Speaker wire
- Thread starter fireisdangerous
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Most gains people experience come from the fact they've spent far too much money on something and need to justify that cost to themselves.
As an electrical engineer who has spent far too long looking at signals and scope traces and other things, for speaker cables, two things matter.
1) Is there enough copper to carry the power you need it to.
2) Is it easy to install with/does it look nice if you can't hide it!
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Skin effect isn't really an issue at audio frequencies, so using cat5e as a kind of pseudo litz wire is fairly uneccessary.
%100 agree.
My front speakers are connected with Van Damme cable my rears are using the Cable-Tex cable. Both front and rear speakers are the same. I can tell no difference at all at any volume between the two.
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Soldato
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+1 for Van Damme Blue (2.5mm). Cheap and cheerful but good quality too. Wouldn't use anything else.
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10m roll of 4mm OFC cable from Clas Ohlson. Was about 12 quid I think.
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Most of my PA kit is Van-Damme Cable. Primarily because it's tough and coils nicely!
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QED 79 strand will do most domestic installs without fuss, and you do not need to keep your left and right cables of equal length.
As for cables all being the same, well some of this is usually engineer **** talking, most early tests were on a bench with a limited choice of 1m cables and fixed signal. No one cared to test something like AudioQuest Midnight-2 or Kimber Monacle-X against, Nordost Valhalla, or pure silver, silver plated copper, and cheap copper etc with a variable signal with variable stability outputs into stable and resistive loads of various speaker dummy loads.
For example, A Krell MDA solid state versus a Papworth 100w valve amp, or a 15w 300B versus a Class D digital, Linn Or Naim, driven with passive or active attenuation, into Martin Logan CLS-II or Apogee Scintilla, or Boston Lynfield, or Klipsch Heresy, Linn Kans or what.
Do you think these will all measure equally on a test bench? Is it all just watts and the same frequency response? Will AudioQuest Midnight and QED 79 strand behave in exactly the same manner regardless of whats on each end out of that lot?
Some boutique cables worked fine and some did not with such kit as listed above, when you read through most early magazine publications you always found sympathetic pairings where some brands and electronics were always paired with Cardas, Nordost, Chord, Audionote etc. With just about every HiFi Choice budget system getting pushed with the "highly detailed" QED Silver anniversary.
Yet B&Q did an orange twin flex 13 amp mains cable, which worked fine and consistent with them all.
Taking the wrong "boutique" cable used to send early Naim amps to the funny farm, which in itself was factual evidence that not all speaker cables behaved the same, and some electrostatic speakers get pretty demanding at high frequencies which can be exasperated by some cables. Is it possible to hear? It is hardly the point when there was no benchmark in amplifier stability or loudspeaker loads, most of which were variable with output and frequency. Yet very little at that time was touted as benign or desirable LCR value targets for cables, and most speaker cables from different manufacturers varied wildly in LCR specification. Hell, I even remember a discussion regarding a specific cables change in character, which was later explained due to the different dielectric used as insulation. Anyone here aware of the difference once discussed with regard to the sound qualities of white versus black Naim Nac as example?
Good middle of the road copper LCR values are fine and what you will experience with the majority of copper cable inc 13 amp twin core, but many cable manufacturers made an effort to have a "different" cable, with various materials, plating, weaving etc. Others just threw plugs on cables out of an RS catalog and covered it with a mesh outer without ever looking at LCR values. The idea was simple, if you could make it look good and thick, people would assume it better. If you could make it bright and forward people would assume it is letting through more detail. Etc etc.
If you have a good stable modern amplifier driving a benign speaker load such cables should not be cared about, if you need cables to make it better something is wrong somewhere. In simple terms.
In the 90's, many fancy high end amplifiers and speakers had very different specifications and measurements, and yet pro engineers stated all amplifiers should sound the same. Yet we know some amplifiers were not stable with difficult speakers or hyperlitz cable, that not everything was black and white.
An example I remember was a Technics SU_MA10 amp driving a particular 4Ohm resistive load speaker with 5m cable.
VDH D-352 was a very heavy gauge silver plated boutique cable and well regarded by HiFi Choice.
The amp used to clip at a specific point on it's volume with specific tracks, yet, with Naim Nac4 this clipping was not happening until a notch or two later.
No difference to sound quality for most ears, just that the amp seemed to have an easier time driving the speakers. Go figure.
PMC use the same sort of copper cable you can expect to find in Richer Sounds in demo's, even with their top of the line active Bryston/BB5/XB3 system.
Thing is, there are more experts and more forum users, who have never heard, owned or used high end or high resolution equipment with these high end cables they state all sound the same, than there are high end cable users in the forums these days. Spend less time listening to forums and magazines, just use whatever you can get that you like and don't mind spending on, and play more music.
