I'd not ask this on any other forum....cables....

[Sal1950]

I buy my cables from amazon.co.uk seller KabelDirekt and a roll of 14 gauge speaker wire and deadbolt banana plugs from sewell direct also on amazon. They are cheap and probably im missing out on the transparency, staggering midrange and jaw-dropping bass I could have got if I spent the price of a small car on colourful cables.

Beware the KabelDirekt rca interconnects. The pedals of the outter conductors are made of such thin medal as to supply little tension to create a positive and lasting connection. I had two sets fail in my system within a very short period of use. (less than six months). All of a sudden I noticed a reduced or intermittent signal in a channel that I then traced back to a poor quality contact. After the second failure I pulled then all from my 5.2 channel rig and replaced them with Monoprice Premiums, MUCH better connector quality.

 

[Reginald Addison]

I buy my cables from amazon.co.uk seller KabelDirekt and a roll of 14 gauge speaker wire and deadbolt banana plugs from sewell direct also on amazon. They are cheap and probably im missing out on the transparency, staggering midrange and jaw-dropping bass I could have got if I spent the price of a small car on colourful cables.

Not to mention the barage of insults.

 

[Reamonnt]

Beware the KabelDirekt rca interconnects. The pedals of the outter conductors are made of such thin medal as to supply little tension to create a positive and lasting connection. I had two sets fail in my system within a very short period of use. (less than six months). All of a sudden I noticed a reduced or intermittent signal in a channel that I then traced back to a poor quality contact. After the second failure I pulled then all from my 5.2 channel rig and replaced them with Monoprice Premiums, MUCH better connector quality.

I have kabel direkt in an attic setup that doesnt get daily use so I went up and took a look based on your post and yes the rca connector is looser than I would have expected. I am open to take advice from people on here I just dont see the need for cables that cost thousands or hundreds even. My main pc system is using a cambridge audio rca from dac to amp that was about 30 quid and it fits a lot tighter. The kabeldirect has not failed or anything though but I will keep an eye on it.

 

[Reamonnt]

Not to mention the barage of insults.

I wouldnt mean to insult anyone but some of the language used in the hifi magazines is hyperbole but I still buy what hifi and Hi-Fi Choice the odd time as I like the porn (sorry I meant the pictures of the gear).

 

[Reginald Addison]

I like my wine in a pretty bottle and a nice glass. Nice music, candlelight, and a pretty girl also helps.

 

[DonH56]

One thing often overlooked when choosing speaker cables is the impact on the final frequency response. A speaker's impedance is complex and most have pretty large peaks and valleys. Some of this is from the crossover, some from the drivers themselves, and some from interaction with the cabinet (which creates a resonant cavity). The crossover/speaker design is often based upon a particular driving impedance, one I would guess is low and emulates as best as practical an ideal voltage source, since that is the regime that most amplifiers target. I have noticed more speaker manuals lately that include suggested maximum driving impedance, making it easier to decide if a particular amp/cable connection will work well. Big fat cables won't really help (or hurt) if the amp is a SET with high output impedance, but small cables can degrade the performance of a high-power amplifier with low output impedance. In practice I would expect the degradation to be small for reasonable combinations of amplifiers, cables, and speakers, but I have not read a lot of comparisons with actual test data. That would be an interesting, if time-consuming, exercise. Note frequency response and time-domain response is impacted.

It is probably also worth noting that, despite the well-known benefits of active crossovers and direct amplifier drive, a passive crossover can provide a smoother impedance response to the amplifier compared to connecting the amplifier directly to the driver.

FWIWFM, IME/IMO, my 0.000001 cent (microcent), etc. - Don

 

[RayDunzl]

In practice I would expect the degradation to be small for reasonable combinations of amplifiers, cables, and speakers, but I have not read a lot of comparisons with actual test data.

I measured in-room before/after going from 18AWG to 2AWG on the Krell/MartinLogans. Power off the amps only, no change in volume or anything else.

