Sometimes cables DO matter!
Discussion
Having oft scoffed at the silly old adage of spending 15% of the value of your sound system on speaker wire full of oxygenated copper unicorns or whatever, I've finally discovered somewhere it's sort of true! 
I've recently moved from Spotify to Amazon Unlimited for the better sound quality. Amazon will automatically play at the highest quality, and tells you what that quality is, and where the bottleneck is if it's not native quality.
I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out why my XC60 and Samsung S22 Ultra were perfectly capable of serving up Ultra HD sound (anything above 16bit 44kHz CD quality) but dropped right back down to low level SD sound over the wired Android Auto connection!
I eventually found something in a dark, dusty corner of the Web suggesting that it might be worth trying a different cable, and hey presto, one £7 Anker cable from Amazon later, I've got Ultra HD sound through Android Auto, along with Google Maps and voice control back where it should be!
So, if you've got chappy sound quality in Android Auto, for this time and this time only, it really might be worth spending a couple of quid on a better cable!
I've recently moved from Spotify to Amazon Unlimited for the better sound quality. Amazon will automatically play at the highest quality, and tells you what that quality is, and where the bottleneck is if it's not native quality.
I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out why my XC60 and Samsung S22 Ultra were perfectly capable of serving up Ultra HD sound (anything above 16bit 44kHz CD quality) but dropped right back down to low level SD sound over the wired Android Auto connection!
I eventually found something in a dark, dusty corner of the Web suggesting that it might be worth trying a different cable, and hey presto, one £7 Anker cable from Amazon later, I've got Ultra HD sound through Android Auto, along with Google Maps and voice control back where it should be!
So, if you've got chappy sound quality in Android Auto, for this time and this time only, it really might be worth spending a couple of quid on a better cable!
Applies to data cables too.
I tried backing up my laptop to an external hard drive (2Tb Intenso with Mini USB). Initially only managed to find a 6ft long cable. I noticed it was taking ages and the backup speed was 12kb/sec! Eventually found a 30cm long newer thicker cable and the backup speed was 27Mb/sec from a USB2 port.
I tried backing up my laptop to an external hard drive (2Tb Intenso with Mini USB). Initially only managed to find a 6ft long cable. I noticed it was taking ages and the backup speed was 12kb/sec! Eventually found a 30cm long newer thicker cable and the backup speed was 27Mb/sec from a USB2 port.
Griffith4ever said:
Which cable? The 3.5mm plugged cable from the Android Auto to the head unit? Or from phone to Android Auto?
The Volvo has AA built in, with a USB-A socket in the centre armrest storage compartment. The cable in question goes from there to the USB-C socket on the phone.Interesting exchange - good food for thought. I'd always sort of assumed that "high-quality" cabling was for uber audio types. Never thought it would apply down at the level of connecting phone <---> car.
Pity there's no way of grading cables or some sort of quality scale.
I've found it hard enough just figuring out which are data & which are charge only! Clearly there's a whole lot more to it.
Pity there's no way of grading cables or some sort of quality scale.
I've found it hard enough just figuring out which are data & which are charge only! Clearly there's a whole lot more to it.
Electronics engineer here.
Cabling does make a difference. It's complicated and happens to be an area I specialise in (transverse electromagnetic propagation).
Put really simply, a cable is like a tube of sponge balls.
The sponge balls are a metaphor for oversized electrons. Shove a sponge ball in one end of the tube, and the one next to it compresses a bit. The one next to that compresses a bit and so on. There is a bit of a delay and eventually a sponge ball pops out of the other end of the tube.
So the cable has a delay. Electrons do not fall out of the far end the same instant that you push them in to the near end. cables also have a bit of loss, if you're driving enourmous speakers over pathetic skinny cable, the cable will get warm.
Now here's the weird bit, delay and loss vary with driving frequency. Higher frequencies can take longer to travel down a bit of copper than lower frequencies, and the higher frequencies will have greater attenuation than the lower frequencies.
And if you drive the cable with a high enough frequency, the energy you put in at the driven end will travel along the cable, get to the end and bounce back. Just as if you tied a one end of skipping rope to a post and waggled the other end. Your waggle travels along the rope, reaches the far end, bounces and comes back towards you.
Sounds like a nightmare eh? It is complicated for sure.
Now for the good news.
I've not talked about what constitues a high frequency and what is a low frequency, this depends on the cable length. The longer the sponge ball tube, the longer it takes for an electron to pop out the far end when you shove one in at the near end. Theres a rule of thumb that says if the propagation delay of the cable is longer than 1/6th of the period of the driving waveform, you can ignore all of the effects I've talked about.
Yup, ignore. If the range of frequencies fall below this point, they are all "low" and the effects become irrelevant. Go much lower in frequency and you can't even measure the effects.
So how long does a cable need to be at audio frequencies for all this stuff to be relevant?
