February 28, 2005

Q: Are audio cables dependent on the systems in which they are used? Do the descriptions of their sound quality travel from system to system?

Eric Bailey

A: It is a fallacy that the performance of audio cables is completely dependent on the systems in which they are used and interconnects and speaker cables have no "sound" of their own. There are measurable parameters that can affect the sound of cables -- inductance and capacitance, for example. Certain manufacturers try to minimize these (Nordost and Cardas to name two), while others at aim maximizing one or another (Magnan, for example). That Nordost and Magnan cables sound different would be apparent to anyone who has heard them both, and this difference would travel from system to system, unless something like an amp/preamp interaction (due to very high output impedance from the preamp, for instance) skewed this. The point is that cables do sound different from each other, and not just because of the audio systems in which they are used. If they did not, we wouldn't write about them. Doing so would be of no use to readers, and a waste of our time.

What is also interesting is that Nordost and Cardas cables sound different, likely due to the way they are made as well as their materials.

...Marc Mickelson