Speaker Cables

[pdg540]

Just for reference I'll post my experiences so far:

I started with an obscure set of Verbatim ribbon speaker cables I had lying around (originally made by Paul Gardner for VSA) but at 8' wouldn't allow me to move my D200 from between the speakers to a side of room position, so I started looking for longer speaker cables.

My local store lent me a pair of Nordost Blue Heaven in 16ft, did the job in relocating my amp BUT sounded horrible, really horrible!  Totally thin, severely tipped up to the highs and a total loss of sound stage and space.  Thankfully, they also sent me home with an identical length of Analysis Plus Oval 9, telling me the two cables would be polar opposites.  Boy, were they right, all the bass came flooding back, mid-range blossomed and thankfully I didn't lose too much detail and resolution.
The Nordost went back and I bought the AP.

However, by now I'd already seen massive differences in sound - similar to changing speakers! So of course, I couldn't stop there...

Next, I came home with a very high dollar pair of Nordost Frey 2, better than the Blue Heaven to be sure but still a very similar house sound.  Compared to the AP 9 still very thin and tipped to HF. Who on earth would pay $$$ for Nordost junk?  Maybe the Valhalla or Odin is better but at tens of thousands they'd need to.  I wholly understand everything is system dependent, so I took them over to my buddy with a high end tube system.  Same exact thing.  His electronics and speakers couldn't be more different and yet the same exact flavor profile.

From my experiences so far, changing from Nordost is like adding a sub woofer into a stand-mount system, totally restoring the balance missing.

The Frey were quickly followed by a pair of Anysis Plus Solo Crystal 8 and finally I found some satisfaction.  Still more bass, better definition all around, way better balance, more resolution, more detail and awesome sound stage and spaciality.  I could only find some 8ft and have reverted to placing my D200 back in the middle between my speakers.

I will say that for the price the AP Oval 9 are easily the best bang for the buck I've experienced across 30 years of systems.

The net result is a VERY convincing display of the enormous differences between speaker cables.  I firmy believe  there's more to come and am looking to demo Crystal, Telluriums higher end, Transparent Gen 5 and a few others.

I suspect my Wireworld Silver Electra 7 power cable is doing a great job but after I've wired a dedicated supply I'll revisit power cables.

Ditching USB and more spendy cables was a revelation and with Mac OS Sierra on my MacBook air via ROON server and AIR 3 I'm continually blown away by the musicality of everything.

More to come as I get hold of new cables and before too long a pair of sub woofers.



Interesting. I tried some Nordost Red Dawns as well with my D120 and Usher 718DMD. Within minutes I had to pull them out. I found them aggressively forward and they really smeared the soundstage. Really a bad few minutes in my recent listening history.