[planet10]

I replaced all my binding posts with Pomona 3707 ($8.60/ea x 8, Mouser, etc.) gold plated copper posts.

Do you mean 3770?

dave

[BrassEar]

How refreshing that industry luminaries such as Frank and Roger would speak the truth about the snake oil of cables. There are many others including Siegfried Linkwitz that feel the same. I remember a long time ago James Bongiorno used a few hundred foot roll of 16 GA zip for his speaker wire. He liked the smooth roll off of a one ohm speaker cable that sounded like the large output impedance of a good tube amp.

[mark funk]

Ya! I remember that too about Bongiorno.  Oh shit, Frank has been trying to tell us the truth about snake oil in HiFi for 30-40 years now.



                                                                                                                               

[DaveC113]

Do you mean 3770?

dave

Yeah, I'm getting old(er) and don't remember that kid of thing as well as I used to...

[DaveC113]

I think it should also be pointed out that different equipment responds differently to cable changes. My SET amp is not so particular about speaker cable, it'll drive most any cable with only minor variations in sound quality. My class D (tripath) amp can sound very different depending on the speaker cable. So, I'd wager that whatever is driving the output of the piece of equipment has a lot to do with whether or not cables make mu ch of a difference.

I'd also wager that equipment that does sound very different depending on the cable you use is inferior to equipment that does not.

[Elizabeth]

Yeah, funny how at least half of all audiophiles must be hypnotized to hear a wire difference, and the other half so certain no such difference could possible exist.
Sort of like when The Pope would proclaim the Earth was flat i guess....
LOL.

[DaveC113]

The wireworld oasis 6 is the lowest cost IC w/ their "silver tube" plug that is silver clad OFC contacts with no brass or nickel.  It's a patented plug they make which always seemed to me a quality connector.

Guess if the option is $50+ just for similar quality plugs, then about $80 for a fully made 1M pair is not too bad after all.....

That looks like a good cable for the money for sure... I haven't tried it myself, but if the connectors are on par with the others I mentioned then that is a good deal on an IC cable. In this case, if you want to upgrade maybe they have a model with OCC copper instead of OFC copper wire.

[medium jim]

On Mid-Fi or similar, speaker cable is not as important as on true Hi-Fi equipment that can flesh out inferior cable or IC's.  Then factor in Synergy to the mix.  Even with that said, max out at $500.00 for your Speaker Cables (buy used) and let the well heeled spend the stupid money on the cost is no object cables. 

Cables do make a difference, but there still is Audiofool overpriced cable out there....

Jim

[/mp]

It's what is and what is not useless that we tend to have trouble with.

Well said.

[jarcher]

That looks like a good cable for the money for sure... I haven't tried it myself, but if the connectors are on par with the others I mentioned then that is a good deal on an IC cable. In this case, if you want to upgrade maybe they have a model with OCC copper instead of OFC copper wire.

The next model up, the Equinox 6, is all OCC, but retails for 50% more than the Oasis 6 .  I tried the Equinox 6 for a while, but just found that the OCC veiled the sound too much, and the bass was not as tight.  Don't know if that's a function of the geometry vs the material, but I'm finding in general that OCC tends to do that.

[DaveC113]

The next model up, the Equinox 6, is all OCC, but retails for 50% more than the Oasis 6 .  I tried the Equinox 6 for a while, but just found that the OCC veiled the sound too much, and the bass was not as tight.  Don't know if that's a function of the geometry vs the material, but I'm finding in general that OCC tends to do that.

I'd guess there's something else going on... that is opposite to my experiences. I posted my impressions of the OCC copper wire I've used in several applications in the link below. The IC pictured is so far the best IC I have ever built, it is even better than the Jupiter IC I have that uses 6N OFC copper. It is almost as good, but the high mids to high freqs in the OCC cable are clearer and have more detail. Not much difference in bass.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=108749.msg1130357#msg1130357

[ltr317]

The next model up, the Equinox 6, is all OCC, but retails for 50% more than the Oasis 6 .  I tried the Equinox 6 for a while, but just found that the OCC veiled the sound too much, and the bass was not as tight.  Don't know if that's a function of the geometry vs the material, but I'm finding in general that OCC tends to do that.

