Does cable make a difference?

WantoN

WantoN

WantoN

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Hi guys,
Recently setup my new speakers. Q acoustic 1010i package with an Onkyo 606.

Now, I'm very, very pleased with them, watched Flags of Our Fathers the other night and it sounded absolute awesome. Some music saw the woofers from the speakers over taxed, even though I've set the crossover to 80Hz and 100Hz (sounded awful) to try and combat this.

The speakers are setup using very basic bell wire. Is uprated cable REALLY going to make a difference ? Have you got any first hand experience of it, or have any reasonably priced suggestions?

Cheers,
Ant :cool:
 
Whats the music source? and do you have LFE on?

I found I often had to tweak the crossover frequency a lot with MP3 files to prevent the sub from reverberating badly - off the top of my head I was using either 90 or 110 but I'd have to double check that.
 
The only cable you need for home cinema is van damme. Cheap as chips, and built very very well.

Taxing the woofers (sounds like something the government would cook up) will either mean the system is badly setup or you are listening too loud. But then again how do you know what taxing a woofer is and how much excursion is actually bad ? ;)
 
I reckon I've explained badly.

LFE is on at 90 atm, Sub also has a crossover set to 90.

When I say taxing the woofers, I mean I was playing rock music (ripped from CD onto Xbox) and I could hear that the woofers on the speaker were trying, and failing, to produce the bass properly (too low a frequency?) this was at low/moderate volume. The sub dealt fine.

The wire is very, very thin at the mo. It says in the manual that the sort of wire im using can reduce bass output and dynamic range, but I never know whether it's a load of bull (like £90 HDMI leads)

Ant :cool:
 
-Ad- said:
The only cable you need for home cinema is van damme. Cheap as chips, and built very very well.
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Could you be more specific Ad? What Van Damme cable specifically? Funnily enough I'm going for exactly the same setup Amp / Speaker wise. Are there anythings I should be aware of?

I'm probably going to be wall mounting the rear speakers, but where should I put the Sub?
 
Have the crossover and volume all the way up on the sub, let the amp sort out when to send things to LFE.

Are your fronts set to small or large?
 
TheDean said:
Could you be more specific Ad? What Van Damme cable specifically? Funnily enough I'm going for exactly the same setup Amp / Speaker wise. Are there anythings I should be aware of?

I'm probably going to be wall mounting the rear speakers, but where should I put the Sub?
Click to expand...

Van Damme speaker cable, sold usually on powerbuys at AVForums.

Comes in a variety of thicknesses, depends what you need :cool:

The sub / bass is omni-directional.. it doesn't really care about placement. Stay clear of putting it on a desk / shelf though. Oh, and have a listen in various places around the room before "finalising" the cable ties. You may find that you get a loud peak of volume because of standing waves / you're on a node. Just move it if you find any significant difference.
 
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I'm not familiar with the Q acoustic 1010i setup but I can vouch for the fact that a few quid spent on some decent cables can make a noticeable difference. That's not to say you should spend silly money, but spending circ 10% of your system costs on cables is a good rule of thumb, particularly to help to give a little extra weight and definition to the lower frequencies. If you're spending hundreds of pounds on decent AV gear and speakers, it's unlikely to them justice using a naff cable!

A good place to start is to get a decent mains multi-gang socket that helps smooth the current fed to your kit. On recommendation from a friend, I got a Tacima CS929 6-gang mains conditioner for just under thirty quid. Not ridiculous money, but all my AV gear now runs through it and there is a little more punch and definition in the bass. I recently got another one for my recording kit too...

The Van Damme cables look good. I would think spending around three to six pound per meter for speaker cables would be a reasonable starting point, and maybe twenty quid plus for interconnects. It's hardly silly money and your kit is worth some decent cables.

There's a good article on the audioholics website about subwoofer placement.

Hope this helps!
 
Chris1712 said:
Have the crossover and volume all the way up on the sub, let the amp sort out when to send things to LFE.

Are your fronts set to small or large?
Click to expand...

I certainly wouldn't have the volume all teh way up. Try it at about 1/2-3/4 power first.

EVH said:
Van Damme speaker cable, sold usually on powerbuys at AVForums.

