There are lots of threads about cables on this Forum full of theoretical speculation and conjecture but entirely devoid of substance; it seemed like a good idea to start another from the more sensible base of hard auditory evidence, which is surely the soundest route to impressing denizens of a Forum like this.
It would seem difficult to record and post the results of speaker and power cable listening tests on an Internet Forum, but microphone and other interconnecting cable surely
is something that can be tested, recorded and results posted for 3rd party evaluation...
So here is a realworld spoken-word test I ran a couple of years back between two different mic cables of the same length. (Inevitably I've upgraded my gear a bit since then so at some point I aim to re-run the test in a RealTraps treated space and utilising a Pauli Superscreen popshield; watch this space.)
Vovox Mic Cable Standard (Belden/Neutrik) Cable Is there a difference? For once, because I have posted WAV's you can decide for yourself, rather than speculating one way or the other!
I know what my ears tell me!
Do the files null?
I don't know - I haven't tested this but I doubt it since the sonic differences (at least to my ears) are so apparent. Feel free to try it and report back! Of course some obvious reasons these particular files probably won't is that however good manufacturing tolerances are these days I suspect there's no such thing as a perfectly cloned microphone. And also that I cannot say my positioning was accurate between them to less than a millimeter. Did I swap around the mics and rerun the test? Yes. Did I swap around the pre-amp channels and rerun the test? Yes. Were the results and sonic differences pretty much identical and thus attributable to the principal variable of swapping the cable? Yes. Will you be re-testing this one day with a single microphone and a splitter to eliminate at least some of these outstanding variables? Yes - watch this space!
Why didn't you make this test blind and ask folks to choose?
Because it's irrelevant which one you 'prefer'; for the purposes of this argument the only interest is in establishing whether or not there is a sonic difference between the two WAV's.
Can we trust you not to have messed with the files?
I have no connection or financial interest in Belden, Neutrik, Vovox or any of the other cable/equipment-makers here. I'm just a regular Gearslut like you are. I have absolutely nothing to gain from posting the results of my test and it's not even like I need to justify a large outlay on the so-called 'boutique' Vovox cable as it was included free with my Brauner Phantom AE microphone. So why on earth would I bother skewing the results?
Do you honestly expect this to be the last word on this?
Of course not - I'm not that naive, this is Gearslutz after all and we're all here to exchange views and share expertise! However, I'm an empiricist so I'm firmly of the view that if at all possible, in audio as in anything, it's very helpful to provide evidence to back up one's POV. So with respect to this thread it's now quite reasonable to ask anyone wishing to discredit my opinion (which is that switching cables
does make a difference to the sound) to do so either in reference to the WAV's I've provided or to ante up WAV's of their own test.
Testing equipment was as follows: Mics: Matched pair of Microtech Gefell M300 SDC's
Pre-amps & Conversion: Metric Halo ULN-2
DAW: Logic 7
Format: 24-bit/44.1k WAVs
Processing/Normalising etc: None
Room Type: Living room, ie no special acoustic treatment
Pop shield: I honestly don't recall if I used one or not, I think not but if I did it's a Sennheiser
Tracking Cans: Sony MDR-7509