Sonic Link

[chris_bates1974]

Thinking about upgrades, decided to check what speaker cables I have. They're Sonic Link AST75 biwire and I can find nothing about them really online.

any info would be welcome, as well as where they sit price wise in order to help me think of alternatives....

thanks...

 

[andyjm]

Thinking about upgrades, decided to check what speaker cables I have. They're Sonic Link AST75 biwire and I can find nothing about them really online.

any info would be welcome, as well as where they sit price wise in order to help me think of alternatives....

thanks...

Chris, price has nothing to do with the performance of a speaker cable, and generally only reflects the marketing budget of the cable supplier.

A better question might be to consider the electrical parameters of the cable. About the only thing that matters with speaker cables is resistance, and given that most cables are copper, that means relative size of the cable.

For all 'normal' home installations, a cable with a cross sectional area (CSA) of 2.5mm^2 is fine. If your existing cable is this thick (or thicker) then no amount of money thrown at alternative cables will alter the laws of physics and make the sound coming out of the speakers better.

You may hear fanciful tales of 'bright' and 'fast' cables with good 'timing'. I have no idea what these terms mean, and I suspect neither do the posters using them.

A good quality cable can be purchased for 75p per metre. Any more is (in my opinion) a waste of money.

 

[chris_bates1974]

Thanks Andy, I'm aware of the eternal debate as to whether cables are worth any money or not, and whether they can influence the sound of a system. I appreciate your comments, but I didn't want to start another debate on cables.

So, does anyone know anything that can help me out here?

Thanks everyone.....

 

[andyjm]

OK. So putting the voodoo to one side, as far as I can see, 'Sonic Link' changed their name to 'Black Rhodium' in the early 00's. Assuming (possibly a big assumption) that all they did was sprinkle some marketing fairy dust and change the names of their products, then the current product in their range that seems to be the same as yours is 'Jive Biwire'

Ignoring the choice of company name (rhodium is not actually a great conductor), the Jive Biwire is 4 x 1.5mm^2 tin plated copper conductors. If you have access to a micrometer, you could measure the strand diameter of your cables and figure out the total cross sectional area to see whether it is 1.5mm^2 - which may help identify your product.

Unless you are bi-amping, then biwiring is generally a bad idea. If you are not bi-amping, the best upgrade you could make would be to connect the respective positive and negative conductors together at both ends of the cable (red to red and black to black) to parallel up the conductors. If you have removed the shorting plate on your speakers, put it back.

This will take your 1.5mm^2 (a bit thin for long runs) up to 3mm^2 which will be more than adequate.

Good luck.

 

[chris_bates1974]

OK, thanks very much.... I thought bi-wiring was one of those "Do it where possible" things, so always have done....

I'll muck around tonight and see what happens!