[Darrenmcc]

I have a Bryston BCD-1 CD player and a Bryston SP1.7 pre/pro and I was wondering what fellow owners have found to be a good match for interconnects & cabling, specifically around the $200-$250 range per pair of interconnects and cabling under $300.  My gear is paired with a Sherbourn 5250A Multi-Channel amp and Anthony Gallo Ref 3.1's.

[MAC - SteveH]

Take a look at the review of the MAC: Mystics

http://www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=985

[Phil A]

I have a Bryston BCD-1 CD player and a Bryston SP1.7 pre/pro and I was wondering what fellow owners have found to be a good match for interconnects & cabling, specifically around the $200-$250 range per pair of interconnects and cabling under $300.  My gear is paired with a Sherbourn 5250A Multi-Channel amp and Anthony Gallo Ref 3.1's.

Welcome to the forum.  I make all my own.  You might want to check this site out - www.empiricaldesign.net

[denjo]

I second the Empirical Design recommendation, particularly the 118 digital cable! It easily surpassed the Steroevox XV2 and Karl is a great gentleman to deal with.

[SFOX]

I use only Bryston XLR balanced interconnects and Bryston speaker cables throughout my Bryston/PMC system

[ian.ameline]

Personally I'd go either with what Bryston sells (if it's from them, you can be assured that there are absolutely no meaningful compromises to quality -- that's just the way they are.), or if you're a bit more cost aware, with the stuff from bluejeans cable (http://www.bluejeanscable.com/) -- they make great products at an honest price.

In my opinion everything else out there is either complete crap, or a complete ripoff (and sometimes a mix of the two).

-- Ian.

[MAC - SteveH]

 aa

[Lancelot]

 I'm not trying to be confrontational but I wonder why the Bryston 1 metre interconnects cost $200 U.S. ( the speaker cable seems very reasonably priced).

The cable they use seems to be a standard pro version with good RCAs. I like the idea of a cable being well built etc. -especially the RCAs- but I use DH Labs Air Matrix ( on my Bryston) with Ultimate RCAs( which people seem to think as excellent, locking RCAs) which retail and street wise sell for less than the Bryston. DH Labs seems to highy regarded as making fine cables at very reasonable prices.

I may be missing something ( that why I'm asking)  but I'm trying to see where the cost of the Bryston cable comes from.

[SF]

I have done some calculations on speaker cables that I will share with you. With the calcs, you can make a scientific decision, which is bound to be the soundest method given the price of cables. Each cable will have R (resistance in ohms/length), L (inductance in Henrys/length), C (capacitance in Farads/length), and G (Don't know what the G stands for, but it represents resistance across the dielectric that separates ground from signal in 1/ohms/length). Based on these 4 variables you can calculate dB loss over the entire frequency range. One caveat, these calculations do not take into account skin-effect increase in resistance with frequency. Suffice it to say that the skin effect is less with Kimber 8TC that I compared with Monster XPHP. I had some surprising results, which in retrospect make perfect sense. Now, the biggest problem is that most manufacturers do not give you the R, L, C, G of their cables. I have 2 PDFs by Niel Pass and Hansen who measured these variables. PM me if you would like to have these pdfs and Id be happy to forward them to you.
For simplicity (I could not paste the graphs, which is in Excel) I have provided dBloss at 100,000Hz, way past the audio band, but it increases differences. Differences are smaller at 20 KHz, but the pattern is the same, and I am not sure what -0.5dB loss at 20 KHz translates into in audiophile language: perhaps less 'air'!

8TC is 9AWG 16 stranded copper weaved (8 pos, 8 ground) with strands electrically isolated.
Monster XPHP is 11.5-12 AWG copper
One final note: The more copper the better at low frequencies, below is only results for high frequencies

8TC 5m
-0.29 dBloss

Monster XPHP 5m
-0.82 dBloss

8TC 5m + 8TC 5m (Biwire)
-0.29 dBloss !! no different than one run of 8TC (The bottom end would have a much higher damping factor, but no diff at high freq)

8TC 1.55m
-0.03 dbLoss !! (length matters: experts keep saying, shorter is better -- here it's logarithmically better)

Monster XPHP 1.55m
-0.46 dBloss (pretty good for cheap cable if it is short)

There you have it. Keep it short for speaker wire, don't forget the low end where more copper is best, and you should be OK with the high-end. Having said all of this I have 10 foot run of 8TC supplemented with 2 runs of Monster XPHP. I am rearranging to cut the wire-lengths to 5 feet each by moving the amp in between. If I were to buy today, I'd invest in Bryston 9AWG 5$/ft after I ran the RLCG through, but I doubt the performance would be worse than Monster.

Cheers,
Shafie
 

[James Tanner]

I'm not trying to be confrontational but I wonder why the Bryston 1 metre interconnects cost $200 U.S. ( the speaker cable seems very reasonably priced).

The cable they use seems to be a standard pro version with good RCAs. I like the idea of a cable being well built etc. -especially the RCAs- but I use DH Labs Air Matrix ( on my Bryston) with Ultimate RCAs( which people seem to think as excellent, locking RCAs) which retail and street wise sell for less than the Bryston. DH Labs seems to highy regarded as making fine cables at very reasonable prices.

I may be missing something ( that why I'm asking)  but I'm trying to see where the cost of the Bryston cable comes from.

Hi Lancelot,

We use the same cost/markup calculations for the interconnects that we do for the speaker wire. The only difference is the 'connectors' (RCA, BNC, XLR) are much more expensive than the 'cable' with the interconnect and there is much more labour in terminating a pair of interconnects.

We are not saying that there are not cheaper cables out there that perform as well. In fact I would suspect that a company that does nothing but cables could be much more cost effective than we can as we only do it as a service to our customers.


james

[Lancelot]

 Thank you, James for a very honest and informative answer. Your answers to my telephone inquiries over the years contain the same straightforward  approach.

 Bryston is the gold standard in customer service.

[Darrenmcc]

I thought I would add this as I was the one that posted the question. I have been able to take some cables for a demo since posting this. I tried a pair of Unity Audio Solid Links, JPS Labs Ultraconductors, and my Ultralink Platinum Ultima MKII XLR cables and compared them. The JPS Labs Ultraconductors blew the other to cables away in every sense, timing, pace, soundstage, clarity. These cables are JPS's entry level and they mate very well with the Bryston gear.  I am still going to try Hamonic Technology Truthlinks, and Carda Quadlink 5C's and a couple of others but I was very impressed with the JPS Labs, and this model is the old model.  Just thought I add that.

[denjo]

I have stuck with Bryston's RCA interconnects (Canare LV61S with Neutrik connectors) and feel that sonically it sounds the best!

[1ZIP]

After much reading of reviews and internet research I finally ordered a pair of Bryston XLR ICs.  Brystons commitment to a neutral sound, I assume, carries over to their ICs as well.  Plus the price was reasonable compared to the heart stopping prices for some of the cables I looked at.  Once the ICs are installed it will be an all Bryston system.

[denjo]

Once the ICs are installed it will be an all Bryston system.

IZIP,

You won't be disappointed with the Bryston interconnects and will wonder why you spent $$$ on other exotic brands! I have tried my Bryston with a host of "other" cables but always returned to the Bryston cables.

[werd]

If u have a chance try the holographic cables from Empirical audio with Bryston gear. They are the most neutral sounding cable i know of and i've heard the bryston cable. They r a little expensive but very good.