It’s the time of year for saving money!
Every audiophile who uses cables or wire to connect stuff together probably has mixed feelings about it. Even if the only wire in your entire system is the one that connects it to the AC mains, that cable choice can have an affect on the overall sound of a stereo system. What a drag, another sonic variable.
Oh sure, the flat-earther’s trot out “placebo effect” and “double blind testing” and hold them up like good luck talismans to drive away the doubt and queasy feelings of uncertainty that even the mere concept, let alone the reality, of AC cables, interconnects, and speaker cables making a sonic difference engenders. Wire is the wildcard of audio, the bumblebee that can’t fly yet does, a black swan waiting to upend a well-ordered sonic equation.
So what’s an open-minded audiophile to do? I do what sensible audiophiles have been doing for the last 70 years – use my ears. If substituting one piece of interconnect, speaker wire, S/PDIF cable, or even AC cable for another makes an audible difference, then its merely a simple matter of figuring out whether the difference is an improvement or not. And if it’s an improvement, whether the amount of improvement is commensurate with the cable’s cost.