I think I saw a small improvement (reduction of roll-off) at only the far right side of the sweep, like a dB or two at most.

Inconsequential for my five foot cables.

I might have the measurement, and might not, will look. I think it went into the bit bucket, as there was nothing to see.

 

[Speedskater]

Any possible audible differences in speaker cables will be based on end-to-end cable resistance/impedance with respect to the loudspeaker impedance curve.
So loudspeakers that have an impedance curve that looks like a roller coaster and long, small cables are the more possible setups.

 

[tomelex]

The job of the typical 6 foot speaker cable is to transfer the most power with minimum alterations. That means lower resistance, inductance and capacitance wins.

 

[Reginald Addison]

While you can get by with 5 or 6' of speaket cable. I think 10' is more common.

 

[DonH56]

Let me help you out here:

The job of the typical <_elided_> speaker cable is to transfer the most power with minimum alterations. That means lower resistance, inductance and capacitance wins.

 

[CuteStudio]

One way of getting a better cable is to unplug the current one and plug a new one in. The sliding action can tend to clean the connections and you get a better sound. Unless it's digital of course, then only a madman (or audiophile) would be asking.

A cheaper alternate that I favour is to stick with the same cable but make sure the surfaces are clean and 'grip' (I.e. fix loose RCA sockets), and then add a drop of oil like ACF-50 to stop the air getting a chance to ruin it all..

Also remember with the best cables (most expensive - because we all know the more we pay for a cable the better it is) you don't actually need the irrelevant boxes (amps, speakers, that type of thing) at all, just buy the cables, rest your SACD on top and that's it, that perfect fidelity often dreamed of, rarely attained. Even better than the ultimate beeswax filled cryogenically treated mains fuse, I kid you not.

 

[fas42]

One way of getting a better cable is to unplug the current one and plug a new one in. The sliding action can tend to clean the connections and you get a better sound. Unless it's digital of course, then only a madman (or audiophile) would be asking.

A cheaper alternate that I favour is to stick with the same cable but make sure the surfaces are clean and 'grip' (I.e. fix loose RCA sockets), and then add a drop of oil like ACF-50 to stop the air getting a chance to ruin it all..

Even smarter is to hard wire, solder the full run of cable from source to drivers - manufacturers of components made a remarkable discovery a long time ago: just using a bit of metal to metal pressure just isn't a good way to ensure consistent quality of connections; hey presto, soldering was invented! Of course, for convenience sake we need breaks here and there, but hey, those clever electrons "know" that some connections matter, and others don't - and automatically behave themselves, as necessary.

 

[watchnerd]

Even smarter is to hard wire, solder the full run of cable from source to drivers - manufacturers of components made a remarkable discovery a long time ago: just using a bit of metal to metal pressure just isn't a good way to ensure consistent quality of connections; hey presto, soldering was invented! Of course, for convenience sake we need breaks here and there, but hey, those clever electrons "know" that some connections matter, and others don't - and automatically behave themselves, as necessary.

Can't decide if you're trolling or not....

But -- are you saying that, for example, I shouldn't use banana plugs on my speaker cables, but should instead solder the speaker cables to the amps and the speakers?

If so, why?

 

[fas42]

Can't decide if you're trolling or not....

But -- are you saying that, for example, I shouldn't use banana plugs on my speaker cables, but should instead solder the speaker cables to the amps and the speakers?

If so, why?

Most assuredly not trolling. The path I went down 30 years ago was to explore everything that seemed to matter for getting the best sound quality, and the big thing at the time was contact enhancers. Tweak, Cramolin were in all the audio stores, and I gave them a shot. They seemed to work , but the SQ always ended up going off - they worked in the short term, but only ended up making things worse. This drove me crazy, and in an "I'll show you!" mode of thought I decided to solder, at both ends, just to see what happened - this was all about experimentation - and, it worked. The SQ was better, and most importantly, it stayed better.

