Is there even a tiny bit of truth in all the marketing voodoo that audio cable manufacturers say? Or is it all BS?

[boxerfan88]

If single core is truly better, why so many cable manufacturers still make multi strand cables?

Or is the multi strand cable designed for more cable flexibility at the small sacrifice of transmission performance?

 

[Chrispy]

No I have not. That video seemed interesting to me, I don't want to completely discredit it until I find objective evidence his video is wrong, which nobody has so far showed me yet.

LOL, sure and gofishus is just a name you like....

 

[Speedskater]

If any of that were true, the manufactures would be so busy supplying the demands science and medicine (who have much more sensitive needs ) that they wouldn't have time to think about audiophiles.

 

[Palladium]

If any of that were true, the manufactures would be so busy supplying the demands science and medicine (who have much more sensitive needs ) that they wouldn't have time to think about audiophiles.

Exactly, every multibillion electronic company would kill for every last nanowatt at wireless GHz frequencies.

 

[MattHooper]

Well according to the guy from Morrow Audio...



The reason why they don't show measurements is because what they are claiming to improve, can't be measured, only 'experienced'!

Drat.

Objectivists foiled again!

 

[Multicore]

The answer is in the question. Marketing voodoo is marketing voodoo.

I guess the fact you asked means you're not 100% sure when you read said marketing voodoo. That's the trick to writing good marketing - creating uncertainty that you might be missing out.

Otoh, if we define the voodoo as the creation of this uncertainty then my opening paragraph falls apart.

 

[genesisaudiorack]

i think it was the sophia magik box guy...i sorta like being nerded on by a brain....but when talking to him i thought i was talking to a genie out of a bottle. i wasnt able to understand any mumbo jumbo and he didnt offer any tech at all. even if tech can be convoluting it should have a basis or subject bearing. asking him any simple questions yielded no technical info at all.

 

[JeffS7444]

All I hear is a bunch of jargon about semi-technical terms like 'eddy currents' 'skin effect' 'dialectric' etc ( probably to convince the consumer that these companies with their big vocabulary must know what they are talking about ) and some of them even contradict each other (Morrow for example charges money for people to use their burn in machine service! whereas Cardas says burn in machines don't have any effect).

A typical trick they use is to throw in some true-sounding stuff here and there, but often out of context, in hopes that you won't know any better. Skin effect, for example, is a real phenomenon, but not at audio frequencies.

As for equipment "burn-in", the thing which gets burnt-in is not the equipment, but the audiophile

 

[Newman]

Well according to the guy from Morrow Audio...
The reason why they don't show measurements is because what they are claiming to improve, can't be measured, only 'experienced'!

Gee, that's........convenient.

Can he point you at one single experiment where cables were shown to have exactly the same 'measurables' (that's the easy part), and pass a difference detection listening test in controlled test conditions?

Until he does so, we can safely assume that every reported 'experience' is 100% placebo!

 

[gofishus]

A typical trick they use is to throw in some true-sounding stuff here and there, but often out of context, in hopes that you won't know any better. Skin effect, for example, is a real phenomenon, but not at audio frequencies.

As for equipment "burn-in", the thing which gets burnt-in is not the equipment, but the audiophile

I'm guessing silver being a 6% better conductor than copper is not worth the extra $1k they charge right?

 

[Chrispy]

I'm guessing silver being a 6% better conductor than copper is not worth the extra $1k they charge right?

How do you think that conductivity difference actually manifests, if at all? Silver would probably blow your mind? LOL

 

[genesisaudiorack]

I'm guessing silver being a 6% better conductor than copper is not worth the extra $1k they charge right?

i feel like you are marginalizing this whole "6%" mole hole youre building up. 6% probably is actually a extended quality of its own. if you use something thats technically more conductive than copper and make a .05% claim its narrow at best. 6% isnt something to gawk at.

 

[Chrispy]

i feel like you are marginalizing this whole "6%" mole hole youre building up. 6% probably is actually a extended quality of its own. if you use something thats technically more conductive than copper and make a .05% claim its narrow at best. 6% isnt something to gawk at.

Uh huh

 

[kemmler3D]

Polygraph testing shows that the primary sonic effects of cables are caused by electromagnetic effects.

Huh, who did they have to interrogate to find this out? Did they give the president of Sony a lie detector test or something?

I think audio cable claims are true (at best), in the same way that it's true to say you will run faster if you lick an envelope to save weight on spit.

 

[Mnyb]

I'm guessing silver being a 6% better conductor than copper is not worth the extra $1k they charge right?

You can simply use more copper like in a speaker cable .

And in signal cables it does not matter that much as the impedance in the circuit is much higher and there or not much current practicaly voltage.

 

[Wolf11Man]

Like many claims in audio, there is a little truth hidden under all these voodoo lies in cable marketing.

When I had my first encouters with HIFI, special speaker cables where not much stronger than telephone wires inside. Only the insulation was thicker and softer, to move and hide them behind furniture etc. In some countries even aluminum wires where used to cut cost, as copper was expensive and rare during the wars.
Most speakers had an 8 Ohm impedance rating. These often very long cable runs did really change the sound, compared to a short run of decend wire. With 4 Ohms speakers this was even more pronounced. So changing these tiny wires to something more beefy could indeed make them sound more dynamic and improve the bass.