Comes in a variety of thicknesses, depends what you need :cool:

The sub / bass is omni-directional.. it doesn't really care about placement. Stay clear of putting it on a desk / shelf though. Oh, and have a listen in various places around the room before "finalising" the cable ties. You may find that you get a loud peak of volume because of standing waves / you're on a node. Just move it if you find any significant difference.
Click to expand...

Yup, try placing the sub in different places and listening. If it sounds boomy then it needs to be moved as you're in a node. Ideally you want a fairly flat response or a house curve rising itno the lower frequencies, but that's a far more complex discussion.

wickedy said:
. That's not to say you should spend silly money, but spending circ 10% of your system costs on cables is a good rule of thumb, particularly to help to give a little extra weight and definition to the lower frequencies. If you're spending hundreds of pounds on decent AV gear and speakers, it's unlikely to them justice using a naff cable!
fer placement.
Click to expand...

Lol 10%, you sound like what-hifi have taken over your mind :p There isn't a rule of thumb or a budget you should spend on cable. Get a well made quality with a good amount of copper in it and be done. Adding weight and definition will not happen through spending an extra fiver per metre on a cable.

FYI all my HDMI leads cost under a fiver/were free, speaker cable is van damme (£2pm), and interconnects are mark grant/homebrew (£25 per stereo pair), and my system is in the £5k+ bracket. £500 on cables would be a horrible waste ;)

Van damme can be had from the pwerbuy section for cables on avforums or from a store sounding like audio visual online.
 
Providing the cable is adequate in the first place, there'll be no difference. Differences come from when people use inadequate cable that's not of a sufficient gauge.
 
probedb said:
Decent mains cable will sort you out :)

£3 HDMI leads for a distance of a metre or two will be fine.
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The cost of an HDMI lead isn't the indicator of quality.

If the cable is built to the correct specification, it'll be perfectly fine.

They're digital cables, there'll be no difference between other cables.

My 5 meter cable was a few £ and works perfectly fine, I don't see the point in expensive cables, and I think people who pay top money for digital cables are utterly nuts.

Those HDMI cables that claim "more vibrant colours, sharper picture" etc, are utter nonsense.
 
-Ad- said:
I certainly wouldn't have the volume all teh way up. Try it at about 1/2-3/4 power first.
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When his amp has the ability to set up the levels required all automatically, why not? Its the recommendation I've always followed, a microphone is a lot better at working out how loud things should be compared to our ears.
By all means, If your disappointed with the subs level change the output on the amp a bit, but chances are your amp will get it a lot closer to what it should be than your ears. Of course if you have an SPL meter and know what your doing go that route, but I'm pretty sure the OP does not.
 
They are pretty small sattalite speakers, so you will most likely want to make sure the amp is set to small fronts, which will redirect more of the bass to the sub.

I have my sub crossover at around 50hz, but then I have big floorstanders as my front "stereo" pair. For little statallite speakers you'll want a much higher frequency crossover.
 
-Ad- said:
FYI all my HDMI leads cost under a fiver/were free, speaker cable is van damme (£2pm), and interconnects are mark grant/homebrew (£25 per stereo pair), and my system is in the £5k+ bracket. £500 on cables would be a horrible waste ;)
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How much have you experimented with speaker cable? I never heard any difference over the VanDamme until i got my AV9/P7.....but i improved on that quite noticably even with some cheap stuff on ebay which actually turned out to be very good for £3/mtr ....very thick strands.

Price != quality.
 
Does this same theory go for RCA interconnectors? Is it worth while me spending £20 on an RCA lead when i can use an old one that i got for about 50p

As for speaker cable, im using some stuff thats better than bell wire, its reasonably thick and covered in clear plastic. I have seen some of the QED RCA leads on the bay selling for hundreds, any need?
 
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Just use a good, thick piece of copper.

No there isn't a need to spend hundreds on interconnects, but you can if you wish.

It's a 1-2m run afterall.
 
marscay said:
How much have you experimented with speaker cable? I never heard any difference over the VanDamme until i got my AV9/P7.....but i improved on that quite noticably even with some cheap stuff on ebay which actually turned out to be very good for £3/mtr ....very thick strands.

Price != quality.
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No it doesn't = quality.

As has been said, you will hear a difference in sound if the cable isn't of a sufficient gauge.

Price doesn't denote quality, it denotes how stupid a buyer is. Thick copper = good but not expensive.
 
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