the contentious subject of speaker cables

I hope that bringing up the contentious subject of speaker cables doesn't get this thread derailed, but y'all seem like pretty reasonable people, so here goes...

These opinions are mine and mine alone, and I respect the fact that some might not have the same experiences as I.

I've read the threads on other boards where folks debate endlessly about whether or not fancy speaker cables make a difference or not vs. 'regular' cables, with one side declaring that it's 'snake oil' and others saying that it absolutely makes a difference. I've kept an open mind on the subject.

I'd never owned a pair of 'audiophile' speaker cables (not by preference, I just hadn't gone there yet), and had been running my KEF LS50's from my Fisher 400 with a pair of generic 12 gauge wires, and thought they sounded excellent.

I tried running the KEF's with a pair of older Monster Powerline 2 cables, which have lots and lots of insulation on the outside and inside, and resemble beige garden hoses. They certainly look impressive, but I found that compared to the generic cable the bass and mids sounded very bloated and the treble was veiled. Yuck.

A pair of older blue-and-black Kimber Kable 4TC wires came up for sale at an affordable price, and I decided to see what if any improvement they would provide.

At first, I didn't hear any significant difference from the cheap generic cable. A ha, maybe the skeptics were right after all! The frequency extension and tonal character is about the same as with the generics (I guess that both are "neutral," which is good), but I'm now noticing more nuance with the Kimbers. I normally try to avoid using flowery descriptions, but I am getting more 'emotion' from the music; for example, a cellist's vibrato now has human feeling, it's not just a wobbly note. That's what I mean by "nuance." I am also hearing greater transparency and depth; reverb trails go through the wall. The overall character of the speakers is smoother, yet not at all dulled or less dynamic; it just hangs together better.

So, I guess that is what happens when you get to a certain level and make small upgrades; a night-and-day improvement doesn't happen. The basics stay the same but the improvements become more and more subtle as you move up the ladder... yet they are still significant.

 

I've had incredible success with 2 AWG welding cable. High strand count makes it surprisingly flexible.

 

The low price certainly makes it affordable to try out. Have you compared it to 'conventional' speaker cable?

 

Now that you've listened so well to the Kimbers, try the original cables again and listen for the same nuances...

 

Hmm, good suggestion! I'll have to try that.

 

Tube equipment for sure, will vary more in its interaction to changing "loads".

Much more possible with your gear to have more of a reaction than with solid state stuff.

Night and day changes do as you say, stretch credibility, but small nuanced changes for the positive are always possible.

 

i always do a blind cable swap or don't swap the cable and all to see if my customers find the differences in cables....

 

I second this suggestion. Make a change like this and listen long enough for you to get accustomed to it, then change back. It's easier, for me at any rate, to notice the differences this way. I know that "different is different", but I've had far more consistent results this way. Sometimes my "more expensive" changes have been positive, sometimes not, but I've always noticed the differences going back after the change. <shrug> YMMV, IMHO, etc.

 

Then there's nothing else for it, take out a second mortgage and buy some Kimber Black Pearl!

(I'm actually a Kimber fan, having had access to systems with 8TC, KS 3033 and KS3035 cables, and I use KS 3038 at home.)

Now that is not something you could say about van den Hul SCS-2 which I used in a system many years ago. Seems like vdH don't offer it anymore, but you can get an idea from this link on SCS-4:

http://www.vandenhul.com/products/cables/speaker-cables/single-lead/scs-4-halogen-free

SCS-2 was extremely heavy, and very stiff. I got the brain-trust at Philips Research to make custom gold-plated spade connectors to cope with the size. Worked well with these Marantz power amps.:



Also doubled as mooring lines for large ships!!

 

Ah yes, the "diminishing returns" aspect. In my experience this can go on over a long period and incorporate a lot of improvements at rather substantial cost for undeniably positive results for the whole.

We all have to determine the element of value for ourselves. Best of luck to you with that determination.

 

How the heck did you hook it up to the amp terminals?

 

"Weld" it to the terminal

 

What's acting as your dielectric?

 

Obviously, not all the strands will fit in the spades.

 

Not sure I'm following. These are single, insulated cables. With some persistence, I was able to find red ones and black ones, but the orange ones work fine. Typically with speaker wire the two wires are joined together somehow. Using 2 AWG welding cable, you see four cables where you're used to seeing two.

 

Interconnects I could see being an aid as they are able to resist RFI/EMI due to better shielding. This is especially true with phono cables to the pre as it's at such a low level. Speaker cables do not require this because they were run at such a low impedance (8 ohms or less) and have such a high current. Capacitance is another issue not present in speaker cables.
Get some decent banana plugs or spades and hook them up to some 10 or 12 gauge copper and you should be good to go.

