In yesterday’s post, I talked about cables and the common myth that they can “add” sonic flavors—like brightness, warmth, or thickness.
The only reason that the additive myth even has traction is because of how we talk about sound.
We use words like “adds treble” or “has more bass” as shorthand, but those phrases paint the wrong picture. Sound isn’t being added in the way cream is added to coffee. With passive components like cables, resistors, capacitors, and inductors, nothing is added. Instead, the signal is whittled away, and the imbalance from what’s missing tricks our brain into believing something has been boosted.
It's no one's fault. We don't have an Audio Precision in our ears—we have emotions. So when something sounds boomy, it's just as likely the highs have been dulled. When the top end sparkles, maybe it’s because the lows have been starved. Our language reflects how it feels, not what's physically happening.
And that’s the rub. Our ears are accurate. Our words, not always.
In fact, they can be misleading.
Which means if we want to get closer to the truth in our systems, it would be helpful to learn to listen past the language.
