How an audio cable affects sound quality

In the majority of stores that sell electronics and components such as audio cables, the clerks are employed on commission. The fact is, their pay largely comes from a percentage of their sales. Therefore, it’s often in their best interests to sell you the priciest item in the store, whether you need it or not.

We bring this up only to give some context to this next statement: There’s really no such thing as a “best” audio cable, or even a “better” audio cable, or in fact, even a “low quality” audio cable or “high quality” audio cable.

The truth is that that a gold plated cable doesn’t give you any better sound quality than a standard one dollar cable. If you want to get the best possible setup for your sound system, then what you should be thinking about rather than the quality or value of the cable itself is whether or not it fits in with your setup.
Getting the best sound is really just about how you want to set up. You have a number of options, here. In terms of technical quality, it essentially comes down to how many channels the cables deliver.

For example, a stereo RCA cable gives you two channels, while six channel analog gives you three sets of stereo RCA (hence, six channels). So really it comes down to what type of cable you need more so than how much you’re willing to spend.
Once you’ve determined what sort of setup you want, here’s a short list of everything else you need to consider before buying your audio cables…

1) The price

That’s it. That’s all you need to consider. And on that subject, you might as well save yourself a little extra on the side and shop online for cables.

Okay, it can be a little more complex if you’re, say, running a sound source outdoors, like if you’re connecting speaker cables for a live concert or something. In which case, you might want something that won’t bend and break when it’s being stepped on, moved about, and subjected to the weather. In that case, it might not be a bad idea to get a thicker audio cable. However, don’t kid yourself for even a second that it’s affecting sound quality.

In short; if it’s of the right type, if it’s not frayed, if it’s not snapped in two, and if you can plug both ends in where they need to go, then any audio cable is as good as the next one.

So, in other words, just don’t get hoodwinked by fast talking electronics store clerks. Save your money and get cheaper audio cables, because when it comes down to the quality of sound, there’s really no difference at all from one audio cable to the next. Just so long as you’re using the right cable for the right task, you should get clear, quality sound no matter what company made the cable or how much you spent on it.

By Shane Seymour

At Cable Magic our mission is to provide reliable HDMI cables and other products, fast delivery and a customer user-friendly experience. Cable Magic is Australian owned and operated by professional home theatre installers. To view our extensive range of cables, visit Speaker Cable.