The Good vs. Bad cable debate rages on...

heiney9

For me it's all about the value; if I can find (used) a pr of $1400 MIT's to run with $850 speakers for say $500, I'd be all over it. But no not at the retail $$$ of $1400. Because you can go down the line of the MIT brand and still find improvements and the lower line cable will fit better into the budget.

The MIT T3 cable I bought for the office rig had a retail of $225 and I got it for <$75. No way would I have invested $225 in a cable for a secondary rig...........even though there are improvements.

vc69

I have some ridiculously high end cable for the gear I have. A buddy lent me all of the Cardas cables and lent/sold me the Transparent stuff. I like the Cardas better, but I can't afford it and he is keeping it for his rig anyway. I could never have purchased the cable I have new. It's simply out of my league. But the used market has some good deals and I got very lucky.

madmax

steveinaz wrote: »

I DON'T WANT TO KNOW what MIT's sound like!

Believe me, you do.
madmax

Jstas

I think I'm getting rid of cable and going for FiOS.

hearingimpared

Great article!

tonyb

Good points gents...costs do have to be relative.
Can't wait for the next thread....
"What speakers to match my MIT S1 cables ?":)

inspiredsports

I say call your congressmen and beg them to table the insane health and energy bills before them. You will have an extra $4-5K per year to spend on cables and equipment as you see fit, and this cable/audio gear expenditure will boost the economy rather than crush it.

m00npie

steveinaz wrote: »

H9
$1400 MIT cables with $850 speakers?

I certainly fall into this category... But with the MIT's and the upgrades that Face made on my LSi9's, I really do enjoy my office rig. The cables are here to stay, the speakers will eventually be upgraded.

bikezappa

Every one has their own opinion on cables, lps and what to eat for breakfast. I totally agree with the well used line "trust your ears or month for breakfast".

What bothers me, and I'm not sure why, is when people try to use bad science to try to convince some one that a $500 line cord makes a difference in sound. If you can hear that differenec I'm fine with that and wish you much enjoyment and we can all share our opinions. Using science to justify this differance and not evaluating standard double blind testing is troubling.

If you think this or that beer tastes better and are willing to spend $100 for a bottle for it I'm happy for you and will never say anything more. But if you can't demonstrate that you can tell the difference between the beers with a fair standard double blind test that's ok also. It's your money to spend as you seem fit. But when some one tells me with bad food processing science that something in the beer manufacture process makes my $100 beer better that bothers me.

Music is the best.

cnh

This has been an unreasonably civil discussion for once--relativity is extremely important here....we often miss this when we get rabid about cables and their improvements....

But I will say one thing....give me a cheap brandy and a good bottle of French X0 cognac and I'll tell you the difference (blindfolded) 100 percent of the time....especially if you pay for the XO...

cnh

MacLeod

LOL! Its been civil because so far its only been "believers" that have posted. Guys like me that believe cables dont, and more to the point shouldnt, make a difference may be getting tired of debating this topic cause we're usually outnumbered on an audiophile forum. Its like debating if God does or does not exist down at your local Baptist church.

For nearly 30 years theyve done blind A/B test after blind A/B test after bind A/B test and nobody has every demonstrated the ability to pick one cable from the next yet people still swear Brand X has a wider soundstage than Brand Y. Blind A/B testing is the key. If you sit down and put in some new cables, you can convince yourself youre hearing something youre really not. Ive done it a million times tuning my car. Ive closed my eyes and started turning an EQ dial and thinking "yeah thats making a difference" only to open my eyes and realize I hadnt set it right and I wasnt changing anything!

Power cables especially! Youve got power coming from the power plant many many miles away running thru plain old steel cable, running thru several transformers, then into your house and thru all the basic wiring thru your walls then finally out to your outlet. You really think the 3' of "magic" extension cord is going to affect things that much? Especially when you consider that as soon as that AC power hits your gear, its switched to DC before it ever gets to anything! Even if it did affect things, all it could affect would be power input. If it bolstered it like a capacitor in car audio then you would get a smidge more power for deep sub bass parts in music. You wouldnt hear it in any other frequencies because 1000 Hz doesnt require anywhere near the power to reproduce as say 40 HZ. So if you say the magic extension cords increase sub bass response I might could buy that a little easier but saying that it affects soundstage, imaging or the clarity of highs is just not possible.

