Speaker Cables

[GuillaumeB]

I have an 800 with Wilson Sasha 2 (arriving first week of July).

Adam

Wow, join the club! I also have a 800 and am waiting for delivery of the Sasha 2 in the next couple of weeks. Can't wait!

Guillaume

[Haas]

I can recommend the ZenSati Authentica speaker Cable - perfect between my D250 and Sonus Faber Olympica lll

[f1eng]

My Devialets are back at the factory being mended.
At first I thought I might bring my study or bedroom system downstairs but decided to give the old Audioanalyse A90 I had lying around a go.
Not wanting to damage my 130,000 Euro Goldmunds or £30,000 Tune Audio speakers by connecting a 25 year old amp with a fault I first used them with some SoundPax speakers, which for those that are unfamiliar are NXT omnidirectional pyramids. They came with a bit of wire of bell wire dimensions with tinned ends for the clip type connectors on the (£10) speakers.
I measured the amp's DC offset, played for a few hours to make sure all was OK.
Then, as a quick check, rather than re-running the normal cables, I connected the wires that came in the box with the £10 speakers to the Goldmunds.
So here I am temporarily listening to a 25 year old amp via a few pence worth of wire into the Goldmunds and it fabulous, massively better than I would have thought possible.


I am so stunned by how unexpectedly good the system is sounding I couldn't resist posting.

As some of you know I have never heard a difference between cables in carefully level matched comparisons, but had only used what I consider "adequate" in terms of gauge, capacitance and inductance wires with good connectors (I would expect differences between good and poor connectors) or branded specialist speaker cables.
This time the wire is a much lower gauge than I would hitherto considered adequate, and being very long it has a coil of excess wire which will add inductance.

So maybe my £15 heavy gauge speaker cables were overkill

[GuillaumeB]

Not wanting to damage my 130,000 Euro Goldmunds or £30,000 Tune Audio speakers

Now you're just showing off!

Guillaume

[ZincAlloy]

My Devialets are back at the factory being mended.
At first I thought I might bring my study or bedroom system downstairs but decided to give the old Audioanalyse A90 I had lying around a go.
Not wanting to damage my 130,000 Euro Goldmunds or £30,000 Tune Audio speakers by connecting a 25 year old amp with a fault I first used them with some SoundPax speakers, which for those that are unfamiliar are NXT omnidirectional pyramids. They came with a bit of wire of bell wire dimensions with tinned ends for the clip type connectors on the (£10) speakers.
I measured the amp's DC offset, played for a few hours to make sure all was OK.
Then, as a quick check, rather than re-running the normal cables, I connected the wires that came in the box with the £10 speakers to the Goldmunds.
So here I am temporarily listening to a 25 year old amp via a few pence worth of wire into the Goldmunds and it fabulous, massively better than I would have thought possible.


I am so stunned by how unexpectedly good the system is sounding I couldn't resist posting.

As some of you know I have never heard a difference between cables in carefully level matched comparisons, but had only used what I consider "adequate" in terms of gauge, capacitance and inductance wires with good connectors (I would expect differences between good and poor connectors) or branded specialist speaker cables.
This time the wire is a much lower gauge than I would hitherto considered adequate, and being very long it has a coil of excess wire which will add inductance.

So maybe my £15 heavy gauge speaker cables were overkill

Flip sake Frank, after spending all that money on the Goldmunds, now I can see why you can't afford decent speaker cable!!

[f1eng]

Flip sake Frank, after spending all that money on the Goldmunds, now I can see why you can't afford decent speaker cable!!

Well when I bought the Goldmunds between 15 and 20 years ago, they were less pricy. I auditioned them, Goldmund Apologues, Wilson WAMM and Grand SLAMM, B&W Nautilus, NAIM DBL and some big Focals and the Goldmunds were the best to my ears then. Mind you, I wanted to prefer the Nautilus since I adore the styling.
OTOH I am an engineer and since there is no mechanism by which a cable can effect sound quality the only way IMHO that anybody hears a difference in them (and I believe them when they say they do) is either the placebo effect, or expectation bias.
Perfectly functional cables are available for a modest sum. I have experimented in considerable depth with, and can probably afford, fancy cables but am still unconvinced.
The only ones that sounded better to me were MIT cables with the filter(?) boxes, and they were twice the price of my amp at the time, which is obscene IMO.

