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Interconnects - Dare I Ask ?

r_w said:
I have to be honest I'm struggling a bit with the price of those and wonder if they really are £200 better than self terminated Van Damme, Belden, Supra, Mogami, etc.

E.g. 3 pairs of those is greater than the price of the Audiolab M-DAC, making the value proposition rather poor in comparison... as in, it's just a bit of (nice) wire vs a serious peice of well designed electronics.

Not criticising anyone here, but I really do struggle with the price of wire these days.

I like expensive kit but I also need value.
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First of all, in the overall scheme things, £200 is not earth staggeringly expensive. But relative is relative, and all.

Secondly, With Mark Grant you can try and if you don't like there's a 30 day money back guarantee.

Mark Grant Return Policy

So it's hardly a great risk to find out for yourself. It may be that your soldering skills make MG cables overpriced, but you'll not know until you've supped the stout (beer analogy).
 
Peter Stockwell said:
First of all, in the overall scheme things, £200 is not earth staggeringly expensive. But relative is relative, and all.

Secondly, With Mark Grant you can try and if you don't like there's a 30 day money back guarantee.

Mark Grant Return Policy

So it's hardly a great risk to find out for yourself. It may be that your soldering skills make MG cables overpriced, but you'll not know until you've supped the stout (beer analogy).
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Cant argue with this - buy 2 meters of Mogami 2549 for £10, some neutrik plugs £8, and some solder £5 Total: £23 then buy some £200 cables on the money back offer and see.

Either there is little audible difference : send it back and you've saved yourself £200

or

You love the Mark Grant cable and its like 'night and day' Then you've spent £23 to make doubly sure! You will then easily be able to sell a set of mogami / neutrik cables for £20 on here so you'll be out of pocket £3!
 
Yes fair enough with the return policy.

Myself... Luckily I managed many years ago to buy a 100 metre reel of very heavy guage and very pure solid silver balanced wire for £600, obviously making it £6 per metre, I've used most of it up now by wiring the entire system, including the A/V part. But I always wire studios in Van Damme / Neutrik.

I've got no problems with the price of precious metals, but some of these (not singling out any products) copper for several hundreds products do give me a problem.

I also agree that M Grant appears to be one of the better 'wire men' out there.

PS, Yes also agree that my soldering skills are very good (having wired two recording studios and many systems) and doing a crap job of it negates the advantage of 'self build'
 
Bigbobby666 said:
Cant argue with this - buy 2 meters of Mogami 2549 for £10, some neutrik plugs £8, and some solder £5 Total: £23 then buy some £200 cables on the money back offer and see.

Either there is little audible difference : send it back and you've saved yourself £200

or

You love the Mark Grant cable and its like 'night and day' Then you've spent £23 to make doubly sure! You will then easily be able to sell a set of mogami / neutrik cables for £20 on here so you'll be out of pocket £3!
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I have a better idea:

Order the cheapest interconnect Mark sells that uses Belden cable and Canare plugs for about £25 and also order the G1000HD, G1500HD with Neutrik plugs and the G2000HD with both WBT nextgen 0110 cu and ag plugs. Try them all and send back the ones you don't like/don't feel are worth the extra cost for a full refund within 30 days.

With the Gxx00 range of interconnects the only thing that changes is the plugs; the cable itself is identical. Basically the RCA coax plug is a flawed design and the likes of the Neutriks,
Eichmann Bullets and WBTs attempt to address the issues with it. Connector quality is critical imho/ime and is probably more important than the cable. Conventional RCA connectors have a slight 'smearing' effect on transients which may not be noticeable until it's gone.

There is little point in spending loads of money on better electronics if their virtues are strangled by poor RCA connectors.

My system includes a Westlake modded MDAC btw. Having decent interconnects with quality connectors enabled me to hear the considerable improvement in resolution that this brings over a bog-standard Audiolab MDAC or CDQ.
 
whatsnext said:
I have a mixture of Mark Grant's, NVA and Maplins. I also have a pair of DNM Reson from decades ago. If I can dig those out and do a compare with with my current flavours of the moment I can let you know how amazed I was at the difference. Those are priced at sensible money. Sounds like you believe in the magic of cables though.

Never looked at RFC before and wont look again after a quick peep at that web site. Something to suit every budget eh?

Best of luck with your search.
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Then you clearly missed the section where I offer to make custom interconnects for as little as £40 posted. It's located at the bottom of the Reference Series Audio Cables page. Yes, something to suit every budget...all you need do is ask. I custom build all my cables to order.
 
Steven Toy said:
Conventional RCA connectors have a slight 'smearing' effect on transients which may not be noticeable until it's gone.
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You could have a point there but since I'm running fully balanced (Vega DAC> Jeff Rowland Pre> Revel Subs > ATC 50s) and thus use XLRs throughout (apart from A/V front > HT bypass input on Pre) I doubt I'd be able to test for this at sufficient quality to verify it.

