Audiophile myth challenged as $4,000 boutique audio cable fails to beat $7 Amazon Basics in lab test

[MarkHughes]

The main thing I look for when buying cables is, Do the ends look like they will stay on and are the cables long enough, After that nothing else really maters.

 

[Guyver1wales]

It's a meme at this point:
A music fan uses gear to listen to their music,
an audiophile uses music to listen to their gear.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Any audio cable is mostly a single thing: a long piece of wire. Do a good job of attaching connectors on the end and make it minimally thick enough and 99.9%+ of people will not hear a difference. Same goes for pretty much any electrical interconnect (USB, HDMI, SATA cables etc).

The rest is snake oil.

Well, that and shielding (when applicable). Which itself is just a long, 'hollow' piece of wire; do a good enough job attaching it to just one end, and you're golden again.

 

[PurpaFur]

Audiophile equipment has been debunked a ulq##2#lwllaseveral times over. I have a pair of JBL 4311's. Back in the 60s and 70s, there was real engineering that made good speakers, but that engineering has gotten down to a science and most modern Bluetooth speakers can often sound better than audiophile equipment. My JBLs are more art in my living room than "audiophile equipment" at this point

I just gotta know man. How did "ulq##2#lwllaseveral" even get typed? Must've been a cat walking across the keyboard or something?

 

[yRaz]

I just gotta know man. How did "ulq##2#lwllaseveral" even get typed? Must've been a cat walking across the keyboard or something?

Lol. I smashed the screen on my phone and my hands were sweaty from my gloves at work. I like to argue with strangers on the Internet on my breaks. My screen is so shattered that I didn't even see the nonsense under it that I typed.

 

[TameU]

Some people *need* to spend money to feel good about themselves (and then boost about it)

 

[Gezzer]

It does matter what spec your talking about and how much. There is no real audible difference between and amp with 0.01 THD, and 0.05 THD. 0.1 THD will be audible, and annoying, but again, it won't bother everyone. Most people rarely complained about tape hiss with cassettes, while it drove me up a wall.

My gut feeling from admittedly biased experience is that we have the ability to adapt our senses so that we extract as much useful information as possible. For example I have an old sound bar with a night viewing setting. And when I first switch to the setting the sound is weak and tinny, but after an hour or so if I switch back to the normal surround I'm hard pressed to tell the difference from the night setting I was listening to.

I think that's one of the reasons that simple listening tests are so error prone. Objective hardware testing often proves that there isn't really any listening tests that are equally as objective. A lot comes down to how and what we've "trained" our hearing on. Like you I found tape hiss would drive me crazy, same with listening with a smart phone's internal speakers. Hell... I can't even stand any of the bluetooth in ears I've tried, to me they sound squashed.

But I've had at the very least middle of the road hifi equipment since my early 20's and I can hear the difference. But would the type of cable be enough to make me notice? Considering what objective testing shows any differences are minimal, I doubt it. But I'm not going to say no since I've never had the scratch to buy 30,000 dollar speakers and it might with highly tuned system. Would I ever buy speakers that cost as much as a car? I love my tunes, but... no... most certainly no. That goes double for 4,000 dollar cables.

 

[jeffbert]

A fool and their money are soon parted.

Digital is Digital.

It goes, "a fool and his money--"
Why is there such a bias against correct grammar, in favor of gender neutral plurals?

 

[Lew Zealand]

It goes, "a fool and his money--"
Why is there such a bias against correct grammar, in favor of gender neutral plurals?

He's not quoting anyone, note the lack of quotation marks. Such a strange thing to get bent out of shape about.

 

[PurpaFur]

Lol. I smashed the screen on my phone and my hands were sweaty from my gloves at work. I like to argue with strangers on the Internet on my breaks. My screen is so shattered that I didn't even see the nonsense under it that I typed.

Ah, that'd do it. You had me trying to decode that like it meant something lmao

 

[jeffbert]

He's not quoting anyone, note the lack of quotation marks. Such a strange thing to get bent out of shape about.

The tendency to use plural pronouns because you do not want to use gender specific singular ones is a rather sad commentary on our times. Even when speaking of a specific person, the trend is to use plural gender neutral ones.

I guess I have a lot of time on my hands, being retired.

 

[Underdog]

There is an incredible amount of mega-priced snake oil products out there to separate the audiophile from his money. What about those little teak bridges that lift the expensive cables precisely 50mm off the floor on their way from amp to speakers. Said to improve the sound significantly for a mere $200 for a set of 10. So much better than the plastic ones.

 

[jeffbert]

Maybe there is a law against such things.