One of the most common questions asked by consumers faced with purchasing cables for their audio or home theater system is, "What is so important about h05rn-f cable anyway?" They can cost as much or more than some of the hardware in the system and to many it is difficult to understand why wire isn't just wire.
To begin to understand how audio cables work, we have to start with the two fundamentally different types of audio cables you are likely to have in your system. The first type of cable is called an interconnect, which is used to connect various components together (such as a CD player to a receiver). The second type of flexible cable types is called the loudspeaker cable (this is the wire going from the receiver or amplifier to the speakers). It is important to realize that both types of cables are carrying the same information, just with different amounts of energy.
Interconnects carry a signal with very little energy. These cables only need just enough energy to convey the information from the source, for example a CD player, to the amplifier. The low energy requirement means that the signal in interconnects has very little current (usually in the range of thousandths of an amp).
Loudspeaker cables on the other hand, carry a large amount of energy. All of the energy required to move the speaker cones and make sound must come through the loudspeaker cables. Because of the high-energy requirement in these flexible control cable} the current is relatively high (currents can reach 10 amps or more).
The very basic reason why audio cables are important is because they change the signal going through them. There are two different, fundamental ways that an audio cable can change the signal. The gauge battery cable by the foot} itself can change the signal, or the cable can allow outside sources of energy to change the signal.