Are gold cables/connectors a farce?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pinky
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Well, I tried. I found a lot of places that were selling "premium" cables (and guess which side THEY were on?) and a few forum entries. Here's an interesting discussion from a pro recording forum http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/m/1980/0#msg_1980

I noticed that several of the commercial sites had anecdotal reviews that began with sneering references to engineers and their inability to test for the "dramatic" differences between cables...that to me is a sign of self-delusion. It's like the herbal remedy biz. Practically no rigorous testing has been done of them, yet I know people who are convinced that herbal remedies cure them of various ills. That's fine. Me, I go to the doctor when I'm sick. It may be my loss, too!

But considering the cost of the cables we are discussing and the probable small magnitude of the improvement, there are better ways for me to enhance my studio. It's rather like the argument I hear all the time that "analog is better than digital". Well, yeah, if you're talking about finely calibrated 2" tape decks over the typical DAW, sure it's better. But does it mean an old Fostex 1/4" 8-track is better than Adobe Audition? Not to me: the analog gear available to me is much inferior to the digital, and that makes any discussion moot.

There's a virtual $.02 worth in all this, no doubt.
 
Actually premium cables at least the RCA type are solderless, the idea being to reduce resistance and solder isn't really a great conductor. The ones i use actually twist right on to the wire, double sheilded 12 awg. I actually bought the cables at an electrical supply store. I now have them on my home theatre, car stereo and on my DAW. I also found the electrical supply store had a greater sellection and the prices were alot less the the home electronic stores. Any way as far as better sound quality all i can say is that I seem to have less backround noise in my recordings then used to have and i haven't had have to play with them making sure they were on tight or anything like that. They have a good tight fit and seem to work very well.
 
I checked out Full Compass and they really only had decent xlr connectors. I really need some TRS 1/4 inch connectors that don't suck. Also so are you saying an AD converter that is nice is a waste of money. A motu unit would be just fine?
 
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I have been buying regular Switchcraft TRS plugs from my local store. At one time I got excited over Neutrik but they proved to be very difficult to solder. I like Neutriks for XLRs though.

Pinky, my interest has gotten aroused in this whole issue and I have been searching the 'net and my collection of magazines & whatnot for any kind of actual, serious, scientific, rigorous, fair, or even moderately truthful comparison of different cables under controlled conditions and all I have found have been dismissive remarks by engineers and hysterical claims by audiophiles. One piece, titled "Audio McCarthyism", complained that a person conducting a public test of cables was wantonly biased against premium cables. If you can't kill the message, go after the messenger, I guess. Another said he heard differences one day but not another, and maybe it was the ambient humidity, rather than the cables. Yet another sneered at the idea that you could get decent cables for ANYTHING for less than $500/meter. [I DID find an interesting review of high-end speakers in which the reviewer, listening to the last Johnny Cash album, ascribed his ability to hear age-related artifacts in Mr Cash' voice to the incredible design of the speaker. What the hell? What happened to the microphone, and the engineer, and the artist? That's the kind of arrogance that seems to pervade the whole audiophile movement in general and the premium cable business in particular.]I have to conclude that it ain't for me. I love good gear, and the better my gear the better my results, because my use of it is coupled with an ongoing education in how it all works. I DON'T believe that some magic gear is going to somehow take the place of this process, however.

Thanks for bringing this up. I think my opinions have shifted even more strongly against the whole idea of juju cables. Maybe if I had a hundred grand in playback gear and lots of time on my hands I'd get into it.

Maybe not.
 
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Thanks, VTgreen81, I followed that thread. I notice that some other people focus on the quality of the connections too.
 
Interesting link VT... it seems there was more good argument for buying high-end cables because of lifetime warranty (which I can dig) than there was for an improvement in audio transmission/quality... second to last post addressed this, but without an extensive explanation why an improvement wouldn't be realized on a sub-par or mediocre setup. I would think improvement would mean improvement, eh?
 
I checked out the forum. If you are buying premium cables you might as well just buy them from mogami. Reason being that once you get done with the cables and connectors there is a 30% price difference. This is somewhat high I agree, but you have less worries. This price difference includes already assembled + lifetime warranty.

I use mogami and monster cables as they are easiest to find at stores. Sorry but even the monster 100 (the cheapest monster cable with gold connections) sounds 20x better then a hosa cable. Mogami cables and monster cables sound the same to me. I have no idea what you are talking about saying monster cables suck.

I hear Whirlwind is a cheap alternative to mogami and monster cable with matching quality. This is similar to mackie vs allen & health mixers. Mackie is more known so there products sell for more. But actually allen & health mixers are cheaper and in this case better sound quality then the mackie mixers.

