Are your SHL5 Plus Harbeths ready for bi-termination with four connectors in the back? Are you using the Canare that way? If you ARE perhaps bi-wiring them I would switch to Mogami 3104. It will move you from 14 ga to 11 gauge if run as two pair. If you use it as a single the gauge will drop down to 8 ga. I can't swear you will hear much improvement. As other have noted---speaker wire CAN be less picky once you have good copper wires. But as long as you avoid boutique brands that charge thousands---why not splurge and spend a few bucks more than the minimum? I can say the Mogami 3104 I use for critical applications has never disappointed me, or turned color, or been less than steller. And it was the biggest meanest heaviest most copper-iest BULK cable I could buy cheap as dirt. So it LOOKS mean 'cos it is HUGE!
Ah so. So, the difference between 4S11 and 4S11G, is the latter is made with Oxygen Free Copper. Otherwise identical in every other respect. I pretty much thought all this Copper Cable for such purposes today was made from Oxygen Free Copper? Guess I thought wrong. Not that I need such at present, but for our education, who stocks-sells Bulk 4S11G in the USA? I think I have about 30' or so of 4S11 lying around in a box that I bought from BJC, I never used it. But one day I may need it.
Only the part about the Blue Heaven being the gateway drug reflects my experience with Nordost cables. Even then the real gateway for me was the, then/now discontinued, Solar Wind. I have certainly never experienced Red Dawn sounding even remotely like they have a "piercing boost in the upper midband that made them very fatiguing". I would say that if one of the Nordost cables might just take on that description it si the blue Heaven, not the Red Dawn. In contrast, they seem to me to be rather neutral, as I allude to above. I have tried a lot of other cables in my system (Kimber, Chord, Audioquest, Atlas and so on) none has offered that neutrality of transparency of the Nordost. I have also tried my Nordost Red Dawn speakers cables (and RCA interconnects) in the systems of friends and family. Some, not all, have gone on to purchase their own Nordost cables. One final observation, having owned BH, RD and now Heimdall 2 Nordost cables (not all speaker cables) it seems very apparent to me that as you move up the chain the broad characteristics of the cables remain unchanged you just get more of those characteristics. This was brought home to me when a couple of months ago I picked up a clutch of Heimdall 2 interconnect cables (RCA, XLR and SPDIF, used for a very good price) - the difference was substantial (no, not night and day, whatever that means) but subtle in the sense that as previously noted the basic characteristics remained the same while taking the overall quality up a few notches. Much as for you this is my experience, in my system(s) and in those of some others only.
As a general comment, it can be difficult judging cable quality based on pricepoint. Commercial cables tend to have the greatest profit markup of all audio equipment, I suspect that most high-priced cable does not reflect to any degree the expense of the actual cable itself, rather, what profit could be gained. This is why there are so many examples of DIY cable can beat the quality of commercial cables costing ten or more times the price per meter. Another factor to consider is that after reaching a particular quality in your system, the gains tend to be less as you move up the chain of upgrades proportional to the amount you spend. By all means experiment with tweaks and upgrades, but keep you expectations in check. It might be that the cable is resolving all that your system is delivering to the speakers. That's not to say improvements still can't be made, I hope you are able to enjoy the tweaking and can take your system to deliver what you are hoping for.
LT, FWIW, I thought my speaker cable journey had ended with the BJC Canare 4S11 cables (with ultra sonic welded cable to lockable banana plugs-see THESE), but then discovered the Morrow SP4 speaker cables that knocked the Canare 4S11 out of contention! Click HERE to view my speaker cable testing results that took place this past June-July! Ted
Thanks for the advice. I really don't like bright sound. Have you compared Canare and WireWorld? What are the main differences between WireWorld and Canare in your opinion?
I have not compared with Canare but I have compared Wireworld Solstice and Wireworld Equinox with Mogami and others. To my ears the Wireworld give a 'lean' sound with focus on the midrange which I don't like. All Wireworlds do this (besides speaker cable I have tried also different interconnects from them), to a certain degree depending on the price/model. The Equinox speaker cable was mindblowing the first few minutes but became also very fatiguing very fast.