So, I made it a pattern to solder everything I could, and, it's always worked. The "why" is that it eliminates a significant amount of the edgy, vaguely disturbing quality in playback, that makes you want to turn the volume down when "bright" recordings are played - the more you get rid of conventional pressure connections, the more that edginess disappears.

 

[Wombat]

You can pick an audiophile by the over-thinking about the simplest and most trivial electrical components, e.g. audio-frequency, domestic system, wiring.

 

[fas42]

Some people just like to get the most from their recordings ... I hate listening to systems which are audibly distorting, for whatever reasons - I gave up shows which use sound reinforcement systems years ago; the irritation of hearing constant ear grinding, unmusical sounds made the whole experience a terrible value for money exercise.

Those who can't hear the unpleasant stuff are lucky - if I'm in the mood for music purely to "enjoy the music!" then a cheap car radio is good enough - I have zero expectations, and the losses of such devices are just right for relaxed listening.

 

[watchnerd]

Most assuredly not trolling. The path I went down 30 years ago was to explore everything that seemed to matter for getting the best sound quality, and the big thing at the time was contact enhancers. Tweak, Cramolin were in all the audio stores, and I gave them a shot. They seemed to work , but the SQ always ended up going off - they worked in the short term, but only ended up making things worse. This drove me crazy, and in an "I'll show you!" mode of thought I decided to solder, at both ends, just to see what happened - this was all about experimentation - and, it worked. The SQ was better, and most importantly, it stayed better.

So, I made it a pattern to solder everything I could, and, it's always worked. The "why" is that it eliminates a significant amount of the edgy, vaguely disturbing quality in playback, that makes you want to turn the volume down when "bright" recordings are played - the more you get rid of conventional pressure connections, the more that edginess disappears.

If a standard non-soldered connection is adequate to make closed circuit without signal loss, what is the extra benefit of soldering?

 

[Thomas savage]

Most assuredly not trolling. The path I went down 30 years ago was to explore everything that seemed to matter for getting the best sound quality, and the big thing at the time was contact enhancers. Tweak, Cramolin were in all the audio stores, and I gave them a shot. They seemed to work , but the SQ always ended up going off - they worked in the short term, but only ended up making things worse. This drove me crazy, and in an "I'll show you!" mode of thought I decided to solder, at both ends, just to see what happened - this was all about experimentation - and, it worked. The SQ was better, and most importantly, it stayed better.

So, I made it a pattern to solder everything I could, and, it's always worked. The "why" is that it eliminates a significant amount of the edgy, vaguely disturbing quality in playback, that makes you want to turn the volume down when "bright" recordings are played - the more you get rid of conventional pressure connections, the more that edginess disappears.

I don’t have any of this edgy whatever.., I found the nasty overloading in the room was defeated by a few diffusers and covering my leather sofa as that seems to give a unplesent reflection.

 

[fas42]

If a standard non-soldered connection is adequate to make closed circuit without signal loss, what is the extra benefit of soldering?

Making the contact areas gas tight. There is quite a science to the behaviour of metal to metal surfaces, and when contaminants can intrude things get complicated, fast. Google "Ragnar Holm electrical contacts" to see what's out there.

Signal won't be attenuated with imperfect contacts, but they form an area of non-linear resistance very quickly when atmospheric gases are present. Yes, at very low resistances, but IME just enough to cause audible effects. Solution: clean the surfaces and immediately form a solid barrier which permeates the contact area, and excludes all contaminants - solder is ideal. The only other method that I found works are the silver greases and paints that are made for this job - used correctly, they are as effective as solder.

It's easy for anyone to see if this may be effective for their system, and hearing. Run the system for a bit, until everything is stabilised; then in a single exercise go through the whole system and "refresh" every contact, by unplugging and reconnecting, etc, from the source to the speakers; and then immediately listen again. If this appears to make absolutely no difference, then it's most likely not worth concerning yourself about this any more.