Just to prove to you the cable issue. I bought 30 cables at $30 each about. $900 total(mixed mogami + moster cables)

buying the cable 656 feet at .29 a foot=$ roughly $200
connections 4 x 60 = #240

so its about $500 with tax shipping whatever.
Personally I would add the cost of about a hundred dollars or so for the labor of making the cables and another 100 for the replacement of the cables anytime.
so that comes to $700 total for making the cables yourself.

I guess it is a better deal. Cables do not break that often. If you don't mind the labor, or the insurance it is more like a 50% difference. I don't think you should bash on premium cables though.

Wiring a 16 channel snake would seem like a pina to some, others fun. I believe that would determine you postion on this. Crap I work on my car, I guess I can make my own cables lol.
 
fluxburn said:
I have no idea what you are talking about saying monster cables suck.
Click to expand...

Who said this?



fluxburn said:
I don't think you should bash on premium cables though.
Click to expand...

Why not? So far no one's been able to provide proof that you get 500% more performance for 500% more cost...
 
Cool topic.I haven't had a lot of experience with grades of cables. A lot of people said stuff that makes sense. Better cables are more reliable, have longer and better warranties, and a lot of cheap cables use molded connectors(non-replaceable). For speaker cables, lower guage is always better. I just get as big as I can ram in the connector and make a good solder joint. As for gold, a lot of good cables use good quality nickel connectors. The most important thing you can do no matter what is KEEP EVERYTHING CLEAN. Connectors oxidize over time and one of the easiest ways to make sure things are sounding the best they can with whatever you've got is to get a can of DeOxit from CAIG and use it! About every six months I run a 1/4" or XLR cable with a little DeOxit on it into every hole in all my gear. And do all my mic cables. DO NOT SPRAY INTO FADERS. OR ON FADERS. OR ANYWHERE NEAR FADERS. DO NOT SPRAY DIRECTLY INTO JACKS. Some PCBs don't like large doses of deoxit.
For faders use MCL-moving contact lubricant- from the same company.
Like I said, not a lot of experience but I have been able to hear the difference with nice instrument cables and speaker cables. Not so much with mic cables. I'm starting to record now after years of live work, though, so I'm going to be a a much quieter environment. I'm looking forward to checking out new mic cables.
I was kind of interested in the no-solder cable thing. One of the parts of good soldering involves getting the best mechanical connection you can before you solder. It seems to me that if you have a solid connection to start with, filling in the gaps with solder can only help things. Also, something I've noticed is in Monster cables there are more wires of a finer gauge than in the equivalent Belden product.
I'm lucky. I live 1 day UPS from a company (Caldwell Bennett) that makes custom cables and snakes. Belden/Neutrik is their standard but they will do just about anything
Check this out.

really good cables

$15,000US (yes, that's fifteen thousand) for an eight foot pair of speaker cables.

Hifi guys rate their cables like wine. "Fruity mids, plummy bass, agressive but not overpowering highs, this cable would be best paired with a drier sounding amp or perhaps be used to help out a dull room. Musically it is suited for 1960's era CBS classical, but may be too organic for more modern fare."

I can only believe it is tons and tons of shite. Please read a few and see what you think. I haven't felt this nauseous since I realized I was saying this stuff about mic pres. And I was seriously listening to someone say similar things back. :) :) I guess I thought we were the only ones.

hifi choice cable reviews


I bet none of the music these guys listen to was played, recorded, or mixed with anything better than what we consider average good cables. Belden cable, and Neutrik or Switchcraft connectors. And I'd be willing to bet that a lot of it was done with cables a lot of us would through away.

Sorry to get away from the topic. Since there doesn't seem to be any definitive answer, I say gold schmold. Your "auditory memory" for details isn't more than 15 or 20 seconds. So if it isn't a big glaring difference you could just be convincing yourself the gold sounds better. Unless you have some kind of switcher. Then you have to have a gold switcher to make sure you aren't losing your gold edge while A/Bing your cables. :) Have a friend switch the cables while you can't see, some kind of blind test. Use your ears not your eyes to make the decision.
 
We're in the same book, boingoman, and probably the same page. Cables ought to marketed like the components they are instead of like soft drinks. Speaking of Monster, I actually own a Monster "bass cord". It is VERY well made, with the nicest shield I have ever seen in an instrument cable. The only problem I have is that I don't hear any difference between it and cables I have made up myself. Maybe in harsh live environments...I'll give 'em the benefit of a doubt.
 