It's really largely as I described previously, but that related to having a source than can swamp the input on my preamp with very hot signal on an LP. In terms of sibilance and added distortion, I found WW cable to present distortion that exists in a recording in a very equivalent fashion to the digital. It is almost as if with tubes certain frequencies can sing, which may be because of the additive distortion. WW or any other similar ribbon Litz design tends to give you the full presentation in a very separated and even fashion. Canare is very similar, but where it most notably different is in transients like a stick on a snare rim or cymbal. Canare or another similar design tends to soften the attack a little. The cat would probably prefer the Canare. To get the best out of the Canare it required using good, solid copper connectors. Chunky brass just obscures everything.
Its all about synergy. What's brighter, sharp and edgy in your system can be different in others. The Cable Co in PA has a decades long database of cable synergy based on customers. They can and will make recommendations. You can then borrow a few at a time and listen to them in your home, return and borrow till you find what works best in your system for your ears. High End audio, Video & speaker cables from The Cable company Id try the Audience cables. Speaker Cables - Cables, Manufacturer: Audience
+1 I couldn't agree more. I often think that connectors may be more important than the wire between them. I've noticed that Blue Jeans has an option for copper spades now.
Yes No. Canare is designed to connect two opposite wires in pairs to minimize the effects of external noise (StarQuad). This increases the capacitance of the cable, which is unacceptable for some amplifiers. Thanks for the advice. I found some interesting cable options: Tellurium q blue, Van damme LCOFC HI-FI, Furutech U-2T and Inakustik Referenz LS-502. All of these cables are reported to have a soft sound without bright high frequencies. But for me, the realism of the human voice is also important, and this is already more difficult.
No idea, but the sound became harsh and edgy. Might be system dependent, I don't know. One of my dealers loves them and swears by them but when I went to audition something in his shop with an all WW loom I hated the sound while he loves it. Different strokes for different folks I presume ...
You'll also find WW is high capacitance. Typically a cable maker chooses a high-capacitance design to get very low inductance.
Mogami four conductor speaker wire is also designed to be run as opposite "balanced" twisted pairs in order to help cancel out interference. Your Canare is exactly the same idea. It CAN run twisted as two pairs tied into one set. OR you can separate the pairs and use it for simple bi-amping or bi-wiring to your Harbeths. But as you mentioned---using both pairs as one cable to one pair of terminals and tying the two pairs together will DOUBLE the capacitance. Which is another way of saying those twin pairs are really best off used for bi-wiring or bi-amping. The "cancellation" they offer is of minor use (I have NEVER had EMI interference in my studio so bad the speaker cables picked up on it!). And the doubling of capacitance may cause problems either with oscillation at your amp or simply by rolling off the treble by bleeding treble off with capacitance which is another word for "treble reduction." I tried my own Harbeths with my star quad speaker wiring using my Mogami 11 gauge quad speaker wire. I ran two leads to the tweeter and two leads to the woofer and bought two huge stereo amps for bi-amping the setup. This sounded way stronger and clearer than using the same wire for a bi-wiring hookup to a single amp. And if was MUCH better sounding that tying the pairs together into one pair and running the Harbeths with MONO-wiring into a single stereo amp using the included metal jumper clips Harbeth provides for the purpose. My set. My experience. My two cents. The Doc.
I consulted the cable manufacturer for advice They offered what they considered to be the best match for my particular system and they were substantially less cost than the speaker cables I was initially asking about. I have to say that I’m more than satisfied with the results and service. I don’t know but maybe consult some cable manufacturers for advice.
Unfortunately, I can't buy one more amplifier. But based on your experience, I realized that you need to buy one more cable to make bi-wiring. Metal jumper clips spoil the sound. Did I understand correctly?
I've always been curious about this Mogami cable... where did you buy yours Doc? I'll check if they ship to New Zealand. Great thing about these "pro" cables is there's so little financial penalty to experimenting
Yeah, just buying some bulk wire and decent termination it's easy and not too expensive. There are nice ready-made options that are also inexpensive when you factor in termination. No need to spend a fortune. Also, you can assume that similar designs will sound about the same, so try some different designs if you want to hear differences.
I’m a 8TC and 4TC user and you have my attention. So you went from a single 8TC run to a biwire of Canare? How were the higher frequencies effected?
