Kirkville

I really wasn’t planning to write about this any more, but the What Hi-Fi? journalist who believes in magic has doubled down, explaining in detail the testing process and why he is convinced that it works.

His explanation includes things like “We run all cables overnight if not longer,” the myth that all hi-fi gear has to be “broken in,” even digital cables. And he admits that the tests aren’t blind:

We’ve experimented with blind testing over the years but it’s not part of our standard review process for any products.

And, regarding Ethernet cables, he says:

I understand what’s being said. But, I’ve recently been part of a listening session where, in my opinion, I heard differences between such cables, so I can’t really agree.

This is just sad.

Let’s assume there’s something going wrong with an Ethernet cable, and some packets get lost. It would – at its worst, with a lot of packet loss – sound like a damaged CD. You’ve probably had a few, where you get noisy clicks when playing an old, worn CD. That’s the worst that could happen.

So imagine the difference between, say, a cheap Ethernet cable, and a very expensive one. The most difference there would be is a lack of errors, which wouldn’t manifest as clicks in an Ethernet transfer, but probably very, very tiny dropouts. (The cable itself does not manage error correction, but the TCP/IP protocol used on data networks does.)

I actually can’t find any reviews of Ethernet cables on their site, but I did find some of USB cables. Here’s one for a £50 USB cable:

The gains in low-end body and punch, midrange spaciousness and detail, and high-end smoothness alone are significant.

This is simply bullshit. If there is zero packet loss because of this more expensive cable, at best the music will sound exactly the way it sounds at the source. If there is packet loss, there may be some dropout, but no loss in “spaciousness and detail,” or “high-end smoothness.”

The best way to understand this is to read this Cnet article, Why all HDMI cables are the same. Geoffrey Morrison explains – and shows with pictures – what happens if there’s something wrong with an HDMI cable. You can see the sparkles in the images with bad cables; this is what you’d get from a bad USB or Ethernet cable, and you can imagine that it would affect music. As the author says:

If you’re paying more than $5 for a 2-meter HDMI cable, you’re overpaying.

In two previous articles I showed how hi-fi magazines write about cables. They make things up, say things that make no sense, and sometimes copy and paste reviews for different products from the same company. I don’t want to harp on this too much, but I thought it would be interesting to look at how multiple cables can make your audio system sound like it’s powered by unicorns.

In a standard audio setup, there are four types of cables you can upgrade to audiophile versions and prices. There’s the AC cable, that goes from your wall socket to your amplifier, CD player, etc. Then there’s the interconnect, the RCA-plug cables that connect, say, your CD player to your amp. Finally, there are speaker cables; they run from your amplifier to the speakers. If you have a DVD/Blu-Ray player, there’s also the HDMI cable that connects that device to your amplifier, or to your TV.

Audiophiles think that changing any of these cables can make a huge difference in the quality of the music you hear on your stereo. So what happens if you change all three of these for pricey audiophile cables?

Start with the power cable, or mains cable, as they say in the UK. According to What Hi-Fi? magazine (all of the quotes below come from their reviews[1]), a £150 mains cable:

took everything we could throw at it without stumbling. Images were pin-sharp, and exquisitely revealing, colour was natural and rich, while motion was smooth.

It made our reference kit sing, too, with its ability to apply dynamics on tap, combining a taut sound with seamless integration.

I find it hard to imagine how a mains cable would “stumble” with different types of content; after all, it’s only supplying AC power, which the various hi-fi components convert to DC power using transformers. But I love how it can “apply dynamics on tap,” and provide a “taut sound.” Of course none of those statements mean anything at all.

The What Hi-Fi? reviewer does not, however, say which components used this cable. Was it the TV, or a DVD/Blu-ray player that got the cable, which give “pin-sharp” images? For the sound, did it go into the amp? Mysteries.

Let’s move on to an interconnect; I’ll just stay with an analogue interconnect, used to pass audio from a CD player to an amplifier. There’s one at £731, more than I paid for my player:

In every system we tried, their effect is the same. The leading edges of notes are as sharply defined as you like, and pack a mighty punch when the music demands.

