Do Cables Actually Matter? Blind Test Results

[VIK]

Joke of the day for audiophiles:

Audiophiles failed to distinguish between a signal sent through a copper cable and one routed through… a banana and wet dirt. The experiment was conducted on the diyAudio forum.

Participants were played the same track, each time routed through different “conductors”:

• A professional audio cable

• 20 cm of liquid mud

• A 13 cm banana

• The original CD recording

The result was brutal: only 6 out of 43 participants answered correctly. That’s basically the level of blind guessing.

Even more ironic, some listeners specifically praised the sound that had passed through the mud.

Feel free to send this to your favorite believer in “burned-in” headphones and gold-plated connectors

I urgently need a dirty cable. Ready to pay.

Or… isn’t that actually a great starting point for a killer startup?

[BorisM]

But you also need to get the right kind of mud! Woodstock had a lot of mud, but it’d be only good for classic rock. On classical music it would not be inky black enough! For that you need to dig up something behind La Scala.

I think $5000 for a multi-position switch, and $2500 for each 10 inch “connector” of appropriate mud should be a good deal. I’ll go write a business plan.

[Bonte]

@BorisM

But you also need to get the right kind of mud! Woodstock had a lot of mud, but it’d be only good for classic rock.

Boris, I really have to disagree with you on this one.

Woodstock mud may be good, but only Wacken mud can produce the absolute “super high-end sound.”

As I said, Woodstock is a desert in comparison.

[BorisM]

Naaah, Wacken mud is great for metal music (something Germans do well, and Americans would not know how to do if it bit them). For classic rock it should be Woodstock. Or maybe some British mud…

[Bicycle]

There are several reasons for this. First , is the difference between systems testing, and isolated components testing. Generally, if you are listening with speakers, you shouldn’t rely on headphone measurements, because the speakers will react differently. Second, while its absolutely true that many cables are garbage, it is also scientifically shown that cables do in fact alter the frequency levels of stereo speakers, and this has been proven time and time again. Anyone with a cheap Amazon frequency analyzer can do this themselves at home and see whether the cable changes the graph. Whether that frequency response is pleasing to the ear, or as in the case of the banana is subjective, and largely determined by the community. I regret buying a lot of high priced cables and have moved on, but I absolutely know for a fact that some moderately priced cables from China have made audible differences to the.point of substantially reducing white noise .

[BorisM]

Imagine, believing that speaker cables “reduce white noise.”

Oh, wait, one would really need to know what “white noise” is in the first place. And that knowledge is sadly lacking here.

[Bicycle]

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[VIK]

Ah come on… he didn’t make it personal and didn’t insult you at all. Honestly, why is everyone here so easily offended? Let’s show a bit more humor and wit in our discussions.

Regarding your post above, I actually agree with you. There are indeed many measurements showing differences in certain cases at specific frequencies, mostly in the bass region, sometimes around ±3 dB. I think we probably do hear something, but since we don’t have precise auditory memory, we struggle to identify it reliably in blind tests.

Blindfolded, at a matched volume level, it would likely be difficult for you to distinguish SF Nova 2 from SF Nova 3, possibly.

As for white noise and cables, I’m not entirely convinced either. And when people talk about “background blackness” or “the silence between the notes,” I would personally reserve those terms for high-end amplifiers. However, some degree of subtle equalization could be part of the discussion.

In any case, if the system starts to feel boring , and sooner or later it usually does ,then sure, you can try ultra-expensive cables or maybe even banana conductors in mud

The most important thing is enjoying the music. That’s what really matters.

[Bonte]

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[Bicycle]

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[Bicycle]

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[BorisM]

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