What cables do you use in your systems?

[VeerK]

I use Amazon Basics for digital transport and WBC for analog. I save the big bucks for transducers

 

[scrubb]

I use Bluejeanscables for just about everything. I'm a fan of their speaker wire and their interconnects are sturdy. They seem to let the electrons flow just fine and don't break the bank. I "feel" better about them than the $2.50 molded "freebie" style interconnects. Do they sound any different? Maybe, maybe not. I haven't done a blind test.

 

[Zedly]

Blue Jeans Cable is also an ethical company. They pay their employees a living wage and give them full health and retirement benefits. I am always happy to support such a company.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I have never tried an aftermarket power cable, I use the ones that came with the equipment.

I get around the AC power cable problem altogether by making the Romex in the walls a few feet longer when installed, then run this directly to the power transformer in my power amplifier. To turn the amplifier on and off, I go outside and flip the main breaker. Problem solved.

 

[Wombat]

I get around the AC power cable problem altogether by making the Romex in the walls a few feet longer when installed, then run this directly to the power transformer in my power amplifier. To turn the amplifier on and off, I go outside and flip the main breaker. Problem solved.

You are kidding, huh?

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

You are kidding, huh?

Actually I did do that in the past. I don't do it now because going outside to flip the breakers too much of a hassle.

 

[MechEngVic]

Several years ago I bought several feet of 99.9% pure silver bezel wire. It's used by jewelers. I polished it then put a clear heat-shrink tubing around it. I have used it to make my own interconnect cables many times over. The wrapped wire stays corrosion free and I just have to polish the ends when making new cables. I wrap the wire in teflon tape then twist a pair together with a nylon spacer in between. Then I heat-shrink the pair and terminate with silver plated RCA's, ferrite rings at the incoming end, then I slip a fancy sleeve around them. They look like the snake-oil brands and I'm sure work as well as anything you can buy cheaply or very expensive.

 

[SIY]

See, the nice thing about those is that you can make up just about any story you like, and the appearance will convince the average high end enthusiast that it's true.

 

[Chrispy]

Getting back to the original post - for RCA interconnects I purchased some Audioquest $50 cables. I had no expectations (or requirements) for a better sound, I just wanted something with good quality connectors and reasonable durability. Cables are good, no disappointment. The dilemma is that now I have seen the price and puffery of some of some of their 'top end' gear I am reluctant to buy anything else from them. Do you purchase from a company like this knowing (hoping) that good manufacturing filters down to their lower price gear or do you avoid them in order to stop perpetuating (in my opinion) the snake oil factor? Or do you just accept that it's a free world and the market will sort itself out?

Personally I'd never support Audioquest in any shape or form and that goes for their speaker company acquisitions....screw 'em. They're a pox on the industry. $50 for simple rca cables is nuts.

 

[waynel]

Several years ago I bought several feet of 99.9% pure silver bezel wire. It's used by jewelers. I polished it then put a clear heat-shrink tubing around it. I have used it to make my own interconnect cables many times over. The wrapped wire stays corrosion free and I just have to polish the ends when making new cables. I wrap the wire in teflon tape then twist a pair together with a nylon spacer in between. Then I heat-shrink the pair and terminate with silver plated RCA's, ferrite rings at the incoming end, then I slip a fancy sleeve around them. They look like the snake-oil brands and I'm sure work as well as anything you can buy cheaply or very expensive.
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I wouldn’t be so sure that it performs as well as cheap wire, it looks high capacitance .

 

[MechEngVic]

I wouldn’t be so sure that it performs as well as cheap wire, it looks high capacitance .

I have a 20" pair and a 16" pair. No measurable inductance, resistance, or capacitance.

From another forum: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/interconnect-inductance-vs-capacitance

"For a twisted pair design, the capacitance and the inductance are a function of the distance between the conductors relative to their diameters and are somewhat inversely related. The closer the conductors the less inductance and the more capacitance. The further apart, the more inductance and the less capacitance. For instance, a lot of ICs might have a pair of conductors that helix around a core that keeps them at some distance in order to achieve a certain design point (this is just twisted pair from a design point). Similarily, the thickness of the insulation itself can keep the conductors separated at some distance in a twisted pair that does not have a 'core'. The capacitance is also related to the type of dielectric used (or more specifically, the effective relative permitivity of the dielectric that the conductors experience). There are other cable geometries that are used that will tend to push the impedances one way or another. In general, all of the impedances (resistance, capacitance, inductance) scale linearly with the length of cable so shorter is better if you want to minimize impedances.

It's probably easiest to try to get the vendor's specs on what impedance a given cable exhibits - if they've bothered to measure them. Measuring inductance and capacitance typically requires a pretty good (expensive) piece of equipment. Low capacitance and low inductance are both desirable, but since you usually hurt one to help the other, going two far in either direction tends to be a mistake. However, I agree with Almarg that capacitance is a bigger factor for ICs while inductance (and resistance) is generally a bigger factor for speaker cables due to the differences in the amount of current involved between the two (e.g. harder for a low current system to charge a capacitance while harder for a high current system to overcome inductance).

