[DavidS]

I am using Audio Note cables (ANL) - biwired at speaker end - which I have been reading is designed to be used with higher efficiency speakers.  I have never tried different cables with my 1801's - wondering what others are using and what you experience is.  Thanks.

David 

[smithy666]

Hi Dave
I'm using Kimber 8TC in single runs. Been using it for a few years & like it, so continued using it with my 1801s, which seems to sound pretty sweet to me.

[fajimr]

did you see this:  http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=32064.0

jim

[David Ellis]

I am using Audio Note cables (ANL) - biwired at speaker end - which I have been reading is designed to be used with higher efficiency speakers.

I... really don't understand what this might infer??  Hmmm, are they a thinner wire intended for less current flow?

If you gents would like to audition a couple strands of CCC (and some other wire), Mr. VanAlstine can mail them your direction when he is finished.

I think the Kimber stuff is fairly decent wire in general.

I must admit not being a huge wire "fiend".  Sure, good wire has an impact, but some good rectifier diodes will have more impact at much less cost.

Dave

[DavidS]

Dave - I don't understand as well beyond what I have read - I am no doubt technologically challenged when it comes to understanding audio gear (Dave knows this because he had to rebuild one of my x-overs for me javascript:void(0);
Confused. 
What I read is that audio note wire is designed to go with Audio Note speakers which are mostly higher efficiency designs(90 plus).  A few capacitive values and impedence levels thrown around and it kind of made some sense although I have never thought I was under-served by the wire I have.  The knock was that audio note wire (copper based) would sound flat on non high efficiency speakers.  The recommendation is try something different with medium to lower efficiency speakers and you would be surprised and how much more dynamic they could sound.  A tempting carrot as I always love more dynamic sound. 

Some times reading too much can be a bad thing (hard to know what to believe) but for me I have never tried different speaker wire so can't say whether different would not be a factor, just different, or an improvement so was thinking why not try something else as long as it doesn't get too pricey.  My starting point to looking around is to hear about what is working well for others

Dave - I don't understand what you are suggesting about Mr Van Alstine and CCC wire?

David 

[smithy666]

Dave Ellis
I agree on speaker cable. I think you are better off spending money on better electronic components, be it polyprop/polystyrene caps, Caddock/Dale resistors, better power supplies (discrete over conventional regulators) or if you have s/s amps, more capacitance in the power supply amd (as you said) better rectifiers such as HEXFREDs
I have always failed to see how 6ft of speaker cable can have any real impact on the signal when using valve amps with output trannies - the amount of copper wire inside one of these is far greater than the average speaker cable, yet people will spend $000s changing speaker cables. Or better still, the signals in most amps travel on very small copper tracks on the PCBs (layers are usually 0.035mm) and the width might be 6-10mm if you are lucky. Of course they work fine, but dare I suggest that thickening these would offer a far greater improvement than changing cables?
In my opinion (for what it's worth), spend your $$$ on better speakers to start with, and then better amps, premps & sources. While I'm on my soapbox, I recently saw an article in a UK HiFi mag recommending a system where the speaker cables and interconnects were the most expensive components...and it wasn't an April fool's joke. Unfortunately some poor suckers probably took his advice...

[BrianM]

I recently swapped out $1500 speaker cables for ~$100 cables and if anything was rewarded with an improvement.

I also swapped out $900 interconnects for ~$70 interconnects - also zero negative effect that I could hear.

I then used the extra money toward a Van Alstine preamp and some Ellis 1801s (even though I'm basically happy with my current speakers...I just had to try them).

So anybody out there sitting on hundreds or thousands worth of wire, I suggest you try something similar.

[DavidS]

as I often am with audio gear the more I read the more I sit on the fence.  Brian what are you using that replaced your thousand dollar cables.

David

[BrianM]

as I often am with audio gear the more I read the more I sit on the fence.  Brian what are you using that replaced your thousand dollar cables.

David

Interconnects are Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 (LC = low capacitance). Two 2-foot pairs came to $60.

Speaker cable is Canare 4S11 "star quad" 14-gauge, bi-wired for the heck of it. (I believe the "11" in 4S11 refers to the fact that 4 14-gauge conductors in one jacket amounts to 11-gauge wire.) Two 9 foot cables with bananas to bi-bananas terminations came to $100.

I originally put money into wire because I was advised to do so, following the "rule" that you spend a certain percentage of what your components cost on complementary wire.  Thus I was afraid to part with it.

www.bluejeanscable.com

Read their website; it's very thorough (and extremely well written! for an engineering site) and pretty persuasive.  I certainly have zero regrets.

[BrianM]

As a followup, what appealed to me about Blue Jeans cable was their philosophy that cables do indeed need to be well-made and appropriately designed for their given task -- that while there's certainly no place for voodoo, it *isn't* otoh "just wire" (otherwise we could just use any old conductor).  That cables must meet certain physical requirements, but that it's not as though these requirements (i.e. carrying signal between components and speakers) have somehow radically changed over the years, thus justifying radical new design concepts costing thousands of dollars. So, spend enough to get excellent quality cable (and it is indeed excellent, sturdy yet flexible cable with quality connectors) -- that costs a certain, realistic (as it turns out) amount in real terms of material and labor, no more and no less.