The majority of these high end systems with very expensive cables, still have cable costs which equate to 10% or less than the cost of the electronics they are paired with, and are owned by people who are not interested in what they have or any claims, as it is just accepted as the cables are suited to that system, and it does the job anyway.
The early days of boutique cables and the discrepancies of early high end electronics do not plague us as they used to, quite simply because many manufacturers have it right, making our choices usually a bit easier, yet we still get plagued by extortionate prices for basic cables with standard LCR values dressed up as bling. Yet there i snothing wrong with building your own, if you just stop listening to opinion.
I am glad I gave up on it all, too many people listening to the cables or electronics instead of the music.
(Here is a test, does your system interest you in playing more music, buying more music, and in general is comfortable enough that you can fall asleep listening to music, while being easy to operate, live with, and not draw attention to itself?)
As for cables all being the same, well some of this is usually engineer **** talking, most early tests were on a bench with a limited choice of 1m cables and fixed signal. No one cared to test something like AudioQuest Midnight-2 or Kimber Monacle-X against, Nordost Valhalla, or pure silver, silver plated copper, and cheap copper etc with a variable signal with variable stability outputs into stable and resistive loads of various speaker dummy loads.
For example, A Krell MDA solid state versus a Papworth 100w valve amp, or a 15w 300B versus a Class D digital, Linn Or Naim, driven with passive or active attenuation, into Martin Logan CLS-II or Apogee Scintilla, or Boston Lynfield, or Klipsch Heresy, Linn Kans or what.
Do you think these will all measure equally on a test bench? Is it all just watts and the same frequency response? Will AudioQuest Midnight and QED 79 strand behave in exactly the same manner regardless of whats on each end out of that lot?
Some boutique cables worked fine and some did not with such kit as listed above, when you read through most early magazine publications you always found sympathetic pairings where some brands and electronics were always paired with Cardas, Nordost, Chord, Audionote etc. With just about every HiFi Choice budget system getting pushed with the "highly detailed" QED Silver anniversary.
Yet B&Q did an orange twin flex 13 amp mains cable, which worked fine and consistent with them all.
Taking the wrong "boutique" cable used to send early Naim amps to the funny farm, which in itself was factual evidence that not all speaker cables behaved the same, and some electrostatic speakers get pretty demanding at high frequencies which can be exasperated by some cables. Is it possible to hear? It is hardly the point when there was no benchmark in amplifier stability or loudspeaker loads, most of which were variable with output and frequency. Yet very little at that time was touted as benign or desirable LCR value targets for cables, and most speaker cables from different manufacturers varied wildly in LCR specification. Hell, I even remember a discussion regarding a specific cables change in character, which was later explained due to the different dielectric used as insulation. Anyone here aware of the difference once discussed with regard to the sound qualities of white versus black Naim Nac as example?
Good middle of the road copper LCR values are fine and what you will experience with the majority of copper cable inc 13 amp twin core, but many cable manufacturers made an effort to have a "different" cable, with various materials, plating, weaving etc. Others just threw plugs on cables out of an RS catalog and covered it with a mesh outer without ever looking at LCR values. The idea was simple, if you could make it look good and thick, people would assume it better. If you could make it bright and forward people would assume it is letting through more detail. Etc etc.
If you have a good stable modern amplifier driving a benign speaker load such cables should not be cared about, if you need cables to make it better something is wrong somewhere. In simple terms.
In the 90's, many fancy high end amplifiers and speakers had very different specifications and measurements, and yet pro engineers stated all amplifiers should sound the same. Yet we know some amplifiers were not stable with difficult speakers or hyperlitz cable, that not everything was black and white.
An example I remember was a Technics SU_MA10 amp driving a particular 4Ohm resistive load speaker with 5m cable.
VDH D-352 was a very heavy gauge silver plated boutique cable and well regarded by HiFi Choice.
The amp used to clip at a specific point on it's volume with specific tracks, yet, with Naim Nac4 this clipping was not happening until a notch or two later.
No difference to sound quality for most ears, just that the amp seemed to have an easier time driving the speakers. Go figure.
PMC use the same sort of copper cable you can expect to find in Richer Sounds in demo's, even with their top of the line active Bryston/BB5/XB3 system.
Thing is, there are more experts and more forum users, who have never heard, owned or used high end or high resolution equipment with these high end cables they state all sound the same, than there are high end cable users in the forums these days. Spend less time listening to forums and magazines, just use whatever you can get that you like and don't mind spending on, and play more music.
The majority of these high end systems with very expensive cables, still have cable costs which equate to 10% or less than the cost of the electronics they are paired with, and are owned by people who are not interested in what they have or any claims, as it is just accepted as the cables are suited to that system, and it does the job anyway.
The early days of boutique cables and the discrepancies of early high end electronics do not plague us as they used to, quite simply because many manufacturers have it right, making our choices usually a bit easier, yet we still get plagued by extortionate prices for basic cables with standard LCR values dressed up as bling. Yet there i snothing wrong with building your own, if you just stop listening to opinion.
