If you DON”T believe in nice speaker wire or interconnects please don't come into this thread

So, I already know all the arguments, clip board, calculator, lab coat wearing, anal arguments about wire not mattering. So no need to argue your point. I disagree.

What I would like to talk about is interconnects and speaker wire that you have had good comparative results with. I can’t afford crazy expensive stuff, just decent quality. I’ve compared maybe 25-30 different speaker wire combos with my own system. It’s fact, I know many do sound different. So feel free to comment on speaker wire you like. But please help me decide on decent sounding interconnects (RCA from preamp to amps) all tube and analog.

Audioquest?
Monoprice?
Blue Jeans?
SKW ?

My specific application will be about 8ft long to two dual amps. I believe both my pre and amp have copper plated jacks. Jolida JD1000RC X2 & Rogue Perseus Magnum II preamp.

 

I bet you're a riot at parties!

 

If you've experimented with 25-30 different wire combos, what did the experimentation tell you? With that much experience, you should tell us.

 

I like my home made OFC fine stranded 12 AWG bi-wired cables, Compression spades on the speaker end and banana plugs on the other. Sheathed with expandable nylon. Each a 20' run.

I 'think' they sound better than my previous 16 Al, Cu coated.

 

Your title is going to stop them as expired flea treatment will stop fleas attacking your dog.

Timind has a point which is you have experimented sufficiently, what were your results with that and what do you aim to achieve sound wise?

 

Wiki has everything lol

Speaker wire - Wikipedia

 

I make my own out of Belden Cat6 cable - solid core, 24 AWG PET-insulation, and I have a spool of a couple hundred feet of that which has 4 twisted pairs throughout. I can make a LOT of interconnects with it

And to my ears, they sound better than the Mogami 2549 I was previously DIY'ing with, and that I had custom made from before I decided to make my own. The 2549 is very good, very balanced to my ears, but I don't know, the new stuff I've built sounds better to me. Could be just the oxidation removed when I replaced them

I make balanced and single-ended with it, and have even made an AES/EBU cable out of one attempt.

For speaker wires, I went full self-mutilation and did Chris Venhaus' recipe for "Cat 5 speaker cables." Just... do about 12,000 braids of untwisted twisted pair Cat 5 cable and you wind up with about 6.5' for each side of speaker cable, terminated in crimp spades and finished off with a fancy looking cover and heat shrink.

They made a very noticeable difference over my previous cable but you'd forgive me if I had just a little expectation bias after going through all the trouble to make them. Took a full weekend, basically.

 

Kimber 4TC speaker wire (6 foot pair) running between my Rotel RX 1052 and B&W 704 S2s.
Kimber 4TC jumpers
Assorted budget Kimber interconnects...PBJ, Timbre.
I think the digital cables are Pangea.
The subwoofer cable is a budget Audioquest, and I heard no difference from the throwaway cable, but it cleaned things up by it being the proper length.
Don't forget the power cables....Pangea AC-9 running from the wall to my Rotel power conditioner, and Pangea AC-14s from the conditioner to everything else.

Compare all these to included or throwaway cables, not to other brands.

I was comfortable spending the money(as was my wife), everything was added incrementally, and I heard a difference with everything. The biggest improvements came from the 4TC JUMPERS, followed by the AC-9. I'll only change any wires if I move stuff around and require different lengths than what I have. Rather than move up the food chain on cables, I would put the cash into music (CDs and SACDs). My next improvement would likely be a new integrated (Rotel 1572 or 1592, Mcintosh 5300, "cheap" Luxman?), but I need a new deck and a new roof before those things.

 

I didn't read the lot but but it seems a surprisingly thorough walk through, Still, knowing all the specs is not sufficient to tell you how X cable will sound, much less in a variety of set ups.

 

Never looked at wire as a filter
Assume 25' lamp cord at 1000 Hz
1000 pF , 160,000 Ohms
10 uH, 0.1 Ohm
R ~ 0.1 Ohm

phase shift arctan(X/R) = 89.999.... degrees

roll off 1.58 MHz

 

You might not look at it as such but that's all it is, when you buy expensive cable is less of a filter and the reason it sounds better but still a filter. May be you should start a radio station and use power cords for signal transmission, it might work according to your maths.

 

I am not a big wire guy but I will say that I have several sets of the lower end AudioQuest cables (Evergreen and GoldenGate) and I love the small size and flexibility. Also the RCA plugs go on and off really well. But they are let down a bit by how short the Y on the split is as they just can’t fit several of my devices and are tight on devices with split jaces like my LS27 and even my Ares Magnum phono.