More than that, the sound delivered is timed immaculately. This means not only that the hard-charging rhythms of Radiohead’s Kid A are punched out in all their glory, but also that the interplay between instruments is preserved and easy to appreciate.

These cable majors on control, insight and agility, not on making things sound nicer. It will help a system communicate the drive and enthusiasm in a piece — it’s all about communicating the drama and passion of music.

I think it’s important that the “leading edges of notes” be “as sharply defined is you like,” but I’m not sure what that means. It’s great that the “sound delivered is timed immaculately;” I wouldn’t want a cable to hold back and delay sound. And that third paragraph, aside from its grammatical incoherence (don’t they have copy editors at What Hi-Fi?) is confusing. It’s all about “control, insight and agility,” rather than “making things sound nicer?” Does that actually mean anything in English?

Whatevs. On to an HDMI cable; one that sends digital information, that in no way can change the sound of anything. Cables don’t influence the ones and zeroes of a digital stream, they just move them from one end of the cable to another. For £300, you can get a cable that:

really does impress with its clear, detailed, realistic picture. Even more apparent is the sonic ability of this cable. It sounds controlled and composed.

The level of refinement and finesse that it encourages is there for all to hear. It’s capable of delivering the explosive adventures of Rambo with gusto and is equally adept at creating a tense atmosphere during Batman Begins.

What’s confusing here is that I always thought it was the TV – and the source, the DVD or Blu-Ray player – that were responsible fro a “clear, detailed, realistic picture.” The cable is just something that passes the bits from one device to the other. As for the sound, it’s good to know that it is “controlled and composed.”

Let’s end this brief tour with speaker cables. This type of cable is the most varied and exaggerated. Here’s a £148 cable (the review does not specify how much you get for that price):

In every system we tried, the effect was the same. The leading edges of notes were as sharply defined as you like, and packed a mighty punch when the music demanded.

More than that, the sound delivered was timed immaculately. This means not only that the hard-charging rhythms of Radiohead’s Kid A were punched out in all their glory, but also that the interplay between instruments was preserved and easy to appreciate.

This cable majors on control, insight and agility, not on making things sound nicer. It’ll help a system communicate the drive and enthusiasm of a recording — it’s all about communicating the drama and passion of music.

Isn’t it interesting that the review of this cable, just like the interconnect I cited above, says that “the hard-charging rhythms of Radiohead’s Kid A are punched out in all their glory,” and that “This cable majors on control, insight and agility, not on making things sound nicer,” getting the grammar right this time? And not only do these vapid texts show that these reviewers just make things up, but that they have no shame in copying their texts for products from the same company.[2]

And that begs the question: if, for a given company’s cable, the results are exactly the same for an interconnect and a speaker cable, why buy both? What exactly are they reviewing? A set of cables – i.e., the interconnect and the speaker cable – or each one individually? If they both do the same thing, you’d be better off just getting the speaker cable, as it’s about one-fourth the price.

So add up all these extraordinary results, and what do you get? Exactly the same music you’d get with standard cables. But, in my example (and I did not choose the most expensive cables), this is more than £1,200 spent on cables.

Well, I think you get the picture here. Save your money; instead of spending money on expensive cables, buy music. After all, that’s what your audio system is for, right?

I recently posted an article about a hi-fi magazine and how it reviews cables. I thought it would be interesting to look around and see how some other magazines describe audio cables. This is quite edifying. Rather than analyze each of the excerpts I list below, I’m just going to toss them out, and let you try and imagine if they actually have any real value, or if they’re just buncombe.

From Stereophile’s 2014 Recommended Components Cables. This includes interconnects – cables that connect components, either analogue or digital – and speaker cables.

uses an RCA plug of tellurium-copper alloy with a single, small contact point, meant to reduce the formation of eddy currents

lacked some midrange body and warmth but produced a pleasantly forward, detailed sound with an unusually wide soundstage

produced a larger, more present overall sound, with deeper silences, longer decays, cleaner highs, more realistic bass, and richer tone color

lacked body and warmth but was more muscular, insistent, and precise

offered clarity without brightness, and reasonably good amounts of color, texture, and touch

offered a more organized and forceful portrayal of the music, with rounder bass, cleaner highs, and faster transients

the … interconnect is built into a hermetically sealed, helium-filled tube and terminated with proprietary solid-silver connectors. The overall sound was open and clean, with lightning-fast attacks, generous sustains, and long decays.

