The Wire Conspiracy Theory

We get a lot of questions about “Wire and Cabling” at Gramophone Home Theater.

And, there is a lot of confusion out there regarding wire, so here are some facts from the world according to Rick regarding wire and cabling.

One of the most interesting questions we get a lot is “does wire actually make a difference?” This is one of the easiest questions to answer, of course it does! If you think about this for even a moment you will realize that wire has to make a difference.

First, consider that all of the audio and video information has to travel through not one, but several wires, getting from your source, to your control, through your amplification and finally out to your speakers. Wire is also very likely to be the only passive element in your system; it is not powered or amplified and has no controls of any kind. So if you think about it; the only thing wire can actually do is screw things up! It does not have the ability to fix things does it?

So based on this very simple hypothesis, wire has to make a difference.

The only problem is that according to my theory wire has to make a difference; and the only difference it can make is to make things worse! So when you are buying wire, what you are really doing is trying to buy wires that screw things up less. I imagine you have never thought about wire quite like this before have you?

So let’s take my hypothesis and go one step further shall we?

If we agree that wire and cabling, is a passive element in our system, and one that every single bit of audio and video information that we are going to hear and see will have to run through, it can really only be counted on to screw things up! Will better wire make a difference? Again the answer is of course! Better designed and manufactured wire and cable will transfer our sacred information with less errors, it will screw things up less. Wow, what a strange sounding goal that is! But it really is not, it is just that the industry has advertised and sold wire as a way to fix things and as a way to make things better for so long that looking at it the other way just seems… well…. odd.

So now that we have turned the wire industry on its head lets go on to the next step.

“Will I be able to see and or hear improvements if I buy better wire?” Yes once again. You see when you get better wires, you do screw the signal up less, and that means you get real visible and audible improvements. There is no ifs’, ands, or buts to this statement; better cabling equals better picture and sound. In some cases the improvement for the dollar spent can be one of the best bargains in the home electronics industry.