Speaker cables, you DO get what you pay for!

[mrk]

You would since you'd not need to defrag an SSD and thus won't get a drop in performance as a SSD fills up with randomly spread out, fragmented data!

This cable seems very high quality, build quality wise of course so it’s not likely to be replaced any time soon unless I have to move house or something, I will never have the speakers further apart than 2 metres max anyway on this system as it’s used for the PC only.

I think the price is ok, it’s not mega expensive that’s for sure, I’ve seen cables that are close to £500 and even higher! The XT is also classed as a budget cable... I draw the line @ above £50 for a set of cables tbh!

Likewise gaming mice, I had the new Mamba from Razer, not worth £120 for what you're getting.

 

[Kenai]

I've always been of the opinion that speaker cable (or any analogue signal for that matter) can and is subject to a variety of factors affecting the quality of the end result.

ADSL is a good example, poor quality wiring between the exchange and user (as well as length) can cause massive differences in sustainable speed.

However, I do think there is a point that you can reach relatively easily with speaker cable whereby most interference effects are negligable and beyond that no amount of specialised coppers will make much difference.

It's something that can be very easily proved one way or the other with basic scientific testing and it is beyond me why it hasn't been. Double blind testing is an easy way of assessing whether someone can tell apart two different cables and acoustical science is easily at the point where they could quite easily produce a series of acoustical traces from a speaker and a microphone comparing different cables. Different levels of brightness, warmth, depth etc. would have a different trace and you could easily prove it.

Perhaps i'll see if my uni will let me do a proper research project on it

 

[cornyfeet]

i would never pay £500 for cables but ive seen some even more - russ andrews sells some £1000+!

brilliant would the system have to be to even contemplate spending that much on cables?

i guess if you have that kind of money, then its awesome

 

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It's a matter that wil never have a definative and fully agreed answer.

Some less than apples to apples examples coming out now. PQ between tvs is a bad one, 9designs you should know better ADSL tech and degradation of the signal over the copper lines is an obvious one though, but it isn't comparing the quality of the sound coming out at teh end of some speakers.

mrk enjoy your cable, even I bought some ixos stuff years ago on the reviews and all that jazz. A well built cable will do you well, then when you upgrade to a high end pair speakers and amp, then consider trying something else. I have still stuck with my ixos though

 

[Mulder]

I've had quite a few cables over the years, £1 a metre to quite a bit more. You do get what you pay for, but only up to a certain amount, then it's all diminishing returns. The difference between £1/m and £10/m is pretty noticable, between £10 and £100 it's nothing.

I'd never spend anything over around £20/m.

 

[kylew]

I've always been of the opinion that speaker cable (or any analogue signal for that matter) can and is subject to a variety of factors affecting the quality of the end result.

ADSL is a good example, poor quality wiring between the exchange and user (as well as length) can cause massive differences in sustainable speed.

However, I do think there is a point that you can reach relatively easily with speaker cable whereby most interference effects are negligable and beyond that no amount of specialised coppers will make much difference.

It's something that can be very easily proved one way or the other with basic scientific testing and it is beyond me why it hasn't been. Double blind testing is an easy way of assessing whether someone can tell apart two different cables and acoustical science is easily at the point where they could quite easily produce a series of acoustical traces from a speaker and a microphone comparing different cables. Different levels of brightness, warmth, depth etc. would have a different trace and you could easily prove it.

Perhaps i'll see if my uni will let me do a proper research project on it

I get your point, but these people act like a thicker ADSL cable will make youtube look better instead of you waiting longer for the youtube clip to load.

Longer cable = loss of signal, that's why you get varying speeds with ADSL.

If you had a 'super high quality' (read: extremely expensive) cable, it would exhibit the same effects if it was extremely long. The cable would be long long to conduct the signal all the way.

 

[kylew]

I've had quite a few cables over the years, £1 a metre to quite a bit more. You do get what you pay for, but only up to a certain amount, then it's all diminishing returns. The difference between £1/m and £10/m is pretty noticable, between £10 and £100 it's nothing.

I'd never spend anything over around £20/m.

As has been said, thin low gauge wire and the cable won't be able to handle the signal coming through it.

That's where the correlation between price and sound comes from. What you're basically saying is that cheap bellwire sounds poo, because it's not thick enough.

Similar to something I was doing the other day.

My air compressor doesn't work on extension cords because the added distance from source to where it's required means there's a drop in power going to it.

I couldn't get it working until I plugged it in to the wall directly, which again is technically an extension from the meter downstairs.

 

[oli collett]

I get your point, but these people act like a thicker ADSL cable will make youtube look better instead of you waiting longer for the youtube clip to load.

Longer cable = loss of signal, that's why you get varying speeds with ADSL.

If you had a 'super high quality' (read: extremely expensive) cable, it would exhibit the same effects if it was extremely long. The cable would be long long to conduct the signal all the way.