an air-dielectric–evacuated interconnect with noninsulated conductors … benefited from an enormous addition of lushness, texture, and warmth, along with major extensions of air, detail, and transparency.

infusing music with more low-level resolution, transient speed, clarity, and physicality

presented music with even greater urgency, drama, and purpose

was tonally neutral and produced well-defined images, powerful and fast transients, and incredible transparency

tended to smear bottom-octave pitch relationships, resulting in a less natural overall sound

had a richer, warmer sound, with a softer attack for a slower overall musical flow

Bits may be bits, but you’ll be gob-smacked by the improvement in sound quality

was quieter and produced blacker silences

Two points. Regarding the last excerpt, “blacker silences” is something that should be measurable; it is, most likely, a lack of noise. So I’d like to see the measurements. And, second, a lot of these cables – at least from what I can understand from the above excerpts – seem to alter the music, change it, which, I always thought, was something that audiophiles did not want. Things like “generous sustains, and long decays” are created by reverb; if a cable does that, isn’t that a bad thing?

In attempting to understand the above – and audiophile blah-blah in general – one may wish to seek out this book.

Following yesterday’s article about expensive digital cables and journalists who believe in magic, I thought I’d have a look at how What Hi-Fi? – the magazine for which said journalist pens his reviews – actually writes about cables.

Much of my work involves reviews: professionally, I review apps and music, but I also review books, films and theater productions here on my website. So I know a bit about what it takes to write a review, and the kind of content one needs to write. A review should present a product, and explain what is good (or not) about it, if possible by comparing it to other, similar products.

Apparently, hi-fi cable reviews don’t get that kind of treatment. Here’s one, for a £185, 0.5m digital cable:

Clearly this is a premium cable for premium systems — to connect a CD player to a DAC, perhaps.

But the Clearer Audio Optimus will win you around once you plug it in. It’s a terrific sounding cable, outgunning the opposition for bass depth, midrange drive, treble purity and soundstage openness.

Its chunky Super Suppressor collars make it stand out — so does the brilliance of its sound.

That’s it; that’s the extent of this magazine’s review of a cable that costs £185. You’d think they’d try a little harder, and at least make up some reason why it sounds better, rather than just write four sentences stuffed with fluff.

Two points here. First, for something that pricey, there’s no excuse for such a short review. Second, how much time can the journalist have spent testing this cable to only come up with 66 words, only half of which describe the cable?

Here’s another one, for a £1,000 analog cable (1 m):

Some people will never be able to get past the Indigo Plus’s hefty price. But, expensive though it is, used in the right set-up these interconnects are extraordinary.

Those with systems below the five grand mark shouldn’t even think about getting them. It only really starts to make sense with systems at around double that.

The original Indigo was dynamic, bold and musical in a way that eluded most rivals.

The ‘Plus’ is noticeably cleaner, unearthing even more subtle details. The differences aren’t of the night and day variety, but they are enough for the Plus to keep the Indigo at the cutting edge of high-end interconnects

Out of all that – a whopping 109 words – only half of the review talks about the cable, with just this to actually describe it (in comparison to an earlier model):

The ‘Plus’ is noticeably cleaner, unearthing even more subtle details.

Or how about this, for a £750 cable (1 m):

We know there are many readers who will never get past the price of these Atlas cables. Thankfully for Atlas, these cables are great performers in the context of an appropriate system.

We’re quite fond of the 15 percent rule, which says that you should spend that percentage of the total system cost on cable.

Start thinking of the Mavros in the context of a 20-grand-plus system and the price doesn’t seem so outlandish, particularly when you hear just how clearly this pairing out-performs cheaper, quality competition.

Neutral, detailed and smooth
As you would expect, the Mavros sound is very much in the Atlas mould: it’s neutral, detailed and smooth without blandness, except here it’s to a higher level than we’ve heard from the brand.

Listen to Beethoven’s 5th and the cables deliver a greater level of insight and stronger dynamics than most other cables we’ve tested.

