The Great Cable Debate
Requisite Audio responds to the cable debate on Gearslutz.com
3/23/04
Audio professionals have a lot of background in electronics, so for them, they "know" that power travels a long way to finally arrive at their wall outlet. This is why, it's so hard to believe a power cord can effect the sound. After all, a better connection or more current capacity can't possibly change the sound.
Aside from making the connection, audio grade A/C cables don't work that way. It's more accurate to think of them as a component like an AF Choke. Being engineers, you already know, a choke is just a wire wrapped around a core. Yet, when correctly designed and implemented, it's properties are ideal for removing "hash" from audio. I'm not suggesting that an A/C cable is a choke, just that it's simplicity implies that it can't have an effect, when in fact, it can.
With regard to my own introduction to cable "la-la-land", I was told of high-end power cables (prices ranging up to $4,500) about seven years ago. My first impression was that it was not only impossible but, at those prices, I felt it was a scam. After all, I live in Los Angeles and most of our power travels from Hoover Dam and comes across 100+ miles of desert into substations, up my street and through the crappy wire of my 75 year old house and now, the last six feet is going to make a difference. Are you kidding me?
After hearing the cable for myself, I wasn't about to buy it, but, it did open my mind. It was explained to me that an audio grade power cable doesn t improve sound by providing a better connection from the wall or by increasing capacity for more current. They improve audio performance by removing, reducing or changing "things" that have a negative influence on sound quality.
At this point, I think a good question to ask is: Would it be possible to make a bad sounding A/C cable? What about a bad sounding mic cable? My experience tells me, YES, in both cases. Actually, I can't imagine any audio professional saying, NO, it's impossible to make a bad sounding cable.
Once you can wrap your thinking around the possibility of making a bad sounding cable, you can use the same logic to understand that, if a cable can be made to sound bad, it is quite possible to make a cable sound better. But, how much better? Well, that depends on how reactive the equipment you are connecting is to the cable being used. Not every piece of gear will benefit in the same way because different designs are "upset" in different ways by different things.
The way our A/C cable was developed was not totally scientific using advanced math or that sort of thing. We simply collected a half dozen cables that are considered to be among the best sounding (along with a $1 cable) and Ken Goerres (the cables designer) began the process of making prototypes.
Once Ken had built several prototypes, that we felt had promise, we took them on "the tour." The tour is an expression we use to conduct "blind listening test" at various studios.
While doing the blind test, I was very impressed by the different listeners ability to not only hear the difference in power cables, but, after a couple times through, they would begin to say things like "oh, that's cable X again" or "that's the cable with the funny mid-range" or "that cable sounds great."
Eventually, 60 prototypes were built and several listening test had been conducted, before we had a cable that was consistently chosen as "the best" of the bunch.
Truthfully, we don't know exactly why our audio grade A/C cable sounds the way it does. It doesn't show-up on measuring devices as less distortion or better frequency response. In general, you hear a better separation of instruments within their own spaces, a wider and deeper image. Is it because the cable does that? No. It's because the cable prevents the loss of that information from happening.
As studios and engineers vary, so do the benefits of the cable. The studios and engineers we used for our testing were both excellent rooms and talented listeners. Simply put, some audio engineers find it to be a justifiable expense for the improvement it makes to their systems. Others don't.
Thanks for the great debate,
Danny McKinney
Requisite Audio