Speaker cable for Sonus Faber Stradivaris

I am upgrading my speakers to Sonus Faber Stradivaris.

Next step, the cables. Will be 3M in length.

Are there any cable experts out there with recommendations?

Right now I am looking at Cardas Clear or even Clear Beyond.
Or possible top of the range Transparent cables.
Spades or Bananas? Still haven't made up my mind on that one either.

 

My suggestion, reach out to the Cable Company and see what they recommend. You can demo at home and decide.

 

Transparent or MIT would be an excellent choice.

Very nice speakers, congrats!

 

I am quite happy with my SF Olympica II.
Somewhere else in the forum I wrote about assessing different speaker cables a few years ago (makes like Supra, QED and some more exotic and pricy ones).
I ended up with Van Damme UP LCOF 4mm. The difference in sound quality with the more expensive ones being very very small, even inaudible.
I haven’t been worrying about the right speaker cable since.

 

A friend that owns Strads uses Cardas Clear cables. He's on this site occasionally, can't remember his handle. Driven by Audio Research Reference gear the sound is to die for.
I love my Amati's but the Stads are over the top.
I use M.I.T Oracle 2's with my Amati's, super resolving bass.

 

You might have a look at Yter cables, there is a very strong connection between the manufacturer/ designer and Franco Serblin, the man behind the rise of Sonus Faber. The metallurgy is first rate and the sound quality should be quite superb.

 

Interesting, what is the connection ?

 

That's a good suggestions, thanks. I've had a look at the website. Really, really interesting. I will reach out to them.

 

Exactly, it's the Cardas Clears that I am looking at. I've had Transparent reference cables in my system before, but the Cardas Clears I have now with the Tannoy are better in my opinion.

I'm actually looking at a pair of Clear Beyonds in 3 M length, used for 6,200 CAD at the moment. I'm just wondering if Clear Beyond might be overkill....

 

I'm looking forward to getting them. I found a three year old pair in Sweden, still in the boxes. Never played. Negotiated the price and they should be here later this week

 

Apparently they need 200 - 300 hours of playtime to burn in and loosen up

 

He was Franco's son in law and as a trained metallurgist , uniquely placed to engage Franco's design talents in the years before his death. The use of palladium puts it at the pointy end of material choice.

 

Choice of speaker cable is so much dependent on taste, the particular amp and the speakers involved that is almost impossible to make specific recommendations. If you have access to dealers that might lend you cables, auditioning cables is the only practical approach to making a good choice. If you can try even a few different brands or different models within a brand, that would be more helpful than sort of randomly guessing at what might be an optimal choice (so you would end up with something good, but, perhaps, not the ideal choice).

Certain brands, such as Audio Note, are sort of designed with tube amps in mind, and offer some fundamentally different types of cables; if you want the warmest and most lush sound, you would pick their top end copper cables, if you want something more extended and lively sounding, you would go with silver cables. Other brands tend to have a narrower range of house sound (e.g., Nordost is more into the extremely detailed, somewhat leaner sound). Some cables actually offer some flexibility in matching the cable to a particular system, such as MIT and Transparent, which offers a switchable network built into the cable that allows for changing the characteristic s of the cable.

I have helped with several setups involving Stradivari speakers, although I can only recall the specifics about cables for one setup--used NBS Black Label speaker cables. My overall impression of the speaker is that it has a very good, natural, tonal balance and a harmonically saturated sound. The speaker tend to be on the warm side. For my taste, what they need a bit more of is dynamics and a bit livelier sound. That might be a factor in choosing cables, but, it often does not work out when one tries to compensate for a particular character of one component by picking its opposite for another component in the system. In other words, if I were choosing between silver and copper for the cable, I would be more inclined to guess silver, but, so many other factors come into play.

Good luck on your search.

 

Yter is great with stativaris !
Both Amati Aniversario and Stativary are made with yter inside!
I use siltech anniversary and the sound is magical with my Amaris .

 

Geodiak and Finn,

I agree that using the same kind of wiring as the internal wire of the speaker makes sense. If you can figure out what model of wire is used in the speaker, that might be the wire to use to connect up the speaker to the amp.

I am sort of doing the same thing, but from the other direction. I bought Audio Note Sogon silver speaker wires and I am now looking into re-doing the wires of the speaker using Sogon or other similar wire.

 

Just remembered Tom's handle on this site - MaxxMaxx4- . He's had the wonderful Strads for four or five years. You may want to contact him if you have questions.
He's a bit hard to get a hold of as he owns a company that designs alloys for the military aerospace industry.

 

Not over kill, my Oracles were 20CDN, demo's.

 

Thanks, just sent him a PM.

 

Interesting, I just had a look at his profile. He is using Cardas Clear cables. Remarkably similar in that he also has tubes throughout.
I am guessing I am going to end up with Cardas Clear or Clear Beyond at the end.

 

Sonus Faber uses Cardas cables for the internal wiring of their speakers. Probably Cardas would be the best choice.

 

Thanks Claus, I did not know that. It is looking more and more like the Cardas Clear or Clear Beyond cables.

 

There are certain brands of cables that a large number of shops carry because they consistently deliver decent sound at their respective price points. These brands include Kimber and Cardas. I think you will be relatively safe going with the Cardas even if you don't have an opportunity to first audition the cables.

There are other brands that I find seem to deliver consistently good sound, such as Audio Note, although I've only heard their cables in tube-based systems. In my tube-based system I run 4 meters of Audio Note Sogon interconnects (silver conductor) between my linestage and my amp, and 2 meters of Sogon speaker cable. For connections from sources to my linestage, I run Basis Audio (the turntable company) interconnects. I've heard Basis Audio speaker wires as well. Their line up tends to be quite dynamic, particularly the speaker cables. I mention this because, if I owned the Stradivari, I would be looking to improve dynamics just a bit. I have not heard Stradivari with the Basis speaker cable, but, I have heard Anniversario's with that cable and I liked the combination.

 

Townshend Audio F1 Fractal Reference Speaker cables are receiving outstanding reviews and winning awards, before you part with your money they are definitely worth an audition. You can contact Townshend Audio direct, Max was the first to apply cryogenic treatment to cables, which has been copied world wide and became the industry standard. Max has taken the process one step further with Fractal wire which he is keeping secret.

F1 Fractal™ speaker cables - www.townshendaudio.com

 

Hello James
Hope you don't mine me answering your question publicly.

In regard to your cable question,i use the Cardas Clear with very good results.In all honesty though i've only tried one other cable and that was tim's MIT Oracles,they were very good too but with outstanding bass.I'll give the Cardas Clear the slight edge in every other way.Including pace,dynamics,symmetry,a riveting sense of touch and of coarse unsurpassed musicality that only Sonus Faber delivers.

One thing I have found with these instruments is they require some power to really bring the music to life.75 tube watts was not sufficient,250 is.
Tom
.

Hello Tim

I sure miss Edmonton and sitting up till the wee hours with you and others slinging whiskey and playing music,BOY DO I MISS THAT.
Will call you soon and will be out for a visit this summer.
Be well my friend.
Tom

 

The internal wiring of the Stradivari and Amati Aniversario is Yter.