Cable quality vs cost

[Guest2]

I’m sure this has been discussed many times on here but don’t see a recent thread.
Does the quality of cable, be it speaker, rca, hdmi or any other impact sound quality? E.g. gold plated, silver plated or oxygen free copper

I have always paid for reasonably well constructed cable so it doesnt fall to bits but don’t buy in to the £100+ Monster cables and see through what I think of as marketing guff.

A purchased a 3m rca male to rca male cable (‘Stagg’) for £7.50. It looks reasonably well made. Would a £300 cable make my audio sound superior?

 

[Kei]

It's unlikely to make any appreciable difference unless you have a very poor cable. (you will hit diminishing returns incredibly quickly) The extra money is better spent on superior speakers or headphones which will always make the bigger difference. The transducer and the listening environment produce the most "colouration" (distortion) by a huge factor. ( harmonic distortion, inter-modulation distortion and with speakers, cross-talk) Moving speakers or your listening position will always make a much bigger difference than a very expensive cable.

I make my own cables as I know what I'm getting and it's always the length I need. Simply use van damme or canford audio screened cable with neutrik, rean, amphenol or switchcraft connectors. If it's good enough for the recording studio's who master the music, it's good enough for me.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

Would a £300 cable make my audio sound superior?

Definitely not.

 

[Marsman]

Oh no. Another one of these threads... :/

After the last one, I did wonder how long it would be until another appeared...

Usually the OP has no idea about the can of worms he/she is opening by asking such a question, so can't be blamed for the inevitable fallout.

Surely these threads are the forum equivalent of a bad penny; they just keep reappearing.

 

[JasonM]

Everything makes a difference, it just depends if the rest of your system is revealing enough for you to notice it.

 

[Rroff]

Short story unless you cheap out or the cable is of poor quality construction it doesn't make much odds.

Longer story there are various factors that can have an impact - you might find a particular audio device is susceptible to capacitance on the output affecting its stability and one cable might be just enough to push it over the edge when another cable it is fine with, etc. especially if you are using longer cables or speakers/headphones that are more demanding to drive.

 

[Akagi]

Is there going to be an appreciable difference between a 27p cable from eBay.hk and a £5 shielded OFC cable with gold plated connectors from Amazon? Probably.

Is there going to be an appreciable difference between an £5 shielded OFC cable with gold plated connectors from Amazon and a £30 cable from a Hi-Fi shop? Probably not.

Is there going to be any difference at all between a £30 cable from a Hi-Fi shop and a £3000 cable made in a lab by exquisite human specimens and then sold in a high end Hi-Fi boutique store in a velvet lined box? Definitely not.

I have a "Kenable" shielded OFC RCA cable with gold plated connectors and sturdy feeling metal plugs running from my sound card all the way around the outside of the room to my amplifier which is on a different piece of furniture, must be a 10 metre cable. It cost me £8. The interconnects are short versions of the same thing, they were about £2 each. I think they were the cheapest shielded OFC cables I could find. The speaker cable is probably a little OTT being 400 strand copper, but that was only about £5 as well. Again, probably doesnt sound any different to 75 strand, but probably sounds better than solid single strand doorbell wire.

Id spend thousands on amplifiers, speakers, and source equipment, before I think about upgrading my cables.

If I won the lottery I might consider buying £100 cables, but it wouldn't be because I think they will improve the sound quality, it would be because they look nice.

 

[JasonM]

I replaced some copper 1.5mm speaker cable, with 4mm copper DCSK cable. This improved the sound of my speakers, it actually made the speakers very marginally louder and brought out more of the mid range. I tested this for 3 days with only changing the speaker cable one side, then switching the balance to test.

I've also used RCA cables to tune systems before. I have some mid-range Maplin RCA cables (that I got in closing down sale), and I discovered they roll off the top end. I had a Technics CD player that I always found to 'bright' and using the said Maplins cable removed some of the brightness.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Yes, a really cheap, poorly made cable can hamper the performance of any system.