Other things that are reputed to affect the "sound" of cabling are the purity of the conductor (e.g. OFC (99.99%), UPOCC (99.9999%), solid conductors supposedly better than stranded conductors, the type of conductor (copper, silver, silver coated copper), effective cross section of total conductors (more cross section, less DC resistance), diameter of individual insulated conductors (smaller gauge wires show less variation in internal impedance with frequency (due to skin effect, DC travels through the entire conductor - higher frequencies move to the outsides of the conductor - so some vendors will say you should have, for instance, a number of smaller gauge conductors (say 8 x 21 AWG) rather than one large conductor (say 1 x 12 AWG) for speaker cables), surface of conductor (smooth/polished is better), the type of dielectric (actual physics here that affects capacitance), the geometry of the conductors within the cable , the mechanical stability of the conductors (e.g. damping and isolation), how well the connector or wire makes contact with the terminals (e.g. type of plating on connectors, type of metals in connectors, surfaces of connectors, contact points of connectors, contact enhancement treatments, oxidation on connectors, vibrations in connectors, etc.), shielding from RFI and EM radiation (more important on ICs due to low voltages and currents and subsequent application of the noise through your amplifier), and various types of conditionings like cryogenic freezing. However, there is great controversy over which, if any, of these types of things has an impact on the 'sound' or whether "great" sound can be achieved with a 'budget' cable.

To be honest, most cables spec's are not going to be a problem from an electrical standpoint - unless perhaps your amp is sensitive to highly capacitive loads (most are designed not to be) or you are running at lot more than say 8 feet of cable. And most of the cable specs are not going to tell you something that will indicate whether it sounds better or worst to you in your system. Even if the cable were to have characteristics that introduce frequency distortion - perhaps you like attenuated highs on your ICs because your gear is bright for instance.

However, most audio folks say that they hear differences between different cable's sounds. Most differences in cables' sounds are 'subtle' and perhaps a matter of taste. To me, it seems to be a bit of a hit or miss operation if you are just looking at 'spec's. It's not clear what measured parameters are important to the "sound" and there's a lot of marketing hype about various other characteristics that are hard to substantiate. If you can actually audition some cables and you like one better than the other - and you feel that the difference in cost justifies the improvement, then go for it - though this could lead to a potentially un-ending cable upgrade path if you have unlimited time and resources. The next best source is likely to be discussion forums of other folks experiences with various cables on various types of equipment (particularly the ones where they decided to go from cable x to cable y).

Keep in mind that some cables reportedly require some period of time to settle into how they will ultimately sound. If you believe in breakin (another controversy), the periods typically indicated for this transition tend to be on the order of a few days to a week or two of active (24x7) use, depending on a number of factors - though most likely related to the type of dielectric. If you are trying to compare two cables - that is also a bit of a dicey operation. Try to keep all other variables constant. Same gear, same room, same speaker placement, same relative placement of listener to the speakers. It may take you some time of listening before you decide that a particular sound is to your liking - what might sound like more definition at first might end up seeming harsh after a while. So it may take more than just flipping back and forth a few times to get to a lasting impression of whether you really like one sound versus the other. Also keep in mind that your listening room may have a much larger effect on the sound of your system than the cables so if that's out of control - perhaps you're better off focusing on that first before you start trying to 'tune in' your cables. Another rule of thumb quoted would be to not spend more than about 10-20% of your system's cost on cabling. If you are spending more that on cabling, you might be better off buying better gear than better cables.

Not much help here, but a lot of things to consider perhaps. From what I'm seeing, seems like perhaps a bit too focused on the capacitance vs inductance issue as the title suggests."

 

[Speedskater]

The above interconnect-inductance-vs-capacitance post is 6 paragraphs long. The first paragraph is correct, while the remainder are nonsense.

 

[BDWoody]

No measurable inductance, resistance, or capacitance.

Wow...

 

[mansr]

wow...

Someone needs a better LCR meter.

 

[slovell1]

BJC

 

[Jinjuku]

Belden and Monoprice for speaker

USB is Belkin Gold

XLR are Cables Matters

RCA's are hand terminated GLS Mic cable

HDMI is Parts Express house brand 'Dayton'

 

[valerianf]

Cable choice is very simple to me:
Speakers is 2 to 2.5mm2 copper with banana plug.
Pre-out use ordinary RCA
Hdmi is Hi Speed Ethernet capable.

No need to have a headhache about audio cabling.
There are more crucial matters (choosing a musical AVR bug free, customizing speaker crossover, adjusting room correction).

 

[AnalogSteph]

RCA's are hand terminated GLS Mic cable

Wait, that's twisted pair, isn't it? Unbalanced connections should get unbalanced cable - coax. At least use some RG-59 (common video coax), RG-58 (50 ohm coax) or RG-174 (thinner 50 ohm coax). STP can also be used if you tie both conductors together and make a coax cable that way, but I would expect higher capacitance and less good shielding than in standard off-the-shelf coax.

The important cables here:
3.5 mm to 2x TS - Cordial CFY xx WPP
(Behringer HD400 goes here)
2x TRS to XLR - the lowly the sssnake MXP2015 (I wanted something nickel plated to match the HD400, and Cordial didn't have that; these are not reputed to be super robust and in fact I can see why after taking a look in the XLRs, they're lacking some heatshrinking and as such the strain relief may not have quite enough grip, but for just dangling behind the monitors they seem plenty adequate; their XLR jacks are a bit of tight fit in what I assume are Neutrik connectors in my O110s, didn't have that issue with the Tascam VL-X5 combo jacks)

I've had plenty of fun with cheap 1-piece 3.5 mm to RCA adapters in the past (garbage). Also, a rather expensive short 3.5 mm cable failed on me, got a FiiO L3 to replace that. Pro Snake TPM 10 mic cable was a bust, good workmanship connector wise but the cable stock must be terrible (severe microphony with P48V active, other people have written about bad shielding).

 

[RayDunzl]

I have a 20" pair and a 16" pair. No measurable inductance, resistance, or capacitance.

Does your meter work?

 

[MechEngVic]

Does your meter work?

Any values for resistance, capacitance or inductance are insignificant so as to not affect anything in the 20-20khz range, hence nil for intended use. Like I said before, my cables are 20" and 16".