I am glad I gave up on it all, too many people listening to the cables or electronics instead of the music.
(Here is a test, does your system interest you in playing more music, buying more music, and in general is comfortable enough that you can fall asleep listening to music, while being easy to operate, live with, and not draw attention to itself?)
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But it's dirt cheap and perfect for carrying a signal. No need to spend hours braiding it. I've just done some rough braiding to keep it together when running it though the flat. Solids going to +'ve terminal and striped to -'ve. 2x15m cables, 2x5m cables and 1x2m cable got made in under the length of Blade Runner.
There's a few alternate versions where they strip each individual wire out and then braid those together. No thanks.
^^^this
people can recommend the latest Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, whatever cable when ordinary thick copper cable will do
Soldato
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Thank you. Was looking for some white cable to rig up my system after the builders have been in and was getting a little lost. This will be perfect.
^^this
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It's a big post, so I won't quote it!
The amplifier stability issues you mention are just that IMO, poor amplifier design exacerbated by cables designed to be 'special' by marketing experts, not engineers. Thus you can quite easily end up with crazy inductances that will tip an unstable amplifier output stage over the edge.
Speakers are not purely resistive, they are also fairly heavily inductive! Something that most people overlook as well, is most 'resistive' dummy loads are actually wire wound resistors, and again have a large inductive component. I can cite a brand of wire wound resistive load I have worked with, when driven with a 400V square wave, we were seeing spikes on the switching edge of 1.2kV or more. That will upset any switching devices!
"if you need cables to make it better something is wrong somewhere. In simple terms." - Couldn't agree more there.
"The early days of boutique cables and the discrepancies of early high end electronics do not plague us as they used to, quite simply because many manufacturers have it right, making our choices usually a bit easier, yet we still get plagued by extortionate prices for basic cables with standard LCR values dressed up as bling. Yet there i snothing wrong with building your own, if you just stop listening to opinion." - *Cough* Russ Andrews *Cough*
"(Here is a test, does your system interest you in playing more music, buying more music, and in general is comfortable enough that you can fall asleep listening to music, while being easy to operate, live with, and not draw attention to itself?)" - And again, I couldn't agree more. My current system is a sony micro hi-fi that cost me £120 a few years ago. I still enjoy my music! When I move out it will be back to the beasty sony midi system that my grandad owned for years and passed on to me when he got something newer. And when I'm out the house I still enjoy music on my minirig portable speaker!
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But it's dirt cheap and perfect for carrying a signal. No need to spend hours braiding it. I've just done some rough braiding to keep it together when running it though the flat. Solids going to +'ve terminal and striped to -'ve. 2x15m cables, 2x5m cables and 1x2m cable got made in under the length of Blade Runner.
There's a few alternate versions where they strip each individual wire out and then braid those together. No thanks.
Stripping the cores out?! Sod that for a laugh!
I have no doubt that it works, does it actually work out cheaper than buying speaker cable? I also think that whilst it would probably never be an issue, at higher power levels you'll be pushing the limit of what cat5 strands are rated to. the fact that musical content is not continuous means it will probably be ok, but I'd rather have plenty of current capacity, rather than just enough.
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I used mark grants subwoofer cable and van damme blue when I did my home cinema install.
Surprised no one has mentioned this yet but I use Webro shotgun cable for my speakers. For anyone unsure its what satellite and tv installers use for installing dishes with more than one feed. It's a small gauge twin cable for use rather than running two holes through walls etc.
The Webro stuff is about as good as it gets for that industry and you can easily pick up 100m rolls for around £45 retail. As far as capacity goes for those folks who like to shout about premium speaker cable capabilities. This stuff is designed to carry multiple streams of HD audio and video content as well as various over air services all at one time, and is generally triple shielded. Now throwing all that mumbo jumbo out of the window for a moment and looking at the real world use.
For me I like it as being a single large strand you easily get it into spring clip speakers etc with no hassles about braiding or such. The only real downside is it's durability, provided you do not intend to be constantly flexing the cable it lasts just fine. I find that generally it comes in cheaper than high grade mains cable.
The Webro stuff is about as good as it gets for that industry and you can easily pick up 100m rolls for around £45 retail. As far as capacity goes for those folks who like to shout about premium speaker cable capabilities. This stuff is designed to carry multiple streams of HD audio and video content as well as various over air services all at one time, and is generally triple shielded. Now throwing all that mumbo jumbo out of the window for a moment and looking at the real world use.
For me I like it as being a single large strand you easily get it into spring clip speakers etc with no hassles about braiding or such. The only real downside is it's durability, provided you do not intend to be constantly flexing the cable it lasts just fine. I find that generally it comes in cheaper than high grade mains cable.