Try connecting your speakers with cheap Chinese doorbell wire and experience it for yourself.

You can also spend the price of a decent overseas holiday on speaker cable that claims to make the owner better looking, cure cancer and increase his/her sexual prowess.

 

[doc]

As most have said above, with one exception:

A good quality cable will send the signal further without distortion compared to a basic cable.

I've had problems with cheapo HDMI and USB cables over long lengths that buying a mid range cable fixed completely.

 

[spoffle]

Yes, a really cheap, poorly made cable can hamper the performance of any system.

Try connecting your speakers with cheap Chinese doorbell wire and experience it for yourself.

You can also spend the price of a decent overseas holiday on speaker cable that claims to make the owner better looking, cure cancer and increase his/her sexual prowess.

When it comes to cables, the basic is that as long as it's of an adequate gauge, you won't see an improvement in sound quality.

If it's not of an adequate gauge, it'll degrade sound quality. Everything else is BS with absolutely zero supporting evidence.

 

[JasonM]

Remember that all cables are a resister, what is happening is energy is being converted into heat.

The amount of heat generated is that incidental small you would never even measure the heat generated, never the less the resistance will alter sound output.

Again what you notice depends on how much resistance is being generated, how resolving your system is and how sensitive your hearing.

When it comes to noticing changes I like to use the car tyre test analogy. Imagine you had to review performance car tyres, one car to use is a Vauxhall Corsa SX, the other car is a Porsche 911 RS. Due to how finely tuned the Porsche is over the Corsa, testing tyres on the Porsche will reveal differences much more easy.

 

[Akagi]

Remember that all cables are a resister, what is happening is energy is being converted into heat.

The amount of heat generated is that incidental small you would never even measure the heat generated, never the less the resistance will alter sound output.

Again what you notice depends on how much resistance is being generated, how resolving your system is and how sensitive your hearing.

When it comes to noticing changes I like to use the car tyre test analogy. Imagine you had to review performance car tyres, one car to use is a Vauxhall Corsa SX, the other car is a Porsche 911 RS. Due to how finely tuned the Porsche is over the Corsa, testing tyres on the Porsche will reveal differences much more easy.

Mmmmmmmm not sure about that analogy. It would be easier to tell the difference on the corsa because the chassis dynamics aren't so finely tuned. You'll have to drive the porsche much faster and put yourself in much more danger to find the limitations of the grip.

As you were!

 

[BananaDunka]

Not at all with the prices mentioned in OP. There are poor quality cables though with high resistance such as the ones with the Fidelio X1 which make a noticeable difference to sound quality. For my speakers I bought Van Damme blue cables with about an inch of shielding just because the build quality is immense and will last a lifetime. The cost was low enough to be worth the benefit of a solid construction cable. I notice no quality difference between them and even cheap hifi shop cables that were £1 a metre but were ultimately poorly constructed so only last a couple years before fraying/fading etc with repeated use and heat cycles through the strands. The Van Damme has been in use for about 7 years now and still look and feel like new.

 

[Akagi]

Not at all with the prices mentioned in OP. There are poor quality cables though with high resistance such as the ones with the Fidelio X1 which make a noticeable difference to sound quality. For my speakers I bought Van Damme blue cables with about an inch of shielding just because the build quality is immense and will last a lifetime. The cost was low enough to be worth the benefit of a solid construction cable. I notice no quality difference between them and even cheap hifi shop cables that were £1 a metre but were ultimately poorly constructed so only last a couple years before fraying/fading etc with repeated use and heat cycles through the strands. The Van Damme has been in use for about 7 years now and still look and feel like new.

The Fidelio cable was a funny one. Looked to be high quality, but was just a bit naff... Hardly any shielding either. Interference and cracking from handling the cable were both extreme.

I use a Sennheiser coiled cable now.

 

[mattyfez]

I usually get Cambridge audio cable at about £1 per meter.

As above you want something semi decent but spending loads won't make any real difference.

That's not terminated to any plugs though, just cable. I'd pay proportionally more for nice quality plugs on a pre built cable.