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Audio cables don’t make a difference is a fallacy statement. They Do Make A Difference.

Audio cables do make a difference. I will also include AC cables as a source of higher audio quality both in high current drawing equipment in the studio as well as guitar rigs, bass rigs and PA systems.

Cables are the vascular system of your recording studio, playing rig and PA system.

Let’s steal man statements around “audio cables don’t make a difference.” Why would someone say that. There are many reasons.


1. There are a lot of cheap alternative cables on the market that infers people are buying these therefore there can’t be much of a difference. All these people keeping the cheap alternative cable companies in business can’t be wrong. This is the fallacy of band wagoning.

2. If you make a decision to make the purchase easier on your pocketbook, that decision will give you a dopamine hit. Everyone loves to save a few bucks. Something being less expensive is not the subject at hand. The subject at hand is the audio quality traversing through the cable.

3. Most cables look the same therefore they are the same. This is the fallacy based on ignorance. A person doesn’t know what they don’t know.

4. A cable is not a complicated piece of equipment therefore it shouldn’t cost much to manufacture. This again is the fallacy based on ignorance.

5. It doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money on a cable when a cheap one passes audio through just the same. It is true that all cables have an associated function. The question is do we get a facsimile of audio from the source to its destination?

6. All oxygen free copper is the same. This is the fallacy of lumping things together because they share the same family and share the same properties.

7. You can’t tell the difference in sound between high end cables versus cheap cables. Especially short runs. This sets the standard based upon people who can’t hear, don’t care to hear, don’t know how to hear.

8. I don’t mind cheap cables, I just throw them away and replace them because they are so cheap. This assumes that the cable transmits fine, the only issues the craftsmanship and longevity of use.

If your interest is to have the highest quality possible in your performing rig, pedal boards, recording studios and PA systems, alleviate the variables associated with cheap cables ultimately saving yourself time money and being stuck.

We use Mogami cables. All it takes is one failure or malfunction to completely shut down a recording session, playing performance with your guitar rig, bass rig, keyboard rig etc or PA performance. Trust me when I say, you don’t have time to mess with cables spending valuable time troubleshooting.

The amount of variables that can go wrong within all the examples I just gave are very high. It is imperative to control the controls to reduce stress and have the most fun.

Negative variables compound negatively. Reducing variables positively will compound positively. If you have 20 cables and you gain 10% better transmission in audio quality, how much did that improve your rig or studio? This could be a 200% improvement in the cabling department from where you were.

Maybe you have a few good cables but a lot of cheap cables. Those cheap cables are compounding negatively against your efforts of owning good cables.

It’s important to prioritize your cabling. If you purchase a new piece of gear think about the cost cabling to maximize the performance of the gear you paid for.

Digital signal pulses can also be degraded by poor cabling and noise that will affect the translation from analog to digital and digital to analog conversion. According to audiophile forums, USB cables suffer the worst. If your multi-hundred, and or thousand dollar USB interface came with the dollar store cable that you’re using, maybe reconsider that connection.

Last thought is AC cables with high current drawing equipment like large power supplies for mixing consoles, guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, powered monitor in the studio, powered speakers.

AC cables were in oversight for many years. I was challenged by hearing lectures and talks of audio file problem solvers. We converted all of our high current drawing equipment to 12 or 14 gauge AC copper. The equipment has higher get up and go especially in the low-end. This also plays into the sonic space, stereo imaging. There is a sense of more headroom. This is another compounding element in a positive direction when you make changes. If you gain 5% on every cable from where you were, you have exponentially moved up in your audio quality.