Subwoofer cable

halliwelldj

halliwelldj

halliwelldj

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Cheshire
So I’ve just ordered a B&W ASW608 subwoofer to go with my Yamaha AS500 amp and B&W 686 speakers. I don’t know much about the best way of connecting the sub to the amp but I’m guessing the subwoofer output on the amp is the best way. The guy in the store said the subwoofer cables are £70-80…I’m not really up for paying that unless I really need to so can anyone recommend me a good subwoofer cable for a decent price?

Here is the outputs from the amp to make sure it’s the best way of connecting it:
http://www.richersounds.com/showima...ves/307830-1.jpg&max_width=999&max_height=999
 
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A Y-cable isn't really needed. The sub will be perfectly happy with the feed going to one socket. Subs with stereo inputs are designed to take the mono input on a single socket. It's usually the left one, but the manual will confirm this.

As for sub cables, a video coax will be fine. Something with decent shielding will help avoid hum. I use Liberty Interflex SD with coax compression-fit plugs which maintain the shielding right down to the plug shield tip. If you can't find something decent in your price bracket then drop me a line and I'll make one up to length for you (e.g. 5m - £40), but there's plenty of stuff available online.
 
I'd be happy to pay 30-40 for the cable probably going to go for 5m or so if it was worth the extra money. Am I going to see any difference in this fisual sub cable from what lucid has suggested?
Obviously spending more will get a higher quality cable but depends on if it is actually worth it.
 
halliwelldj said:
I'd be happy to pay 30-40 for the cable probably going to go for 5m or so if it was worth the extra money. Am I going to see any difference in this fisual sub cable from what lucid has suggested?
Obviously spending more will get a higher quality cable but depends on if it is actually worth it.
Click to expand...

The only difference is your wallet will be lighter.

halliwelldj said:
Just looking at this QED Subwoofer Cable 6m is there any noticable quality diffence between that and the cheaper one?
Click to expand...
It has far higher amounts of placebo.
 
I've got a Fisual one from eBay recently, I haven't used it yet though! I'm accumulating all my cables and wall plates and whatnots for when I redo my room at the end of the month.

I heard all sorts of good stuff about the Fisual ones though so I grabbed one. Although I haven't used it, it's clearly quite a nice quality cable, the connectors are good and tough and it all looks pretty robust to me.

I think the one I'm using at the moment is a Cambridge Audio one... chappy at Richer Sounds threw it in when I bought my amp and speakers years ago so I presume it's a pretty low end one, and I've no complaints at all about it. In fact I'm connecting the Fisual one to a wall plate and I'm going to connect the one I've already got to that.
 
Thanks for all clarification then! I just ordered the fisual for a tenner.

On another topic save starting a new thread - I have my amp plugged into the sky box but the sound doesn't really match up that good compared to when I am using my iPod in the Onkyo dock I have, any thoughts on why this is?
 
halliwelldj said:
Just looking at this QED Subwoofer Cable 6m is there any noticable quality diffence between that and the cheaper one?
Click to expand...
The Van Damme (cable) QED (plugs) lead is thin and white. This makes it easier to hide if you have to run it around skirting boards or behind gripper rods.

The Van Damme cable itself has an OK video spec. It's 75 Ohm, "Analogue video transmission up to 30 metres" and an attenuation of 4.91 dB/100m @ 5 MHz is more than good enough for audio at subwoofer frequencies. LINKY

If you're happy with that spec, and you know how to use a soldering iron, I have some double shielded 75 Ohm coax from BT in white that's the same small diameter and is really flexible for about 20 pence per metre.

The Fisual cables - Well there's not a lot to say about them mostly because there's no spec given at all. Sub cables really should be a 75 Ohm coax. It's not clear if the Fisual cable are 75 Ohm looking at their web site. But hey, they're cheap and I gety what they're trying to do so good luck to them LINKY

I'll hold my hand on my heart and say that the Liberty Interflex SD I use is seriously overspec'ed for a sub cable. I use it because it's the best and I know there isn't a job it won't handle. It has the lowest signal loss per metre of any flexible coax available. LINKY

If it's a straight choice between an £80 off-the-shelf sub cable and the Liberty I'd say no contest. It'll cost you half the money and you'll sleep soundly at night knowing you've got the best sub cable there is regardless of price.

But if you've only got a tenner, or you're sub is a basic one, then buy the Fisual. :)
 
So confused now with people saying it’s not worth paying the extra money and then you come in with the facts! I've cancelled the cheapo cable for now and now back at the point where I don't know what to get ><
 
lucid said:
But if you've only got a tenner, or you're sub is a basic one, then buy the Fisual. :)
Click to expand...

Do you work for an AV cable company / hifi shop? Or just enjoy conning people into buying snake oil cables?

Halliwelldj just get the fisual. It works fine on my wharfedale sw150 and bk mono. FWIW, both are in very 'noisy' environments.
 
I just think there is an enormous amount of bull floating around about speaker cables, which are, don't forget, copper wire in rubber jackets.

I just think once you know you have decent quality sturdy connectors and good quality copper that's properly shielded... how can you improve that?

It's copper wire!

Science - real science - says you can't.

Real science as in science that hasn't been made up to sell you things.

No doubt someone will turn up and bamboozle me with a load of stuff I don't understand and force me to back down, but come on. It's wire.

The wire inside your amplifiers is plain old boring copper wire! You can connect it with platinum for all I care but inside all your kit is bog standard copper wire. The terminals are plain copper or gold or whatever and haven't been raised on an open farm with room to run around, so who gives a **** how you connect it to your other kit full of standard copper wire, as long as the cable you're connecting it with is properly constructed, won't fall apart and is shielded, you're fine.

If I spent £50 on a subwoofer cable I'd convince myself I could hear the difference too. My kit's not expensive but even if it was I'd be loath to spend stupid money on cables, and wouldn't out of principle. It's snake oil.
 
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My dad and I made a trip down to the ATC headquarters a year or so back. ATC are what i'd regard as a relatively high end speaker manufacturer (they offer speakers that break well into the 5 figures). When asking one of their engineers what sort of speaker cables we should use he just told us 'the cheapest thing that will last'. As in, yes it's worth spending a couple of extra quid to get something that's well made, but all this shielding malarkey is rubbish (within logical reason). ATC, being a very nice company to deal with gave us some cable for free to use which isn't branded in any way, it's sturdy but it doesn't have over the top plugs like monster or QED offer, and it does the job beautifully.

Take from that what you will, me, i'll listen to the guy that makes high quality audio equipment for a living.
 
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