Over time, as fiber expands and contracts from temperature changes, the splice points can shift tiny amounts and degrade the connection. Luckily, most damage from shifting splices can be fixed by re-splicing the fibers as they go bad over the years.

Most damage to cables happens due to repeated plugging and unplugging or poor manufacturing. Using quality cables and disturbing them as little as possible can go a long way to getting as much life out of your cables as possible.

An optical audio cable should have a red light at each of the connectors when it’s in place and working correctly. If you don’t see the light at either of the ends, the cable isn’t connected properly, is broken, or you might just have a faulty cable.

If a lot of red light is visible, the connector is bad and should be replaced. If you look from the other end and see light coming only out of the fiber, that indicates a good connector. If the whole ferrule glows, it’s bad. OTDRs can determine the bad connector if the cable is long enough.

Most optical audio cables will not be longer than 5 meters without a signal booster. And, in our experience, compared to optical, a coaxial connection does tend to sound better. That’s because it has greater bandwidth available, meaning it can support higher quality audio up to 24-bit/192kHz.

So, Do Audio Cables Make a Difference? They certainly can, but it’s important to note that cables don’t “improve” your sound. Their purpose is to translate sound from the source as transparently as possible.

For years, cable companies have touted gold-plated this and oxygen-free that. That’s impossible, but the difference in performance between cables is minimal. It is theoretically possible for there to be a difference between different speaker cables, and to an even lesser extent, analog audio interconnects.

This is important, to be sure, and without a power cable your system isn’t going to do very much at all, but the question of course is not whether the cable is essential but whether there are differences in performance between reasonably-well-constructed power cords, and on that question we have to say that the answer …

“The most important feature of a power cord for amplifiers is simple resistance. Other factors such as capacitance, inductance, and shielding, are “in the noise” and not significant enough to affect the sound of even the most revealing audio systems.

Thicker cords can carry more power Aside from length, the thickness of the wires inside an extension cord dictate how much power it can safely carry. Thicker wires can carry more power over longer distances.

There are two factors: cord length and thickness. The thicker the copper wire, the more electricity it can carry. However, because transmitted power diminishes over distance, longer extension cords require heavier wire to deliver the full current rating required by an appliance.

Longer cords create more electrical resistance and deliver less power to the connected device. It’s best to use a cord of the proper length to reduce power loss, especially if you’re using a device with a high amperage rating.