Does the magic of the audio cable invade our living rooms? Can you escape it?

We asked Jean-Claude TORNIOR, a music lover, an expert on cables and the founder of HI-FI Cables & Company. We asked him to explain how any HiFi enthusiast can get a great great cable without breaking the bank.

SO YOU'RE PRETTY HAPPY WITH YOUR SYSTEM. WHY CHANGE CABLES?
Why indeed. Well, that's why we are in this business. In most of the stores, to get to a good price point, quality audio systems are delivered with very mediocre cables and speakers. These will not bring out the best of your system. This is a little bit like driving a big car with under-sized tires. Despite a big engine, the road holding will suffer. Change those tires and you won't recognize your car. With the cables this is similar.

WHY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS HAVE CABLES SUDDENLY BECOME IMPORTANT?
IIt has taken years to admit to the importance of cables in the transmission of audio signals. Today, any serious person won't protest this. Nevertheless one does not always know how to measure their effect on an audio signal. Conventional measurements don't expose the difference, and the electrical values cannot be confirmed by just listening. But people have not been sitting still. If independently minded audiophiles had not revealed these important differences and withstood the sometimes scornful criticism by engineers, we would have remained ignorant and unable to enjoy the audible qualities we can hear today.

SO IF THE QUALITY OF A CABLE CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED, HOW DID WE END UP HERE?
First of all, admitting that the human ear could hear what could not be measured was very difficult and not widely accepted. Especially not by the big industrial groups who's position was firmly entrenched in the 'objectivists' camp. If you couldn't measure it, it didn't exist! But people began to doubt electronics and started listening to them more carefully. After real audible differences presented itself, people started to research what exactly passed through the cables, comparing them and modifying certain of their characteristics. This 'bottoms up' approach has established empirical research that exposes many different characteristics.

FOR A LONG TIME TRANSMISSION SPECIALISTS HAVE BEEN WRITING PAPERS IN WHICH THEY WERE TRYING TO PROVE THINGS THAT THESE DAYS ARE WELL KNOWN
Of course, but phenomena such as "skin effect" - a characteristic of high frequencies to propagate themselves into the surface of the conductors - did not apply to the high frequencies used in audio. At the time it seemed very unlikely that these phenomena could have any impact on the listening experience.
These days the principal phenomena associated with cables are well known and we learned to master them: the skin effect, the capacitance between strands, the memory effect of the dielectric, the inductance between strands, the electrostatic phenomena and the sensitivity to radio electronic interference and magnetism.
In the fight against these properties, the manufacturers took recourse to the use of technologies involving precious materials and they have built up a large body of knowledge. We rediscovered materials such as oxygen free copper (OFC), but also gold, silver, teflon and carbon. The type of braiding is also important and can be very sophisticated. So can complex constructions in which each strand is coated individually with a supple layer.

HOW DO WE CHOOSE A CABLE THAT IS PERFECTLY SUITED TO OUR SYSTEM WITHOUT MAKING TOO MANY MISTAKES?
Naturally there are price and performance differences between conventional cables and cables that are using high end technologies. But even at moderate price levels dedicated speaker cables are already made out of OFC copper and produce a noticeable improvement over simple "scindex" electrical cable which is provided with 80% of the current hifi systems. The same holds true for interconnect cables. And choosing a good diameter speaker cable also gives you better performance.
And then, determine your price range and choose the cable that will most likely give you the improvement you are looking for and just try it! HIFI Cables & Company have a lot of experience and we can help you make this choice and get you the cable that fits into your budget. And if you conclude that it does not suit your need after all, you can always exchange it.
Since April 2000 we have a system that allows you to 'try before you buy'. You can actually use one or several cables at your home and audition them at your leisure for a week.