 

Welding cables.. i saw some '0' welding cable a few years back at Farm and Fleet. I thought long and hard about making them into speaker cables.. LOL

For me I own Kimber 8TC as it has been repeatedly highly praised. So years ago I bought the blue black wire stuff. Then I added a biwire additional set of the clear/white 8TC.
I did use some cheap(er) MilSpec 12 gauge 600v Teflon coated silverplated wires.. (out of laziness, I had to change out my 8TC connections when I got my new 3.6 Magnepans... So I opted for the 12 gauge laying around.(quad twist so two 12 gauge per connector) for a year (really lazy)
The 12 gauge was nearly as good as the Kimber 8TC.
It is all in the subtle details.. Plus having to break in the wire.. 'specially if it is Teflon insulation..
I am not ready to experiment much with speaker cable. Maybe after I step up to Magnepan 20.7s next year???

Right now I have been into new IC. which is a nightmare (the first few days were fun, then the bummerfest and return of the wrong wires... I may never recover from trying all new IC? At least it will be a really really long time before I even think about changing them again.

 

So they are insulated. Just an outer jacket? Curious how you terminated them.

 

I am curious too about how you terminated them. 2awg is pretty thick stuff.

 

I was a long time wire skeptic - never having noted any changes between the different (budget) wires I was running.

That was true until I bought a pair of the cheapest Kimber 8PR/4PR wires to use (bi-wired) with my Magnepans 1.6QRs. I bought them solely for a few extra feet since the current cables I had were a tad short. The Kimbers replaced some rather large gauge Canare wiring. Not expecting any change at all, I installed the new cables and put on some music to make sure that everything was working. The first thing I noticed was more bass extension and a tizzier top-end. Weird, I thought to myself. A few hours later (break-in?) and the tizziness was gone.

When I bi-amped my 1.6QRs, I used the Kimber wire for the bass panel and went with some generic 18awg wire I had lying around. Once again I heard a difference on the top-end. The sound took on a more forward character - of course I was using a different amp here so differences were expected. But when I replaced the generic wiring with Cardas Hexlink, the sound became mellower and more refined. Again, very strange and not at all what I expected.

 

The contentiousnous in speaker cable discussion is nothing compared to AC power cable discussion

I used those Kimber 4TC's (2 pairs biwired) for many years and think they are excellent entry-level speaker cables to begin to show differences from more generic cables.

 

Always remember this one quote from an engineer I used to work with!

"The best conductor is no conductor"

Substitute speaker cable for conductor.

The idea, is the ideal goal is to emulate nothing being there. No detrimental effects at all.

Any change from the ideal of nothing, is distortion of the signal.

Changes in impedance, capacitance, or inductance simply are altering the crossover and speaker response from what it was designed to do.

Tube stuff is much more bothered by changes as it operates usually at a higher impedance.

As impedance rises, altercations become larger and easier.

 

I am so impressed and wonder what the sonic effect would be. I have 10 gauge Belden multi-strand with a Kenwood 9600. The spring-loaded terminals were out of the question, I took the 'A' run of speaker connections, cut the wire to the terminals, stripped off about two inches and wrapped around the 10 gauge wire, terminating with wire nuts. The speaker end wraps one leg [positive] to Magnapan bass/mid panels, the other to some 12-gauge silver-clad copper multistrand hard wired to Infinity 2500's. I have notice an improvement in SQ with heavier gauge wire in my system. While what you have going on sounds like overkill, it sounds like some high-quality, low-cost overkill for me and I just might try it.

 

I bought some Mapleshade Clearview Golden Helix cable, which is a thin, braided but somewhat stiff cable with very thin insulation:

http://shop.mapleshadestore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=GOLDENH

I bought them because (1) Mapleshade recordings are universally excellent, so I figure they know whereof they speak, and (2) the cables are bare-ended, which I prefer to any termination. When I auditioned speaker cables many years ago, I always preferred no termination to any connector. Even cheap, off-the-spool Monster Cable was better bare than more expensive wire that was terminated with spades or bananas. Granted, I wasn't auditioning anything more expensive than the entry level offerings of the usual suspects.

Should you audition them, I do recommend letting the Mapleshades "unspool" for several days before installing them. They arrived in a tight bundle and take a while to loosen out enough to maneuver. That said, I don't think they'll ever be easy handling. I like them fine, but my impressions are very limited, as they've been installed on two sets of new speakers and still require more break-in.

 

I just terminated them with spades at each end. I'm sorry I can't find a picture right now of the spades I used. Took me some digging to find ones with enough real estate in back without looking like something for battery terminals in the front. Probably around 50% of the strands fit in the back of the spade.