• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

This audio cable business is getting out of hand...

mansr

Major Contributor
Joined
Oct 5, 2018
Messages
4,685
Likes
10,700
Location
Hampshire
It seems manufacturers must lay awake at night thinking up catchy names for their cables/interconnects:

Nordost Red Dawn LEIF Power
Nordost Solar Wind RCA
Siltech Royal Signature Princess RCA
Wireworld Gold Starlight Coax
Shunyata E TRON Cobra Power
Atlas Ascent Mk ii OCC Speaker
Shunyata Anaconda Alpha Power
I fed those and a few more into the GPT-2 text generator, and it conjured some more names:

AudioQuest Black Hole
AudioQuest Black Magic
AudioQuest Blue Magic
AudioQuest Blue-Eyed Devil
AudioQuest Fire Dragon (Volt)
AudioQuest Gold Sparkles Diamond
AudioQuest Green Ice Dragon
AudioQuest Red Comet
AudioQuest Red Crown
AudioQuest Silver King
AudioQuest Sky Blue Tribute
AudioQuest Super Star

Nordost Azure Aurora
Nordost Gold Lightning Diamond
Nordost Gold-Tailed Dragon
Nordost Rainbow Dream
Nordost Silver Sky Ebonite
Nordost Star Stalker

Shunyata Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Bronze Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Silver Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Crimson Nightmare
Shunyata Green Dream
Shunyata Purple Flame
Shunyata Purple Lightning
Shunyata Silver Bolts
Shunyata Silver-Eyed Tiger
Shunyata White Sunshade
Shunyata Yellow Star

Siltech Blue Mule of Darkness
Siltech Blue Sunshade
Siltech Crystal Sun
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Diamond)
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Silver)
Siltech Golden Stryker
Siltech Silver Sable
Siltech Silver Star
Siltech White Diamond
Siltech White Sunshade
Siltech Yellow Moon

Wireworld Crystal Light
Wireworld Golden Diamond
Wireworld Green Earth
Wireworld Silver Moon

Kollektronik Blue Thunder
Krampus A.P.C. E.S.H
Morphic Incorporations The Light in the Sky
Sigma Labs Haze
Zealot Black Wind
Zealot Blue Sky
Zealot Gold
 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,335
Likes
7,719
Not sure if anyone has mentioned these cables before, but I have to highly recommend the new Black Cat Coppertone cables by Chris Sommovigo.
These cables are priced at extremely reasonable pricing and can easily compete with cabling that are thousands of $$'s more! All of Chris's cables are hand made by Chris. Anyone considering a new cable loom, or just replacing their ic's or speaker cables...should give these a listen.
Hi Davey

Glad to read you but ... Here is the thing that we keep on repeating. THe link between price and performance ... audible, measurable, repeatable measurable and audible performance is tenuous ... The Kahrdas Tone Board $100), JDS Labs Atomamp ($100), Hypex, Purifi, B&O Ice Amplifier modules (various prices but $1000 give you a $200/ch virtually transparent amp... Benchmark proucts are strident examples, even proofs of this view... As for cables Mogami, Belden, Canare, Blue Jeans cover all the base ... We have been lead by too many people to believe that cables can (should?) cost > $1000 for a few feet and that they have a "sound". Among the BS that I'd like to see stop is that of Ethernet and USB cables >$1,000 with one particular USB costing , I believe, $15,000. It is just ugly. It is just abhorrent.
In the big scheme of things there are worse things happening on our planet some threatening our very existence,,, so Hi-Fi cables that some well-heeled ignorami seem to enjoy shouldn't raise our blood pressure ... Still .. It bothers ... So Yeah! the Black Cat Coppertone may "sound " great to you but as I told you, a few tens of dollars will provide exact same performance if you listening closely and .. blindly. ;)
 

Purité Audio

Master Contributor
Industry Insider
Barrowmaster
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
9,049
Likes
12,147
Location
London
Do you have a strawberry mivi?
Keith
 

Thomas savage

Grand Contributor
The Watchman
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
10,260
Likes
16,298
Location
uk, taunton
Do you have a strawberry mivi?
Keith
Keith can you do me a solid and use that wonderful education you received at the hands of Victorian nuns and translate the Latin phrases upstream in the thread ..

Love a mivi , only problem is once I start i can't stop eating them until the packet is gone.

Oh and @Blumlein 88 my audiophile cables bought a few years ago were ' voiced ' just for me... Keith , what's the Latin for ' fucking nuts ' ?
 
