Expensive audio cables. Are they worth it?

Here we go again with this great question.

[theendofit]

People really fail to understand how powerful the placebo effect is and how it can effect everything down to flavor of water.
You tell somone a bottle of water costs $1000 and they will report it tasting better then the same bottle when you tell them its $1.
You tell them a shoe costs $1000 they think its higher quality weither it is or isnt.
So many things are in our heads. This is why you should never believe these things till a double blind test is done. If the speaker wires truly are that much better it should be easy to prove.
Yet look around. There are almost no blind tests and the few there are are just some guy in thier own basment testing so not a good "blind" test and definitely not a good sample.

[buskman]

I have participated in quite a few blind cable tests. Always considered myself one of the golden ears. The test that made the biggest impression on me was one where 11 of us listened to 5 sets of cables from 30 bucks/one metre pair to $2000/one meter pair. Unlike a blind test, the administrator announced which cable was being used. To quickly summarize, the majority of the group (me included) selected the $2000 pair as clearly the best sounding of the five. No surprise, right?

Well, it turned out that NO cables were switched. The $30 pair was in place the entire time. IOW, there was no actual change in sound quality. The improvement that we all "clearly heard" was, as they say, "all in our heads." That test changed me from a believer in exotic cables to a believer in the power of suggestion and marketing. ;)

[georgefotopoulos]

heres an idea, spend $1000 on the cable and spend an extra $20, 000 on speakers, i think tha latter will sound better, but im no expert

[kenthomas]

Thanks Paul!!! Best answer regarding audio type cables I HAVE EVER HEARD!! I laughed so hard and loved your delivery. Cheers!

[Barabass]

I want to see a Double blinded Experiment where you Pick The 2100$ cable over a regular one.

[jozno]

This has always been purely up to the consumer. There's way too much complaining in hi-fidelity audio over what others are spending. Leave value and expense up to the individual.

[adriaticbatman]

I have done lots of BLIND A/B testing with high-end cable gear over the years and in every case the "expert" could not consistantly pick the cheap from expensive....even trained musicians failed to hear a statistical difference.

[tj-ybpc]

The signal still has to pass through the regular cheap wires found in every single speaker on the planet so it doesn't matter what you put on the outside, those cheap wires inside don't magically change into something better, can someone please change my mind

[richardvannoy]

The best answer I’ve EVER heard to that cable question. A thoughtful response. Same would be, for example, speakers. Are $100, 000/pair gonna sound great? You betcha! Are they worth it? Heaven’s no. As for me, I wouldn’t even spend $20, 000/pair.

[artyfhartie]

My wife left me for someone with very expensive audio cables.

[billy]

This is the biggest non-answer I’ve ever heard. There’s no technical evaluation, there’s no scientific reasoning, there is just “I do it because I can“. What a waste of time

[LeeBlaske]

Do a well-constructed double-blind test to prove how much difference extraordinarily expensive cables make.

[freibier]

I am of the opinion that for digital transmission (i.e. digital audio or HDMI etc.), any cable which is good enough for error-free transmission of the data is good enough. With HDMI, you see any transmission errors as bad pixels on screen, so it is easy to verify. Unless you have to cover extreme distances, a $20 cable will be good enough. For speaker cables, things are different of course. But still, cables which are more expensive than, say, 10% of your speaker price are insane. So, having a $600 pair of speakers with $60 of cables sounds about right to me.

[isaacsykes]

One of your best videos yet...honest and objective, you can't ask for anything more than that. Thanks Paul, keep up the great work. 👍🏿

[james]

Better off buying a $20, 950 pair of Speakers and a $50 pair of cables.

[davidmiller]

I recommend Blue Jeans Cable as a source. Fast, reliable, and relatively inexpensive compared to most sources. A better question would have been how much of a total AV system should be allocated to cabling.

[harackmw]

According to Andew Robinson, industry professionals at doubleblind tests at Harman couldn't even pick out speakers they designed themselves consistently. How much harder would it be with cables?

[francois-xaviergonnet]

1 - Audio cables have differents sound signatures.
2 - The quality of the result is NOT related to price.

That's all you need to know about audio cables... ^^

[technopsychobedlam]

I think the commenters that connect the cable price to system price are right. No point paying for the best possible cables on a system that does not have the resolution needed to hear potential differences.

I would also like to see blind listening tests with experts, run by a third party, between decent cables and high-end ones on the same system. I doubt they would consistently pick differences between $200 cables and $2000 or even $20, 000 cables.

[peartfaldo]

If you have the cheapest(lamp cord) cable and an expensive a blind test to see if there is that much of a difference. if there isnt, save your money. I had wireworld oasis speaker cables$350 and just wanted to see if there was any difference in the lamp cord cable i had from an old system i didnt use any longer. For the heck of it i hooked the lamp cord up to my bryston and PMC FB1+ speakers and couldnt tell any difference. I sold the wireworlds for a couple hundred and used the money to pay down a credit card---money well spent--now im debt free including mortgage. My stereo sounds fine...dont notice any difference. The only way to improve sound quickly/ easily is to get "better" speakers...then amplification.