Speaker Cables

[MdMa11]

Krix actually recomended 14AWG to me as they believe 16AWG will result in some bass loss - they actually recomended the Kordz Spectrum (and the new Kordz Master) cables to me but im currently using the cheaper Kordz Velocity 216 (16AWG) cause I blew the budget by buying a Wii and ran out of money.

This is interesting.... a speaker company recommending cables... either they know something we don't, or they are in cahoots.

I do hope they have done many tests with many cables and find Kordz to be the best to make that recommendation...

[djOS]

This is interesting.... a speaker company recommending cables... either they know something we don't, or they are in cahoots.

I do hope they have done many tests with many cables and find Kordz to be the best to make that recommendation...

Krix dont actually sell the Kordz, I bought them from HTcustomcables.com.

[daniel C]

ergh, yes, my mistake, mustn't have had my weetbix that morning. Double checked today and you are correct, however, most of my argument still stands, as a 5% difference on conducting, when the cables are ridiculously large anyway isn't going to make a major difference.

And I do (sort of) know what I am talking about, I am a communications and Electronics technician (apprentice) at the moment. so I sort of know what I am talking about. I agree that probably 16 gauge or less is preferred for high wattage audio applications, but again, I can't see the difference between paying $30 for cabling and paying $200, when they are both 12 or 14 AWG and either copper or silver. It would be interesting to see a set of scientific tests however, showing at what wattage the various cables start to produce distortion in the sound. I highly doubt at low listening volumes (because sound is logarithmic, each set of 3 dB's is a doubling of the power) so if an amplifier is capable of putting out say 200watts, then at 3 dB's down from that point, it is only putting out 100 watts, thus the throughput of the cable is reduced, so if your cable is capable of throughputting 200 watts, it should have no trouble with the 100 watts that would be used at normal listening levels.

If anyone has any corrections or errors in this post, please feel free to say so, just be nice

[jhmos]

From Wikipedia:

Electrical Conductivity (S·m-1) Temperature(°C)

Silver 63.01 × 10^6 20

Copper 59.6 × 10^6 20

For that slight increase in conductivity its alot cheaper just to get slightly thicker copper anyway.

You think you hear a difference? Show me the frequency response.

It has to be measurable, or its not there and your just talking witchcraft!

[Jliang70]

ergh, yes, my mistake, mustn't have had my weetbix that morning. Double checked today and you are correct, however, most of my argument still stands, as a 5% difference on conducting, when the cables are ridiculously large anyway isn't going to make a major difference.

And I do (sort of) know what I am talking about, I am a communications and Electronics technician (apprentice) at the moment. so I sort of know what I am talking about. I agree that probably 16 gauge or less is preferred for high wattage audio applications, but again, I can't see the difference between paying $30 for cabling and paying $200, when they are both 12 or 14 AWG and either copper or silver. It would be interesting to see a set of scientific tests however, showing at what wattage the various cables start to produce distortion in the sound. I highly doubt at low listening volumes (because sound is logarithmic, each set of 3 dB's is a doubling of the power) so if an amplifier is capable of putting out say 200watts, then at 3 dB's down from that point, it is only putting out 100 watts, thus the throughput of the cable is reduced, so if your cable is capable of throughputting 200 watts, it should have no trouble with the 100 watts that would be used at normal listening levels.

If anyone has any corrections or errors in this post, please feel free to say so, just be nice

Can you see the sound quality difference ? I am pretty amazed to hear someone that can see the sound quality difference between two different cables. You sort of know what you are talking about unfortunately you don't. Have you heard a system connected with $200 cable and $30 cable? I think the best thing you can do to inform yourself is to go to a Hi-fi specialist dealer asked them to try out their different cables then come back to us and tell us if there is a difference between a $30 cable and $200 cable, flicking through a text book won't help you explain why different cable have different sound quality.

[Jliang70]

From Wikipedia:

Electrical Conductivity (S·m-1) Temperature(°C)

Silver 63.01 × 10^6 20

Copper 59.6 × 10^6 20

For that slight increase in conductivity its alot cheaper just to get slightly thicker copper anyway.

You think you hear a difference? Show me the frequency response.

It has to be measurable, or its not there and your just talking witchcraft!

umm, witchcraft. Can you explain how two hi-fi receiver or even speakers which may have the same technical specifications and would come out sound differently ? If frequency response was the gold standard in measuring sound quality can you explain why people are prepare to pay a few thousand dollars

for a pair of speakers when they can spend a few hundred dollars for something with similar frequncy response ?