D

Deleted member 12

Guest
Hi Davey

Glad to read you but ... Here is the thing that we keep on repeating. THe link between price and performance ... audible, measurable, repeatable measurable and audible performance is tenuous ... The Kahrdas Tone Board $100), JDS Labs Atomamp ($100), Hypex, Purifi, B&O Ice Amplifier modules (various prices but $1000 give you a $200/ch virtually transparent amp... Benchmark proucts are strident examples, even proofs of this view... As for cables Mogami, Belden, Canare, Blue Jeans cover all the base ... We have been lead by too many people to believe that cables can (should?) cost > $1000 for a few feet and that they have a "sound". Among the BS that I'd like to see stop is that of Ethernet and USB cables >$1,000 with one particular USB costing , I believe, $15,000. It is just ugly. It is just abhorrent.
In the big scheme of things there are worse things happening on our planet some threatening our very existence,,, so Hi-Fi cables that some well-heeled ignorami seem to enjoy shouldn't raise our blood pressure ... Still .. It bothers ... So Yeah! the Black Cat Coppertone may "sound " great to you but as I told you, a few tens of dollars will provide exact same performance if you listening closely and .. blindly. ;)
Frantz, nice to see you again.

But I have to ask you this question....in regards to your last sentence. You know this how???
 

LuckyLuke575

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
357
Likes
315
Location
Germany
I like Mogami, stop me and buy some ;)
My custom HD 650 headphone cable with a Mogami Neglex-Quad High-Definition wire core and Neutrik termination arrived today! And it sounds way better than the $15 stock cable! Fuller, richer, more natural sound; change my mind :p:p:p
 

Ron Party

Senior Member
CPH (Chief Prog Head)
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
411
Likes
559
Location
Oakland
I fed those and a few more into the GPT-2 text generator, and it conjured some more names:

AudioQuest Black Hole
AudioQuest Black Magic
AudioQuest Blue Magic
AudioQuest Blue-Eyed Devil
AudioQuest Fire Dragon (Volt)
AudioQuest Gold Sparkles Diamond
AudioQuest Green Ice Dragon
AudioQuest Red Comet
AudioQuest Red Crown
AudioQuest Silver King
AudioQuest Sky Blue Tribute
AudioQuest Super Star

Nordost Azure Aurora
Nordost Gold Lightning Diamond
Nordost Gold-Tailed Dragon
Nordost Rainbow Dream
Nordost Silver Sky Ebonite
Nordost Star Stalker

Shunyata Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Bronze Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Silver Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Crimson Nightmare
Shunyata Green Dream
Shunyata Purple Flame
Shunyata Purple Lightning
Shunyata Silver Bolts
Shunyata Silver-Eyed Tiger
Shunyata White Sunshade
Shunyata Yellow Star

Siltech Blue Mule of Darkness
Siltech Blue Sunshade
Siltech Crystal Sun
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Diamond)
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Silver)
Siltech Golden Stryker
Siltech Silver Sable
Siltech Silver Star
Siltech White Diamond
Siltech White Sunshade
Siltech Yellow Moon

Wireworld Crystal Light
Wireworld Golden Diamond
Wireworld Green Earth
Wireworld Silver Moon

Kollektronik Blue Thunder
Krampus A.P.C. E.S.H
Morphic Incorporations The Light in the Sky
Sigma Labs Haze
Zealot Black Wind
Zealot Blue Sky
Zealot Gold

Suddenly Timothy Leary's name came to mind.
 

LuckyLuke575

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
357
Likes
315
Location
Germany
I fed those and a few more into the GPT-2 text generator, and it conjured some more names:

AudioQuest Black Hole
AudioQuest Black Magic
AudioQuest Blue Magic
AudioQuest Blue-Eyed Devil
AudioQuest Fire Dragon (Volt)
AudioQuest Gold Sparkles Diamond
AudioQuest Green Ice Dragon
AudioQuest Red Comet
AudioQuest Red Crown
AudioQuest Silver King
AudioQuest Sky Blue Tribute
AudioQuest Super Star

Nordost Azure Aurora
Nordost Gold Lightning Diamond
Nordost Gold-Tailed Dragon
Nordost Rainbow Dream
Nordost Silver Sky Ebonite
Nordost Star Stalker

Shunyata Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Bronze Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Silver Lightning Bolts
Shunyata Crimson Nightmare
Shunyata Green Dream
Shunyata Purple Flame
Shunyata Purple Lightning
Shunyata Silver Bolts
Shunyata Silver-Eyed Tiger
Shunyata White Sunshade
Shunyata Yellow Star

Siltech Blue Mule of Darkness
Siltech Blue Sunshade
Siltech Crystal Sun
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Diamond)
Siltech Firebird Ultra (Silver)
Siltech Golden Stryker
Siltech Silver Sable
Siltech Silver Star
Siltech White Diamond
Siltech White Sunshade
Siltech Yellow Moon

Wireworld Crystal Light
Wireworld Golden Diamond
Wireworld Green Earth
Wireworld Silver Moon

Kollektronik Blue Thunder
Krampus A.P.C. E.S.H
Morphic Incorporations The Light in the Sky
Sigma Labs Haze
Zealot Black Wind
Zealot Blue Sky
Zealot Gold

Its a total joke. You can add the Moon Audio 'Dragon' headphone cables to the list. They go for $300+, and apparently can EQ your sound!!!!

