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What cables do you use in your systems?

RayDunzl

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I went out and bought some disposable cables for my system.

As soon as I got home I threw them away.

1619386998153.png
 

Andysu

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I use cheap rubbish high quality ebay amazon grade cables that puts the audio snobs to utter shame. :p
 

brbsnacks

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Cable is Mogami W2534 with Neutrik RX series adjustable right angle XLR cables. (NC3RX)

I LOVE Mogami cable. I've been making my own XLR, instrument, and patch cables using Mogami and Neutrick jacks for years. For me I cant rationalize spending more money than this level of cable. I buy the cable in bulk and it cost 1/4 the price of a prebuilt.
 

brbsnacks

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Despite my objectivist leanings in the ‘hi fi’ sphere, I’d like you all to know that, when connecting my Fender Stratocaster into an old ‘tweed’ amplifier, different cables DO make a big difference.

Yep and Jimmy Hendrix used a 30' long high capacitance cable because he liked how it cut the brightness from his bright strat. People like what they like. I aint judging anyones choices.
 

Cuniberti

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DIY - cheap and more than good enough.
Mogami quad for speaker (12awg) w/FossPower gold banana plugs
Mogami / interconnects w/gold Amphenol connectors
Mogami / coax w/gold Amphenol connectors
No USB
Power / whatever came with the device
 

Andysu

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My god, my god! This tread reads like person's crowing about the healing power of crystals they own, or the spiritual power of their holy cards.
Yeah that is why I brought Psycho III Laserdisc "the most shocking of speaker cable all".
Not sure what audio leads was used for the DVD bogus dolby 5.1 cos the leakage of dialog into all the channels is distractingly so Near Field so only Laserdisc will tell truth from Near Field. If you get my understandable meaning of course?
 

becks

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IDK, man, this is what mine look like:
View attachment 117026
That cable I bought in '96. Before that I had something like this:
Competitive-Price-Thin-Copper-Coil-Wire-Speaker-Cable-Wire.jpg


just a wire, didn't even classify as "speaker cable". :D

A story as introduction:
I bought an audio system maybe a bit over 20 years ago and had to connect a loudspeaker to the system using a long cable (about 20m long, at least), while the second loudspeaker only required 3m. I placed both speakers on the floor, side by side, and connected them with cables shown in the screen shot, and there was a clear difference even in the output level. After replacing the thin cables with 4mm^2 cables, the sound was identical. Electrical resistance is no snake oil, it's physics. A friend of mine also learned it after I gave her some meters of higher quality cables to replace the things she used on her system - with a definite change in the quality.

Now on topic:
I just have registered after finding some tests/reviews/comments about higher priced cables. All of these cables were roasted by the crowd, and anyone with even a slightly a different opinion (check the responses to Gino1961) is also burned and nailed to a cross.

Now by looking at a comment where someone praises thin wires as adequate cables to connect loudspeakers to a HiFi system I wonder if this board is not just a circle jerk of narrow minded people who like to make jokes about companies and stuff being sold they consider as "expensive snake oil" while the truth is they have no clue about what they are talking. At least this thin wire cable comment points me into this direction, so I will read any advise with a grain of salt.
 

Andysu

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Never talk about money, politics or religion and rich elite people speaker cable. Oh but this, is freedom of speech now. well almost. :p

I never really tested the speaker cables I use with any of the test equipment other than using the multi-meter to test continuity that I have + and - the correct way. I never tested for resistance or even used REW or my Rigol 4ch oscilloscope to see if there is any dB differences or run repeated frequency sweeps to see if there is any Real detectable increase differences with the 10 so meters I use per five screen speakers the subs at the front and the shorter lengths for the surrounds and overhead surrounds. The speakers all of them pass with sine wave, frequency sweeps movies and some occasionally played music. Although I may do as speaker cable test if I can get Motivated Enough to doing it.

I have used in past telephone cable due to budget I think or testing I can't remember? You know telephone cable that cable that has thick single 6 or 8 wires with plastic covering, oh yes I used it for the audio outputs to the amplifiers and seemed to work just fine. I use XLR now and even the XLR are ultra cheap cos the cable four core is cheap and the XLR connectors are as about as common as mud sold on ebay as XLR has been around for decades.

