Can different cables cause volume differences?

I have just set up my organ with four speakers (two Tapco S5s and two Tapco s8s) playing through separate pairs of outputs on my EMU-1616m. I've been very puzzled by the fact that the S8s are substantially quieter than the S5s despite all settings being the same. I've switched the cables in the outputs to make sure it's nothing in the 1616M and I've used the same cable in different speakers which shows it is not an issue with the speakers themselves.

This leaves me thinking that it must be an issue with the cables themselves as the new cables I bought for the S8s produce more volume. Is this actually possible? I can't understand why that should be, but I expect someone here has more experience than me. Should I make sure that both pairs of speakers are using the same make of cables?

Thanks.

As long as the cables are making sound electrical connections then, no, it's not possible - tho some hi-fi buffs will tell you otherwise (along with all sorts of nonsense about cables becoming "directional" with use ...)

David.

I have just set up my organ with four speakers (two Tapco S5s and two Tapco s8s) playing through separate pairs of outputs on my EMU-1616m. I've been very puzzled by the fact that the S8s are substantially quieter than the S5s despite all settings being the same. I've switched the cables in the outputs to make sure it's nothing in the 1616M and I've used the same cable in different speakers which shows it is not an issue with the speakers themselves.

This leaves me thinking that it must be an issue with the cables themselves as the new cables I bought for the S8s produce more volume. Is this actually possible? I can't understand why that should be, but I expect someone here has more experience than me. Should I make sure that both pairs of speakers are using the same make of cables?

Thanks.

It is very remotely possible that cables would cause a volume problem, but it's extremely doubtful. If a cable is exceptionally long or exceptionally thin, it would have sufficient impedance to cause a problem, but in a home installation, this is very unlikely.

What may have happened is that you have one pair of speakers out of phase. Try turning off the pair that is louder, then make a note of the connection polarity and disconnect one speaker of the remaining pair and see if the bass gets louder. If it does, then when you reconnect the other speaker, reverse the connections. Polarity is all important.

I agree with David, there is a lot of BS spoken about cables and connections, types of wire, gold plating etc, although I do know of one BBC engineer who can tell the difference between cables, by audible frequency response.

I agree with Alan and David that any cable of reasonable quality will provide excellent performance. For a number of years I operated a "high end" audio business. The amount of hype and self-delusion around "monsterous" cables was amazing. A coaxial cable may attenuate some high frequencies through capacitive reactance, especially if the length of the cable is great. For such situations a low capacitance cable should do the trick. For speaker wire, the issue is electrical resistance which can affect an amplifier's damping factor. But again, in a typical living room environment 12 gauge lamp cord will sound identical to the "super", "oxygen free copper", "bi-wired", blah, blah speaker wire (intended to separate the naive from there hard earned money in my opinion).

Joe Hardy

Please check to see if any of your cables are of the TRS type,
that utilize three wire phone plugs,
going to your amplifiers.
They provide the amplifiers with two equal opposite signals,
in order to reduce hum and noise, and are used in all pro sound installations.

I'm in agreement with all that's been said previously. Since the Tapco's will accept balanced inputs via TRS jacks, that is the preferred connection using balanced cable (tip, ring, sleeve) for lowest hum and noise as stated above.

The EMU-1616m outputs are configured in PatchMix to have nominal outputs of either +4 or -10 db. It is likely that the quieter speakers are at the -10db level and could be set to +4.

I suggest you measure the resistance of each cable. Disconnect from the speaker and amplifier then connect to an electrical multimeter set to "Ohms" on the lowest range.
Short the cable connectors together at the opposite end to the meter. The reading should be somewhere around 0.5- 0.8 ohms for a normal cable(or less is better!). If the reading is higher than about 2.0 ohms- you have found your problem.

Dont forget to calibrate the multitmeter first by shorting the connectors together and finding out what the basic resistance is. This can sometimes be adjusted out with a pot- or if not then subtract this value from the measured value.
Any knots in the cable can also add inductance at some frequencies-which would affect the sound so check the cable is uncoiled when connected to the system.

Does sound more like an "out of phase" problem though- i.e. one speaker cone "pushing" and the other speaker cone "pulling" when sounding the same note- so they cancel the sound out. As has been suggested- just swop the polarity on ONE speaker connection.

Failing this you could always "NULL" out the problem by adjusting the Balance and Faders on the amplifier.