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Why guilt on speaker cables and such

bigfish786 said:
Nothing wrong with trying cables. Better than being close minded.
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Amen to this. Good cables make a small positive, difference in my system. My budget is modest so I buy cables second hand to make the money go as far as possible.
Just occasionally..... I've heard a cable ruin my system. So I take my time and audition new arrivals carefully. It's fun to experiment . I certainly don't feel any guilt.
 
Tim Jones said:
I'm certain the the Gang of Four would heartily support a £2K interconnect to make their snare sound that much snappier.
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The irony in that statement being, that such an interconnect would cost quite a bit more than the vast majority of snares. Even the infamous Ludwig Black Beauty snare is only half that. There are more expensive snares of course, but not very many (about 3%).
 
gregory lynch said:
Good Morning,

contemplating new speaker cables for my valve amp and Tablette 10 speakers, been using QED Silver Anniversary, Fisual superflex 2.5mm and some solid core Audioquest FT-4, to be honest there's not much between them, if there is a winner the solid core is my favourite, i'm asking if spending more money will yield significate results, i bought an interconnect from Yiannis Tome which made a difference from some QED IC's and some VD Cable but it's cost was negligible between the others.
I don't want to spend a huge amount, up to £200 would be my max but some nice finished cable to last out my remaining years would be nice.
TT is Rega Planar 8 and Fono mc.
all the best.
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I’ve posted this before Greg which might help

Paul L said:
I’ve always found this article good for (speaker) cable therapy http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
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I have experimented with speaker cable in numerous systems one the last 30+ years and have always found experimenting is the only answer. For me <2.5mm^2 usually limits bass weight, silver plating often adds a synthetic edge to the top end. Silver is all silver can be good, but crazy money and better invested elsewhere. Dialectics matter, I tend to prefer the cottons, teflon on usually dislike the cheaper plastics

I was amazed to find how much difference speaker cable made when installing passive subs and cabling from sub amps to the passive subs. I expected it to make no difference I only tried as the cheap cable I bought refused to lay flat. But realised it mattered quite a bit in this location and my system (Van Damme 6mm^2 Hi-Fi plus was my preferred sub cable and I just use it in all low frequency locations now, it's cheap enough and great for bass)

If you don't need very long runs, worth experiencing with second hand, hopefully just buy 2-3 pairs sell on the ones you don't like and buy another 2-3 and so on.

Some systems seem more sensitive than others to cabling.
 
I always see speaker cabling as fine tuning your system. Depends if you feel your system needs to be brighter or more bass weight for example. The hard bit is knowing what individual cables are going to offer you. It's pretty well known about silver content and the effects that has but other than that it's a bit of a minefield.
So many people spend loads more money on cables than they need to.
 
Well guys, thanks for all the responses, I have just changed speaker cable, going from Audioquest FT 4 to QED Silver Anniversary, I wouldn't say the QED is overly bright but the Audioquest does it for me, I'll try the Fisual in a few days and report back, going to keep the QED on over the weekend, at present I'm playing a bit of Sabbath and enjoying it immensely and that what it's all about.
Thanks all.
 
gez said:
It's inductance not capacitance that really matters in speaker cables, after resistance of course. Of course you don't want ludicrous amounts of capacitance just to get an extremely low inductance, but you should be prioritising low inductance over low capacitance.
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In the sort of length used in domestic HiFi systems, cable inductance (of a standard two core "shotgun" cable) is usually too low to be of concern. Some weird designs might be a problem of course! Capacitance, on the other hand, can cause a problem with some amplifiers that leads to audible SQ degradation. The trouble is that it is difficult to know whether your amp will have an issue or not! I of course agree that resistance is the largest factor. See:

 
I bought vertex aq Moncayo Hi Rez recently ( 650 Bay )... Game Changer !!.. Huge drop in the noise floor, reduced glare , better clarity,
music sounds more effortless in every way and makes my previous speaker leads seem wrong somehow. I have other Vertex products
as well so think that helps. Looking at previous opinions on vertex gear by members here I was surprised to see there stuff pretty much
rubbished !! Haha
 
Due to a few changes of kit in my system I changed my usual XLO rca interconnect from my Rega Aria phonostage to an old cable brought from Richer Sounds.It was well made.Going back to the XLO I was astonished how much detail and presence it had.
I used to sit on the fence with cables just thinking if their well terminated and from respected makes that's all you need.
Have a good selection Atlas 3 .5 speaker cable is very neutral and my old Chord rca interconnects are good.
But that recent experience with the cheap interconnect and the XLO was easily noticeable so I err on the side cables do make a difference.
 
IWC Doppel said:
I was amazed to find how much difference speaker cable made when installing passive subs and cabling from sub amps to the passive subs.
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This is very interesting and almost makes me, want to experiment with the the high level signal cable from power amps to RELs. I say almost because it's too much effort!
 
Some may find this speaker cable article interesting, as I did. It is bound to contain some material that others will find subjective or disagreeable, and is written by a supplier/manufacturer, but I found it helpful.

https://regalaudio.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/REGAL-The-Speaker-Cable-Article-13.pdf

I put together a couple of speaker cables, one with lower inductance in mind, one with higher (higher being necessary for a Naim power amp option). They do sound different, and to me the lower inductance one was an improvement (on the non-Naim system). I'm not suggesting that inductance is the only reason they sounded different. Capacitance will be higher as a consequence of using low inductance design, but the above article would seem to favour lowering the inductance for most systems.

My speaker cable budget is very modest, but not because I have doubts about cable selections making a difference.
 
Tim Jones said:
If you've made the assertion, you need to demonstrate it.

Give me the £2k speaker cable (I almost can't believe I'm asking this) or interconnect which is a better idea than ugrading a £1k speaker to a £3k one please.

As Woodface says though, ultimately it's your money.
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Point is, surely, that anybody contemplating £2k cables, already has >>£2k speakers.
 
Anyone who's considering 3k cables vs 1k cables isn't basing performance on measurements. So if they're basing it on just opinion, welcome to the world where any choice can be validated by the opinions of others....

It's a pointless argument
 
Darren said:
This is very interesting and almost makes me, want to experiment with the the high level signal cable from power amps to RELs. I say almost because it's too much effort!
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I tried with a 4mm^2 Mono price oxygen free copper and it was the worst cable to install I have ever used, it simply would not lay flat and every time I throught I'd solved it it would revert back and sit up pulling all the other cables. So I bought some as cheap Amazon cable and I noticed straight away it was better then after a few weeks of burn in I tried again and it was a good deal better. I kept reading about how good Van Damme Hifi 6mm^2 was in the bass so I couldn't resist the urge to try. My 18" subs were notably better, added weight and dynamics. so I bought a good few Metres and did the lot

If you are using the thin cable from the speaker to the sub amp, might be worth looking at but for some reason this can be better with a cheap thin cable. My brother was excited about this and bought some Duelund 16GA for the job only to realise he perfered the thin original !

Worth experimenting with anything to see if there is any difference
 
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