Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

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Sonic quality of a cable vs its electrical specifications (transparency).

Posted by Tony Montana (A) on June 28, 2004 at 15:38:39

There is a notion out there that if a cable sound good, then who cares about its electrical specifications.

Common sense dictate that above statement sound like a winner. I mean who wouldn't chose a speaker that sound better when comparing two speakers. So why should it be different with cables. But cables might be a different story.

Suppose we are comparing two cables:One (A) have the lowest electrical specifications so it can be categorized as most transparent, and one (B) have slightly higher inductance. A listener listen to both cables and choose the one with higher inductance (B) since he/she noted that this particular cable have "warmer" sound (probably due to roll off of high frequency), that is more suited to their system and acoustic. So, so far so good and he/she is a happy camper.

So now the question is what would happen if he/she decide to change room acoustic (ie, move system to different location), or upgrade one of the component. If the new acoustic setup or new component have warmer sound-and then with added warm sound of the cable-we might end up with a system that sound too warm or muddy.

So the poor fellow now go back on the street and begin hunting for a bright sounding cable to balance off their [too] warm sounding system. As you can see where I am going with this....anytime there is a change in the system or room acoustic, then there is a new hunt for cables to balance it off.

Does the above approach seems like a plausible one, given some of cable prices out there? To me that is not, and it is only short sighted.

IMO, the best approach would be to choose most transparent cable electrically (at least to keep coloration of system by a cable to minimum), and tackle the sonic quality of system by way of acoustic treatment or high quality EQ. This way, if there is a change down the road with system setup, the cable doesn't have to be changed.

Also to put everything back in prospective, one have to realize that every recording have their own unique equalization (some are bright, and some are bassy). So the Recording Studio or professional setup always opt for most transparent cables in their system since they want to hear the recording in its originality, without coloration of cable. And that is the right approach.

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