Why some speaker cables sound different - in layman's terms

....and 2022! 

I have some Cardas Golden Cross, which I got at really good money. In Europe, at full price, they are much more expensive than they are in The States.

I would imagine that they have replaced some quality speaker cable cno,so could you explain the improvemant?

They replaced some good off-the-reel stuff my dealer uses for the dearer instal work....they have a cheaper one as well. It's probably equivelent to a mid-range Chord cable. The i/c was either Linn Black or Linn Silver.

The Golden Cross is the cable equivalent to a valve amp. It is detailed, organic and slightly warm. It is a cable that is good for digitalitis and has no listening fatigue. It is the exact opposite of Nordost.

The usual cliches apply ie. it's a very "silent" cable with a low noise floor (if that's the right way of putting it), with a detailed sweet treble, glorious mid-range and deep powerful bass. The Golden Reference is more neutral and detailed, and the Clear is much more honest and neutral again.

There are several good reviews of it on the web if you google it, which I think are reasonably accurate.

Cardas, especially the older ranges (Cross, Golden Series), is a good choice if your system is a bit hard and brittle sounding....it's just a pity that it costs so much over here, unless you can get it 2nd hand, or ex-dem from Audiofreaks.

How woul;d you rate it against the Tellorium range?

That's a little bit like asking if you prefer Astin Martin or Ferrari.

In my system, I prefer Cardas. With warmer speakers or a Valve amp, I would prefer TQ, which is a little cleaner and faster (Ultra Black / Graphite).

I haven't done back to back tests with Vertere and TQ, but from what I've heard, Vertere might even be better.

My aim is only to raise interest in products that I think are a "cut above", in order to encourage people to go and check it out for themselves. 

IMO. Buying British brands (Atlas / Vertere / TQ etc) brings better value than those that come from The States (we usually pay the same in £s as they pay in $ ).

Hey, how many times must we re-run this?

Some believe, some dont.

This post has been done before and its now like religion or politics, best not discussed at dinner parties.

Shall we treat the forum as a dinner party?

Amen to that...sadly though, it'll never happen.

It's a different arguement. Lossless is undoubtably superior to MP3 or any other lossy codec, but the question is "can a human being tell the difference?" - And so far the only reliable test to prove "they can" is ABX. I personally cannot tell a high bitrate (256 and above) MP3 or AAC from the lossless equivalent, but I have seen one apparent positive over on the Hydrogen audio forum. However, I suspect it isn't the overall quality of the sound, rather a "tell" somewhere in a particular piece of music that you can learn to look for. But when testing gets down to such a banal level, you aren't listening to music, rather doing a scientific thesis.

But I do tend to buy all my music in FLAC format these days if possible. There's no real reason not to, unless you're tied to some particular store.

Personally I like these debates. So long as they remain civilised. After all it's a hi-fi and music forum first and foremost. And even if the discussions have been done before, there are new members signing up, new data emerging and new technologies being developed. 

It's pretty simple to avoid them. This one has it in black and white in the title. If cable, codec, active v passive etc doesn't interest you then you simply ignore.

It's actually very straight forward and simple to understand. The quote below sums it up in a nutshell.

"if a cable that is carrying audio signals has a lot of capacitance, you get less bass, and if it has a lot of inductance, you get less treble"

However, if a cable has a lot of capacitance or inductance then you will also get an excessive amount of phase shift which is bad for sound quality. Our ears are very sensitive to phase changes which is why using a speaker cable that alters the tone of the sound is also going to degrade the sound quality.

If you want to change the amount of bass or treble without messing up the phase then you should either use a digital graphic equalizer or get some speakers that already have a tonal character that you desire.

Any change in tone that's caused by a speaker cable will also be acompanied by a change in phase which should be easy to hear with any half decent hifi speaker.

manicm wrote:

And yet you deny explanation of why lossless music may sound better than MP3s

LOL!

I don't mean to sound rude or disrespectful to you manicm but I fail to see what relevance MP3's have with this thread topic.

MP3 compression is a completely unrelated subject to tonal and phase changes that can be caused by some speaker cables.

I think he's pointing out that you're highlighting that speaker cables can sound different but there isn't with an MP3 of a decent rate against lossless.  As Frog's pointed out, there is a difference, it's just how audible it is (or not).  And if we're listening to the minutiae in a piece to hear that difference, we've given up on the point of a stereo in the first place (IMO).