Mixing different speaker cables

[Reality Bites]

I fail to see the difference between HDMI and an optical cable. Ok, I know one is for audio, and the other does both, but, they're digital cables. They just pass through 1s and 0s, having gold plated silver, spiral wrapped and shielded with 10mm of lead isn't going to make those 1s and 0s better quality.

.

This is probably why your arguments are full of ****.

An optical cable is made from completely different materials and designed to carry different information over different technologies

 

[kylew]

Haven't you just fought your own argument? You've just said that a more expensive cable was better?

Also, i disagree with your first statement. A badly formed optical cable could cause a certain part of the signal to be lost and hence affect the sound. Just because you've never had this happen, doesn't mean it never has

You've obviously missed the point, intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. But my point is that, I'm all for a higher build quality on a cable so it lasts longer and doesn't fail due to wear and tear, but manufacturers try to claim that the increased build quality increases the quality of the audio.

But that higher build quality needs to stop somewhere. Especially, as I've mentioned a good few times, manufacturers making optical cables with gold plated tips. They've obviously set out to mislead the instant they thought of gold plating the tips of an optical cable. They claim the gold plating increases the quality of the audio. How? Number one, it's digital, it's either off or on, and secondly, it doesn't use electrons to transport the signal, there are no metal components inside an optical terminal.

Captain obvious there telling me that an optical cable is different to an HDMI cable. Yet an SPDIF cable is different to an optical cable, but they regularly serve the same purpose. I can output sound from my PC to my AV receiver via optical or SPDIF, it's the same signal and sounds the same, except the bits are transported via light instead of along electrons through the SPDIF cable.

That's the similarity. An SPDIF is 'different tech' to an optical cable, but they get the same thing done, the transportation of digital signals. So how is that not similar to the way HDMI works? The cable isn't aware of what it's sending, it's just sending bits. An HDMI cable can also transport the same type of audio as an optical cable, is a cable with higher build quality, going to increase the quality of the bits it's transporting? Nope.

So no, I'm not fighting my own arguments. I have stated that I see a benefit in paying more for a cable that is more robust and durable, but I don't buy it for the perceived increase of audio and visual quality that some people claim exists.

Again, gold plated optical cables are manufactured with the sole purpose of misleading the customer in to buying something they beleive will result in better audio quality.

Next we'll be seeing gold plated sata cables sheilded by led to 'increase the quality' of the data on our hard drives.

Hey, buy our new gold plated silver SATA cables. They upscale your SD videos on your hard drives to better than 1080P quality!

That's essentially what's happening.

Oh, and another thing. Are you aware that a lot of places have invented this gold plated more expensive is better by running false demos of equipment? It's common practise to show comparissons of expensive HDMI cables versus the cheaper ones, where they'll use a £100 HDMI cable to show the good quality and apparently use a cheaper HDMI cable to show the worse quality, yet more often than not, the cheap HDMI cable is actually a composite cable.

 

[Reality Bites]

you've used this gold plated argument for a few posts now, but this started with a discussion around mixing types of speaker cable and the make-up and materials of those cables.....nothing to do with the termination of the cables.

I agree with you that the gold plated thing is a gimmick but the materials which are used in making up speaker cable itself has a big difference in the quality of sound a system will produce.

 

[kylew]

you've used this gold plated argument for a few posts now, but this started with a discussion around mixing types of speaker cable and the make-up and materials of those cables.....nothing to do with the termination of the cables.

I agree with you that the gold plated thing is a gimmick but the materials which are used in making up speaker cable itself has a big difference in the quality of sound a system will produce.

I will point you to some articles written by audio professionals.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/28/report-reminds-us-dont-get-burned-by-overpriced-cables/

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/

http://www.bruce.coppola.name/audio/wisdom.html

http://www.ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html

http://www.ethanwiner.com/myths.html

Point is, if the cable is of a high enough gauge to cope with the audio, then there is no difference. If the cable can not cope, then it'll sound different due to frequencies being clipped.

This has nothing to do with the price or type of cable, just the gauge.

The difference people hear from their more expensive cables is because of how much they spent on the cables, they're justifying their purchases.

 

[Reality Bites]

the only links which i can easily see where comments have been made on cable were the bottom two and that was a subjective comment by some guy i've never heard of. They may as well been links to this forum!

I'm bored of arguing now. I really don't see where the argument is. Different cables and materials will affect the way the signal is transported and heard....end of story really. Whether that cable costs 10p a metre or £1000, it doesn't matter. The other thing to realise is that what sounds nice to one person sounds rubbish to another.