[BrianM]

You might find this article of particular interest:

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/exoticmaterials.htm

[David Ellis]

I have some Blue Jeans Cable too.  The 30' long component video cable connecting my DVD player to my projector is from Blue Jeans Cable.  It's a Belden composition that is very well constructed.  I don't know anything about their audio cables, but my video cable is a decent performer.

I also enjoyed the rhetoric on the Blue Jeans Cable site.  It seemed very void of snake-oil.  The most poignant comment from the Blue Jeans Cable site is this one IMO:

Not only are quality copper wire and nitrogen-injected PE foam dielectric great materials for building a precision video cable, but manufacturers like Belden make the best use of these excellent materials by employing them in well-engineered manufacturing processes, with tight tolerances. The result: cables of the highest quality, relied upon worldwide by professional broadcast engineers when the quality of the signal is of the utmost importance.

This makes VERY good sense to me.  I have certainly found this true in the speaker building realm.  I agree with most/all of their commentary and generally don't hear an impact between standard copper and OFC.

However, the folks at BJC don't mention continuous cast copper.  The only thing in the snake-oil ream I now believe true is that Continuous Cast Copper does have a positive impact.  BUT, I must admit remains in the non-measurable realm for me.

Dave

[mfsoa]

BrianM,
I too use some LC-1. But I feel that in my system, the DIYCable DIY Canare kit was a significant improvement for ~$40. The LC-1 sounds congested by comparison.

Just my suggestion based on my system needs, if you are open to a little soldering!
Sorry a little off topic but I wanted to give you a heads-up, fwiw.
-Mike

[BrianM]

BrianM,
I too use some LC-1. But I feel that in my system, the DIYCable DIY Canare kit was a significant improvement for ~$40. The LC-1 sounds congested by comparison.

Just my suggestion based on my system needs, if you are open to a little soldering!
Sorry a little off topic but I wanted to give you a heads-up, fwiw.
-Mike

Soon as I get over the satisfaction of having swapped out $1000 wire for something less than 1/10 the cost, with no discernible degradation in sound quality, maybe I'll think about doing my own soldering.  As it is, the peace of mind from not having to worry about cables anymore, and to be able to spend on real upgrades, outweighs my curiosity about what another $40 would do. (Because, after that $40 I'm sure there's an additional $40 around the next corner...?)

I kinda think my stuff sounds anything but congested right now. By comparison to what? Not sure I want to know! (Yet.)  These days simplicity appeals to me.  My goal is a simple chain of realistically priced, giant-slayer type components for CD playback feeding some reference-grade monitors (hence trying out the 1801s, whose purist concept and small size I like) in a smaller listening room, that I can justify living with happily for years. CDP --> preamp --> amp --> speakers, with basic, competent cable, and the rest of my time buying more recordings. No subwoofers (hopefully!), no active crossovers, or high pass filters, or after market power cords, or superclocks, or phase inverters, or monoblocks, or outboard this and that tweakfest ad infinitum. For now...

[hubert]

Hi,

Because I'm very lazzy  but also very currious about wires, I falled on this site:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm
then decided to buy some 18AWG soft anealed pure silver bare wire and 16AWG teflon covering here:
https://www.hndme.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=82
https://www.hndme.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=89
then builded speaker wires, slightly twisted by pair, with no banana just folded and fitted into the binding posts of my speakers and amp, and as a result:
The most natural sounding cable I never heard, far less coloured than my $$$ Taralabs... for less than 100$.

[BrianM]

Hi,

Because I'm very lazzy  but also very currious about wires, I falled on this site:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/cables.htm
then decided to buy some 18AWG soft anealed pure silver bare wire and 16AWG teflon covering here:
https://www.hndme.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=82
https://www.hndme.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=89
then builded speaker wires, slightly twisted by pair, with no banana just folded and fitted into the binding posts of my speakers and amp, and as a result:
The most natural sounding cable I never heard, far less coloured than my $$$ Taralabs... for less than 100$.

Yeah, I thought the $$$ cables I had might actually be *doing something* to the sound, as opposed to just carrying it.  No way of knowing for sure, but they did have those network cases built into them.  When I put the expensive speaker cables back in, to see if I was imagining things, the music might have sounded VERY slightly veiled, or toned down.  Coulda been my imagination, but bottom line the difference between expensive and inexpensive was negligible at best.

The other day I was browsing through fancy member systems at Audiogon, and noticed a guy who appeared to have put quite a bit of money into his cables (along with everything else...i.e. I noticed he was using $18000 speaker cables).  So I decided to add it all up, interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables, and it came to around 158 grand.    That turned out to be more than half the cost of his entire system...

I guess he already has a Ferrari, and so didn't need that extra dough.