Are there any online retailers who offer speaker cables to try at home ?

[gez]

Unless your "touch of brightness" is infinitessimally small no speaker cable is going to make it go away. Unless the cable has been deliberately designed to attenuate the top end of the human frequency spectrum* then it's not going to affect any frequencies that you can hear. Particularly as when most people talk about brightness, they're usually referring to around the 7-10khz range which is a whole octave below 20khz and so would require some pretty ridiculous LCR parameters in the cable to achieve any attenuation down that low in the audible band.


*actually a pretty hard thing to do with actual electrical conductors alone - given that a wire of about 5m in length is going to typically have -3db point getting up towards 100s of thousands of hertz, i.e. well above the 20khz were it may become audible

 

[hifinutt]

I'd echo manicatel's comment here. Don't use cables as tone controls, it rarely leads to satisfaction IME. I think it more likely that the speakers are telling you something you might not want to know about the upstream components. Might be worth trying to get a loan of an alternative to the Anthem, see what happens. AV's not my thing, so I don't know what's out there, or at what price, but if Simaudio Moon have anything, I've heard it work well with Focal.

Using a simaudio amp with very revealing speakers , highly recommended .think it would be good with focal

 

[PhilCTTE]

The affordable VD or Mogami will tame that horrible sound created by Nordost and Focal, two items that definitely will tilt the balance.

Horrible sound I owned Martin Logan summit x 6 years ago and loved them, these are as close to that panel sound

 

[PhilCTTE]

Manufacturers should add tone controls again, especially of the tilt variation.
Have you measured the room? Fill it with stuff first.

Done an initial Dirac measurement. But with the limited Bandwidth Dirac licence . Will invest in full bandwidth I think. Plus more room tinkering with stuff

 

[CTank]

Surely distance selling regs mean all online sellers allow home dems? It just depends how comfortable you are returning stuff.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Surely distance selling regs mean all online sellers allow home dems? It just depends how comfortable you are returning stuff.

I think there are exclusions to the DSR for bespoke or made to order items. So if you get a pair of speaker cables made to length, that might be enough to disqualify the purchase, especially if it’s a long length that’s unlikely to be easy to resell unless cut and reterminated.

 

[PhilCTTE]

Was looking at Amazon returns policy and it states unused. Problem is they have a seal on most of them so bit risky.
Just wanted to try against my Nordost , some pure copper cable versus some QED xt40 and Audioquest rocket 22 but can only find the 11 and Sure Grip but over £400/500 worth of cable is more than I want to risk lol

 

[PhilCTTE]

Thinking about my room . I have been using it for 6/7 years with 4 speaker changes so I'm doubtful it's reflections causing the glare. When I recover from my minor op I will play with toe-in again maybe in a week. Speaker cables I can manage maybe in a couple of days

 

[pfbaat]

A friend have a pair of Linn K20, I believe 7 or 8M each side.
No idea about your amps requirement but his Naim combo calmed down to a nice pleasing performance with these.

 

[Blackforest]

LK20 is more or less identical to Naca 4 and not unsimilar to Naca 5 in it's presentation. So: no surprise here.
I am delighted to have discovered Kudos KS1 cable (also relatively cheap) which bettered several Nordosts, Naca 5, Audioquests tonally.
Can really recommend them.

 

[karlsushi]

I gave up on Dirac because it caused exactly the issue you are describing. I suspected it was down to the digital processing required, causing a digital glare, but another theory is the perception of a 'thinner' and more fatiguing sound once Dirac has reduced the bass.

May not be what's going on in your situation, but thought I'd mention.

I'd suggest turning Dirac off and seeing if the brightness is still there.

 

[PhilCTTE]

I gave up on Dirac because it caused exactly the issue you are describing. I suspected it was down to the digital processing required, causing a digital glare, but another theory is the perception of a 'thinner' and more fatiguing sound once Dirac has reduced the bass.

May not be what's going on in your situation, but thought I'd mention.

I'd suggest turning Dirac off and seeing if the brightness is still there.

Should have realised that the Primare SPA25 Prisma input for music was set to bypass, so no Dirac.

 

[gez]

I think there are exclusions to the DSR for bespoke or made to order items. So if you get a pair of speaker cables made to length, that might be enough to disqualify the purchase, especially if it’s a long length that’s unlikely to be easy to resell unless cut and reterminated.

DSR has been replaced by the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013

Broadly the same rights but there is a key difference. Under the DSR the seller was legally obliged to refund you as soon as possible from the time you cancelled the order or informed them you were returning the goods. They had no rights to wait until they received the goods back, they had to provide a full refund asap. Then should the items subsequently turn out to be damaged etc they had to try and get a full/partial payment back from you under a separate process.* Under the new regulations they don't have to refund you until they've received the items back (and they've got 14 days from that point to do so). That's a significant change in my eyes.

*I know this is the case because I investigated the DSR in depth once when I wanted to return a camera that wasn't "as sold" and the seller informed me they wouldn't refund me until I sent it back. They were wrong.

 

[gez]

I think there are exclusions to the DSR for bespoke or made to order items. So if you get a pair of speaker cables made to length, that might be enough to disqualify the purchase, especially if it’s a long length that’s unlikely to be easy to resell unless cut and reterminated.

Just checked, and indeed there is a limitation in that regard:

Limits of application: circumstances excluding cancellation

28.—(1) This Part does not apply as regards the following—
..
(b)the supply of goods that are made to the consumer’s specifications or are clearly personalised;
...

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013

These Regulations implement most provisions of Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive...

www.legislation.gov.uk

NB: I'm not a solicitor, so it's just my opinion that such items are excluded from the application of the regulation. There's a good chance I'm wrong as I'm only going by how section 28 of the act appears to read, there could be other parts that mean my interpretation is incorrect.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

DSR has been replaced by the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013

Broadly the same rights but there is a key difference. Under the DSR the seller was legally obliged to refund you immediately you cancelled the order or informed them you were returning the goods. They had no rights to wait until they received the goods back, they had to provide a full refund immediately. Then should the items subsequently turn out to be damaged etc they had to try and get a full/partial payment back from you under a separate process.* Under the new regulations they don't have to refund you until they've received the items back (and they've got 14 days from that point to do so). That's a significant change in my eyes.

*I know this is the case because I investigated the DSR in depth once when I wanted to return a camera that wasn't "as sold" and the seller informed me they wouldn't refund me until I sent it back. They were wrong.

Thanks, correction duly noted and useful to learn. I hadn’t been aware the DSR had been superceded. The changes make sense and seem reasonable.

 

[PhilCTTE]

Always worth a phone call to confirm what the returns policy in regards items such as cables is. Just read the statement Richer Sounds make on their website about the item returned has to be faulty . Which deters most from just trying something out. Still doesn't effect your consumer rights .

Anyway I've tried a pair of Audioquest Rocket 33 in my system today and with great results. Still nice and clear top end but the harshness has gone as well as the fatigue from perceived loudness of the top end . I will listen again tomorrow to make sure but after a good session today it is looking good. Just goes to show you about system synergy as previous speaker amp combos have sounded fantastic. I still really rate the Nordost Red Dawn but not in this current system.