Speaker wire

fireisdangerous

fireisdangerous

fireisdangerous

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Moving house so need some longer runs of speaker cable. Can anyone recommend any brands and can you tell the difference between the cheap stuff and the expensive stuff.

Tony
 
I bought Van Damme blue 2.5mm stuff. Im not able to comment on it from a comparison perspective, but I can say it does sound good and the quality of it is very good.

Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either .
 
FinglisHobbit said:
I bought Van Damme blue 2.5mm stuff. Im not able to comment on it from a comparison perspective, but I can say it does sound good and the quality of it is very good.

Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either .
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This. Very highly regarded affordable cable that's nice and flexible so can be routed nice and tidy.
 
There is an inner sheave that covers each cable core. That is colour coded. Just google Van Damme blue 2.5mm images and you will see what I mean.
 
joeyjojo said:
Doesn't actually matter which colour is which, as long as you match them up correctly.
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This :) Though if you buy colour coded, I'm sure your inner OCD will insist you do it the right way round regardless :p

I've been using the speaker cable that came with my Tannoy 5.1 surround system for a couple years now, in lengths of up to 10m, can't say it's ever occurred to me that they would be of a different standard to any. Is there that much of a gap between speaker cabling? I figured it was kind of like cheap vs expensive HDMI cables, where the difference is usually just a brand name?
 
As long as your cables are of reasonable gauge and type that;s all you really need.

If there's any difference in the more expensive cables, you're only likely to hear it if your hi-fi components are in the top 5% of quality available imo
 
The only thing you're after with cable is low resistance so the signal doesn't drop in current or voltage. This is affected by gauge and material only.

You can work out the resistance of a piece of cable with a multimeter. It is generally thought that, so long as the resistance of the cable is 5% (or less) of the resistance of the speaker (e.g. 8 ohm) then you're good.

Cheap cables tend to use CCA (copper clad aluminium) instead of copper, which is less conductive. As a result, you will need a thicker cable to pass the same amount of current with the same voltage drop. This will not affect the sound, which is a common misconception leading many to spending far to much on branded copper.
 
covenantuk said:
If there's any difference in the more expensive cables, you're only likely to hear it if your hi-fi components are in the top 5% of quality available imo
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There aren't any differences anyway, and the top 5% of systems available are even more of a mug's game than the speaker cable nonsense.

The only time you'll hear a difference with speaker cables, is if the cable isn't doing its job properly. The quality only goes backwards from a cable that's doing its job properly, and there isn't a price associated with that.
 
spoffle said:
There aren't any differences anyway, and the top 5% of systems available are even more of a mug's game than the speaker cable nonsense.

The only time you'll hear a difference with speaker cables, is if the cable isn't doing its job properly. The quality only goes backwards from a cable that's doing its job properly, and there isn't a price associated with that.
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Have you ever listened to a 'top 5%' system?
 
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