Speaker cables - is gold just bling?

[SavageHoutkop]

I reckon it depends....(yeah yeah). High end components and you'll notice the difference. My sad sub-£100 'mini' hi fi - doubt I'd notice. Those really good quality components are very sensitive, I once had a demo in a shop where the guy demonstrated exactly the same CD in exactly the same room, on exactly the same equipment - but he changed the table that the CD player was resting on. Yes, it made a noticable difference!

 

[Milo]

On the whole all fancy cables are just foo. Unless you need a bonkers run 79 strand cable from maplin will do. I would never spend over 3 pound a meter no matter how good my hifi.

 

[Davidc]

FWIW top recording and broadcasting studios generally use copper power cable.

Unfortunately there's a lot of guff from the hifi world which is as scientifically valid as homeopathy.

 

[Danny]

FWIW top recording and broadcasting studios generally use copper power cable.

Unfortunately there's a lot of guff from the hifi world which is as scientifically valid as homeopathy.

Is there a bad science guide to hi-fi?

 

[Davidc]

Is there a bad science guide to hi-fi?

I doubt it.

 

[marinyork]

No. What do you use it for, just music or tv and everything else as well?

 

[ColinJ]

I used to work for a mixing desk manufacturer and this kind of thing was the subject of much amusement!

If you saw how many metres of simple cable that signals had to pass through on the old analogue consoles, you wouldn't worry too much about your speaker cables...

As long as the cables have a low enough impedance and the connections are made good and tight to uncorroded terminals, you'll be fine.

The big thing to be concerned about is the over-compression of the digital signals that most people listen to these days (MP3s, digital radio and digital TV). Most of that would sound awful no matter what you are using to listen to it. I can't believe how much typical audio quality has gone down over the past 30 years or so. It's not the fault of the equipment, it's due to organisations and companies being cheapskates with bandwidth and storage. The same criticism can be made about many digital TV channels' picture quality.

 

[earth]

I used to work for a mixing desk manufacturer and this kind of thing was the subject of much amusement!

If you saw how many metres of simple cable that signals had to pass through on the old analogue consoles, you wouldn't worry too much about your speaker cables...

As long as the cables have a low enough impedance and the connections are made good and tight to uncorroded terminals, you'll be fine.

The big thing to be concerned about is the over-compression of the digital signals that most people listen to these days (MP3s, digital radio and digital TV). Most of that would sound awful no matter what you are using to listen to it. I can't believe how much typical audio quality has gone down over the past 30 years or so. It's not the fault of the equipment, it's due to organisations and companies being cheapskates with bandwidth and storage. The same criticism can be made about many digital TV channels' picture quality.

Too right!

If you listen to MP3's on anything other than a low-fi system you will hear all the compression artifacts. The only thing masking them is the noise from the dodgy headphones people wear.

When I've listened to hifi gear in shop demo rooms I can hear differences but then the demo rooms are soundproofed with deep pile carpets, heavy curtains, foam damping all over the show. Take the equipment home and the environment mixes up the sound and all the delicate difference you heard disappear.

 

[amnesia]

Speaker cables being longer may be more quality sensitive, unlike interconnects which appear to make close to zero difference.

Try a cheap (£20) set of interconnects and a set of true hifi Kimber interconnects on a 'decent' system and I guarantee you will notice a difference.

Same goes for interconnect lenght... all mine were 0.5m as they sounded better than the 1m lengths of the same make / model.

MP3s are good for mobile ringtones... and very little else.

 

[Fab Foodie]

So in your investigations did you find a difference between

a) Cheap bell wire
Solid core mains wire
c) Dedicated speaker cables

What I don't understand, from a scientific point of view, is why there should be any difference in the ability of different sorts of cable to transmit the sorts of electrical signals generated by a hi-fi system.

Yes.
Bell wire was a bit crappy, but solid core mains wire sounded pretty good. I then invested in QED 79 strand and gold plated connectors and really found it a bit dull after the solid-core mains wire.
Then my mate up the road who ran a lighting and disco hire company liberated miles of unknown multistrand cable, with each copper strand individually coated silver and it was fab! Ugly installation though as they were thick individual cables, so bi-wired that meant 4 fat cables to each speaker. And they were really heavy too. But they cost me a couple quid and sounded better than anything else I'd tried. Couple of mates also bought some reels too. It was popular 'till it ran out.

IIRC, speaker cables exert a load on an amplifier which affects the amp, also a large bass cone exerts a current into the cables as well, so cables are not exactly passive.
Professional electronics work in a different environment with different signal strengths and powers, so the issues might be different. One can imagine that the requirement of a PA system is different from your living room Hi-Fi, so there are different compromises.

I've also used cheap and more expensive interconnects and they make a difference too. Not earth shattering, but it all adds up.

 

[Happiness Stan]

As long as the cables have a low enough impedance and the connections are made good and tight to uncorroded terminals, you'll be fine.

.

Thats why people buy gold terminals. Because they don't corrode.

 

[Davidc]

As long as the cables have a low enough impedance and the connections are made good and tight to uncorroded terminals, you'll be fine.

The big thing to be concerned about is the over-compression of the digital signals that most people listen to these days (MP3s, digital radio and digital TV). Most of that would sound awful no matter what you are using to listen to it. I can't believe how much typical audio quality has gone down over the past 30 years or so. It's not the fault of the equipment, it's due to organisations and companies being cheapskates with bandwidth and storage. The same criticism can be made about many digital TV channels' picture quality.

Agree with you completely.

The impedance affects loudspeaker damping, it makes a big difference.

Another important issue is keeping the length of signal cables down. Domestic signal cables are what's referred to as unbalanced, and without getting mathematical that means they cause deterioration over quite short lengths. In a normal system a metre is long enough. Professional systems use balanced signals and cables, and a cable type known as star quad for critical signals.

If you have a good system and want to hear awful digital compression artefacts put a DAB radio (an mp2 system) through it. Even Radio 3 which has the highest digital bandwidth sounds absolutely dreadful. To really hear the effects switch between a good FM service and the DAB! It actually sounds better on a cheap small radio with a 2" speaker.

 

[Milo]

have to disagree £20 pounds is more than enough on interconnects. Much more beyond that and your paying for snake oil.

Try a cheap (£20) set of interconnects and a set of true hifi Kimber interconnects on a 'decent' system and I guarantee you will notice a difference.

Same goes for interconnect lenght... all mine were 0.5m as they sounded better than the 1m lengths of the same make / model.

MP3s are good for mobile ringtones... and very little else.

 

[amnesia]

have to disagree £20 pounds is more than enough on interconnects. Much more beyond that and your paying for snake oil.

On a cheap (sub £1k system) then yes, possibly... however, my pre / power amp combo cost more than that alone. A £20 interconnect doesn't cut it on a good system.

I think we will have to agree to disagree... my ears can tell the difference.

 

[Milo]

They wont in blind testing but lets leave it at that.