[daniel C]

"umm, witchcraft. Can you explain how two hi-fi receiver or even speakers which may have the same technical specifications and would come out sound differently ? If frequency response was the gold standard in measuring sound quality can you explain why people are prepare to pay a few thousand dollars

for a pair of speakers when they can spend a few hundred dollars for something with similar frequncy response ? "

apples and oranges there jliang. receivers are pieces of very complex circuitry, containing dozens of parts, and with speakers,A) people lie and 2 speakers with the "same" frequency response may be made out of different materials etc etc, producing a drastically different sound. (and it actually can produce a different sound. because the material making the actual noise is different. however, when you talk speaker cable, you are talking an electrical connection from one point to another. no circuitry, no tricks, just a line of silver or copper, with a metal thing at each end to carry a signal.

I have tried different speaker cables, and personally I don't use the jaycar ones, because I got a good deal on another type of cable, but it is 14 AWG figure 8 cable.

I have also tried in stores $500 cables, and it didn't make one bit of difference, except that the salesman was talking like it had, trying to convince me to spend the extra money.

Looks like your on a bit of a one man crusade mate.

[warnsey1]

Yes, their price is very attractive and I am going to try out their Silver speakers cable to see how it compare to my current 3 metre AN twisted pair cable.

I am pretty sure that you will find that they are not pure silver and in fact silver plated copper cables.

[Jliang70]

"umm, witchcraft. Can you explain how two hi-fi receiver or even speakers which may have the same technical specifications and would come out sound differently ? If frequency response was the gold standard in measuring sound quality can you explain why people are prepare to pay a few thousand dollars

for a pair of speakers when they can spend a few hundred dollars for something with similar frequncy response ? "

apples and oranges there jliang. receivers are pieces of very complex circuitry, containing dozens of parts, and with speakers,A) people lie and 2 speakers with the "same" frequency response may be made out of different materials etc etc, producing a drastically different sound. (and it actually can produce a different sound. because the material making the actual noise is different. however, when you talk speaker cable, you are talking an electrical connection from one point to another. no circuitry, no tricks, just a line of silver or copper, with a metal thing at each end to carry a signal.

I have tried different speaker cables, and personally I don't use the jaycar ones, because I got a good deal on another type of cable, but it is 14 AWG figure 8 cable.

I have also tried in stores $500 cables, and it didn't make one bit of difference, except that the salesman was talking like it had, trying to convince me to spend the extra money.

Looks like your on a bit of a one man crusade mate.

I am sure a lot of people pay good money for their cables and they don't see the sound quailty difference like you but they hear the difference. How do those witch craft cable companies survive when all they sell is no better than $30 cables and make no difference to the sound quality to those sold at Jaycar ? Companies like Van Den Hul, Audioquest for more than 20 years and smaller companies such as cat cable has been around for more than 5 years, please explain why they are still in the business today ? Why do these companies get return buyers if all they make is no different or the same quality cable as those cheaper cables? Audiophiles are not stupid to pay money if they can't hear the difference. Enough bandwith wasted trying to educate some fools.

[kodaz]

And here is where it goes downhill quickly.

[daniel C]

indeed kodaz.

Jliang: they stay in business, some of them, because they have a quality product at a reasonable price that when compared to the speaker equipment they are buying, the cost is fairly small. people are suckers.

take monster cables for example. they are very much in business, It doesn't mean that they create a quality cable at a decent price. It's called marketing, and they do a lot of it. You yourself are a case in point. I would love for you to do a blind cable test between good quality figure 8 cable and a $400 cable, and see what you think. Companies even have no idea what they are on about, most of the budget goes to marketing. Have you seen those speaker cables that are advertising skin effect reduction and rubbish like that? ITS RUBBISH. skin effect happens in cables when the frequencies being transmitted approach the 1ghz mark, you see skin effects on radars like I work on, which are sending signals at 5 - 9 Ghz.

Yet, companies manage to be profitable and successful marketing this rubbish.

Just because they stay in business doesn't mean that they are 100% correct. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[Jliang70]

indeed kodaz.

"Jliang: they stay in business, some of them, because they have a quality product at a reasonable price that when compared to the speaker equipment they are buying, the cost is fairly small. people are suckers."

take monster cables for example. they are very much in business, It doesn't mean that they create a quality cable at a decent price. It's called marketing, and they do a lot of it. You yourself are a case in point. I would love for you to do a blind cable test between good quality figure 8 cable and a $400 cable, and see what you think. Companies even have no idea what they are on about, most of the budget goes to marketing. Have you seen those speaker cables that are advertising skin effect reduction and rubbish like that? ITS RUBBISH. skin effect happens in cables when the frequencies being transmitted approach the 1ghz mark, you see skin effects on radars like I work on, which are sending signals at 5 - 9 Ghz.

