User Manual

CABLE THEORY

Page 2

Wire-Just Getting From Here To There

On the face of it, nothing could be easier than just getting an audio, video or digital signal from one place

to another-no amplication, no conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy or vice versa. The

truth is, every cable must transfer a complex multi-octave signal without changing any of the information

carried in that signal.

Damage Control

We all like to describe how a good component improves the performance of our system, a perfectly

legitimate comment. Unfortunately, buried in this statement is often the misunderstanding that the bet-

ter component actually improved the signal in some way. There are certain areas of digital processing

where this is possible, but in the analog world signals don’t get better, they only get worse. The substitu-

tion of a superior component improves a system only because it causes less damage.

Cables, like all components, should be chosen because they do the least damage. This “damage”

comes in two basic forms: a relatively benign loss of information, or a change to the character. A visual

analogy might illustrate this distinction: consider “perfect” as a totally clear pane of glass. Since no

component is perfect, the best we can strive for would be analogous to a pane of glass with a light gray

tint. Lower quality components would have a darker gray tint. These various densities of gray tint would

represent various amounts of lost information.

If the glass were tinted green or yellow or red, these colors would represent changes in character. We are

far more likely to notice, and be bothered by, a light colored tint than a denser gray tint. It is this mechanism

of character versus quantity that causes much of the confusion in the pursuit of higher performance.

Chain Analogies, Synergy, Enhancement and Other Lies

We have all heard the truism that “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”Certainly this is true

of a chain, but it becomes a misleading lie when applied to the world of audio and video. The qual-

ity of sound coming from your speakers and the quality of picture from your video monitor have both

been compromised by some degree of distortion in every component, starting with the microphone or

camera. No one actually believes that if you changed every piece of equipment except the proclaimed

“weak link”-that there would not be any change in the sound or the picture. No matter how bad a CD

player might be, no one would argue that you couldn’t hear the difference if you changed speakers. It is

worth noting that some components are more cost-effective to change than others, or that a particular

complaint will not be eliminated until a specic component has been changed. These truths might seem

like an approximation of the chain analogy but the chain story has so much strength because it is an

absolute, and it absolutely doesn’t apply.

The logic of a good system is very simple: Every component matters!

The electronics, the speakers, the cables, even every solder joint, all

cause damage. Each component is like one of the dirty panes of glass

in this illustration. Each one blocks a bit of the view. The quality of the

nal performance, or the clarity of the view, is the original signal minus

the damage done by all the pieces in-between. Improving any one of

the components will improve the performance. Cleaning any one of the

glass panes will allow a clearer view.

Recognizing that the challenge is to reduce negatives, to prevent distortion, makes it much easier to

understand “unexplainable” improvements. If the panes of glass are not only dirty, but also have a red

tint, then as each pane is cleaned and the tint is eliminated, the “view” of the music will improve as ex-

pected. However, the red, and the awareness of the red, will not be eliminated until the last pane has

been de-tinted.