I do believe you can make a RCA color the sound by adding resistance and such but WHY would you want to do that? All I want my RCA's to do is transfer the source signal to my amplifiers completely transparent. Dont "widen the soundstage" or "give clearer highs". Dont do nuttin'! I want it ruler flat from 20-20KHz.

Dont misunderstand me, Im not saying you shouldnt buy pricey cables or even the fancy extension cords or that its a waste of money or anything like that. I think the #1 priority of this hobby is to enjoy yourself and if you enjoy high end gear, then Im all for ya. Just dont expect me to believe that a better battery cable in my car will make my suspension ride softer.

So here I am. The lone doubter. Come and get me!

everpress

Just in case any of you aren't signed up to the MIT newsletter, if you are a member, they are having a sale (over 50% off) of a lot of their equipment this weekend. The sale isn't visible on their site unless you are a member.
Seeing as how I didn't pay for my whole system what they are asking for 50% one set of speaker cables, I thought I'd pass the info to you guys that have that kinda cash flow.

Sign up for their club and you might get the email with the "members only" link.
Oh, and the sale is 'first-come-first-serve' and 'limited supply'.

Good luck!

WilliamM2

everpress wrote: »

Just in case any of you aren't signed up to the MIT newsletter, if you are a member, they are having a sale (over 50% off) of a lot of their equipment this weekend.

I don't know how they can afford to have a sale like that. It must cut their markup to less than 3000%!

Oh, and the sale is 'first-come-first-serve' and 'limited supply'.

That's understandable. Wire is such a rare commodity, and in very short supply.

inspiredsports

12 pairs 2 meter Shotgun 2 IC's to get signal to 2 rigs that drive 2 pairs of 10 foot Shotgun 2 Speaker Interface Cables hooked to SDA-2B's and SDA SRS 2's.

I would have over-killed with even more expensive cables if I could.have afforded it at the time I purchased my MIT's

inspiredsports

MacLeod wrote: »

its like debating if God does or does not exist down at your local Baptist church.

But we don't need to wait until we are dead to reap the benefits. We get the goodies (that you can't or won't hear) every time we hit the power switch.

MacLeod wrote: »

. . . just dont expect me to believe that a better battery cable in my car will make my suspension ride softer . . .

I learn something new every day. I didn't realize my car's suspension was in any way shape or form connected to the battery in the analogous way a speaker is connected to the power plant. Oh, wait, the speaker really IS connected to the power plant. Nice try.:rolleyes:

concealer404

MacLeod wrote: »

LOL! Its been civil because so far its only been "believers" that have posted. Guys like me that believe cables dont, and more to the point shouldnt, make a difference may be getting tired of debating this topic cause we're usually outnumbered on an audiophile forum. Its like debating if God does or does not exist down at your local Baptist church.

For nearly 30 years theyve done blind A/B test after blind A/B test after bind A/B test and nobody has every demonstrated the ability to pick one cable from the next yet people still swear Brand X has a wider soundstage than Brand Y. Blind A/B testing is the key. If you sit down and put in some new cables, you can convince yourself youre hearing something youre really not. Ive done it a million times tuning my car. Ive closed my eyes and started turning an EQ dial and thinking "yeah thats making a difference" only to open my eyes and realize I hadnt set it right and I wasnt changing anything!

Power cables especially! Youve got power coming from the power plant many many miles away running thru plain old steel cable, running thru several transformers, then into your house and thru all the basic wiring thru your walls then finally out to your outlet. You really think the 3' of "magic" extension cord is going to affect things that much? Especially when you consider that as soon as that AC power hits your gear, its switched to DC before it ever gets to anything! Even if it did affect things, all it could affect would be power input. If it bolstered it like a capacitor in car audio then you would get a smidge more power for deep sub bass parts in music. You wouldnt hear it in any other frequencies because 1000 Hz doesnt require anywhere near the power to reproduce as say 40 HZ. So if you say the magic extension cords increase sub bass response I might could buy that a little easier but saying that it affects soundstage, imaging or the clarity of highs is just not possible.