Dragon cables.JPG
 

LuckyLuke575

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
357
Likes
315
Location
Germany
For those with access to Amazon, Kabel Direkt is a great cable brand. They sell everything from audio cable, ethernet to USB and HDMI, with prices ranging from $5 to $20. I've bought a USB, optical and 3.5 mm extension cable from them and I'm very happy with the build quality and functioning. The Pro Series is the one to go for.

Its a German brand, so their slogan of 'quality at a fair price' is fitting :D I see that its also available on Amazon.com, so my friends in the US are in luck :)
 

majingotan

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 13, 2018
Messages
1,509
Likes
1,781
Location
Laguna, Philippines

Hypnotoad

Active Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
230
Likes
239
Location
Melbourne, Australia
For those with access to Amazon, Kabel Direkt is a great cable brand. They sell everything from audio cable, ethernet to USB and HDMI, with prices ranging from $5 to $20. I've bought a USB, optical and 3.5 mm extension cable from them and I'm very happy with the build quality and functioning. The Pro Series is the one to go for.

Good to know, I have seen many cables on AliExpress and being a big fan of the Huhao brand router bits I'm wondering if any of them are any good?

Or if shock horror some of the pricey big name brands are the same underneath as these cheap Chinese ones?

How does this spiel sound? No affiliation!

"ZERO: NO CHARACTERISTIC IMPEDANCE FOR UNCOMPRESSED CURRENT TRANSFER
The integrity of any audio transient (instantaneous peak-to-peak voltage swing and current) delivered from a power amplifier to a loudspeaker has always been compromised. Whether the amplifier is valve or transistor, regardless of class of operation, the amplifier’s source impedance and loudspeaker’s load impedance are never critically matched. The speaker cable’s characteristic impedance is yet another culprit in a highly compromised non-linear electrical circuit. AudioQuest has always stated that all cables cause damage because the output is never as good as the input. However, by eliminating a speaker cable’s characteristic impedance, AQ’s ZERO Technology is an unprecedented step towards reducing that damage. The result is greater dynamic contrast, better audio transient response, and bass slam that are rendered seemingly without effort because the cable is not electrically restricting (strangling) the music."

https://www.ambertech.com.au/3m-thunderbird-zero-spk-cable-banana-to-banana-(-silver)-audioquest
 
Last edited:

dweekie

Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2019
Messages
64
Likes
33
It seems manufacturers must lay awake at night thinking up catchy names for their cables/interconnects:

Nordost Red Dawn LEIF Power
Nordost Solar Wind RCA
Siltech Royal Signature Princess RCA
Wireworld Gold Starlight Coax
Shunyata E TRON Cobra Power
Atlas Ascent Mk ii OCC Speaker
Shunyata Anaconda Alpha Power

They need to take a page from the people that lay awake at night thinking of catchy names for NBA players. There are some true unforgetable classics here if you are a basketball fan...

 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,335
Likes
7,719
They need to take a page from the people that lay awake at night thinking of catchy names for NBA players. There are some true unforgetable classics here if you are a basketball fan...

This is a most one entertaining video.
Many Thanks!!!
 

JJB70

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 17, 2018
Messages
2,905
Likes
6,148
Location
Singapore
The thing that annoys me about Audioquest is that they demonstrated with their headphones that they are capable of making very good equipment which isn't outrageously priced (yes they were expensive, but in today's market their headphones weren't ridiculously expensive and they were very good). But I guess it is easier and more lucrative to just sell snake oil.
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Isn't it funny somehow that ALL manufacturers are of the opinion that only their (most expensive) cables do not change the sound (or improve the sound)... They can't all be right.
 
D

Deleted member 12

Guest
Isn't it funny somehow that ALL manufacturers are of the opinion that only their (most expensive) cables do not change the sound (or improve the sound)... They can't all be right.
Uhmmm, expensive...like what, $25- for a set of speaker cables and what $15- for interconnects, LMAO!!!
I suggested a superb cable for $200- for a set of ic's...and that was laughed at as being out of line...SERIOUSLY!! WAY TOO EXPENSIVE said the cognoscenti...VERY WEAK IMO. :(
 

mansr

Major Contributor
Joined
Oct 5, 2018
Messages
4,685
Likes
10,700
Location
Hampshire
Isn't it funny somehow that ALL manufacturers are of the opinion that only their (most expensive) cables do not change the sound (or improve the sound)... They can't all be right.
Also funny how they all have three or four neatly staggered price tiers.
 

Soniclife

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Apr 13, 2017
Messages
4,499
Likes
5,417
Location
UK
It seems manufacturers must lay awake at night thinking up catchy names for their cables/interconnects:
No way, this is a job for a long lunch accompanied by the finest wines paid for by the company. Sorry, what am I saying, several long lunches, maybe even some exotic travel for inspiration.
 
Top Bottom