Speaker cables - what do you use...?

[Woochifer]

LOL, i didn't realise i'd walked into the Thou Must Not Challenge The Doctrine That RadioShack's Finest Will Do The Job Just As Well As Anything forum!!

No, you just stumbled upon a group of posters who prefer value for what they invest in their systems.

Jesus guys, open your minds (and ears?!!). I can only repeat what i've said previously. If somebody wants to come over here to the UK, i will guarantee, monetarily if necessary, that i can demonstrate the difference between my SPM and Red Dawn, for instance. It isn't even *nearly* similar, for Christ's sake!!! Bring all the blindfolds you want!!

You can repeat all you want. I've done enough cable listenings to come to my own conclusions about the value of speaker cable upgrades relative to other system upgrades -- pretty much near the bottom of the priority list.

No need for blindfolds, just an honest listening where you don't know what you're listening to in advance. You don't even need elaborate testing equipment, just someone in the back of the system swapping out the cable pairs at random. I've done cable comparisons under both sighted and blind conditions, so I'm aware of how the magnitude of "difference" changes when you don't see the brand or look of the cable before listening. That's what McIntosh and Dunlavy confirmed in their demos.

I clipped the end of the quote because i have no knowledge of the tests that were carried out, but i am absolutely NOT going to base my entire belief system around somebody else's findings!! You're not doing THAT, are you?!

If you're going to base your belief system around sighted listenings, then you need to be aware that people who take you up on your *guarantee* might demand a more rigorous and reliable comparison than a simple show-and-tell session. And they might ask you to make your case first without the sight biases to assist you.

My views on cables have been reinforced through my own listenings and measurements over the past 20+ years. I've done my own foolery with friends before where I pretended to switch out a component or cable, and have them gush over how much "improvement" they heard when in fact I had not changed a thing. This type of placebo effect is not just someone else's findings, it's what I've observed as well.

In recommending system upgrades, I prefer to focus on areas that provide the most real world improvement for the amount spent. Expensive speaker cables IMO represent the exact inverse of that price/value equation.

Sure, room acoustics are important, there's no denying. But if you honestly believe that speaker cable can't make a difference, i just have to drop my jaw in disbelief. Seriously.

Never said that they don't make a difference, only that the differences are too small to be worth a damn.