Yet, companies manage to be profitable and successful marketing this rubbish.

Just because they stay in business doesn't mean that they are 100% correct. Sorry to burst your bubble.

I did not list Monster Cable as a company who can supply good cables at a reasonable price because I don't think they make good quality products, but there are companies who know how to make cables and design cables better than a electrical apprentice like yourself, there are companies who make cables and successfully selling them without much marketing. You would think I have not heard a figure 8 speaker cable unfortunately I have and I can certainly hear the difference between it and my current cable AN-C which is around $25 meter with termination I am running 3 meters each side. Sorry you have never burst my bubble because I trust my own ear rather than an opinion from a electrical apprentice who think he sort of know what he is talking about and I don't know how much certainty 'sort of ' actually represent.

[kodaz]

Daniel C remember you can't use logic to convince someone that they are wrong when their opinion is not based on logic.

[daniel C]

lol, too true.

enjoy your $350 of speaker cable there mate, If it makes it sound better to your ear then I guess it's good, I just don't think you should be sprouting it out to everybody that speaker cable is the be all and end all of home theatre.

also, I bet you are the type of guy that would buy gold plated extra shielded fancy HDMI or coax/optical digital cables. I won't even begin to get into why those are completely unnecessary.

Nice character attacks there mate. I am not just an "electrical apprentice" (although if I was I would be way more qualified than you in this manner anyway) I work with the Air Force, on military equipment, that has a value I don't even want to think about, and I have a number of advanced qualifications and courses, including one on, you guessed it, cabling.

I will leave it there unless Jliang feels the need to troll me some more with personal attacks, as I don't think other forum members would get much benefit out of our "discussions".

[AndrewW]

Audiophiles are not stupid to pay money if they can't hear the difference. Enough bandwith wasted trying to educate some fools.

That statement is ridiculous.

Anyone that thinks a $10,000 cable is going to sound better than a $1000 cable (or even $100 cable) is crazy.

And nice attitude at the end of the post. I just love a good holier than thou attitude

[Tweet]

Well, I've found twisted truck jumper cables on each channel of my 'AVR' to be the best cables to use.

Each of 400 Amps, so plenty of conduction to me plastic satelite speakers. The garage guy did me a good deal on these as a special favour he said.

Now for the extra long runs, I just connect a few of these in series and the convience of the big crocodile clips is a joy, just tape 'em up to prevent shorts, it's a bit bulky I must admit but I just run them under the carpet to keep 'em out of sight. The missus is real house proud so you see and I gotta keep it spruce.

Another thing, terminating is a breeze too, them big crocodile clips just clamp on them binding posts of my amp and speakers with no fuss....No worries at all.

Keeping everything upright is a problem though.

So now when I go to bed at night I just get a big smile on me face knowing that there ain't no 'loss in transmission' between me amp and me speakers and I am up there with all the other audio-piles of.....

C.M

[Jliang70]

lol, too true.

enjoy your $350 of speaker cable there mate, If it makes it sound better to your ear then I guess it's good, I just don't think you should be sprouting it out to everybody that speaker cable is the be all and end all of home theatre.

also, I bet you are the type of guy that would buy gold plated extra shielded fancy HDMI or coax/optical digital cables. I won't even begin to get into why those are completely unnecessary.

Nice character attacks there mate. I am not just an "electrical apprentice" (although if I was I would be way more qualified than you in this manner anyway) I work with the Air Force, on military equipment, that has a value I don't even want to think about, and I have a number of advanced qualifications and courses, including one on, you guessed it, cabling.

I will leave it there unless Jliang feels the need to troll me some more with personal attacks, as I don't think other forum members would get much benefit out of our "discussions".

Yes, just because you use cheaper cables it does not mean much what other cables can provide varied characteristic to the sound quality coming out of your system. Nowhere did I say that speaker cable is the be all and end of all home theatre, what I am saying is speaker cable as part of the link in a hifi or HT system do make a difference in the final sound quality as oppose to what you said that there is no difference between cheap cable and expensive cables. This is certainly true with interconnect cables and speaker cables. I am saying that base on my own experience and trust my own ears that is what everyone else needs to do.