There doesn't seem to be anywhere near the number of XLR connector Brands/Models on the market as opposed to RCA, Neutrik seem to have that market almost sown up?

(If I didn't want to make my own I would also consider tm3connections on eBay, they don't seem to add a high markup as well as M Grant)
 
r_w said:
You could have a point there but since I'm running fully balanced (Vega DAC> Jeff Rowland Pre> Revel Subs > ATC 50s) and thus use XLRs throughout (apart from A/V front > HT bypass input on Pre) I doubt I'd be able to test for this at sufficient quality to verify it.

There doesn't seem to be anywhere near the number of XLR connector Brands/Models on the market as opposed to RCA, Neutrik seem to have that market almost sown up?

(If I didn't want to make my own I would also consider tm3connections on eBay, they don't seem to add a high markup as well as M Grant)
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If you are using fully balanced connections throughout already then you are probably at the top of the game.
 
Pac1 said:
Then you clearly missed the section where I offer to make custom interconnects for as little as £40 posted. It's located at the bottom of the Reference Series Audio Cables page. Yes, something to suit every budget...all you need do is ask. I custom build all my cables to order.
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Worth chatting to Paul (Pac1).

I'm a very happy customer the Saturn XLR cable. Yes - I've use Mogami and various Grant cables (and HiLine). But the RFC Saturn is very special (IMO - in my system) really allowing the Isis / Osiris to work at full potential. And well worth the money.

Paul's more cost effect cables must be worth exploring.
 
Steven Toy said:
Eichmann Bullets and WBTs attempt to address the issues with it. Connector quality is critical imho/ime and is probably more important than the cable. Conventional RCA connectors have a slight 'smearing' effect on transients which may not be noticeable until it's gone.
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Hmm I may have to try a pair of Eichmann RCA's against Neutriks and see if I hear a difference!
 
Bigbobby666 said:
Hmm I may have to try a pair of Eichmann RCA's against Neutriks and see if I hear a difference!
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Eichmanns work by a single point of contact that is very small. The effect is one of an incredibly lucid midrange at the expense of the lower registers and top end. This results in attenuated bass and a smaller soundstage. This effect is remarkably consistent.

Neutriks are better and more even-handed, WBT nextgen 0110 ag are better still at a higher price.
 
Steven Toy said:
Eichmanns work by a single point of contact that is very small. The effect is one of an incredibly lucid midrange at the expense of the lower registers and top end. This results in attenuated bass and a smaller soundstage. This effect is remarkably consistent.

Neutriks are better and more even-handed, WBT nextgen 0110 ag are better still at a higher price.
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Ok, don't like the sound of the Eichmanns, may buy some of the WbT's when I'm feeling flush!
 
Steven Toy said:
Eichmanns work by a single point of contact that is very small. The effect is one of an incredibly lucid midrange at the expense of the lower registers and top end. This results in attenuated bass and a smaller soundstage. This effect is remarkably consistent.

Neutriks are better and more even-handed, WBT nextgen 0110 ag are better still at a higher price.
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I met a chap from the UK recently, he introduced me to a new term: "Porkies".

We don't use this term in Western Canada, but I can see certainly see why one may want to.

Louballoo
 
The cleverest audiophiles in the US/Canada buy their simple cheap interconnects at:

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/

I've also purchased DIN/RCA interconnects at Flashback sales. Quick delivery from the UK at good prices.

All this with no imagined timing issues or what ever the HiFi press is on about.

Louballoo
 
louballoo said:
The cleverest audiophiles in the US/Canada buy their simple cheap interconnects at:

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/
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*blushes*

I use a pair of their interconnects. I can't tell any difference between them, my much more expensive LAT Internationals or the less expensive AR cable Stereophile recommended many years ago. They might sound different, but I would have to try really hard to hear a difference, and that would be sad.

I'm not real big on their Belden speaker cables, though. They always looked messy. I got some audio advisor banana terminated AQ type 4 cables that are more presentable
 
Hi Rainbow, as you can see, you are getting plenty of comments regarding cables. I have used DNM solid core for years, they don't appear to hold back the equipment they are connecting. Just remember that you should make sure you have a decent mains supply to your stereo, especially if you have any digital sources.
 
the best cable upgrade is 30amp twin and earth connected to 30 amp elec cooker input on the mains, to a 6 plug box, also I like my interconnects to have separate live and nu tral ,and a braided covering connected at one end to the neutral (phisudeo balanced) and good plugs. solder. and speaker cable connection are bare wire connection. I use lat interconnects and sinn/ sorry linn lk400 ialso usu cord and isol mains leads. well screened,in a 10k vinyl system also have m dac. all the best ps need to have gas cooker or would need to get spur put in
 
backwell said:
Just remember that you should make sure you have a decent mains supply to your stereo, especially if you have any digital sources.
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This is good advice, I'm having a total house rewire soon so it will be easy to add a dedicated consumer unit / radial circuit for the system for not much extra than the main job.
 
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