Today no one would use a 21 AWG or 0.5mm speaker cable, which, at that time, was called over dimensioned.
With 15AWG or 1.5mm for short runs and 13 AWG = 2.5mm for longer connections we have reached a point which makes it questionable to use thicker wires. 11 AWG = 4.5mm cable may be used for high power subs if it makes one feel better. In the 80's and 90's I remember 6mm wires in large audio shops of that time, I asked a shop clerk about the sound advantage. He was a lot older than me and said "it doesn't sound better but looks so much more important". Compared to today even this silver plated OFC 9 AWG was reasonable priced.

There are quite a few dirty tricks to make an expensive cable sound better, starting by using copper clad aluminum wire as a competitor, calling it a "typical speaker cable". These made from "pure CCA" are aluminum with a copper plating to make them solderable. They have a higher resistance and may change sound if long enough.

What mystical stuff are they made from? Basically we talk about simple, pure electrolytic copper, that is an industry standard, typical with more than 99.9% copper contend. Which is about 9$ for a Kilogram = 2.2 onces.
Most cable producer use a cleaner, oxygen free version at 99.95% purity and a little more expensive.
The best quality is OFE which is "oxygen free electronic" and 99.99% pure. A silver content is concidered an impurity! Opposite to what some Hiend people sell you even more expensive, with a silver or gold content. Even this OFE stuff is sold in metric tons and far from expensive.
Anything else as a basic material would need an industrial production site, to make your own raw "special" copper and the following machines to make wires from it. I don't see such plants with any audio cable producer.

Even drug producer only dream of the profits that are made in the High End cable market or with coils sold for speaker crossovers..

 

[Mnyb]

Btw before I leave this tread . Why yet another cable tread ? It’s the same question over and over again the forum has hundreds ( thousands) of similar treads so one only needs to use the search function ? It’s an uninteresting solved problem, buy normal cables ffs .
Especially USB or Ethernet these are bought in the computer store don’t go near anything “audio” in those cases

 

[tove]

Fixed.

Sure. I think this is more true for the US though, than the Nordics where I'm at. HiFi is really on another level.

I have recently visited a couple of local HiFi-shops. One of them, for example, where the guy has worked in the industry and had the store for almost 40 years. He knows nothing about audio. Literally nothing. Beyond nothing even. Other HiFi-store owners of similar experience are pretty much the same. Really interesting how you can work in a field for decades and be 100% ignorant and lack the most basic technical and acoustical knowledge.

 

[solderdude]

All cables measure differently in a test lab with certain loads. Especially above 10kHz.
Geometry, wire material, diameter, length, it all matters and has a measurable effect, usually well above the audible range.


Whether or not this becomes audible depends on the load and cable wire resistance and for exotic cables even an unusually high capacitance could destabilize some amplifiers.

When the cable thickness, length are appropriately chosen (with the speaker load aspects taken into account) then these aspects will not lead to audible differences. When a less well selected speaker cable is compared to one that has more suited properties there may be audible differences. Just not caused by something (yet) immeasurable but because of physics and audibility thresholds being reached (in blind test conditions).

Speaker cables and headphone cables can surely create audible differences ... mostly due to the cable resistance v.s. load impedance ratio.
Interlinks won't but may well be more or less susceptible to outside 'crap' coupling into the cable.
Digital transmission is high into the MHz bandwidth and with USB and high bitrates/depths and longer lengths cables may matter.
They could have too much voltage drop on the +5V wire or have a high resistance in the ground wire etc which may or may not lead to some issues that may become audible or even prevent successful transmission of data.

The 'subjective' found differences can have completely different causes which mostly are not caused by electrical properties of the cable.

Usually cable manufacturers talk a lot of BS. Cables can be highly profitable to sell (huge profit margins) for both the manufacturers, wholesale and Hi-Fi sellers. They will say/write anything to make a deal. Even give a 'money back guarantee' if the proud owner does not hear an improvement. Most WILL hear a difference simply because of human nature.

But cables, just like electronics as well as transducers (speakers/headphones) all differ for sure when on a test bench and the proper aspects are measured with good enough accuracy.
Manufacturers and sellers gladly use that as selling points.

Most likely one WILL hear differences between cables but can rest assured this is most likely not because of electrical properties of the used cable(s).
The fact that you can (clearly) hear differences doesn't mean there really ARE differences.

 

[GXAlan]

None of the cables are meaningfully audible. Even if you could prove that you hear some difference (even if it’s as simple as lower resistance so you weren’t actually level matched), every dollar in your budget should be spent on the room, then the speakers and then the room EQ software.

It’s just easier to buy and sell cables than big speakers.

All that said, never forget that we can measure differences in *digital* cables :

Review and Measurements of Wireworld Starlight 7 USB Cable

This is a review and detailed measurements of Wireworld Starlight 7 flat USB cable. It is on kind loan from a member. The cost is USD $100 including Prime shipping for the 1 meter/40 inch length I am testing. For this review, I compared it to my current favorite, the 6 foot/1.5m version of...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The APx555 is that reliable! But the comment about the improvement being inaudible still stands.