You'll be arguing that all speakers sound the same next and that materials in their makup make no difference to the sound either.



In answer to the OP. I'd still make sure all cable in the system is the same. if you can't, make sure the speakers doing the same job are cabled with the same stuff. As for fancy connections and terminations, don't bother. I simply fold back some cable over the cover and shove it into the speaker connection. Provides a nice tight fit.

 

[kylew]

the only links which i can easily see where comments have been made on cable were the bottom two and that was a subjective comment by some guy i've never heard of. They may as well been links to this forum!

I'm bored of arguing now. I really don't see where the argument is. Different cables and materials will affect the way the signal is transported and heard....end of story really. Whether that cable costs 10p a metre or £1000, it doesn't matter. The other thing to realise is that what sounds nice to one person sounds rubbish to another.

You'll be arguing that all speakers sound the same next and that materials in their makup make no difference to the sound either.



In answer to the OP. I'd still make sure all cable in the system is the same. if you can't, make sure the speakers doing the same job are cabled with the same stuff. As for fancy connections and terminations, don't bother. I simply fold back some cable over the cover and shove it into the speaker connection. Provides a nice tight fit.

If you're bored, why did you come back?

Also, oh no, YOU haven't heard of some one, they must be talking crap now since YOU don't know of them.

Don't twist my words, I never once implied all speakers sound they same. They don't, and I didn't even imply anything of the sort.

Changing a set of cables of a high enough gauge on your AV equipment, isn't going to upgrade you audio and video quality.

Speakers are 'mechanical' if you will, they will behave differently to other speakers. I am very aware that the materials you make a speaker from can influence the frequencies they can reproduce.

That is the exact reason why I'm budgeting £2000 on a new a new set of speakers and an AV receiver. My argument is the transportation of the audio data after it's been processed/encoded. Using the same speakers with adequate cable, they'll sound the same.

I've experienced cheap speakers and I'm all to aware of there being different qualities of speakers. Some speakers can easily distort if they can't cope with the frequencies coming through. As I'm fully away that some speakers can produce more frequencies than others, thus you can sometimes hear 'new' parts in music you didn't hear with cheap speakers. But that wasn't what I was saying anyway.

 

[pby]

the only links which i can easily see where comments have been made on cable were the bottom two and that was a subjective comment by some guy i've never heard of. They may as well been links to this forum!

I'm bored of arguing now. I really don't see where the argument is. Different cables and materials will affect the way the signal is transported and heard....end of story really. Whether that cable costs 10p a metre or £1000, it doesn't matter. The other thing to realise is that what sounds nice to one person sounds rubbish to another.

You'll be arguing that all speakers sound the same next and that materials in their makup make no difference to the sound either.



In answer to the OP. I'd still make sure all cable in the system is the same. if you can't, make sure the speakers doing the same job are cabled with the same stuff. As for fancy connections and terminations, don't bother. I simply fold back some cable over the cover and shove it into the speaker connection. Provides a nice tight fit.

 

[divuk83]

Might as well add my 2 pence seeing as I'm at work and I have time on my hands!

In answer to the original poster; I wouldn't worry about using fancy speaker cable on the rear speakers as it will end up being expensive as you will probably need long lengths of it and they are only effects speakers so any gains would not be noticeable.

In any case AV setups are not usually that musical so its not really worth shelling out for Hi-Fi cable on them. I used to use whatever the cheapest cable (gale?) richersounds sold was for my rear speakers and that worked just fine. In anycase Hi-Fi and AV are not the same thing at all. I used to have an AV setup and after a while I realised that I mainly used it for music. Selling it to get a decent stereo setup was the best decision I could have made.

Speakers cable does make a difference, I used to use Linn K20 (similar to NAC A4) and recently switched to Naim Nac A5 and aside from the obvious improvment to the top end and the cleaner bass its needed with a Naim Amp.

Naim amplifiers do not have inductors in the output, we prefer to use the speaker cable to provide the correct inductance and capacitance. To do so a minimum of 3.5 metres of cable is required – although the optimum is around 5 metres.

Couldn't get all the links you posted to load as some crashed my crap work computer that can't handle more than one window of IE, however some of them are pretty daft. Monster cable is pants so no wonder a test with however many self proclaimed audiophiles got that result. If its on the interweb it must be true.......right?

At the end of the day then if you can't tell the difference then its not worth it, find a dealer that will loan you some so you can demo it before spending your cash.

Dave