I’ve essentially upgraded my entire system over the past six months. I had no plans to change the cables. Why bother?
My speaker cables were approaching their 20th birthday but they seemed fine. The outsides looked good, so did the actual copper inside. Long ago, I bought a pair of Paradigm speakers. A good salesman because before I knew what was happening, I had spent $100 on cables. Even back then I wasn’t so dumb. I don’t know if they had a brand name but they had Cardes (Cardas?) stamped on the run of cable. Over the years,, their presence has been questioned. But $100. How bad could they be.
I don’t know anything about the interconnects. They were a step up from the ones that came in the box but more than that I can’t say. I certainly never spent serious money on them.
Full disclosure: I have no scientific knowledge about audio whatsoever.
That didn’t stop me from being a full blown cable skeptic. I sounded like I had a PhD in physics. “Don’t you realize that the measurements at the speaker end are identical no matter what you use? How can you waste money like that? A guy wired a system together with coat hangers and it measured the same! Confirmation bias! Oedipus complex!” Then I would walk away, shaking my head at another victim of the military/audio/media/industrial complex.
As part of my system makeover, I bought a used Arcam A19 integrated amplifier. The seller and I hit it off. He knew a lot about audio equipment. Dealer level knowledge, But he was part of the establishment, he wasn’t questioning the received knowledge.
He was appalled at my cables and went on at length about my need for decent cables. Almost out of sorrow at what I was missing. So I finally bought a set. Partly to shut him up, partly because it would be foolish to ignore something accepted by so many intelligent people. Cables by Q Accoustics, the speaker company. Residents in this “What Hi-Fi” Budget Buys Hall of Fame. Seriously. Used for about $75. Expecting absolutely nothing, I hooked them up.
I’m not going to search for adjectives to describe what happened. I’ll just say that the sound was different. Not better but different.
I was stunned. It wasn’t supposed to be different. All cables sound like same. The measurements prove it. But the difference wasn’t subtle, it was unmistakable.
To be continued in Part II.
My speaker cables were approaching their 20th birthday but they seemed fine. The outsides looked good, so did the actual copper inside. Long ago, I bought a pair of Paradigm speakers. A good salesman because before I knew what was happening, I had spent $100 on cables. Even back then I wasn’t so dumb. I don’t know if they had a brand name but they had Cardes (Cardas?) stamped on the run of cable. Over the years,, their presence has been questioned. But $100. How bad could they be.
I don’t know anything about the interconnects. They were a step up from the ones that came in the box but more than that I can’t say. I certainly never spent serious money on them.
Full disclosure: I have no scientific knowledge about audio whatsoever.
That didn’t stop me from being a full blown cable skeptic. I sounded like I had a PhD in physics. “Don’t you realize that the measurements at the speaker end are identical no matter what you use? How can you waste money like that? A guy wired a system together with coat hangers and it measured the same! Confirmation bias! Oedipus complex!” Then I would walk away, shaking my head at another victim of the military/audio/media/industrial complex.
As part of my system makeover, I bought a used Arcam A19 integrated amplifier. The seller and I hit it off. He knew a lot about audio equipment. Dealer level knowledge, But he was part of the establishment, he wasn’t questioning the received knowledge.
He was appalled at my cables and went on at length about my need for decent cables. Almost out of sorrow at what I was missing. So I finally bought a set. Partly to shut him up, partly because it would be foolish to ignore something accepted by so many intelligent people. Cables by Q Accoustics, the speaker company. Residents in this “What Hi-Fi” Budget Buys Hall of Fame. Seriously. Used for about $75. Expecting absolutely nothing, I hooked them up.
I’m not going to search for adjectives to describe what happened. I’ll just say that the sound was different. Not better but different.
I was stunned. It wasn’t supposed to be different. All cables sound like same. The measurements prove it. But the difference wasn’t subtle, it was unmistakable.
To be continued in Part II.