It’ll come as much down to taste and careful system matching as anything else, but either way, at this end of the market, the Mavros makes a strong case for itself.

Now that’s a much longer review; but less than half of it talks about the cable. And there’s one glaring sentence that cannot escape the attention of classical music listeners:

Listen to Beethoven’s 5th and the cables deliver a greater level of insight and stronger dynamics than most other cables we’ve tested.

Which “Beethoven’s 5th?” When was it recorded? How? Was it recorded in analog or digital? If I search Amazon.com, I find 276 hits for “beethoven 5th symphony”, and that’s just on CD. Would any Beethoven’s 5th benefit from “a greater level of insight and stronger dynamics?”

But it gets better. The above review was for an audio interconnect; that’s the cable that you run from, say, a CD player to an amplifier. But look here, at a review for speaker cables from the same company: it’s exactly the same review! Word for word; it’s a copy and paste (though the header, Neutral, detailed and smooth, has been removed from the speaker cable review). Speaker cables and audio interconnects are two totally different kinds of cable, and it would surprise me that it is possible to say exactly the same thing about two different kinds of cable.

These people are charlatans.

I posted an article earlier today about a hi-fi journalist who believes in magic, thinking that there can be differences in digital cables between, say, computers and DACs.

Joe Cox, the editor of What Hi-Fi?, who follows [update: who used to follow me] me on Twitter, said this:

This made me think about an experience I had last week. I went to Cambridge to attend a recording session of the King’s College Choir, in the astounding King’s College Chapel. I spent an afternoon watching the session, talking with the executive producer, and with the recording engineers (from Abbey Road Studios). One thing that I found interesting was the cabling they used. The session was being recorded at 24/96, for release in 5.1, and there were about 24 microphones altogether. I asked if there was any fancy cabling, but the executive producer said, no, “just miles of copper.”

In other words, when recording engineers set up to record very subtle music – this was a choir in a chapel, and the sound is very complex – they don’t use anything other than cables which, most likely, are thick and robust enough to withstand rolling, unrolling and people walking on them. If even recording engineers don’t use fancy cables, then why should anyone think that expensive cables are necessary to play back music; let alone expensive digital cables?

No, just as high-resolution music is just a marketing ploy, so are expensive cables. Yes, there is a minimum that needs to be used. For analog, a cable that is too thin may have problems sending electricity from an amplifier to speakers. And with digital cables, there are standards to respect: USB 2, for example, is slower than USB 3, and some cheap USB cables may not be able to handle the faster speeds. The same is the case with Ethernet cables: there are different categories of cables (this is an ANSI standard), which guarantee specific data throughput, and the maximum length of cables.

So not only do cables almost never make a difference, if they did, you’d imagine that recording engineers would be using the best they could get. They don’t.

Of course, you could also use coat hangers…

On the What Hi-Fi? site – a well known UK audio equipment review site – journalist Andy Madden wrote today an interesting defense of expensive audio cables. But he essentially states that he believes in magic, and doesn’t care about any kind of realist analysis of the issue:

You can put whatever research you want in front of me, all the measurements in the world aren’t going to stop me from having the opinion that all digital cables do not sound the same. There, I said it.

This is a serious problem in audiophile journalism. People get so convinced that their beliefs are true, that they refuse to accept any possibility that they are wrong. Frankly, this is irresponsible for a journalist to approach any type of item or content that is reviewed with this sort of pre-conception.

This journalist believes in magic. Note that he expressly talks about digital cables. While there is a possibility that there can be tiny differences in analog cables, this is simply not possible with digital cables, whether they are USB, HDMI or Ethernet.

What Hi-Fi? has lost all credibility. This said, at least they actually published this article; many other sites and magazines have journalists whose attitudes are similar, but who are ashamed to admit it.

Also, read Do Cables Make a Difference to Audio Playback? where the editor of What Hi-Fi? responds to my comments, and I show that even the top recording engineers don’t use fancy cables. And Music, not Sound: Why High-Resolution Music is a Marketing Ploy. And read about how What Hi-Fi? reviews cables; see how, in one case, they just posted the same review text for two different cables.