I agree with Dave, as every OCC cable I've tried is more transparent and open sounding, while the bass is better defined than any OFC cable.  There probably is another factor or two contributing to your finding.   

[steve f]

Beating a dead horse. If a cable sounds "different" something is wrong. There is no reason to purchase megabuck cables. Or high priced interconnects. Or magic pucks, wire lifters, and a whole lot of audiophile junk. The trouble is that magazines make a lot of money running the ads, and audio stores enjoy huge mark ups on those products. Unfortunately even some speaker and amp manufacturers promote this concept. Even though they know better. Fancy power cords? Your amp doesn't care. It converts the house current to DC anyway. That's the equivalent of choosing a pump at the gas station because the fill hose is different. Don't even get me started on bi-wiring your speakers. I am thankful for people like Roger who follow science and explain why they choose to build the way they do.
One last comment on speaker wire. Many pro woofers have four inch voice coils. Each turn is over a foot long. There is a lot of wire in each woofer. Six feet of fancy wound wire will vastly improve the speaker?

[Elizabeth]

We have one vote for wire is wire from steve f.
Funny how all the melodrama just gets repeated over and over.. like the person thinks they can convince anyone else.
Trust me: No one ever changes their minds reading this stuff...

[persisting1]

Trust me: No one ever changes their minds reading this stuff...

This statement made me change my mind   

[DaveC113]

We have one vote for wire is wire from steve f.
Funny how all the melodrama just gets repeated over and over.. like the person thinks they can convince anyone else.
Trust me: No one ever changes their minds reading this stuff...

Many times there is only slight or barely audible differences, and combined with components that react differently to cable changes you get a range of different experiences. I think most people that have more experience realize that not only components but also people have different reactions to cable changes... I tend to agree with most of what the OP posted though. My class D amp may react strongly to different speaker cables, but it's a huge POS compared to my SET amp and is only used if I need to repair or upgrade my SET amp. If you only had an amp like my SET amp you'd probably come to the conclusion that cable differences are exaggerated and don't really matter that much. I think a lot of people have crappy gear with questionable power supplies and output sections that make cable changes more pronounced than they should be with better designed equipment. So, most of the time I think money is better spent on better components, but it does take about $100 in materials to even DIY a decent cable, if you had to buy retail I think spending up to a few hundred per cable is reasonable. I'm sure a lot of people would think that's way too much money, but if you want the highest quality connectors, wire and materials out there it's not going to be cheap. I've heard from more than one person how good some of the super expensive WBT nexgen RCA plugs and jacks are, but I can't wrap my head around spending that much cash...

[steve f]

Elizabeth,

I don't think all wire is wire. A signal can be screwed up by some cables on the market. Then the cable is acting like a high priced tone control. I don't care about anyone's religious wire thoughts. It's their money.

Steve

[DaveC113]

Elizabeth,

I don't think all wire is wire. A signal can be screwed up by some cables on the market. Then the cable is acting like a high priced tone control. I don't care about anyone's religious wire thoughts. It's their money.

Steve

Every component is a tone control. Like it or not....

[Roger A. Modjeski]

How refreshing that industry luminaries such as Frank and Roger would speak the truth about the snake oil of cables. There are many others including Siegfried Linkwitz that feel the same. I remember a long time ago James Bongiorno used a few hundred foot roll of 16 GA zip for his speaker wire. He liked the smooth roll off of a one ohm speaker cable that sounded like the large output impedance of a good tube amp.

I use 16 ga zip cord for runs up to 10 feet and would use 14 if I was going farther. Radioshack, Monster and many hardware stores now carry decent stranded heavy gauge speaker wire by the foot. I had lunch with James Bongiorno last week. He is certainly an interesting fellow and his amps have high damping so I'm not sure he would still want an ohm in series. We work hard, especially in tube designs to get the damping to a decent level of 10 which is 0.8 ohms for an 8 ohm speaker. I hate to give more than half of that up in wire resistance. Speakers that have wide impedance swings will be more affected by additional resistance and John Atkinson includes this measurement at the beginning of his amplifier tests. I would also check that first as I believe that is the first large difference we may hear from amp to amp and cable to cable where resistance/damping is an issue.

Which Frank are we quoting here?

[mark funk]

I think that would be Frank Van Alstine