I do believe you can make a RCA color the sound by adding resistance and such but WHY would you want to do that? All I want my RCA's to do is transfer the source signal to my amplifiers completely transparent. Dont "widen the soundstage" or "give clearer highs". Dont do nuttin'! I want it ruler flat from 20-20KHz.

Dont misunderstand me, Im not saying you shouldnt buy pricey cables or even the fancy extension cords or that its a waste of money or anything like that. I think the #1 priority of this hobby is to enjoy yourself and if you enjoy high end gear, then Im all for ya. Just dont expect me to believe that a better battery cable in my car will make my suspension ride softer.

So here I am. The lone doubter. Come and get me!

Well, the bolded paragraph means you're a believer.

inspiredsports

concealer404 wrote: »

Well, the bolded paragraph means you're a believer.

I do believe you've got him there.

MacLeod

concealer404 wrote: »

Well, the bolded paragraph means you're a believer.

Nah. I was saying hypothetically, in case I am wrong (and I never am......just ask my wife) and RCA's could affect the sound stage, imaging and so on - you wouldnt want them to. I dont want anything in the signal path the colors the sound. Thats what EQ's are for.

If you add a lot of resistance to the RCA's you can roll off the high frequency response pretty steep and while this would technically be a warmer sound, it would be a LONG way from the wide ranging affects that are claimed. And again, you DONT want anything that changes the source. If the signal coming from the CD is ruler flat from 20-20KHz, it should be ruler flat when it hits the amplifiers.

megasat16

I did blind A/B RCA cable tests (with the help of a buddy) in my own rig with 2 sets of RCA cables and we were able to name the cables correctly for the first few times.

We use a very well remembered music track and we pick two sets of RCA cables that are known to have different soundings. These RCA cables are not really expensive ones and are well known budget friendly brands. One person is switching the RCA cables while the other is doing critical listening blind folded from the sweet spot. We also take 30s break during the listening sessions there is no more than 4-5 cable swapping during blind A/B tests.

So, how the hell we could tell the differences?

The answer is simple enough to me - different cables make subtle differences in sound and you only need to remember where to look (listen) these subtle differences are. If you concentrate had enough, you can tell correctly for the first few times abut after 4-5 times, your brain just can't concentrate hard enough to differentiate the subtle differences. It's fun thing to try! If you don't believe it, ask a friend to help out and try to see if you both can name the cables correctly!

concealer404

MacLeod wrote: »

Nah. I was saying hypothetically, in case I am wrong (and I never am......just ask my wife) and RCA's could affect the sound stage, imaging and so on - you wouldnt want them to. I dont want anything in the signal path the colors the sound. Thats what EQ's are for.

If you add a lot of resistance to the RCA's you can roll off the high frequency response pretty steep and while this would technically be a warmer sound, it would be a LONG way from the wide ranging affects that are claimed. And again, you DONT want anything that changes the source. If the signal coming from the CD is ruler flat from 20-20KHz, it should be ruler flat when it hits the amplifiers.

I agree with you for sure...

But that's also assuming that your source, processor, amplifier, and speakers are all 100% perfect and faithful in recreating the recording with not one iota of coloration being done by them. Not gonna happen.

I simply prefer to look at it that cabling better than rat shack sounds better. If i look at it from your viewpoint, i'll just say that the better quality cables are simply more accurately allowing the signal to pass through vs. what the crappy rat shack cables might do.

But you also don't know exactly what the recording SHOULD sound like, because you've never heard it uncolored by gear.

madmax

MacLeod wrote: »

For nearly 30 years theyve done blind A/B test after blind A/B test after bind A/B test and nobody has every demonstrated the ability to pick one cable from the next yet people still swear Brand X has a wider soundstage than Brand Y.

