[Scottdazzle]

Roger,

This is probably a stupid question, but I ask because there are so many options for terminating speaker cables.  Is it better to use spade lugs on speaker cables at the amp end (RM-9) or bare wire (tinned or no?)?  Or does it matter at all?

Scott

[Roger A. Modjeski]

Scott,

There are those who would say its a world of difference and those who says it matters not.

As long as there is a firm connection all will be well. Sadly, there are many times I have seen expensive speaker cables attached to a speaker by gravity alone. This is not recommended.

Stranded wire MUST BE TINNED otherwise the individual strands tend to push out.

If the spade is the right size it makes things easier. Spades should be soldered to the wires. I find crimp connections deteriorate over time.

[Scottdazzle]

Thanks Roger.  Tinned wires soldered to spades it is!

[Roger A. Modjeski]

I applaud those of you who make your own cables and a standing ovation for those of you who solder things wherever possible. 

Given the conversations I have with my customers I see confusion over what makes a good cable and insanity of prices. One company goes for very heavy copper where another equally respected company goes for very thin. Tuning a system by cable substitution is like an ant pushing a Buick.

If you want to change the tonality of your system get your hands on a good set of tone controls. If you just want to roll off the highs a resistor and capacitor will do just fine at a fraction of the cost.

[Tubes 4 Ever]

Yahoo Roger and my hats off to you. Far too many manufacturers try to sell snake oil to derail poor design or quality control. I started my audio journey around 1971 with a Pioneer quad unit. man Pink Floyd and quad, the 70's, what a combo. But I eventually found a part time sales job in audio in a monster town of Rantoul Ill. Anyway sorry about the ramble, suffice it to say I have seen and heard a lot in the audio world, and it is refreshing to see a magic box maker not selling magic. Thanks Roger

[Roger A. Modjeski]

You are most welcome Tubes 4 Ever. I am beginning to offer good cables at sensible prices. Another member was having trouble finding long balanced cables at a reasonable price. I have these and others coming on line soon.

My efforts to attract users to sensible cables does not win me any friends among dealers. I got some hate mail the other day because I didn't support the dealer's high priced spread. I am just not willing to support cable manufacturers and dealers who can't even state the resistance of a speaker cable or the capacitance of in interconnect. I have yet to get any numbers out of manufacturers/dealers/owners. The blind are leading the blind here.

My cables will be labeled as to their specific capacitance and resistance. It's interesting to note that most audio enthusiasts have become to know the input and output impedances of their gear. The often tell me before I ask them. But thats only part of the equation. If the capacitance of an interconnect is unknown then the high frequency response that the listener is concerned about cannot be determined.

I assume that most speakers are voiced for solid state amps that have very high damping factors. While high damping is easy to achieve with solid state, it is very difficult to achieve with tubes and output transformers. To my knowledge, only the Futterman and my design sold to Counterpoint as the SA-4 OTL have high damping in the general area of 50-100. The current crop has nothing close to what Julius and I found respectable.

Speaker cables will influence bass control and overall frequency response if they have too much resistance. This is what bothers me about the current trend to thin speaker cables. I work very hard to make a stable amplifier with a reasonable damping factor of 10. That works out to be .8 ohms on the 8 ohm tap and .4 on the 4 ohm tap. Considering the 4 ohm tap, if the cable has .4 ohms of its own (and it can) my hard earned damping factor is cut in half. The result is poor bass control and changes in the frequency response of the speaker system due to the extra resistance.  I think this is most of what people hear in different cables. Given the cost of these cables this are a very inefficient way to tune a system. If adding half an ohm give more of the sound one likes then go buy a .5 ohm resistor and put it in series with the cable.

[bdp24]

I made my first visit to a certain independent dealer in SoCal in the 70's, and they had a thirty foot run of Cardas single-ended interconnect between their Audio Research Pre and Power. Knowing the high output impedance of the pre, I asked about the certain resulting roll-off in high frequencies. The dealer indignantly (how dare I question the layout and hook-up of his system. HE'S the expert!) replied, "Well, it sounds good". What did that say about his whole system? Something was wrong somewhere! By the way, the dealer is still in business, and still sells ARC electronics.

[Triode Pete]

Thanks Roger.  Tinned wires soldered to spades it is!

Hey Scott,
Sorry to strongly disagree but I found the best method (sonically too) to attach quality speaker wire to spades is through compression die forging. This cold-fused / cold-welded technique provides the perfect bonded joint (see video here… http://cardas.com/insights_cutting.php )

See you at CAF, my friend!

My $0.02,
Pete

[Roger A. Modjeski]

I made my first visit to a certain independent dealer in SoCal in the 70's, and they had a thirty foot run of Cardas single-ended interconnect between their Audio Research Pre and Power. Knowing the high output impedance of the pre, I asked about the certain resulting roll-off in high frequencies. The dealer indignantly (how dare I question the layout and hook-up of his system. HE'S the expert!) replied, "Well, it sounds good". What did that say about his whole system? Something was wrong somewhere! By the way, the dealer is still in business, and still sells ARC electronics.

You are likely correct about the roll off. Thirty feet is a lot of cable. I published a post about that today with a calculator to figure how much down it is if you know the output impedance of the preamp and the cable capacitance. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=50729.msg1341285#new, reply #7.