Hopelessly confused???

[admin_exported]

Hi, everyone,

I joined this forum quite recently to get advice on replacing my 30+ year old speakers, to partner my Quad pre/power amp. I recently took partial retirement from my job and hoped to spend some of my modest lump sum on speakers. I did not want to show my ignorance, but I have not bought hifi for many years and was completely out of touch with what is current and "good". I have received much useful and generous advice and accepted it in the spirit in which it was intended. I have since read many reviews and many posts and must confess tjhat I am now totally confused!!

I do not know of a specialist retailer within a 50 mile radius of where I live. The last one I used is sadly no longer in business. Travelling a greater distance is not possible due to domestic restrictions.

I took the plunge and bought (rightly or wrongly) a pair of KEF Reference Series speakers. I am assured that they have only been partnered with Quad equipment and have not been driven hard. Only time will tell.

My confusion arises from trying to decide on what speaker cables to use, to biwire or not etc. General opinions suggest that biwiring is a "good thing", but jumpers also seem to be "good"? Should I try anti-cable jumpers for a few pounds or Russ Andrews Kimber 8TC at "from £110"? I really can't afford to spend vast amounts of money on cables etc, only to find that I don't like the sound.

I have almost decided to stick with my current QED Silver Anniversary cables and see how it sounds!

I hope everyone will excuse my rambling and let me have your thoughts and opinions, in the hope that I become less confused.

 

[5cats35]

Try QED bi-wire jumper cables @ £55 from www.hificables.co.uk

 

[JoelSim]

I think the starting point is what do you think of your current sound? Lacking bass? Want more detail? Or happy?

An example. I've found the QED SA XT's to be decent cables for the money, albeit slightly lacking in bass. An upgrade to Kimber 4tc added a little to the sound and especially added a touch more bass. That isn't to say I disliked the QEDs as they were fine.

The question really is do you fancy spending 100s of pounds on cables that will only change the sound by a small degree in reality? If you need to tone down a slightly bright system then this may be money well spent, but if you are happy with the sound then it may be a bit of a waste.

What are your listening habits? Do you sit and listen critically? Or is it just background music on the whole?

The other thing you could do is utilise Russ Andrews money back guarantee on the Kimbers, if you like them then keep them. If not then send them back for a refund.

I'm a big cable fan and cables can refine a sound, but if you're expecting a massive change then it's unlikely that will happen.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have a couple of suggestions for you that won't break the bank and hopefully help you make the right decision for your system.

The first tweak will cost you nothing; remove 2-3 or so inches from each side (run) of the loudspeaker cable you are using now and make up your own "jumper leads" . For obvious reasons it makes sense to use the same cable for this purpose.

If you feel the need to fit spades or 4mm plugs for convenience then do, but they will sound better without! Try removing the plugs from your speaker cables and use bare wire connections, the sound can only improve !.

My own personal opinion : I don't believe there is much if any benefit at all to be gained by bi-wiring, a decent cable set and jumpers made from the same are all that's needed, though one set of terminals and a well designed crossover makes more sense to me.

This tweak should improve on the sound you currently achieve by eliminating those awful linking plates that most manufacturers deem fit to provide.

Some people swear by connecting the main cable run to HF terminals & connecting jumpers from them to the LF ones, others think the opposite, only you can decide which you prefer, all you need is a little time and patience, and a willingness to experiment.

To help you decide, play music that you know inside out and the sonic differences should then be apparent. A useful aid is to compile a number of your favourite tracks on a cd-r, different music types etc.

My second suggestion is to consider buying Van Damme Blue 6mm Studio- grade loudspeaker cable £4.50 per metre approx' available by mail order, Google the name for a dealer, this will prove to be a cheap but very worthwhile upgrade, but like all new cable it will need time to 'burn-in'.

There is an excellent review of a pair of $13,000 Harbeth speakers at stereophile.com and these are wired internally with the same cable, which suggests to me at least that it's worth a punt. At a higher price-point there the "anti-cables" that you mentioned in your query.

I hope this helps, happy listening.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Ingstyke - which KEF Reference did you end up getting?

 

[Anonymous]

David - I got the Model 2. Should collect them tomorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with your instinct. Listen to what you have now. If there is some aspect to the sound that you want to change slightly then you can begin to look at cables. Only once you know what you want to change does it make sense to start looking for the product that will do the job.

I don't know much about bi-wiring, but from what I've read people suggest it makes little impact. Bi-amping is another story. This is not my experience, simply what I have gathered from comments I've read online. As such I have simply gone with jumpers rather than bi-wire.

I am moving my system to all Atlas cables. No reason why other than I needed a new run of speaker cable and interconnects and I settled on Atlas. Their website goes into great length about cable design. They don't use silver coated copper (they simply use copper) and that made sense to me. I never really understood why you'd want to use two different metals that have different properties in a cable. The silver would surely carry the signal differently than the copper, which to my way of thinking would surely have an impact on the sound. The silver must carry parts of the signal faster than the copper (as silver is a better conductor). How can this not mess with timing? I don't know, I could be wrong. I'm sure many will disagree, and it's not like silver-coated copper sounds terrible. It supposedly leads to a brighter sound with a bit more bite, so if that's what you want then perhaps that would be the way to go.

 

[Anonymous]

I use the old Hitachi SSX 102K LC-OFC speaker cable, but not many for sale now .... as wasdiscontinued a long time ago

Here is some Hitachi OFC cable (10m) with no bids yet and standing on £5.99 ....if it is anything like my cable, you will be pleased

 

[Anonymous]

If you've got Quad equipment, why don't you just follow Quad's suggestions on speaker cable?

From my memory, it's something like, 'hi-fi cables might be of a slightly better quality than zip cords. At least don't use cables that's too thin.'