Help choosing speaker cable and rack

[admin_exported]

Hello,

I have been upgrading my kit gradually and now am looking at getting new speaker cable and a proper rack. At the moment my speaker cable is Gale hyper latz 250, a very thin cable. I am thinking of replacing all of the cable with Chord silver screen, has any one had experience with this cable, with a similar quality set up as mine ? did you notice improvement, are banana clips worth having ? . The whf review rates them highly, but i want to be sure they will be right for my system and future use if i improve some electronics. Also does anyone have experience with the High-Fi racks podium, it looks beautiful but is there any other improvements that are noticeable. I dont presently have a proper rack just an ordinary tv cabinet .

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[idc]

Hi Neil. I am not sure of the Chord, but they are popular on the forum. I would go for banana plugs, whether they screw on or crimp, they provide an better connection than bare wire.

Many do not believe different racks can sound different, but I am prepared to go with What Hifis assesment that they do. My inclination would be to go for one you think looks nice and fits your space best. I had a Target rack with a metal frame and wooden shelves and the sound improvement was clear.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi mate i use an atacama tv stand for my 60in LG but i bought it more for the weight of the tv. I also use silver screen cable and for the price its exellent. If you want to move up a little from there try some qed revelation cable, but as for banana plugs i dont find much difference with or without them, i dont have them on my B&W SURROUND SYSTEM WITH THE SILVER SCREEN BUT I DO HAVE THEM IN TO MY ATC SC11s with the QED revelation cable.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the help guys,

I have now bought some chord silver screen cable. But does any one know what kind of sound and picture improvements i can expect with a decent rack for my blu ray, sky hd box and av amp. I'm just a beginner with home cinema really, and i'm learning bit by bit, by reading the magazine and this forum, i'm gradually updating to half decent stuff. I know the podium stand is for hi-fi stuff, but i wont be putting my tv on it, and its just about perfect size. Currently i have just a normal wooden tv cabinet (bought from Debenhams)for my equipment with centre speaker resting on top. Would a decent rack improve anything visually and sonically with my kit ? Decent racks cost a lot, but i am prepared to spend money if i will get a tighter sound.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[ESP2009]

There is a school of thought (and not a minority one) that all you need, if the basic cabinet is sturdy enough, is some appropriately sized granite chopping boards from your local supermarket (or similar) plus some well-positioned BluTak (or similar - possibly squash balls cut in half). Fixes your kit in place and provides the isolation from vibrations that can cause lower performance - arguably.

I have been considering the Atacama Europa Ref 8 for my system, but wonder if it is really worth paying out over £400 for such a thing? Would it be money well spent? Some will argue not.

However, I would expect that the centre speaker will need to be isolated if it causes vibrations in the existing stand.

 

[b33k34]

There is also a school of thought, not a minority one, that with digital equipment and solid state electronics the rack does nothing more than hold your equipment off the ground safely, put your TV at a comfortable height for viewing and, potentially, look nice. In the days of "turntables" and "vinyl" there were benefits to isolating the deck but I'd put any attempts to carry such technology over to digital players or amplifiers in the "tax on the gullible" category.

The drive mechanism of a CD/DVD/Blu Ray player is suspended inside the case and there is also error correction built in. It's possible to get a CD to skip by bashing the case or moving the player but you'd be amazed how much movement you'd actually need (remember you have a player in your car). I think once, in my DJ days, in a church hall built off the side of a hill with a particularly poorly constructed floor we did once have a "jump to the left" during Rocky Horror's "Timewarp" (it was a long while ago) which brought the song to a premature end but you won't normally have this problem at home.

That said, if you look at the construction many of the racks are not as bad value as you might think. We made a stand for our kit and by the time you costed up materials and time it wasn't cheap - 10mm toughened glass cut to size with ground/bevelled edges is particularly expensive. By all means buy a rack you like and if you perceive that everything sounds and looks better afterwards all the better.

 

[b33k34]

The one thing that you might want to look at changing is your centre speaker. I very much doubt it will affect any of your kit but a speaker placed on a cabinet can make the cabinet resonate and if it's in any way enclosed the cabinet can affect the tone and dispersal of the sound. Some rubber feet or squash balls will probably help.