best cable for your money

smuggs

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hi lads when i got my front2 stereo speakers and my front2 and centre home cinema speakers i could only afford 35pound on cable and i have 33 metres to cover so i got oxygen free £1 a metre stuff off the dealer. im loving the sound out of my montior audio br5's but i have 20 squid left over and fancy changing the stereo speakers i need 2x4metre runs (8m in total) the two cables i can get and like the look of are van den hul in red £2.25 p/m off ebay or some belkin stuff £2.75p/m.

A- will i tell the differance as my front to ar cheaper and are differant lengths

b-is anyonther speaker cable worth getting for £3p/m or shall i grin and bear it and wait till end of jan and get some chord/qed stuff

many thanks simon
 
A

Anonymous

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Unless you're a believer, you won't hear any difference.

As long as the cable is pure copper and is sufficiently thick, what might make a difference are connections and interference from power cables etc. Fit your cables tightly to the amp and speakers (no wobbly banana plugs; no bad soldering -- bare wire will do if you only cut off the exposed ends and re-fit it after a few years) and avoid contact with power cables, and you're fine.
 

chebby

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Fahnsen:....no wobbly banana plugs; no bad soldering -- bare wire will do if you only cut off the exposed ends and re-fit it after a few years.

Not sure what a wobbly banana plug is. Never come across one yet in 30 years. Good quality, soldered plugs are best for me. Neat, easy to use and no risk of shorting. No faffing, especially when moving stuff around to clean/dust etc.

Tend to agree with with the rest of it though. Decent quality. figure-of-eight (or dumbell) cross section, OFC, multi-stranded cable. Maplin sell some good ones and there is still QED 79 strand which costs little.

I succumbed to using NAC A5 cable (soldered bananas and Naim connectors) but - frankly - it was probably not necessary. (Although it sounded better than the Chord Silver it replaced, I think 90 percent of the improvement was going from silver to copper rather NAC-A5 in particular.)
 
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Anonymous

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floyd droid:I think maybe he is on about the fit between plug and terminal. Some are not so great.

You're right. Lot's of plugs don't fit at all. Perhaps 'wobbly' is not the correct English term, but they will move easily from side to side, and even fall out if you pull the cable.

Which, of course, means that the connection will be bad.
 
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Anonymous

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Ny the way: Instead of listening to self-appointed 'experts' on hi-fi forums -- most often just repeating the marketing slogans of exotic cable manufactorers anyway -- people could check what's said about cabling in the manuals of speakers and amps.

In short: The people who make speakers seldom stress the need for 'high quality' cabling...
 

floyd droid

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Wobbly will do just fine bud , i knew what you meant
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chebby

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floyd droid:I think maybe he is on about the fit between plug and terminal. Some are not so great.

Not experienced that. Quite the opposite. I am used to plugs that need a firm push to connect. Guess I have been lucky.
 

chebby

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Fahnsen:
Ny the way: Instead of listening to self-appointed 'experts' on hi-fi forums -- most often just repeating the marketing slogans of exotic cable manufactorers anyway -- people could check what's said about cabling in the manuals of speakers and amps.

That's how I ended up with NAC-A5. It is what the manufacturer recommended
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Anonymous

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I had the same prob with my 1st plugs .... fitted fine in the amp but were very loose into the speakers .... now have those plugs with the spring clip things on the ends similar to these ...
 

jaxwired

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Fahnsen: Ny the way: Instead of listening to self-appointed 'experts' on hi-fi forums -- most often just repeating the marketing slogans of exotic cable manufactorers anyway -- people could check what's said about cabling in the manuals of speakers and amps.

In short: The people who make speakers seldom stress the need for 'high quality' cabling...

Your just full of mis-information. I can't speak for most brands like you attempt to do, but my Dynaudio manual specifically recommend using high quality cable.
 

chebby

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Fahnsen:....Instead of listening to self-appointed 'experts' on hi-fi forums...

Just noticed that you used that sentence in the middle of giving advice on a hi-fi forum. Does that not make you a 'self-appointed expert' as much as anyone else?

As much as I have my own misgivings about esoteric cables and mains leads, people buy this stuff, enjoy it, and pass on their experience and recommendations in good faith usually. They take time to give this advice - unpaid - and with the intention of trying to help people.

"most often just repeating the marketing slogans of exotic cable manufactorers anyway" Not sure why that was necessary to say (or if it is even true). Whether one disagrees or not with the efficacy of expensive cables, using terms like "self-appointed experts" to describe other contributors and accusing them of parroting manufacturers 'slogans' is, I feel, designed to be inflammatory.
 
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Anonymous

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chebby:Does that not make you a 'self-appointed expert' as much as anyone else?

Perhaps. But I'm just referring to what a sound engineer might tell you. It's easy enough to find out that there's a significant difference between what's said about cables by (on one side) sound professionals, and what's said by (on the other side) hi-fi vendors and 'audiophiles'.
My comment were, in fact, triggered by my recent reading of a cable thread in another forum. It started with a link to a long and informative article by a well-known veteran musician, record producer, critic and technology writer, saying very much the same as I did above. The rest of the thread was basically people of uncertain experience and occupation, claiming that this article was the unqualfied fantasies of a nobody and that they knew a lot more about this than the writer.
It's a good idea to look at what's sold by shops who deals with professional audio equipment. Typically there's loads of expensive electronics and speakers -- but only simple and modestly priced cables. Most studios will depend on cables an audiophile wouldn't touch.

As for speaker manufactorer's recommendations, that will typically be something as vague as 'quality cable'. To an audiophile, of course that might mean something else that what it mean to an engineer: A cable made of pure copper, with a sufficient thickness.

The companies that makes their own cables (like Dynaudio) will of course recommend those -- and as they know their customers will pay, they'll charge a bit more than the costs of materials and manufacturing.

Personally I love Quad's advice: 'Specialist audio cable will usually offer better performance than general purpose "bell" or "zip" wire'.
 

DIB

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Fahnsen:
Unless you're a believer, you won't hear any difference.

As long as the cable is pure copper and is sufficiently thick, what might make a difference are connections and interference from power cables etc. Fit your cables tightly to the amp and speakers (no wobbly banana plugs; no bad soldering -- bare wire will do if you only cut off the exposed ends and re-fit it after a few years) and avoid contact with power cables, and you're fine.

I've never given this any thought, can I ask what problems this might cause?

The way my system is set up on my stand is that all the cables (Power/Interconnects/Speaker cable ) all run down together through the cable management holes at the rear, with my amp up up at the top underneath the top shelf where my turntable stands. Therefore the speaker cables are running down alongside 5 sets of power leads.

.
 

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