How much bet would you like to make your assumption that I use gold plated extra shield fancy HDMI or Coax/optical cables ? I am happy to accept any of your bet. I don't use Coax, I use 2 $40 optical cable and I use 15 metre HDMI cable that cost less than $120. And I also don't use $350 cable pair in my system, if you read carefully enough I use 3 runs of Audio Notes AN-C for my main channel which is around $25 a metre I have about 12 meters of these in 3 parts and I run rest of my system using cables in the $8 a metre range teminated by myself using Banana plugs.

[Jliang70]

That statement is ridiculous.

Anyone that thinks a $10,000 cable is going to sound better than a $1000 cable (or even $100 cable) is crazy.

And nice attitude at the end of the post. I just love a good holier than thou attitude

I spent $75 on stereo interconnect and $220 spend on speaker cables on the two main channels of my HT system. I can certainly hear the difference when playing a CD on my system and certainly improve the sound quality of my system. There are $300 cables that do not sound any better than $100 cables as there is $10000 cables that do not sound better than $1000 or even $100 cables, of course there are $10000 cables sound better than $1000 cable, the performance over vlaue is not high on any cable over $400. But that is not the same as there is no difference between cables.

[sten1503561342]

Hello all,

I am looking some new speaker cable for my fronts (Jamo s606's and a MArantz sr60001 amp) I wanna spend about $200ish, any thoughts...

I have been looking at TARA labs but cant find any where in Aus that sell them!!!

Are Gecko Cables any good?

Thanks Sten

[Jliang70]

Hello all,

I am looking some new speaker cable for my fronts (Jamo s606's and a MArantz sr60001 amp) I wanna spend about $200ish, any thoughts...

I have been looking at TARA labs but cant find any where in Aus that sell them!!!

Are Gecko Cables any good?

Thanks Sten

Don't flame me on this one, I think Taralab are very expensive, they are a bit like Monster cables and Audioquest and spend quite a bit of their budget on marketing their products. You are saying $200 for cable upgrade but roughly what is the length of your new speaker cable ? Speaker cable will make some improvement to the sound of your system but on the whole I think better interconnect will bring more noticeable improvement in sound quality than speaker cable.

[Jliang70]

Hello all,

I am looking some new speaker cable for my fronts (Jamo s606's and a MArantz sr60001 amp) I wanna spend about $200ish, any thoughts...

I have been looking at TARA labs but cant find any where in Aus that sell them!!!

Are Gecko Cables any good?

Thanks Sten

Don't flame me on this one, I think Taralab are very expensive, they are a bit like Monster cables and Audioquest and spend quite a bit of their budget on marketing their products. You are saying $200 for cable upgrade but roughly what is the length of your new speaker cable ? Speaker cable will make some improvement to the sound of your system but on the whole I think better interconnect will bring more noticeable improvement in sound quality than speaker cable.

[Jliang70]

Hello all,

I am looking some new speaker cable for my fronts (Jamo s606's and a MArantz sr60001 amp) I wanna spend about $200ish, any thoughts...

I have been looking at TARA labs but cant find any where in Aus that sell them!!!

Are Gecko Cables any good?

Thanks Sten

Don't flame me on this one, I think Taralab are very expensive, they are a bit like Monster cables and Audioquest and spend quite a bit of their budget on marketing their products. You are saying $200 for cable upgrade but roughly what is the length of your new speaker cable ? Speaker cable will make some improvement to the sound of your system but on the whole I think better interconnect will bring more noticeable improvement in sound quality than speaker cable.

[Stephen Muir]

Don't flame me on this one, I think Taralab are very expensive, they are a bit like Monster cables and Audioquest and spend quite a bit of their budget on marketing their products. You are saying $200 for cable upgrade but roughly what is the length of your new speaker cable ? Speaker cable will make some improvement to the sound of your system but on the whole I think better interconnect will bring more noticeable improvement in sound quality than speaker cable.

What about a flame for triple posts...

[IndyJnr]

I just picked up some taralab cables today from carlton audio visual, very good service and I purchased my first taralabs cables

from them around 6 years ago. I paid a pretty penny for them around 49m in all but its a good investment in the long run.

Cheers

[Jliang70]

I just picked up some taralab cables today from carlton audio visual, very good service and I purchased my first taralabs cables

from them around 6 years ago. I paid a pretty penny for them around 49m in all but its a good investment in the long run.

Cheers

How much are they Indy? Tara Labs like Monster, Audioquest are way over priced in Australia. Compare their price in US and their

price in Australia you find that you pay more than double the price for same or equivalent product.