Does anyone here believe in expensive cables?

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

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A bit of a rant here. :p

I find myself facepalming when I read the cables forum on headfi. Here's something someone said and this was back in 2012. "1.5m £529, 3.0m £579, 4.5m £629. Got the prices today from the UK importer. I may go for the standard Cardas headphone cable for my HD800's. I did ask the importer what the sound difference is between the CLEAR and the standard and I was just told HUGE!"

So, only £50 extra to double the length. Riiiight.

Seriously, who in their right mind would spend ridiculous amounts of money on a cable, a very very short one at that, to somehow make their headphones or IEMs sound better which probably already cost £2000. I hear fine detail and tons of musicality from my very modest £30 to £200 cans.
I think it's all, or mostly, marketing and placebo.

Do these people not question themselves. Do they not think that if they already own amazing headphones with phenomenal sound, and they're still not satisfied, that a cable isn't really going to suddenly bring them some sort of mystical sonic nirvana? Even if a cable makes some difference, it won't be by much, certainly nothing which can justify these unbelievable prices, they must know the laws of diminishing returns. They claim that headphone manufacturers don't put much effort into the cables. That's kind of like saying Ferrari use balloons instead of high quality tyres. It's absolute madness I tell thee!
 
Nope, once you have reached a standard that provides optimal connectivity I don't believe it makes any audible difference.
 
rids57 said:
Nope, once you have reached a standard that provides optimal connectivity I don't believe it makes any audible difference.
Click to expand...

Your reply is a good start! It could have gone either way, perhaps someone berating me for being ignorant :D
 
Remember when you were young and there was that kid with parents who would buy them anything that always had to have bigger and better than everyone else?

It's that but with toys for grown ups. They can afford it and that's what they're "in to", so good luck to them I guess.
 
These two cables effected sound on my system, with the thinner cable (right) sounding worse than the thicker cable (left). Both cables were easily under £10.

The cables were used between an Asus Essence ST and an Edifier S530, the thinner cable lost what I describe as range in the sound.

Hotlinked image.
 
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It's funny, even some very highly respected reviewers claim that these ridiculously expensive after market cables do improve the sound.
They are normally pretty quick to admit that they don't know why though, because there is not one shred of evidence to back up their claims.

As far as I am personally concerned, any competently built cable that uses good quality (and not necessarily expensive) materials and provides close to ideal measurements, is going to sound much the same as any other.
 
Its not like it is even something that someone with a decent electronics or audio engineering background can't quantify - sure if you are doing CERN like **** with ultra precise/sensitive signalling then throwing expensive exotic materials at it can be a benefit but audio use even ultra high end is many orders of magnitude outside of the realm where that is necessary.

I'm a sucker for a nice cable mind - I'd rather spend a bit extra and get something aesthetically pleasing and with a solid well made feel to it even if it performs the same as a 99p cable (assuming the performance of the 99p one is good) but I won't throw silly money at it either.
 
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Yep, same here, I have some nice red braided USB cables for my external DACs but I don't pretend for one moment that they are any better than a decent standard Amazon cable.
 
Merlin5 said:
I think it's all, or mostly, marketing and placebo.
Click to expand...

You've already answered your question.

These days a £50-£100 pair of headphones could be good enough for life granted they could even last that long. So much of how sound is perceived is processed by the brain that people can make themselves believe something sounds better just because they spent more money. Too bad their ears have already degraded to the point they can no longer hear certain frequencies so well anymore.
 
It's amazing what ideas these people come up with to improve the sound quality of their music systems, like:-

Expensive fancy power cables for their amplifiers, etc, when the mains wiring up to the socket is bog standard copper.

Cable stands, that improve the sound quality just because the cable was placed on something, rather than being left on the floor.

The idea that some HDDs when connected to a high end system, that are used for storing music on, end up producing better sound quality than others.

All very amusing.


I think as long as human beings are concerned with material possessions, they will find no end of luxury pointless things to spend their monies on.

Gold taps, anyone? I hear they increase the quality of the water. ;)
 
Yep, super rich people at headfi who buy into the whole snake oil marketing.

Oh yeah, that power cable one is a gem. 'Clean' power from the wall that will supposedly improve audio quality. :rolleyes: :D

Oh gold taps definitely improve the water. Also, if you paint one side of your headphones in blue and the other side in pink, this will bring out the mids and widen the soundstage, a little known secret I've kept to myself all these years. :p
 
A whole 2 metres of wire for $45000. It is a bargain though because they throw in a banana too.

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