used.

Keep it simple, get quality equipment that’s built properly and connect it with cable that’s well constructed. Anything else is either psychology at play or pointlessly unpredictable.

As it is, lengths of good quality Canford and Van Damme cable with Neutrik connectors work flawlessly 99.999% of the time.

/Rant