I’m trying to understand something and would genuinely welcome informed views. What better to do on Boxing Day! Certainly more interesting than TV….for me at least.
In the recording and mastering world, professionals overwhelmingly use fairly straightforward, well-engineered cables (Van Damme, Mogami, Canare, etc.). Their design criteria seem very clear: correct impedance, low resistance and capacitance, good shielding, robust connectors, and repeatability. Once those basic electrical requirements are met, the cable is considered effectively transparent at audio frequencies and attention moves on to microphones, speakers, room acoustics, and monitoring.
By contrast, in consumer hi-fi there are cables costing many hundreds or even thousands of pounds more, often justified with claims about “micro-detail”, “timing”, “musicality”, or other effects that don’t obviously map to measurable electrical parameters at 20 Hz–20 kHz.
My genuine question is this:
If recording professionals—whose livelihoods depend on accuracy, translation, and repeatability—are satisfied that standard studio cables are sonically transparent, what makes it plausible that much more expensive consumer hi-fi cables are audibly changing the signal in a meaningful way rather than relying on expectation, context, or system interaction?
I’m not saying people can’t prefer what they hear, and I’m not trying to start a flame war. I’m just interested in hearing a coherent technical or experiential explanation that bridges the gap between professional practice and high-end consumer hifi claims or preferences.
Context - got to make a speaker cable change and interconnect cage. Some options are getting so expensive I thought I need to question this technically not just financially.
Keen to get community views and perspectives.
stoked up.