When you strip away the fancy packaging, shouldn't all cables sound the same?

There are plenty of people who’ll tell you that they do – and plenty who’ll tell you that they don’t. Confused? Don’t be. This one is easy and all you need is the evidence of your own ears. If you are looking at this site, then you are probably pretty confident that you can tell the difference between two amps or different pairs of speakers; well, in that case you shouldn’t have any difficulty hearing the difference that cables can make to a system because it’s at least as big and if anything, musically more important than the difference between electronics or speakers. You just need to make sure you approach the problem in the right way.

Start with a simple system (CD player, amp and speakers) wired with patch leads, basic speaker cable, and standard AC cords. Now assemble a set of proper audio leads. Choose a brand which can supply power cords as well as signal leads, and draw everything from towards the bottom of their range: if you were to use Nordost, that would mean White Lightning Signal Leads and Purple Flare Power Cords. Get familiar with the sound of the system and then, change the cables – all of them, all at once. The result should be pretty shocking and it’s a demonstration that any decent dealer should be able to do for you.

What you will have just witnessed is the first law of audio cables in action: good cables can’t make a bad system into a good one, but bad cables will always make a good system into a bad one.

Of course, as a cable manufacturer we would say that, wouldn’t we, but bear this in mind: we don’t just say it – we go out and do it. Anybody who has been to a major hi-fi show in the last twenty years will have had the chance to see us actively demonstrating our products, against each other and against the competition, so that listeners can hear the difference for themselves.

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