Yeah, yeah I know thin telephone cable maybe prone to EMI/RF/mains signals being received though the amplifiers.
Speakers often have thin or thicker cables inside the speaker connected between a passive crossover network well only for for my surrounds. All the five screen and subs are active DSP THX crossover.

Anyway I let someone else now ramble about speaker cables or interconnection cables. :D
 

MarkS

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Now by looking at a comment where someone praises thin wires as adequate cables to connect loudspeakers to a HiFi system I wonder if this board is not just a circle jerk of narrow minded people who like to make jokes about companies and stuff being sold they consider as "expensive snake oil" while the truth is they have no clue about what they are talking. At least this thin wire cable comment points me into this direction, so I will read any advise with a grain of salt.
All we ask is that you first prove to yourself that you can hear a difference (between, say, two different cables) by listening blind. You do this by
laying out both cables, and then having a friend hook up one or the other, in such a way that you cannot tell (by sight) which is actually hooked up to the speaker. Then you listen to your system, and judge which cable is hooked up. Later (how much later does not matter), your friend flips a coin, and hooks up one or the other of the two cables, again in such a way that you cannot tell by sight which is hooked up. Then you listen and judge. Repeat several times. If you are right every time, you have a case.

Our problem is that no one ever actually does this. People listen while knowing which cable (or whatever) is in their system. Most people have no idea how susceptible they are (as we all are) to knowledge-induced bias. Watch a video on the McGurk Effect to see (and hear) this in action.

Your example of a long run of thin cable that adds significant resistance is a well known and easily measurable effect. No one here would dispute that this can change the sound.
 

0hm357aW

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You might want to take a look this Cable:
Gotham AG - Gotham Cables - 10701 GAC-3 - powered by cloudrexx

Imo one of the best Cables for XLR. They have one which is even better but its a bit cumbersome. Imo for Hifi the GAC-3 is better suited.
Gotham AG - Gotham Cables - 11301 - powered by cloudrexx

Their GAC-1 Ultrapro is a very good RCA Cable.

Edit: Silver solder, despite being used routinely by Cable Manufacturers is a questionable decision. Silver makes solder joints more brittle and less mechanical robust. So it's the stupiest idea you can use on Plugs. Classic 60/40 or better 63/37 is best for Connectors. High Silver makes Soldering flow much better when using lead-free solder, so if you need to use lead free Silver is ok.

Mike
You might want to take a look this Cable:
Gotham AG - Gotham Cables - 10701 GAC-3 - powered by cloudrexx

Imo one of the best Cables for XLR. They have one which is even better but its a bit cumbersome. Imo for Hifi the GAC-3 is better suited.
Gotham AG - Gotham Cables - 11301 - powered by cloudrexx

Their GAC-1 Ultrapro is a very good RCA Cable.

Edit: Silver solder, despite being used routinely by Cable Manufacturers is a questionable decision. Silver makes solder joints more brittle and less mechanical robust. So it's the stupiest idea you can use on Plugs. Classic 60/40 or better 63/37 is best for Connectors. High Silver makes Soldering flow much better when using lead-free solder, so if you need to use lead free Silver is ok.

Mike

Both Gotham wires look good. The Mogami 2534 are similar to the 11301 with 4 individual conductors but with main difference being Mogami has larger copper wire size overall. (Mogami 4x24AWG.).

Other interesting difference is design of insulation jackets of each conductor and the shield design.

I still haven't put my cables together yet but I picked them thinking the larger main conductors were of high value because of more copper. My cables will be shor at about 10" of cable length.

The silver solder I have is lead free. I also have some other solder around but the silver got my attention because of conductivity properties of silver.

Hopefully I'll get these cables put together soon.

Thanks.
 

