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Audioquest GO-4 Speaker Cable Review

Rate this cable:

  • 1. Waste of money (piggy bank panther)

    Votes: 276 97.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 3 1.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 2 0.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 3 1.1%

  • Total voters
    284

ROOSKIE

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What i don't understand is even if they did make a small amont of difference, why would people invest thousands on them when surely the sensible thing would be to invest the that money into better speakers or amplification, or even room treatment?

I wonder, Have there been any tests done with let's say the shittest cable possible and then compared with a set of reasonably priced speakers cables, or does every single speaker cable messure the same regardless of price and quality?
Why do people buy $100 pairs of socks and $450 t-shirts advertising the company on the front?
Or $10k watches for that matter which may strike a notable chord even here.

Heck think about how much furniture out there is supremely uncomfortable to sit in yet someone may have just shelled out $5k for that "chair".

No, they would not all measure the same and some are designed to change the frequency responce on purpose to sound notably different. One example is the trendy 22guage such and such wire which has very high resistance for a speaker wire and changes the responce of the speakers as it interacts with the electrical properties of said speaker.

Many people do invest the sensible audio things however the industry, like many contemporary industries, is just overwhelmed with the lure of making money driving many sales toward vapid products and BS.
 

JSmith

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Nice review, i'm certainly a sceptic when it comes to cables, but may i ask, did you do any listening tests?
Hey, you win the award for asking first in a cable review thread "did you listen to it"... ring the bells. :p
Have there been any tests done with let's say the shitiest cable possible and then compared with a set of reasonably priced speakers cables
Yes, see here as an example;


JSmith
 

JayGilb

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I am not religious nor an advocate for using religion for social control, that said I don't see science as an enemy of religion nor would it ever be a smart replacement for something like sitting in awe of something intangible. Science is for harnessing the tangible - matter, energy, even force but it would be a great mistake to ignore the value of reverance for the unknowable and a misunderstanding of science to believe it can address and provide the human need for a truly creative and beautiful vision/story.
Personally I sit in awe of the knowable. My job involves electrical design of components that require timing resolution of electron movement within 1 trillionth of a second.
I understand how it works down to the smallest detail and am still in awe of our ability to conquer what was once considered to be the unknowable.
 

roog

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The average audiophile doesn’t have the knowledge to allow them to tweak their, active kit so they jump on something that they can easily change in an attempt to ‘improve’ what they have.

You are taking away their fun, you are meddling with their strong belief system and they have many followers happy to bully anyone who stands up for the truth, it’s familiar territory upheld and flames fanned by their leaders who benefit from their adoration. All rather grim if you ask me.

I recently experienced a ray of hope, on visiting my local hifi dealer he tentatively asked how I felt about the modest wires he had used in setting up the demo for me, I responded that they looked fine to me and we entered into a reasonable discussion about how the acoustic properties of the room were probably the most important issue of concern when getting the best out of most decent audio equipment.
 

kaopad999

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Hey, you win the award for asking first in a cable review thread "did you listen to it"... ring the bells. :p
LMFAO :D:D:D
Just hope there's a couple of pints waiting for me after you ring that bell! :p
 

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ROOSKIE

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Personally I sit in awe of the knowable. My job involves electrical design of components that require timing resolution of electron movement within 1 trillionth of a second.
I understand how it works down to the smallest detail and am still in awe of our ability to conquer what was once considered to be the unknowable.
Totally, I love engineering and getting creative with the many facets of this universe if you will.
I certainly don't perceive the tangible as less than the intangible - nor are they at all are mutually exclusive.
My point was science and that which it provides is just not a replacement for the intangible

For myself, there is a difference between the currently "unknown" and the ultimately "unknowable".

At some point after asking all the right questions the answer really is, it is turtles all the way down. Which only sounds absurd until it doesn't.
Like turning the smallest thing inside out to reveal the largest space you have ever perceived.
 

dtaylo1066

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From an electronic testing and analysis standpoint, I think ASR has proven that there exist no signal reproduction difference in speaker cables. So my question: what does the average forum member consider the appropriate price to pay for a pair of 12-foot speaker cables with quality connections on each end? I've generally made my own in the past from modestly priced wire and connectors I purchased for maybe a grand total of $25. And what gauge wire to you folks prefer? I have typically used 14-gauge.
 

DonR

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From an electronic testing and analysis standpoint, I think ASR has proven that there exist no signal reproduction difference in speaker cables. So my question: what does the average forum member consider the appropriate price to pay for a pair of 12-foot speaker cables with quality connections on each end? I've generally made my own in the past from modestly priced wire and connectors I purchased for maybe a grand total of $25. And what gauge wire to you folks prefer? I have typically used 14-gauge.
Depending on connectors and sleeving preferences I would say anything up to $30/m would be OK. Lamp cord with spade lugs would probably set you back lees than $10 for 2m if you crimped them yourself.
 