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Not wanting to damage my 130,000 Euro Goldmunds or £30,000 Tune Audio speakers

Now you're just showing off!

Guillaume

Sorry, just hoping to put things in perspective for those who have never heard of Goldmund or Tune Audio...

[Confused]

f1eng Wrote:

OTOH I am an engineer and since there is no mechanism by which a cable can effect sound quality the only way IMHO that anybody hears a difference in them (and I believe them when they say they do) is either the placebo effect, or expectation bias.
Perfectly functional cables are available for a modest sum. I have experimented in considerable depth with, and can probably afford, fancy cables but am still unconvinced.
The only ones that sounded better to me were MIT cables with the filter(?) boxes, and they were twice the price of my amp at the time, which is obscene IMO.

---

[quote='f1eng' pid='1053' dateline='1404766300']


Would you extend this logic to mains cables? If you consider that a stanard 13amp socket / "Kettle lead" can confortably deliver 3kw or more, it does not look like a bottleneck in a system? Although, there are many that claim that a good mains lead delivers more detail, more bass, changes tonal balance and so on. I know there is another thread covering mains cables but this does seem relevent in the context of your post here. I have never experamented with mains cables, so I have no view based on experience. I did hear Devialet with a mains conditioner, and thought it sounded worse! I can't recall the specific make / model though.

[f1eng]

f1eng Wrote:

OTOH I am an engineer and since there is no mechanism by which a cable can effect sound quality the only way IMHO that anybody hears a difference in them (and I believe them when they say they do) is either the placebo effect, or expectation bias.
Perfectly functional cables are available for a modest sum. I have experimented in considerable depth with, and can probably afford, fancy cables but am still unconvinced.
The only ones that sounded better to me were MIT cables with the filter(?) boxes, and they were twice the price of my amp at the time, which is obscene IMO.

---

[quote='f1eng' pid='1053' dateline='1404766300']


Would you extend this logic to mains cables? If you consider that a stanard 13amp socket / "Kettle lead" can confortably deliver 3kw or more, it does not look like a bottleneck in a system? Although, there are many that claim that a good mains lead delivers more detail, more bass, changes tonal balance and so on. I know there is another thread covering mains cables but this does seem relevent in the context of your post here. I have never experamented with mains cables, so I have no view based on experience. I did hear Devialet with a mains conditioner, and thought it sounded worse! I can't recall the specific make / model though.

Yes, and interconnects. I know people report hearing differences, but I believe it all to be in the mind, particularly power cables, which are just the last couple of meters of maybe a kilometer of basic but soundly engineered cabling, switches contacts and junctions.
There is simply no plausible mechanism by which normally engineered cables could effect ac signals at audio frequencies.
Cable makers either say nothing intelligible about why their cables may make a difference, or produce some data related to RF which amounts to the same thing.
If a modern piece of electronics is sensitive to the sort of parasitics commonly existing on mains supplies, to the extent it needs a (stupidly overpriced) last meter of filtering cable then the designer of said equipment should be sacked and replaced by somebody competent.
IMHO.

[Mka]

@f1eng: I could 't agree more. even after extensive blind testing, we couldn't spot any tonal difference on different power cables on devialet. I stick to my LAP Oelflex CY110 which have enclosed in a nice textile wrapping for the look (and cosmic interference). The devialet has a properly designed switching power supply which (IMHO) does not need any woodoo tweaks.

[GuillaumeB]

Very interesting debate.

Just to put things into context a friend of mine is a sound engineer in a trendy central london recording studio. He's worked with lots of big names and has produced lots of critically acclaimed stuff. Sorry can't remember the details off the top of my head.

We often have fun on the subject of audiophile equipment. Just to summarise his position - he thinks we are all mad. He reckons that room acoustics are more important than speakers and tells me that he (and others!) produce using the cheapest wires and equipment (and many sound engineers have terrible hearing! ). He also claims that there isn't really a difference between a £500 and £2000 speaker, as long as they are well made. He puts this down to placebo effect and expectation bias. But it's the room and the way it interacts with a speaker which is the most important thing.

After much impassioned debate (and far too many pints!) we inevitably end up parting ways and yet manage to remain good friends.

I hope we can all be the same on here

Guillaume