We've all seen how the "audiophile cable" threads go, so first, some ground rules:
--Keep it civil.
--Explain yourself, don't just blurt out a terse assertion.
--Nerd science welcome!!! No insulting or dismissing of science in this thread.
--Descriptions of tone and "what I/you heard" are understood to be only subjective.
Thanks.
Now, on to the thread:
Here's an oddity that I've been stumped by recently. I have three different kinds of high quality (not expensive audiophile, but "semi-gourmet") instrument cables, and they all sound completely different. One of Elixir's new $70 extra-low-capacitance cables they sent around for review; a Fender "Premium Gold"; and several cables made of bulk Canare with G&H nickel plugs.
For a long time I've been in the camp that asserts that any non-faulty conductor, of similarly-conductive metals, will work the same as any other--and that claims of "better tone" by high-end cable companies are a crock. I use mostly the Canare/G&H cables because they are a solid, professional, and effective conductor with no BS, either from marketing or functionality standpoints.
Then I received one of those free tester cables from Elixir, and was frankly shocked by how different it sounds from my Canares. Sure the capacitance of a cable or plug can be manipulated to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, but considering I thought the Canares were pretty low-capacitance already, I did not expect this much dramatic difference. The Elixir passes an insane amount of high-frequency content by comparison, including extra hiss at the upper reaches of my hearing.
In the thread about the Elixirs, one guy posted that the Elixir seemed to lose some highs compared to his favorite cable, a Fender Pro Gold. So I had to buy one of those, to hear for myself. Well, on the one hand I totally disagree about the relative high frequency content, but OTOH the Fender sounds completely different, in its own way. Frankly it sounds really weird! Going back and forth between the Elixir and the Canare, it sounds like the same signal but with more or less highs. Going back and forth between either of those and the Fender, with the Fender it sounds like the entire spectrum of the signal is EQ'd in some exaggerated way. Hard to describe exactly.
Now, granting that all this listening is subjective and prone to placebo effect and other tricks of the mind, what am I actually hearing? Regardless of however the sounds may be interpreted and described, they are consistent as I go back and forth between the cables. IOW from one day to the next, I hear the same general type of results, to the same degree.
It seems impossible that what I'm hearing would result from just a difference in overall capacitance, since all three are supposedly so low in capacitance, and it's not like my hearing is so perfect that I could discern tiny variances like that. It also seems like a more complex filter would need to be made of obvious discreet components, not just wrapping the wire one way or another. Besides, pragmatists have long argued that the whole wire-wrapping geometry thing is a crock. But again I assert that I hear a dramatic, obvious difference between all three cable types.
So what's your take on this? Is it really possible to create a complex filter just by manipulating the wires and the specific conductive metals used in the cable or plugs? What is really going on here?
--Keep it civil.
--Explain yourself, don't just blurt out a terse assertion.
--Nerd science welcome!!! No insulting or dismissing of science in this thread.
--Descriptions of tone and "what I/you heard" are understood to be only subjective.
Thanks.
Now, on to the thread: Here's an oddity that I've been stumped by recently. I have three different kinds of high quality (not expensive audiophile, but "semi-gourmet") instrument cables, and they all sound completely different. One of Elixir's new $70 extra-low-capacitance cables they sent around for review; a Fender "Premium Gold"; and several cables made of bulk Canare with G&H nickel plugs.
For a long time I've been in the camp that asserts that any non-faulty conductor, of similarly-conductive metals, will work the same as any other--and that claims of "better tone" by high-end cable companies are a crock. I use mostly the Canare/G&H cables because they are a solid, professional, and effective conductor with no BS, either from marketing or functionality standpoints.
Then I received one of those free tester cables from Elixir, and was frankly shocked by how different it sounds from my Canares. Sure the capacitance of a cable or plug can be manipulated to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, but considering I thought the Canares were pretty low-capacitance already, I did not expect this much dramatic difference. The Elixir passes an insane amount of high-frequency content by comparison, including extra hiss at the upper reaches of my hearing.
In the thread about the Elixirs, one guy posted that the Elixir seemed to lose some highs compared to his favorite cable, a Fender Pro Gold. So I had to buy one of those, to hear for myself. Well, on the one hand I totally disagree about the relative high frequency content, but OTOH the Fender sounds completely different, in its own way. Frankly it sounds really weird! Going back and forth between the Elixir and the Canare, it sounds like the same signal but with more or less highs. Going back and forth between either of those and the Fender, with the Fender it sounds like the entire spectrum of the signal is EQ'd in some exaggerated way. Hard to describe exactly.
Now, granting that all this listening is subjective and prone to placebo effect and other tricks of the mind, what am I actually hearing? Regardless of however the sounds may be interpreted and described, they are consistent as I go back and forth between the cables. IOW from one day to the next, I hear the same general type of results, to the same degree.
It seems impossible that what I'm hearing would result from just a difference in overall capacitance, since all three are supposedly so low in capacitance, and it's not like my hearing is so perfect that I could discern tiny variances like that. It also seems like a more complex filter would need to be made of obvious discreet components, not just wrapping the wire one way or another. Besides, pragmatists have long argued that the whole wire-wrapping geometry thing is a crock. But again I assert that I hear a dramatic, obvious difference between all three cable types.
So what's your take on this? Is it really possible to create a complex filter just by manipulating the wires and the specific conductive metals used in the cable or plugs? What is really going on here?
Do you imagine that I have insulted or dismissed science?
