Does cable make a difference?

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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.

Tried few bits but not really bothered as I was too busy enjoying the music.

And price certainly does not mean quality. What on earth do you mean that. Is it a straight line on a graph, exponential, or just a big squiggle of 'Who the **** knows'

For home cinema and the type of kit most people have (E.g. standard onkyos, Q acoustic, B&W/Kef bookshelves etc), van damme should or anything around £2pm should be on everyones list. But better equipment involving something based around arcam pre/power with well matched speakers 'COULD' yield different results. Don't want this to get into a cable debate, but just get the best equipment you can and some good quality wire, then enjoy. Fancy marketing are production methods in cables will not help you find the holy grail.

 

[marscay]

And price certainly does not mean quality. What on earth do you mean that. Is it a straight line on a graph, exponential, or just a big squiggle of 'Who the **** knows'

Pretty much Most of that branded QED/Chord stuff is rebadged Belden or similar which you can buy on a roll for peanuts.

There is good cable out there @ reasonable prices, sifting through all the **** is the problem.

 

[lord filbuster]

Tried few bits but not really bothered as I was too busy enjoying the music.

And price certainly does not mean quality. What on earth do you mean that. Is it a straight line on a graph, exponential, or just a big squiggle of 'Who the **** knows'

For home cinema and the type of kit most people have (E.g. standard onkyos, Q acoustic, B&W/Kef bookshelves etc), van damme should or anything around £2pm should be on everyones list. But better equipment involving something based around arcam pre/power with well matched speakers 'COULD' yield different results. Don't want this to get into a cable debate, but just get the best equipment you can and some good quality wire, then enjoy. Fancy marketing are production methods in cables will not help you find the holy grail.

He didn't mean price = quality, he meant the exact opposite. != means does not equal.
Using C++ operators in everyday language is a bit silly really.

 

[danza]

I've spent, nay, wasted many hundreds of quids on cables and have come to the conclusion that there is an improvement over bell wire and bundled phonos with the purchase of cheap-but-not-trashy cables, but much beyond that is pretty much imperceptible.

I have a £5K (when new) 2.1 setup, and use some nicely terminated Van Damme hefty blue stuff as speaker cable, cheapish cables from my DVD to TV/amp/sub (under a tenner a piece), and a bottom-end Chord Co. cable from my Naim CD3.5 to my amp which came with the Naim.

Van Damme stuff is good, and if you're handy with a soldering iron, bashing off a few sets of phono cables will save you more money and be worthwhile for sonic 'gain'.

 

[marscay]

He didn't mean price = quality, he meant the exact opposite. != means does not equal.
Using C++ operators in everyday language is a bit silly really.

I thought it was pretty universal actually?? it isn't exactly difficult to figure out.

Especially when i talked about some ebay cable costing £3/m being better than VD with my gear.

 

[marscay]

I've spent, nay, wasted many hundreds of quids on cables and have come to the conclusion that there is an improvement over bell wire and bundled phonos with the purchase of cheap-but-not-trashy cables, but much beyond that is pretty much imperceptible.

Yeh but what did you try, the usual QED/Chord crap which is on the whole just marked up Belden in a fancy sheath??

Tried the NACA5 seeing as you have some Naim kit?

 

[danza]

Yeh but what did you try, the usual QED/Chord crap which is on the whole just marked up Belden in a fancy sheath??

Tried the NACA5 seeing as you have some Naim kit?

Not tried NACA5. I only have the CD3.5, nothing else I own is Naim.

The VD cable I use is hefty 4mm section, and I've tried several other cables including:

The most expensive biwire copper stuff Gale make/made
QED Silver Anniversary biwire
DIY Cat 5
Audioquest Type 6 (about £130 for a 3m single wire pair)
VDH CS122HB

And I've used VDH D102HB MK3 phonos, Audioquest Ruby, several cheaper and DIY cables and finally Chord Chrysalis which is from my CDP to amp. My TT probably has the most expensive cable in my system which is some VDH stuff that came with my Kuzma Stogi tone arm.

I've come to the conclusion that you're paying for a set of very nicely made phono plugs and not a great deal else more when buying cable after a certain point, and have found the purchase/use of 'high end' stuff unecessary for ages.

 

[marscay]

I have a very open mind about these things these days, although i don't subscribe to the theory that paying extra gets your more necessarily as i've mentioned a few times.

I've heard various cables at trade shows plus what i've tested myself and come to the conclusion that there is differences beyond what gauge is used but on a whole the differences are subtle and easily overlooked, and given certain conditions impossible to spot.

NACA5 seems pretty popular in the usual places, pinkfish etc but never used it myself and could understand you not trying anymore. I do find more variation between speaker cable than interconnects though, i'm yet to hear any well made interconnects do much for me tbh.