A/B comparisons do nothing. You have to listen for a few weeks to A, a few weeks to B, and then switch back to A again. Its like showing someone a paper called "A" with a thousand of dots on it and then another paper called "B" with a thousand dots on it (placed slightly differently) and then randomly showing them one or the other and expect them to know which is which. They couldn't. Let them study one for awhile, then the other one for awhile, then the first again and they have the possibility of seeing the difference. In the cable debate over A and B you have to listen for what is different. Initially you have no clue as to what to listen for. After a time it becomes apparent as you listen to all the different aspects. Add on top of all that some recordings may not excite the quality that is different so two cables can be indistinguishable. For example one cable may bring out the depth of the soundstage and the other one doesn't. If you play a recording that has no depth the two cables would sound the same.

madmax

MacLeod

megasat16 wrote: »

...there is no more than 4-5 cable swapping during blind A/B tests.

So, how the hell we could tell the differences?

Id argue that you didnt bro. If you flip a coin a few times and try to guess where its going to land, youll win 2 or 3 times out of 4 just out of luck. The scientific and objective way is to pick many times like 14 or 16. If you pick the correct cable 12 out of 14 times then you have proven you can tell the difference. If you get 7 or 8 out of 14 then youve just played the odds.

A good way to A/B your cables at home is have one guy (preferably your wife or somebody that couldnt care less) flip a coin 16 times then write down the results. Now take 2 cables and designate one as "heads" and one as "tails. Now you position the rig so youre in front of the speakers but CANNOT see the amps and cables. Now your partner hooks up whichever cable is first on the list and you listen then write down which one you think it is. After you write down all 16 guess, compare your notes. If you got 12 or more right, you da man and youve just proved me wrong.

But that's also assuming that your source, processor, amplifier, and speakers are all 100% perfect and faithful in recreating the recording with not one iota of coloration being done by them. Not gonna happen.

Actually that would happen. A typical quality CD player or amplifier will play ruler flat from 20-20 KHz. That is as transparent as it gets. Now youre right that speakers wont play totally transparent but theyre mechanical devices and not digital devices. You dont have to have a $600 CD player to get a transparent signal. Nothing wrong with the $600 CD players as theyll definitely be built better, free of noise and last longer but they wont sound better.

Actually it doesnt even have to be 100% flat. The human ear can barely hear any level shift of less than 3 db so as long as your response curve is within 3 db from 20-20KHz it will be heard as flat.

A/B comparisons do nothing. You have to listen for a few weeks to A, a few weeks to B, and then switch back to A again. Its like showing someone a paper called "A" with a thousand of dots on it and then another paper called "B" with a thousand dots on it (placed slightly differently) and then randomly showing them one or the other and expect them to know which is which. They couldn't.

I disagree Max. The claims for cables are never "the differences are so slight that it will take you a few weeks to notice them". Theyre always "drastic improvements in soundstage, imaging, bass, highs, you name it". If the differences are that drastic you should be able to pick them out instantly. If I did an ABX test for you using an amp with no bass boost then another one with 3 db boost at 80 Hz, youd pick it out right away, every single time.

F1nut

A famous speaker designer, who's name escapes me right now, once stated that he designed a speaker with a ruler flat response. He said it sounded like crapola.

Another thought, live music is never ruler flat, so why would anyone expect their rig to be!?!

And for the coup de gras......The whole purpose of Hi-Fi is to trick us, is it not?

concealer404

MacLeod wrote: »

Id argue that you didnt bro. If you flip a coin a few times and try to guess where its going to land, youll win 2 or 3 times out of 4 just out of luck. The scientific and objective way is to pick many times like 14 or 16. If you pick the correct cable 12 out of 14 times then you have proven you can tell the difference. If you get 7 or 8 out of 14 then youve just played the odds.

A good way to A/B your cables at home is have one guy (preferably your wife or somebody that couldnt care less) flip a coin 16 times then write down the results. Now take 2 cables and designate one as "heads" and one as "tails. Now you position the rig so youre in front of the speakers but CANNOT see the amps and cables. Now your partner hooks up whichever cable is first on the list and you listen then write down which one you think it is. After you write down all 16 guess, compare your notes. If you got 12 or more right, you da man and youve just proved me wrong.



Actually that would happen. A typical quality CD player or amplifier will play ruler flat from 20-20 KHz. That is as transparent as it gets. Now youre right that speakers wont play totally transparent but theyre mechanical devices and not digital devices. You dont have to have a $600 CD player to get a transparent signal. Nothing wrong with the $600 CD players as theyll definitely be built better, free of noise and last longer but they wont sound better.