I love the BJC LC-1’s as their connectors are just awesome and I like them being separate wires.

For speaker wires, I have a frustration that so many sets that I consider big dollar (that’s over $100 to me) like the AQ Rocket44 have such fragile bananas. That also goes for a pair of very pricey ($2500) speaker cables I got locally. Bananas broke off with little effort and even the replacement connectors I got from Furez broke. Just infuriating

 

For nice quality cables at a good price, contact the folks at Pine Tree Audio and they will recommend and build the right cables for your system.

 

It explains L and C reactance, in a way that is easily understood.
R is one thing, it introduces 0 distortion, only a little power loss.
The L and C introduce phase shift, which is different at every frequency.
Phase shift = arctan (X/R)
X = (XL - XC)
XL = 2 Pi f L, usually <0.5 Ohm
XC = 1/(2 Pi f C), usually >15,000 Ohm
R a few tenths

luckily R is small and X much larger
So phase shift is 90 degree -a few 0.0001 from 20 Hz to 20 kHz so the phase distortion is consistent across all f and very small

the total Z of the circuit = R//X, ie, in parallel
(R x X)/(R + X)
If X >>>> R, Z ~ R
Assume Xc 15,000, R 0.1
Z = 0.1000

 

I’ll bring the Tequila

 

I look at it as a signal cable that has characteristics.

Not my math...everybody's

fc = 1/( 2 Pi sqrt(L C) )

 

In the end the answer is different with different gear. There is never an always fits answer. Currently I’m using tri-wired O.F. Fine stranded 12 guage copper. My speakers internal crossover, or actually separate filters never touching in side. So each wire from the amp post provides the speed, heat signal that each woofer or tweeter request. In all my comparisons this was the best. I tried a few high dollar items but most of my speaker wire experiments have been wire sets used under $150-200.

With other speakers it made NO difference. Sometimes a speaker builder designs the speaker crossover to his preference and then we as consumers compensate that, by choosing wire that accentuates highes or rolls off mids or bass. Some wire just sounds bad with some parts due to synergy, sometimes the jacks on pre’s and amps are made of different metals and there is a incoherence from that.

But I was really looking for others opinions and experiments. I was really hoping for some info or suggestions on interconnects. Currently I’m using tributaries.

 

I currently have Shunyata Venom 3 (discontinued) and Venom 14 power cords for my Parasound A 21 amp and P 7 preamp, respectively. Analysis Plus Pro Power Oval Analysis Plus Pro Power Oval Mk II Power Cord – The Cable Company for my 300B SET amps.

Analysis Plus Oval One Interconnect (Pair) – The Cable Company between P 7 and 300B amps, Analysis Plus Copper Oval-In Micro Interconnect (Pair) – The Cable Company to A 21 amp.

Everything except A 21 is plugged into Belkin power filter/conditioner.

Have Analysis Plus Oval 9 between A 21 and Silver 8 speakers. Oval 12 between 300B amps and Titus monitors.

I recently upgraded all these except for the Venom 3 and Oval 9, which had been in my system for a long time (actually with the P 7 and Titus monitors, the A 21 / Silver 8s are a new pairing). I’m convinced the upgrades made a very positive difference.

 

Before the Oval 9 I had (after zip cord, doorbell wire, others) braided my own Cat 5 cables (not the super-VenHaus formula but maybe similar), then used AQ Slate older style “single biwire” cables for a while. When I got the Oval 9 that was it. No desire to upgrade after that.

 

It's very difficult to reply without overgeneralizing and risk being incorrect because of that generalization. In my experience and as I've mentioned to another poster, cables are filters that are your enemy. In some cases you can use them to your advantage but the least cables, the better. Because they are a filter you generally make choices between something that sounds better in the lows at the sacrifice of highs or vice versa. You've said you don't want crazy expensive stuff which I do understand but in my experience, when you go crazy expensive is when the differences start to flare in a more obvious way, that goes for any type of cable and differences then go beyond choosing better highs or lows.. You can find good cheap ones but the best I've heard were always expensive, well know cable brands.

 

What exactly in an "expensive" cable makes it less of a filter?

 

I made the “go crazy” remark because i agree with what you said for the most part, but the reality is, it wont help me if someone recommends a $20,000 pair of speaker cables. That’s not possible for me. A $75 interconnect.. yeah I can swing that if its better.

 

You have my favorite in the back in that tall beautiful white and blue bottle!

 

I think he means in general, not specific, nice cables try to lower capacitance or resistance.