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Good news: I saved $48600 and you probably can as well!

SIY

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Build quality, durability, don't get oxidized, good base material, good structure, low impedance from low to high frequency.

IOW, the Home Depot extension cord cables I use. $20.
 

JJB70

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Part of me say's that anybody dumb enough to swallow the idea that speaker cables could ever justify a price of $48k deserves to be taken to the cleaners and part of me can't help having a sneaking admiration for being brazen enough to sell crap like that at such a price if you can find people daft enough to buy.
 

GoMrPickles

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From the article:
“You must faithfully reproduce all signals. What you must look at is not just 0 or +20dBu, you need to simultaneously investigate -60, -80, -90dBu and below that to see what is happening. You need to see what effects are being caused by RF noise many octaves above the audio bandwidth. If you do that, what you will start to notice is that there is a measurable difference between a 6-foot pair, an 8-foot pair, a 12-foot pair of the very best speaker cables available. In fact, you will see a substantial difference.”
... can't one, and they (AudioQuest), test for exactly this, and publish data backing up the "measurable difference"?
 

Soniclife

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Part of me say's that anybody dumb enough to swallow the idea that speaker cables could ever justify a price of $48k deserves to be taken to the cleaners and part of me can't help having a sneaking admiration for being brazen enough to sell crap like that at such a price if you can find people daft enough to buy.
I'm kind of with you with this for the 48k ones, the problem is the people spending a grand per bit of wire on crap like this, who will miss the money, even more so once they have bought the power cable, the interconnects, the digital cables, the speaker cables, so they end many thousands down, and still feel that their system is being held back because they could not afford the really good wires.
Then you have the idea that somehow these are being designed by expert engineers who allegedly can design better wires, but not for less money than a luxury car. The hairy arsed engineer brigade building super heavy turntables in the belief that heavier is always better start to look like rocket scientists compared to someone who needs to charge 48k for a short bit of wire.
 

JJB70

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The people I hold in utter contempt are the reviewers and shills who "review" this stuff and just regurgitate whatever corporate spin and BS is fed to them in order to convince people that there is something in all this snake oil. I just see that as far more despicable than the snake oil sellers as I see it as an abuse of trust. Even the most cursory examination of the sort of pseudo "science" arguments used to sell this stuff would reveal it to be the BS that it is.
 

SIY

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From the article:

... can't one, and they (AudioQuest), test for exactly this, and publish data backing up the "measurable difference"?

It's easy to measure differences. Of course, the audibility of those differences is a, ummm, different issue.
 

Killingbeans

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Build quality, durability, don't get oxidized, good base material, good structure, low impedance from low to high frequency.

Don't forget WAF :D

I'd really like to start production of some audio gear and I'm planning to use plug n' play speaker cables as the initial springboard.

My cables won't be super cheap either, but they'll still be in the 'steal' price range of the audiophile cable-circus. I won't make you pay for snake oil or pseudoscience. Only great build quality and high WAF. That's something I'm willing to throw some extra cash at, and I hope others are too.

$48K for speaker cables is just plain nuts. I agree that somewhere between $100 and $200 (probably closest to $100) would be the absolute max I'd ever dish out for a nice looking super sturdy set of cables. And if performance was the only factor in consideration, anything above $25 would be money down the drain.
 
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rwortman

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What cables could possibly be worth $100-200?
That aren't 100-200 feet in length?
Typical retail markups in the audio business are 4 or 5x from build costs. When I build a set of interconnects I use 6 feet of wire for a 3 ft pair that costs a bit over a buck a foot so lets say $8 for wire. I use cheap RCA's that are about $2 each so that's another $8. 16 x 5 is 80 dollars and that is with no labor. You can get much better quality RCA's that would bring the parts cost up to the 30 or 40 dollar range as would adding length. So if you want a very good quality interconnect at 6 feet long it could cost around $50 to make and that's with free labor. So spending $100 to $200 isn't out of line as long as you realize you aren't buying sound quality, just build quality and longevity. I use cheap ends as long as they are gold plated because I am not going to be plugging and unplugging them over and over. If I was re-configuring or moving systems all the time I might pop for better. If/when I am too lazy to make them I just get the nice looking ones from Monoprice or the like.
 

thunderchicken

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Typical retail markups in the audio business are 4 or 5x from build costs. When I build a set of interconnects I use 6 feet of wire for a 3 ft pair that costs a bit over a buck a foot so lets say $8 for wire. I use cheap RCA's that are about $2 each so that's another $8. 16 x 5 is 80 dollars and that is with no labor. You can get much better quality RCA's that would bring the parts cost up to the 30 or 40 dollar range as would adding length. So if you want a very good quality interconnect at 6 feet long it could cost around $50 to make and that's with free labor. So spending $100 to $200 isn't out of line as long as you realize you aren't buying sound quality, just build quality and longevity. I use cheap ends as long as they are gold plated because I am not going to be plugging and unplugging them over and over. If I was re-configuring or moving systems all the time I might pop for better. If/when I am too lazy to make them I just get the nice looking ones from Monoprice or the like.
^^^^THIS