Actually it doesnt even have to be 100% flat. The human ear can barely hear any level shift of less than 3 db so as long as your response curve is within 3 db from 20-20KHz it will be heard as flat.

Even my girlfriend could do the test that you lay out with the cables, to be honest..... It's a HUGE difference in my particular system.

There's more to sound than a frequency response chart. I've had quite a few amps through my rig, and every one of them sounded different. I don't care what they look like on paper, my ears don't hear a flat frequency response table, they hear music, and different amps make it sound different. I'm not real sure how you would argue that. I guarantee that my speakers would sound different if they were being driven by F1nut's components.

So we're wasting our money paying more than $50 for our cd players, then... effectively we could grab an old Discman and just run a y-adapter to any old $50 sonance amp and pair it with some SDA 1.2TLs and it would sound the same as if you paid $4000 for a Music Fidelity cdp and some Carver tube monoblock?

I disagree Max. The claims for cables are never "the differences are so slight that it will take you a few weeks to notice them". Theyre always "drastic improvements in soundstage, imaging, bass, highs, you name it". If the differences are that drastic you should be able to pick them out instantly. If I did an ABX test for you using an amp with no bass boost then another one with 3 db boost at 80 Hz, youd pick it out right away, every single time

Didn't you just say that the human ear can barely hear that very same difference?

sTiLlLeArNiNg

Cable's CAN make improvement/change's to the charecteristic's of a sound system but i think MOST manufacturer's take advantage of this and most people by over charging by large margin's :mad:

Buy quality cable's in bulk and terminate yourself, best way to go IMHO

hearingimpared

sTiLlLeArNiNg wrote: »

Buy quality cable's in bulk and terminate yourself, best way to go IMHO

Or you could buy MIT ICs and speaker cables and be done with it.:D

sTiLlLeArNiNg

hearingimpared wrote: »

Or you could buy MIT ICs and speaker cables and be done with it.:D

IMHO they are not worth the money but you (and other's) like them so go all out!

I'll stick to my junk, sub $1,000,000,000.00 cable's and use the change on 1,000 other thing's that i like to spend money on lol

Mind you i'm just a "F-tard" canuck who is disabled so i am NO where near as smart, good or worthy as any of you

Plus we all know that these are the shiznit and if you don't own them you suck http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/most-expensive-speaker-cable-world-audioquest-audiophile/

I once came across a post on audioholics somewhere that was very informative/revealing (again IMHO) about the MIT cable's. Basically if you are good with electronic's, have the tool's and access to the part's you can build your own boxxes for less than the price of a decent bottle of liquor I know how much y'all detest audioholic's though....

What is it someone always say's? "Those who don't know, DON'T know that they don't know"

vc69

sTiLlLeArNiNg wrote: »

Mind you i'm just a "F-tard"

Yes... yes you are. A trolling "f-tard" at that.

hearingimpared

sTiLlLeArNiNg wrote: »

IMHO they are not worth the money but you (and other's) like them so go all out!

I'll stick to my junk, sub $1,000,000,000.00 cable's and use the change on 1,000 other thing's that i like to spend money on lol

Mind you i'm just a "F-tard" canuck who is disabled so i am NO where near as smart, good or worthy as any of you

Plus we all know that these are the shiznit and if you don't own them you suck http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/most-expensive-speaker-cable-world-audioquest-audiophile/

I once came across a post on audioholics somewhere that was very informative/revealing (again IMHO) about the MIT cable's. Basically if you are good with electronic's, have the tool's and access to the part's you can build your own boxxes for less than the price of a decent bottle of liquor I know how much y'all detest audioholic's though....

What is it someone always say's? "Those who don't know, DON'T know that they don't know"

Have you tried MIT products? You can get MIT S3 IC's for under $250 for two meter pairs.

PS: I am disabled too.

inspiredsports

sTiLlLeArNiNg wrote: »

. . . I know how much y'all detest audioholic's though . . .

I'm not sure if detest is the right word, but I find it ironic and contradictory that on their buy new pages, they have several grades of bulk wire. How in the heck could that be possible if all wire is the same ???