High End Audio Cable Manufacturers: How to Read a Maker

Quick answer / TL;DR: High end audio cable manufacturers fall into four groups: wire mills that draw conductor, cable makers that extrude insulation over bought wire, assemblers that terminate bought cable, and design houses that commission the work. A maker worth buying from can state four figures – conductor gauge and material, dielectric and capacitance per length, termination method and contact, and a measured resistance or continuity result – and will give them without a story attached. Claims that cannot be reduced to a figure, and specifications that omit capacitance or termination, are the warning signs.

High end audio cable manufacturers are not one kind of company, and the difference decides what a specification means. Some draw and strand their own conductor, some buy wire from a mill and extrude their own insulation, some assemble cables from bought-in components, and some are design houses that commission all of it. The same catalogue description can come from any of the four, and the questions worth asking change with the type.

This is the maker view: the four kinds of manufacturer, the four figures a maker should be able to state, the test data worth having, and the claims that are a warning rather than a specification.

The Four Kinds of Maker

The four kinds of maker differ in how much of the cable they actually make. A wire mill draws and strands the conductor and may also extrude insulation; its figures are metallurgical, and its customers are the other three. A cable maker buys conductor or bare wire and extrudes its own dielectric, so it controls the capacitance figure directly and usually publishes it. An assembler buys finished cable and adds connectors, so its figures are the termination and the consistency of the build. A design house commissions all of it and owns the specification, which means the questions go to the specification rather than to the factory floor.

The table is the four makers against the figure each controls, and the reading is that a buyer's questions should follow the maker's type. Asking a design house for its extrusion temperature is asking the wrong party; asking an assembler for its capacitance tolerance is asking for a figure it inherited rather than set. The useful conversation is with the party that controls the figure being questioned, and the catalogue often does not say which party that is.

The Four Figures a Maker Should State

Whatever the type, four figures should be available on request, and their presence is a better indicator than any marketing claim. The conductor's gauge and material set the resistance, and a maker that states them has thought about the electrical job. The dielectric's material and the capacitance per length set the filter the cable forms, and they are the figures the high end market most often omits. The termination method and the connector's contact material set the joint, which is the figure most likely to fail in service. A measured resistance or continuity result per cable – even a simple end-to-end check – closes the loop and shows the maker tests what it sells.

The capacitance figure, and why makers omit it

The capacitance figure is the one that separates a specification from a story, and its absence is informative. Capacitance per length is easy to measure and easy to publish, and a maker that has designed a dielectric has the number. Where the figure is absent, the cable is usually being sold on construction language rather than on electrical behaviour, and the buyer has no way to compare it with a competitor. Asking for the figure is a fair test of the maker's engineering, and the answer – or its absence – is more useful than the price.

The Test Data Worth Having

The test data worth having is modest and specific: a capacitance measurement per length, a resistance measurement per conductor, a continuity and polarity check on the finished cable, and a pull test on the termination. None of these requires an expensive lab, and all four address a failure mode that appears in service. A maker that publishes or supplies them is telling the buyer what it checked; a maker that publishes only a listening description is telling the buyer what it heard. The first is repeatable by anyone with a meter, and the second is not.

The claims that are a warning

The claims that should slow a purchase are the ones that cannot be reduced to a figure: a directionality claim with no measurement, a break-in period stated in hundreds of hours, a conductor described only by its provenance, a dielectric described only by its colour. Each may be true in some sense; none can be checked, and a specification built from them cannot be compared with another maker's. The warning is not that the maker is dishonest but that the purchase would be made without a figure, which is the definition of buying on presentation.

The Question to Ask Before Buying

The question to ask before buying is short and it is the same for all four kinds of maker: what are the four figures, and who measured them. A maker that answers with gauge, capacitance per length, termination method and a test result is a maker whose product can be compared. A maker that answers with a story is a maker whose product can only be taken on trust – and trust is a legitimate reason to buy, as long as it is recognized as the reason rather than mistaken for an engineering specification. The distinction is the whole of reading a maker.

High end audio cable manufacturers supply the same four figures across the range – gauge and conductor material, dielectric and capacitance per length, termination method and contact, and a measured continuity result; the catalog lists those figures per part number and per maker.

Real-World Applications

The specification comparison before a purchase: two makers, the same four figures requested, and the one that answers with capacitance per length moving to the shortlist. The own-brand purchase: the assembler asked which cable stock it terminates, because the capacitance figure belongs to the cable maker rather than to the brand on the plug. The workshop that builds its own: the same four figures used as a purchase specification for wire and connectors, which is what a maker's specification is. In each the maker is read through the figures it controls, and the question is asked of the party that controls them.

Related reading: The four construction figures in full: high end speaker cable — highend-speaker-cable

Related reading: Where the figures can be compared in person: high end cable shop — high-end-cable-shop

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I evaluate a high end cable manufacturer?

Ask for four figures: conductor gauge and material, dielectric material and capacitance per length, termination method and contact material, and a measured resistance or continuity result. A maker that supplies them can be compared with another; one that answers with a description cannot. The party that controls the figure being questioned is the one to ask, which depends on whether the maker is a mill, a cable maker, an assembler or a design house.

Does the manufacturer of the cable matter?

It matters for the figures the maker controls. A cable maker controls the dielectric and therefore the capacitance; an assembler controls the termination and the build consistency; a design house controls the specification as a whole. Two brands selling the same extruded cable with different plugs differ in the termination, not in the conductor, and the figures should be read accordingly.

Why do some cable makers not publish capacitance?

The figure is easy to measure and easy to publish, so its absence usually means the cable is sold on construction language rather than on electrical behaviour. Without it a buyer cannot compare the cable with a competitor or calculate the filter it forms with a source impedance. Asking for the figure is a fair test of the maker's engineering.

What test data should come with a cable?

A capacitance measurement per length, a resistance measurement per conductor, a continuity and polarity check on the finished cable, and a pull test on the termination. Each addresses a service failure mode, and all four can be done with ordinary bench equipment. Test data shows what the maker checked, which is more useful than a listening description.

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