$30 for a cable knowing that I will never have to pay for it again even if I fuck it up, thats worth it to me. Lifetime even exchange warranty is a hard "technical" feature to beat.
 
Wow this is old, that is funny audiophiles actually rate cables like wine. Honestly there is not much difference between pc3200 memory with 2-3-3-6 timings compared to pc3500 with 2-2-2-5 ratings but the human body can sense milliseconds in latency. In audio as well, minute changes affect the human hearing etc. Such as when a drummer plays you can hear slightly off beats while a drum machine is always right on, you can hear the subtle millisecond delays on the human.

Take a crappy guitar cable from guitar center and compare to a hosa cable or a mogami cable? What a joke it truely is the comparing of these cables. I recently scored a shitload of monster cables, about 20 for $10 a piece, so $200. I think it was even less I don't remember, this lady upgraded her studio cables so I scored. Deals are great, just buy everything used if you care about money. You couldn't build a cable this nice of as cheap as I purchased them, well unless you view your time building them as nothing lol. I currently value my time at $10-$30. Building cables takes a long time from what I heard, to make 22 cables or so would take hours and hours to finish soldering all the connections... and don't get me started on them being trs cables which I hear are a PINA to solder.
 
except for the lifetime warrenty on certain brands, you'll never HEAR the difference. JMHO I've tried them in home theater setup and in my studio, and I can't hear the diff. Your money would be better spent on other things.

peace
boardman
 
you'll never HEAR the difference.

Revisiting this resurrected thread, I see someone heard "20X" better from one cable as opposed to another. Are you sure it wasn't 19.375, or maybe 21.223 X better?

It's not physically possible for a cable to sound different from another unless there are serious problems. Otherwise you are essentially claiming that a cable has changed at least the values of the components of the electronics and perhaps at most the topology of the circuit. And that makes sense?
 
The Myth of Cable Vs. Schmable

I have personally tested Monster, Mogami, Whirlwind, Beldin (cable), Switchcraft (connectors), Neutrik (connectors), and among other cable/connector combinations in a pristine audiophile studio environment (XLR, TRS, 1/4 unbalanced). The result: No discernable audible difference and no discernable difference on a test meter. I use monster instrument cables for their warranty. I use mostly Whirlwind for studio connections. The main thing is to have shielded cable with good connections. Use the extra money to buy better mics, preamps, or converters.

The myth is even more bizarre when you hear some people mention that there is a difference between various digital cables. Can a $200 cable inspire my personal musical performance in the studio to a higher level of previously unknown consciousness? Can a $500.00 digital cable add bits transferred from the etherial realm by the Almighty Himself? Can a $1,000 cable result in a studio master that will hypnotize the masses ... compelling each listener to buy not just one copy, but three copies of every CD I produce? If the answer is yes, let me get my checkbook before everyone else learns the secret!
 
Hey Pinkster...

Did you know that the electrical resistance of a circuit (actually we are looking at AC signals here so the correct term would be inpedance) is proportional to the sum of the individual elements?

So let's all join hands as we run our audio signals through a meter of copper with almost enough gold at each end to actually notice. Then we can feel good because we bought gold "because it is a better conductor".

Earlier, someone mentioned some audiophile stuff that was quite expensive. I would like to say that I have one of those guys at work. I don't know where he get the money for the stuff that he buys because we just don't pay that much for the work we do. However, I did look at one of his catalogs a couple of weeks ago and the prices were out of this world. $12,000 for a turntable seems to be typical and that is w/o any of the extras. By extras I mean not only a cartridge ($5,000) but a needle ($2,000 (no fould diamond that came out of the ground, this was for a low nitrogen diamond that was pressed from pure carbon in Russia)), a tone arm ($1,500) and so on. When I added up the stuff needed to make a complete turntable out of the most expensive stuff in the catalog, it came out to over $30,000. That was before the gold plated cable.

At those prices, you might as well just buy a solid gold cable. After all, the stuff goes for about $400 for a cubic centimeter. Why not get a $2,000 gold cable? Because they wanted that much for copper with gold plated connectors. :confused: :mad: :confused:
 
The gold is so thin on the connectors that even if you believe it makes a difference you'd probably only want to use those cables in permanent install type situations. The reason being the gold will wear off quite quickly if the cable is one that gets a lot of use as far as jacking/unjacking. Gold is a soft metal after all.

I've always wanted to try silver cables. I just can't get myself to spend the money though.
 
The way I see it, if I spend all this money on compressors, monitors, ect..
I might as well put in an extra couple of bucks to ensure they all have a clean, solid connection.
 
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