Exactly.

We know you get signal loss in cables. The question is how much loss over the distance and whether it is detectable by the human ear. Measurements can show us these differences but even if they are well within what we believe to be the detectable threshold of human hearing it isn't going to make a difference to "believers"

 

[Kenai]

ADSL tech and degradation of the signal over the copper lines is an obvious one though, but it isn't comparing the quality of the sound coming out at teh end of some speakers.

The principles behind why ADSL speed degredates (besides length, because length is far from the only factor with ADSL) and why speakers would sound different are the same though.

Ultimately, the kind of output is irrelevent if the signal travelling down a cable is an 'analogue' one, they all experience the same effects just the way that affects the output can be different.

I've no doubt in some respects speaker cable does make differences, what I do doubt are whether beyond the point of having a decent uninterfered signal these differences remain nevermind whether you can even hear them.

Really crap cable is undoubtedly crap, i've got some awful PC speakers where I am currently because I don't have room for anything better and the wiring on these is so awful that since I laid some aerial coax near it the other day, my speakers now constantly play some weird spanish sounding radio.

 

[kylew]

The principles behind why ADSL speed degredates (besides length, because length is far from the only factor with ADSL) and why speakers would sound different are the same though.

Ultimately, the kind of output is irrelevent if the signal travelling down a cable is an 'analogue' one, they all experience the same effects just the way that affects the output can be different.

I've no doubt in some respects speaker cable does make differences, what I do doubt are whether beyond the point of having a decent uninterfered signal these differences remain nevermind whether you can even hear them.

If the cable is thick enough as not to impede the signal, then how does the cable itself alter the signal that is running through it?

If you had 3 cables running treble, middle and, bass signals and one was impeded which resulted in the signal being affected, I would understand a 'change' in sound, but while it's running as one signal through the output to the cable, to the speaker, how is anything but the whole sound lost due to impedance?

 

[daz]

Strange how everyone can "see" how one TV screen is so much better than another, but when it comes to sound, we are all witches and believing in snake oil if we claim to hear a difference......

How much do you spend on a SCART cable though? Everyone knows it's worthwhile getting a decent cable. But nobody would advocate spending £100 on one... would they?

 

[Kenai]

Interference, which is why once you get to a certain quality of cable whereby those effects are stopped (via shielding or whatever other method) I don't believe the differences are noticeable, maybe even measurable.

An analogue signal will always be more susceptible to interference than digital though, as there is less scope for error correction.

 

[mrk]

SCART cables are one type of cable prone to interference though, a decent SCART might cost £15 (RGB) but it will be a darn sight better than a standard bundled scart that has faint wavy lines from interference!

Or maybe it's the crap SCART signal outs on Sky digiboxes when not in RGB mode

 

[oli collett]

SCART cables are one type of cable prone to interference though, a decent SCART might cost £15 (RGB) but it will be a darn sight better than a standard bundled scart that has faint wavy lines from interference!

Or maybe it's the crap SCART signal outs on Sky digiboxes when not in RGB mode

SCART cables are notoriously bad for physical connection issues for starters.


bit odd 9designs2 used Tv's to compare to speakers, don't most monitor/TV reviews point to measured responses of the TVs and use high res images to identify and hence prove differences between TVs? At least the ones i've seen have...

 

[Jumping]

damn i've run out of popcorn

 

[mrk]

Monitors/TVs are a fair bit different. Having had 4 or 5 24" monitors now and a few 32" TVs around the home

 

[daz]

My point is, unless the cable is faulty or distinctly poor construction, you're not going to get "more lifelike skin tones" with a £150 scart cable, just as you're not going to get "better cymbal sound" (or other ludicrous improvement)) with £150 speaker cables.

 

[kylew]

My point is, unless the cable is faulty or distinctly poor construction, you're not going to get "more lifelike skin tones" with a £150 scart cable, just as you're not going to get "better cymbal sound" (or other ludicrous improvement)) with £150 speaker cables.

That's my thought exactly, and it makes me cringe to think that some people actually think that is the case.

 

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Monitors/TVs are a fair bit different. Having had 4 or 5 24" monitors now and a few 32" TVs around the home

Many thousands of components in a tv; a panel, differing connections, processing chips, PSU board, other boards etc. Cables have some metal, some insulator, some plugs, and some sheething.

I see no difference

 

[kylew]

Many thousands of components in a tv; a panel, differing connections, processing chips, PSU board, other boards etc. Cables have some metal, some insulator, some plugs, and some sheething.

I see no difference

I think the point is that it's about inter connects. Though you are right. If a component has 'cheap' wiring inside it, why would adding an expensive cable make improvements?

It's like making a 10 lane motorway that bottle necks in to a single 40mph lane for 10 miles at the beginning and end. One car goes in and one car goes out at a time.

Weird analogy, most probably wrong, but oh well