What kind of Cables are you using for your 4345s, or any type of Horn speakers ?

[boputnam]

I ... run ... standard good quality 12 ga. speaker wire.

You've gotten lots of good advice.

I'm with Rob on this, and I use twisted-pair. Keep lengths the same and short as possible...

[SEAWOLF97]

Back in the days (1972/3 ?) that I didnt have 2 nickles to rub together and cudnt even afford RailroadShack speaker wire , somewhere I came up with a big roll of 4 (solid) wire telephone cable ( you know, that stuff with pink casing) ..anyway I ran it to a speaker and twisted 2 wires into one , for each terminal , surprisingly , it sounded very good....wouldnt hesitate to do it again , (after the upcoming depression)

[scott fitlin]

You don't mean I'm supposed to do that in my own driveway, do you?

Living small in Central VA.

YOU DON'T LIVE IN NYC, OBVIOUSLY!

Casuse if it aint nailed down, or locked up tight.....

[Tweak48]

I didn't play that game!

Remember when people didn't used to lock their vehicle doors?

When I arrived in my small college town in 1972 (Logan, Utah), people left their keys in the car all the time, and never locked their front doors when they went to bed.

[robertbartsch]

I don't believe there is a shred of evidence that expensive cables provide ANY performance benefit except to the manufacturer.

Anyway, I try to use 18 gauge copper when ever I can.


If your diaphragms are old and of aluminum construction, try swapping them out with new units. Apparently, titanium diaphragms are much less subject to getting brittle with age.

[scott fitlin]

I don't believe there is a shred of evidence that expensive cables provide ANY performance benefit except to the manufacturer.

I don't know if there "ISN'T" a shred of evidence, because if you bench test a cable, there are measurable differences. Thats a fact, and many an engineer has said to me, YES, it's measurable but they didn't know if we could actually hear it or not.

For sure, a cable with high capacitance will affect high frequencies. And inductance is another thing that some cables have more of, and cables resistance baries among brands as well then another brand of cable.

My take is, todays high end cable companies strive to make cable with virtually nil capacitance, and nil inductance, and virtually nil resistance which explains to me why when I try a certain cable, the highs start to sound too bright or edgy to me, and also why some cables seem to sound like I bumped the gain up a hair, and others seem like a slight gain drop. It is also noticeable to me in my preamp volume and tone control knobs rersponse, If I put a Kimber cable between my Mixer and EQ,s, I dont have to push my volume control to the same setting as with a standard fare cable.

For me, YES, it is noticeable, BUT, DO I LIKE the results? That, to me, is the real question, and thus far, the answer is pretty much no to the 10 moderately expensive cables I tried!

OTOH, I, on a whim, bought a couple of rolls of that W.E. wire, and T & B spade lugs, and some switchcraft connectors, and made me some interconnects, the W.E. c;loth jacketed 22awg stranded wire, 50ft rolls, $11.00 ea, Switchcraft standard XLR, $3.00ea, T & B #6 spade lugs $8.95/box of 50, and THIS I like, alot. BUT, a fortune, IT DID NOT COST ME!

So, I say, to each their own, IF you found something YOU like, cool, use it.

However, I do feel many audio companies, and accessory manufacturers prey upon consumers vanity and ego, and snob appeal. Afterall, NOT just ANYONE can own a pair of the $2500 per meter, Uranass, Diameterically Opposed, Gynecologically Correct Flow Cables, Coated with Bullshitanium Oxide. Hmm, Yeah, Bob down the block won't be able to get THESE so fast, HMMPHF, he has to pay his mortage, and sons college tuition this month. I know he will be in agony once he sees what "I" have!

THAT'S what I think sells many a high priced unnecesary item in our culture!

[Rolf]

Here Me. I have NEVER changed a product to this day if I can't hear a difference ... to the better. Sometimes a amp sounds better, a pre-amp, and so on.

Sometimes a cable sound better. Is this so strange? It's all of the change in the same chain.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Keep them short and stout if you can.

My own view is a quality cable is going to be better then cheap figure lamp flex. Years ago I used a Naim cable with a special OFC / drawn copper, no bones it was better then cheap lamp flex.

But these python cables are snake oil.

A lot of the differences are the effect of the cable on the amps, not the loudspeaker in terms of L / C / R that effect the performance of the amp..some more then others.

[BMWCCA]

I'm starting to use 6moons DIY Whitelightning Moonshine cables.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/w...moonshine.html

I'm about to make a set of four speaker cables for my bi-amped 4345s from this idea. Anyone have anything discouraging to say before I waste a perfectly good $7 outdoor extension cord on this project?

[MikeBrewster77]

Anyone have anything discouraging to say before I waste a perfectly good $7 outdoor extension cord on this project?

but I do look forward to hearing your impressions once you have

[Beowulf57]

Cables can make a difference, perhaps more so in low sensitivity speaker systems and less so with high sensitivity horns. Also cable design and positioning can have an effect, e.g., Naim made a cable with the two conductors parallel to each other separated by about 1/2"...hey, that's a capacitor and some amps didn't like it. Or, why not run your speaker cable close to and parallel to an AC power line...or perhaps coil it and see if you can create an inductor?

In the end with a sufficiently low resistance many simple wires will sound just fine and cleaning and re-tightening all connections will improve the sound more than one would have expected.

[opimax]

I have heard if you deep fry the power cord it is twice as good as the ones that are deep frozen and cost a bit more, please try it and get back to me

Mark

[tom1040]

Forget the cables & wires. Get a McIntosh amp/pre-amp. MC402 & C46 (or tube pre-amp) will 'help' with the "in your face" sound you seem to have.

At least it does for me & I have S2600 speakers.

[BMWCCA]

Forget the cables & wires. Get a McIntosh amp/pre-amp. MC402 & C46 (or tube pre-amp) will 'help' with the "in your face" sound you seem to have.

At least it does for me & I have S2600 speakers.

Was someone complaining about something "in your face"?

I've had a Mac tube pre-amp for over 35 years. I don't use it in the main system. It's like an antique car that reminds us of how far we've come.

[frank23]

hmmm, a "what cables" thread, a recipe for high-end vs. plain copper works for me...

I use Van den Hul cs-122 for my low and high and Kimber 8TC for the mid driver. The 8TC sounds better than cs-122, but is much more expensive so that is why I use the 2x3m of 8TC that I have for my mid, the most critical part of the spectrum (200-1800Hz in my speakers).

For interlinks I use Van den Hul "The First" and "The Second" carbon cables.

I have an active 3-way system, that´s why I need to tri-amp and tri-wire.

Did the cables make it sound less harsh? They didn't need to in my case. I think interlinks can mess up your sound quite easily. Speaker cables do more with the ambience I think and do not create harshness. And I don't think you can EQ-out harshness. I think harshness is down to some factors you can influence like equipment and down to a factor that you can only influence if you are going for it. That factor is the crossover inside the speaker and its connections.

Btw., what is most important for good sound is good capacitors in your crossover and no "bi-amp" switches like JBL's sometimes have. Each capacitor type has its unique sound and I find our compression drivers are very sensitive to that. No wonder I think JBL itself is using biased capacitors (what is it called) in its high-end crossovers itself.