There's a market for high-quality durable goods, and that stuff costs money to make. If it's made in the USA from baseline quality materials and designed to last 20+ years, $200 for a set of speaker cables starts to make a lot of sense. I like my stuff to be shielded, have nice connections and terminations, and have plenty of strain relief. That all adds up pretty quickly. (I went with BJC for interconnects and had some speaker cables made)
 

rwortman

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My speaker wires are made from THX certified in wall speaker cable. I don't have it in a wall, It is 12 gauge twisted pair (reduces inductance) with a pretty heavy duty cover. I added some cool audiophile looking woven sheathing and banana plugs at the ends. Probably around $45 in parts. Easily worth $100 retail if someone else made them. Audibly superior to 14 gauge zip cord for my application? Probably not. Lower inductance has a tiny measurable difference at the high end that is really nothing I can hear. They do work and look nice. It's OK to buy audio stuff just because it looks nice. I am quite sure my PSB T2's would sound just as good without the beautiful veneer and could cost less. I would still buy the veneered ones.
 

JohnYang1997

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My speaker wires are made from THX certified in wall speaker cable. I don't have it in a wall, It is 12 gauge twisted pair (reduces inductance) with a pretty heavy duty cover. I added some cool audiophile looking woven sheathing and banana plugs at the ends. Probably around $45 in parts. Easily worth $100 retail if someone else made them. Audibly superior to 14 gauge zip cord for my application? Probably not. Lower inductance has a tiny measurable difference at the high end that is really nothing I can hear. They do work and look nice. It's OK to buy audio stuff just because it looks nice. I am quite sure my PSB T2's would sound just as good without the beautiful veneer and could cost less. I would still buy the veneered ones.
That highly depends on the length and your output impedance of the amplifier. Better the amplifier more difference will show in the real measurements. Lower distortion, better bass, better dynamics can be expected from better and shorter cable.
 

NTomokawa

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I ought to build a resin-filled plugbox and name it the AudioPHILE - or "Audio Phase-Harmonized Integrated Linearity Extender".

Market it as being able to extend the linearity of music... whatever that means.

Slap a four-figure pricetag on it and see how many people bite.

See, anybody on the Internet and make fancy-sounding stuff up.
 

SIY

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I am just shocked that these 48k cables are on the floor. Cable risers would improve the soundstage tremendously. Amateurs.

I have fond memories of Charlie Hansen getting verbally abusive at me when I questioned his claim that myrtle wood made audibly better cable risers than any other material. Of course, he sold myrtle wood cable risers...
 

Hypnotoad

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$48K for speaker cables is just plain nuts. I agree that somewhere between $100 and $200 (probably closest to $100) would be the absolute max I'd ever dish out for a nice looking super sturdy set of cables. And if performance was the only factor in consideration, anything above $25 would be money down the drain.

The problem is some have that much money to waste, imagine Mark Zuckerberg, $48k to him is less than 48 cents to others. I remember hearing that when Rolls Royce was nearly broke the new CEO doubled the price of them, made them more exclusive and people wanted them more.
 

Blumlein 88

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I ought to build a resin-filled plugbox and name it the AudioPHILE - or "Audio Phase-Harmonized Integrated Linearity Extender".

Market it as being able to extend the linearity of music... whatever that means.

Slap a four-figure pricetag on it and see how many people bite.

See, anybody on the Internet and make fancy-sounding stuff up.

I suggest you get it cryo-treated. And somehow it needs association with an ill conceived quantum effect to gain real credibility.

So:
Market it as being able to extend the quantum linearity of musical information.

If anyone has further questions just refer to it being a de-entanglement proprietary process.
 

Juhazi

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OMG, thanks Lord that my hearing is so impaired! If I start to hear differencies in cables, my family should really get worried...
 

Noob

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This nonsense around transmission line never ends:

View attachment 22186

The wavelength of audio at 20 kHz, is a whopping 15,000 meters. Transmission line effects are not material until the length of the cable approaches 1/10 of the wavelength. That means we don't worry about speaker wire reaches 1,500 meters or 5,000 feet! Even using 1/20th guideline the lengths involved are way, way higher than domestic audio speaker cable lengths.

Somehow concept of "transmission line" makes intuitive sense to non-technical audiophiles, allowing them to continue creating these junk science arguments.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying we can't appreciate the true quality our audio cables have to offer because they are too short and we need to have cables at least a few thousand feet long. My eyes have been opened. Now we just need to find a brand selling +2000ft lengths of pure mithril-core, dragon-blood-soaked, philosopher-stone-encrusted cable. I always had a feeling that size really does matter. Turns out it's true. Bigger is better, everyone! Take note. If your cables are under 2000ft, you might as well be using a tin can and some string to listen to your music.
 
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