Bulldogger

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I use 4 conductor 12 ga power cord from Home Depot for speaker cables but only use two of the conductors. All interconnects are Blue Jeans cables that I got off Ebay used. I have a Dh Labs Mirage USB cable and a Dh labs AES/EBU cable on the way. I splurged on the Dh labs AES/EBU cable, $85 used. Lastly, I use Monoprice 12 guage inwall cables for surrounds.
 

CMOT

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I have an interconnect question. I connect my L/R preamp outs from my Denon 3311ci to my Peachtree Grand Integrated (into the Aux/HT) inputs - all RCA. Using 6 ft interconnects. I was using some random cables that probably cost $30 (standard "audio" RCAs of nominally decent quality in terms of actual RCA connectors and their build). When I was reconnecting things recently, I subbed in some Monoprice cables unintentionally. The PT always had some hum/hiss only through this input (rest are dead silent) - I verified that this was the 3311 because other devices input to the same Aux/HT input are dead silent. But when I subbed in the mono price cables the hum and hiss was MUCH worse. So went back to the older cables I was using but thought, hmm, maybe better shielded cables would work better (I have tried everything to ensure no ground loops, etc). So got this: Mogami 2524 RCA cable from event horizon services. Seems to be good build quality and better shielding. They were $30 I think for the pair. So subbed these in. Maybe reduced hiss/hum a bit? Still there. Entirely masked by playing anything so not a big deal, but can't figure out how to just rid the system of this noise. I would have just said the 3311ci was noisy, but the "cable effect" on the noise makes me wonder? Any suggestions?
 

SIY

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I have an interconnect question. I connect my L/R preamp outs from my Denon 3311ci to my Peachtree Grand Integrated (into the Aux/HT) inputs - all RCA. Using 6 ft interconnects. I was using some random cables that probably cost $30 (standard "audio" RCAs of nominally decent quality in terms of actual RCA connectors and their build). When I was reconnecting things recently, I subbed in some Monoprice cables unintentionally. The PT always had some hum/hiss only through this input (rest are dead silent) - I verified that this was the 3311 because other devices input to the same Aux/HT input are dead silent. But when I subbed in the mono price cables the hum and hiss was MUCH worse. So went back to the older cables I was using but thought, hmm, maybe better shielded cables would work better (I have tried everything to ensure no ground loops, etc). So got this: Mogami 2524 RCA cable from event horizon services. Seems to be good build quality and better shielding. They were $30 I think for the pair. So subbed these in. Maybe reduced hiss/hum a bit? Still there. Entirely masked by playing anything so not a big deal, but can't figure out how to just rid the system of this noise. I would have just said the 3311ci was noisy, but the "cable effect" on the noise makes me wonder? Any suggestions?

The Denon may need repair. I've experienced the same thing when a component is oscillation- it becomes VERY twitchy about load. Do you have access to an oscilloscope?
 

CMOT

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I do!

What should I be looking for? The amps seem to be fine - no hum or hiss for those speakers driven directly by the denon.... The Denon has produced this hum/hiss for a long time via the preamp.

thanks!!!
 

SIY

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I do!

What should I be looking for? The amps seem to be fine - no hum or hiss for those speakers driven directly by the denon.... The Denon has produced this hum/hiss for a long time via the preamp.

thanks!!!

Look at the pre output for high frequency hash or possibly even a single frequency at RF.
 

CMOT

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Look at the pre output for high frequency hash or possibly even a single frequency at RF.

Won't there be, by definition since I can hear a hum/hiss, some high frequency hash? Something is generating that sound since it isn't the PeachTree... I will try it - I am pretty sure it will be there. At that point, it is a repair question, correct? Given what that is likely to cost, maybe a replace...

thanks.
 

SIY

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Won't there be, by definition since I can hear a hum/hiss, some high frequency hash? Something is generating that sound since it isn't the PeachTree... I will try it - I am pretty sure it will be there. At that point, it is a repair question, correct? Given what that is likely to cost, maybe a replace...

thanks.

An RF oscillation is well above audible range, which is why you need the scope to detect it. But it can cause all sorts of funny audible noises and even microphonic effects.

There's other possible causes, but this is a common one and very easy to check.
 
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