Elephen

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Would this speaker cable work better if it used an automobile battery?
 

antcollinet

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Just through pure curiosity. As i said i'm on the side of speaker cables making little to no difference. but i'm very curious why so many trained ears say that they are able to hear the difference?
Look at the video here. About three minutes in : purpose of blind test. To at least 6 minutes in.

TLDR: Cognitive bias.
 
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phoenixdogfan

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There are few things more fun than waking up on a Monday morning and reading an Amir review of a rusty $600 Audioquest speaker cable, unless it's a rusty $600 speaker cable with a magic box attached to it to do something(?). Unfortunately this particular cable is from their budget line, so the magic box does not have user selectable tuning settings. Moreover the box on this one is tiny. In order for one of those boxes to really do its work it should at least be the size of an SB2000 subwoofer and be filled with Vishay resistors, Bybee cryocaps, and hand drawn silver wiring. And the true tell is the price: this one runs only around one percent of what a true bleeding edge speaker cable design form AQ should cost. So yeah, a disappointing offering that can provide the neophyte audiophile with but the tiniest taste from the banquet table of delectations that await at the top of AQ's wiring pyramid.
 

Robbo99999

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Why do people buy $100 pairs of socks and $450 t-shirts advertising the company on the front?
Or $10k watches for that matter which may strike a notable chord even here.

Heck think about how much furniture out there is supremely uncomfortable to sit in yet someone may have just shelled out $5k for that "chair".

No, they would not all measure the same and some are designed to change the frequency responce on purpose to sound notably different. One example is the trendy 22guage such and such wire which has very high resistance for a speaker wire and changes the responce of the speakers as it interacts with the electrical properties of said speaker.

Many people do invest the sensible audio things however the industry, like many contemporary industries, is just overwhelmed with the lure of making money driving many sales toward vapid products and BS.
It's not the same thing, these audiophool companies are touting false claims under the guise of "science", it's false.....it's not the same parallel.
 

Jim Shaw

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Read my sig line again:
Lottery tickets are probably a better audiophile investment than expensive interconnect cables.
 

sofrep811

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Should a monkey break into your home and chew all your Hi-Fi cables up--I would hope these would survive? Just curious.
 

antcollinet

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Personally I sit in awe of the knowable. My job involves electrical design of components that require timing resolution of electron movement within 1 trillionth of a second.
I understand how it works down to the smallest detail and am still in awe of our ability to conquer what was once considered to be the unknowable.

The objectivists lament:

"Life is full of mysteries, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found by people sitting around
Looking serious and saying 'Isn't life mysterious?'
'Let's sit here and hope.
Let's call up the fucking Pope.
Let's go watch Oprah interview Deepak Chopra.'
If you wanna watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool because every time there
Was a church with a ghoul or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who ran the waterslide.
Because throughout history every
Mystery ever solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.
Does the idea that there might be knowledge frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon on
Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural so blow your
Hippy noodle that you'd rather just
Stand in the fog of your inability to Google?
Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex, wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to
Diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters?
If you're so into your Shakespeare, lend me your ear:
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet... is just fucking silly"
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
"I see trees of Green,
Red roses too, "
And fine, if you wish to glorify Krishna and Vishnu in a
Post-colonial,
Condescending bottled-up and labeled
Kind of way then whatever, that's ok.
But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant bit of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short and unimportant...
But thanks to recent scientific advances I get to live
Twice as long as my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting ****** at good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines and butterflies on their titties.
And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We'd as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you'll change your mind.


EDIT : I love how the forum software has censored the "******" at the end there, but left all the "fucking"s intact :D

EDIT some more : LOL
 
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DonR

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Don't spread things like that, It would justify that there is a difference. Those numbers are not conclusive.
but the measurements are indeed conclusive. They measure different, as anyone would suspect, but these differences are inaudible.
 

Sal1950

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I'd just like to add a note of thanks to the member who sent this cable in!
Expensive cables are hard to come by for these types of measurement but
getting the data into ASR's base is important and educational for our members.
Cheers All
 

Madlop26

Active Member
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May 2, 2021
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Audioquest about Dielectric Bias System: "ensures that radio-frequency noise will not be induced into the signal conductors from the DBS field elements. (DBS, US Pat #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)"
This gives me hope I can patent my self-made green dragon killer sword.
 
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