Well the highest frequency you can hear is about 20KHz. That has a period of 1/20,000 = 0.00005 seconds, or 50us.
Electrons in audio cable have a propagation speed of about 200ps per inch. or 0.000 000 000 2 seconds per inch.
Rule of thumb: 1/6th of the period of our highest driving frequency is 50us/6 = 8.33us
8.33us / 200ps per inch = 41666 inches or roughly 0.65 miles.
So, IF your speaker cables are approaching 0.65 miles long, then you should believe everything the audiophiles claim about their cables.
Yes siree, the cables are technically a transmission line and you have to treat them very carefully.
If however your speaker cables are only a few meters long, then just ensure they are of a low resistance compared to your speakers (nice fat cables).
Oxygen free copper is a good idea as it takes a bit longer to tarnish and keeps a lower resistance for longer.
Copper clad aluminium has a high resistance and should be avoided for speaker cables.
USB is different. For starters we're not driving any significant power down the cable. So the cable doesn't have to be fat. But we are driving a much higher frequency. USB 3.0 is driven at 5GHz which is 250,000 faster than a speaker system. So the cable needs to be 250,000 shorter than 41666 inches if we are to ignore all the weird stuff. That's just 0.17 inches!
So yeah, USB cables aren't created equal. A cable created for USB 2 (ten times slower than USB3) probably won't work at USB 3. The good news is (and the audiophiles will hate this), dealing with the weird effects isn't that expensive. You just do some maths, change the plastics and make sure the whole lot is made to tight tolerances.
And lastly all the gumpf about not coiling cables is exactly that: gumpf. There are effects of doing so (google NEXT and FEXT cross talk if you're really interested), but practically you will never see the diffference.
Cabling does make a difference. It's complicated and happens to be an area I specialise in (transverse electromagnetic propagation).
Put really simply, a cable is like a tube of sponge balls.
The sponge balls are a metaphor for oversized electrons. Shove a sponge ball in one end of the tube, and the one next to it compresses a bit. The one next to that compresses a bit and so on. There is a bit of a delay and eventually a sponge ball pops out of the other end of the tube.
So the cable has a delay. Electrons do not fall out of the far end the same instant that you push them in to the near end. cables also have a bit of loss, if you're driving enourmous speakers over pathetic skinny cable, the cable will get warm.
Now here's the weird bit, delay and loss vary with driving frequency. Higher frequencies can take longer to travel down a bit of copper than lower frequencies, and the higher frequencies will have greater attenuation than the lower frequencies.
And if you drive the cable with a high enough frequency, the energy you put in at the driven end will travel along the cable, get to the end and bounce back. Just as if you tied a one end of skipping rope to a post and waggled the other end. Your waggle travels along the rope, reaches the far end, bounces and comes back towards you.
Sounds like a nightmare eh? It is complicated for sure.
Now for the good news.
I've not talked about what constitues a high frequency and what is a low frequency, this depends on the cable length. The longer the sponge ball tube, the longer it takes for an electron to pop out the far end when you shove one in at the near end. Theres a rule of thumb that says if the propagation delay of the cable is longer than 1/6th of the period of the driving waveform, you can ignore all of the effects I've talked about.
Yup, ignore. If the range of frequencies fall below this point, they are all "low" and the effects become irrelevant. Go much lower in frequency and you can't even measure the effects.
So how long does a cable need to be at audio frequencies for all this stuff to be relevant?
Well the highest frequency you can hear is about 20KHz. That has a period of 1/20,000 = 0.00005 seconds, or 50us.
Electrons in audio cable have a propagation speed of about 200ps per inch. or 0.000 000 000 2 seconds per inch.
Rule of thumb: 1/6th of the period of our highest driving frequency is 50us/6 = 8.33us
8.33us / 200ps per inch = 41666 inches or roughly 0.65 miles.
So, IF your speaker cables are approaching 0.65 miles long, then you should believe everything the audiophiles claim about their cables.
Yes siree, the cables are technically a transmission line and you have to treat them very carefully.
If however your speaker cables are only a few meters long, then just ensure they are of a low resistance compared to your speakers (nice fat cables).
Oxygen free copper is a good idea as it takes a bit longer to tarnish and keeps a lower resistance for longer.
Copper clad aluminium has a high resistance and should be avoided for speaker cables.
USB is different. For starters we're not driving any significant power down the cable. So the cable doesn't have to be fat. But we are driving a much higher frequency. USB 3.0 is driven at 5GHz which is 250,000 faster than a speaker system. So the cable needs to be 250,000 shorter than 41666 inches if we are to ignore all the weird stuff. That's just 0.17 inches!
So yeah, USB cables aren't created equal. A cable created for USB 2 (ten times slower than USB3) probably won't work at USB 3. The good news is (and the audiophiles will hate this), dealing with the weird effects isn't that expensive. You just do some maths, change the plastics and make sure the whole lot is made to tight tolerances.
