The Speaker Cable Site

During the festive season I was over at the house of a family friend, watching TV. Their reasonably new TV was hooked up using a standard PAL TV connection. I noticed that as you move the connection, the picture changed. When the connection was perfect the picture was great, but at times it wasn’t so good, and especially if you moved it.

This made me think: if something as small as a bump to the TV stand could cause a dramatic change in picture and sound quality, and there appears to be an effect on picture quality generally, there must be some truth to the fact that good connectors (read: good, not necessarily expensive) may have an impact on sound quality. It’s certainly true for signal integrity, as demonstrated.

I’ll do some research. More to come…

So you’ve recently bought a nice new hi-fi or home theatre system, and now you need something to hook up your loudspeakers. Your salesman at the store has probably tried to sell you some higher end cables, but at the exorbitant prices you decide that the benefits he’s described to you sound a bit too good to be true for a piece of copper in some plastic.

Don’t worry. You’re not alone.

The market these days is saturated with thousands of cable products, from the very cheapest “it’ll do the job” hook-up wire to multi-thousand dollar (no exaggeration) “audiophile grade” cable. Adding to this, every home appliance salesman is constantly being pushed by companies with heavy marketing budgets to flog off their accessory products and extended warranties. So how does the average consumer choose between them? What’s a “good amount” to spend? How do you tell the quality cables from the ones with more fluff than substance?

Don Marcos is a friend and former colleague of mine who is a world leading expert on cable performance, with over 15 years in the industry. He works in the sound recording industry and has come from a solid background of electronic and acoustic engineering, and has with extensive industry experience.

“Cables do affect sound, so spend at least 10% of your system’s cost on this. Just remember to be sensible, there’s no need to go overboard.”

It’s generally accepted in the hi-fi community that cables make some difference. More importantly for the average Joe is the fact that bad cables can be detrimental to performance.

“You don’t want to go too cheap on cables. If you buy a 4 thousand dollar system, you don’t want to skimp on the cables and restrict performance. It’ll be a waste.”

This method works. First, take your system’s cost and take a fraction of its total value. You’d probably want to budget 10-15% of it on cables and accessories.

Ok, so now that you’ve got your budget. Where do you go from there? You could spend it all on a single piece of cable that’s got some features which just sound like technical jargon. Or you could go for the more basic stuff that’s thick (because thicker is better, right?).

The truth about speaker cables is that, like speakers, there is no one defining factor. Don’t get caught up on the details of the specs – usually they’re designed to exaggerate the product’s capabilities anyway. On the lower end, it’s true that the thicker the copper conductor, the better the cable. You’ll also need to make sure that the conductor is OFC (Oxygen Free Copper, typically 99.5% pure). However once it gets to about 12AWG or even 14AWG, the improvement in sound becomes less and less significant as the thickness increases. Once the cable is sufficiently thick, other factors such as more exotic materials, better design and improved manufacturing techniques will become the more significant factors in determining quality.

Some examples of these are: silver conductors, purer than OFC copper, criss-crossed or twisted pair conductors, smooth surfaced conductors, independent conductor insulation, optimised conductor thickness, etc. With most of the more advanced technologies, there is significant debate over whether or not they work (or at least how much improvement they bring). However it is generally accepted that most of these ideas at least have some measurable effect.

So how do you choose the right one for you? First, decide a budget. Then decide how much length you need. This will give you an approximate per meter cost. Use this cost and buy a cable that is within this budget. If it’s a lower end system, just choose the thickest OFC cable you can afford. If you’ve got a few hundred dollars, you may want to have a look at the higher end gear, with better conductors such as silver or twisted pair conductors. Personally, I’m a huge fan of twisted pair silver cables. Don’t buy a cable just because it’s from a big brand, most smaller brands carry similar products at less cost.

Remember, the most important thing is to enjoy the music or your movies. There’s no point spending too much time deciding which speaker cable to buy if you won’t be using them!

It’s a million dollar question which has sparked heated controversy and debate amongst enthusiasts, hardened audiophiles and scientists alike. Moreover, the question to us is not so much if there’s a measurable difference, but is the difference noticeable? These are all good questions which I will attempt to answer in a logical way and from an unbiased perspective.

Let’s take a step back and have a look at the issue at hand. The first question we need to ask is: does speaker cables actually have a material impact on any measurable specifications?

It is a proven fact that cable properties can be different. At the very minimum, a cable’s LCR (inductance, capacitance, resistance) properties vary greatly. Any LCR value greater than zero will cause distortion. It is also a generally accepted rule of thumb that a good speaker cable should have low inductance, whereas capacitance and resistance are less significant.

Adding to this, cable design can have a material affect on attenuation of induced noise. Ever had your hi-fi on and had your cell phone nearby during a call? Notice some funny beeps? That’s interference. When a device like a cell phone is operating, it transmits a large amount of energy into its surroundings, not just enough to induce noise, but to completely distort electronic signals nearby. This is why it’s illegal to use your phone on an aircraft – it can play havoc with communications equipment. With the prevalence of wi-fi internet, increased bandwidth and phone data traffic, there is a significant amount of waves in the air which can cause distortion. And although the interference from a cell phone is many times what normally exists in free space, it is nevertheless a factor to consider. EMF and RF are very real and material factors which can affect the performance of any cable.

So the next question is, can these problems be overcome or improved by better cables?

To answer this, we ask an expert in the subject with enough substantial experience and knowledge to back up his opinion. One such expert is Dr. Peter Karpowski, head of transmission line & noise engineering at the University of Melbourne. I’ve worked with Peter on a number of research projects over the years. He is a leading world expert on communication systems and audio noise performance, and he is also passionate about music and audio.

When asked about the effect of speaker cables (and audio cables in general) on sound performance, Peter’s opinion is conservatively pro-cable.

“Of course it makes a difference.” Peter says. “Every cable in the world causes distortion, and once distortion occurs, that part of the signal is lost forever.”

However he is also reserved about the capabilities of the larger commercial brands.

“The problem these days is that every cable product is made out to be like a supernatural force, as if it can correct distortion or something. The fact of the matter is, cables do make a difference, but hardly as much as what they’d like you to think. We’ve tested many cables in our labs and typically there is a definite measurable difference between some of the designs. However there’s no need to spend thousands of dollars on them. That sort of money is much better spent on other parts of your system.”

Needless to say, his logic makes incredible sense, and it is not surprising that the majority of experts agree.

The last thing to check is whether any of this will make a difference the end users. Will it stand up to a blind test? I took the liberty of setting this up one night to a few friends, all of which didn’t know anything about hi-fi. One was a common electronics consumer. One admittedly had poor hearing, and one with a some highly musically trained ears. Not only was he a trained classical musician, he had perfect pitch and could analyse sounds to spectacular detail.

I set up his experiment with my reference system, intermixing cables, tracks and time to listen. I used three cables: a cheap and thin copper figure 8 design cable, a thicker and more heavy duty copper cable, and a reasonably expensive silver cable. I made them fill out a sheet to say which bit sounded best.

The results were surprising. There was some mixed opinion about which copper cable was better, however it was a unanimous agreement that the silver cable sounded the best. Most of the feedback were comments like “wow, I never imagined how much difference speaker cables could make”. Strangely, this included the test subject with the worst hearing.

There is little doubt that speaker cables can make a difference in a good hi-fi system. Unfortunately, the industry is a little awash with manufacturers with large marketing budgets rather than good common sense. However if you go out there and investigate their claims, it is usually reasonably quick to determine if they come with any credibility. I suppose it all comes down to using the most important component in your hi-fi system: your ears.