And lastly all the gumpf about not coiling cables is exactly that: gumpf. There are effects of doing so (google NEXT and FEXT cross talk if you're really interested), but practically you will never see the diffference.
As I think I've related on here previously, I remember many many years ago, What HiFi magazine (or similar) running one of their listening boards to compare speaker cables.
Everything else remained the same, just the speaker cables changed each time.
They ran the cheapest 10p a metre stuff, up to a million squid an inch unobtanium oxygen free gold plated perfection.
The listening board agreed there were noticeable differences between the cables. But they didn't agree on which ones were best.
Quite a few of them liked the cheapest ones best
So I stopped worrying too much about it, beyond "will this vaguely manage the current?"
USB cables, OTOH, there's big differences in how well they work - I stick to Anker or Rampow these days as I've always found they work as promised.
Everything else remained the same, just the speaker cables changed each time.
They ran the cheapest 10p a metre stuff, up to a million squid an inch unobtanium oxygen free gold plated perfection.
The listening board agreed there were noticeable differences between the cables. But they didn't agree on which ones were best.
Quite a few of them liked the cheapest ones best
So I stopped worrying too much about it, beyond "will this vaguely manage the current?"
USB cables, OTOH, there's big differences in how well they work - I stick to Anker or Rampow these days as I've always found they work as promised.
BrokenSkunk said:
Just a thought. You do not need to spend megabucks on your USB or ethernet cables. Anything costing more than a tenner for a 2m cable is a con.
Just make sure they are correctly rated. Buy a USB 3 cable for USB 3, and a Cat6 (IIRC) cable for 10Gb ethernet etc.
Fully agree! The one I got was way less than a tenner. Just make sure they are correctly rated. Buy a USB 3 cable for USB 3, and a Cat6 (IIRC) cable for 10Gb ethernet etc.
defblade said:
As I think I've related on here previously, I remember many many years ago, What HiFi magazine (or similar) running one of their listening boards to compare speaker cables.
Everything else remained the same, just the speaker cables changed each time.
They ran the cheapest 10p a metre stuff, up to a million squid an inch unobtanium oxygen free gold plated perfection.
The listening board agreed there were noticeable differences between the cables. But they didn't agree on which ones were best.
Quite a few of them liked the cheapest ones best
So I stopped worrying too much about it, beyond "will this vaguely manage the current?"
USB cables, OTOH, there's big differences in how well they work - I stick to Anker or Rampow these days as I've always found they work as promised.
Reminds me of an (alleged) true story that I read about a few years ago, long and short of it was along the lines that a high end British speaker manufacturer went to an exhibition / show with their latest and greatest (expensive) speakers, started setting everything up only to realise they forgot to pack the speaker cables....Everything else remained the same, just the speaker cables changed each time.
They ran the cheapest 10p a metre stuff, up to a million squid an inch unobtanium oxygen free gold plated perfection.
The listening board agreed there were noticeable differences between the cables. But they didn't agree on which ones were best.
Quite a few of them liked the cheapest ones best
So I stopped worrying too much about it, beyond "will this vaguely manage the current?"
USB cables, OTOH, there's big differences in how well they work - I stick to Anker or Rampow these days as I've always found they work as promised.
It then claimed that someone went down the road to a well known hardware chain, purchased some 13A garden extension leads as they would have a decent cable diameter and saved the day. Not only were the visitors impressed with the speakers they were also asking when the very eye catching and clearly high quality speaker cables would be available!
BrokenSkunk said:
Electronics engineer here.
Cabling does make a difference. ………..lots of other good stuff…………
Can’t argue with any of that. My background is also in transmission lines, primarily in the 2 -100GHz range. As well as the quality of cable, another important factor is the connectors being used. Poor connections contribute to signal loss and increased reflected energy (expressed as Voltage Standing Wave Ratio or Return Loss). Quality of materials and termination should be considered, ideally selecting gold plated conductors and soldered terminals.Cabling does make a difference. ………..lots of other good stuff…………
Connectors do make a difference.
Scaleybrat said:
Can’t argue with any of that. My background is also in transmission lines, primarily in the 2 -100GHz range. As well as the quality of cable, another important factor is the connectors being used. Poor connections contribute to signal loss and increased reflected energy (expressed as Voltage Standing Wave Ratio or Return Loss). Quality of materials and termination should be considered, ideally selecting gold plated conductors and soldered terminals.
Connectors do make a difference.
At 100GHz & using the term "SWR" I'm guessing you're rf. I'm high speed digital, so most of my transmission lines are differential & expressed in terms of mixed mode S-parameters. I started leaning this stuff when dealing with Fibre channel at 250MHz, we're now at 20GHz.Connectors do make a difference.
For audio, none of this stuff matters.
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