speaker cable needed?

[knacker]

Due to an accident with a 3 year old's scissors, I need some replacement speaker cable as my old trusty has been destroyed and no chance to save.

What cable would be a good replacement for my mission biwire cable- I don't want anything silver as it is too bright for my system and room.

I would need a run of 5m and 2.5m tvmia

 

[aliEnRIK]

Van Damme UP LC-OFC - less grain than standard OFC

Cheap and sounds awesome for the money (Just buy two lengths to bi wire)

 

[knacker]

have just ordered som Van Damme stuff from Fleabay so we'll see

 

[Petherick]

Van Damme UP LC-OFC - less grain than standard OFC

Cheap and sounds awesome for the money (Just buy two lengths to bi wire)

A genuine question, aliEnRIK; I've seen this same comment posted a few times by you, what exactly do you mean by 'less grain'?

 

[aliEnRIK]

A genuine question, aliEnRIK; I've seen this same comment posted a few times by you, what exactly do you mean by 'less grain'?

Most metals have a grain structure

OCC has no grain (And tends to be expensive to buy these days), LC-OFC has less grain than standard OFC

Less grain means a purer signal (Electrons dont have to work as hard). The Van Damme to my ears sounds far better than most of these so called 'branded' cables

Personally I now use Atlas Titan and Ascent which uses OCC (Costs FAR more than van damme though)

 

[aliEnRIK]

have just ordered som Van Damme stuff from Fleabay so we'll see

You sure its UP LC-OFC and not the 'blue' which nearly everyone buys?

 

[the record spot]

Just to provide an alternative view, I've used Audioquest Type IV for many years, which was excellent. I read a few comments on former McIntosh engineer Roger Russell's site around the importance not so much of the cost of a cable, more the capacitance and resistance of the wire itself. His site at http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#resistancehigh will give some background here.

A year or so ago, I bought, having read some of his comments and others elsewhere, 10 metres of single-wired 322 strand copper cable from Digitalis Direct on Ebay. £5.49 delivered. Removed the Audioquest, in went the cheapo stuff as did some rapidly knocked up cable jumpers and...no difference. Which is to say it sounded excellent.

My take on all of this is that you will get substantially more mileage out of moving your speakers around or finding good masterings of digital music than you will by wire swapping (and more fun, particularly if you go to somewhere like the Steve Hoffman forum which is a treasure trove of useful info) (and no, not all CDs are the same even if it's the same album we're talking about!).

IMO much of the harsh brightness you get in many systems now is less to do with the wiring between the components and far more to do with the unwanted effects of exaggerated production and mastering techniques and the current trend in electronics towards a brighter sound. Get that balance right and the wiring becomes what it is - incidental and not the focus.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Just to provide an alternative view, I've used Audioquest Type IV for many years, which was excellent. I read a few comments on former McIntosh engineer Roger Russell's site around the importance not so much of the cost of a cable, more the capacitance and resistance of the wire itself. His site at http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#resistancehigh will give some background here.

A year or so ago, I bought, having read some of his comments and others elsewhere, 10 metres of single-wired 322 strand copper cable from Digitalis Direct on Ebay. £5.49 delivered. Removed the Audioquest, in went the cheapo stuff as did some rapidly knocked up cable jumpers and...no difference. Which is to say it sounded excellent.

My take on all of this is that you will get substantially more mileage out of moving your speakers around or finding good masterings of digital music than you will by wire swapping (and more fun, particularly if you go to somewhere like the Steve Hoffman forum which is a treasure trove of useful info) (and no, not all CDs are the same even if it's the same album we're talking about!).

IMO much of the harsh brightness you get in many systems now is less to do with the wiring between the components and far more to do with the unwanted effects of exaggerated production and mastering techniques and the current trend in electronics towards a brighter sound. Get that balance right and the wiring becomes what it is - incidental and not the focus.

great post!

I would also add that in many cases hi-hi equipment (especially on budget side) is also the culprit for listening fatigue. as you've said there is a trend for brighter sound and I think I the the reason is to achieve greater resolution. but it's not so easy to get better resolution by just adding more feedback in high frequencies spectrum to lower the distortion. excelent systems will sound very detailed without sounding harsh nor shrill. they will not sound bright nor will they sound dull or warm. they will sound simply just right.

and there's great point about the recordings. compressed records (and I mean studio compression not software ripping compression) sound really terrible. fortunatelly there are still labels which release great sounding albums. but those of us who enjoy mainstream music should not invest money in hi-fi gear this kind of music definitely sounds better on some boom boxes...

p.s. I too recommend pure copper wire.

 

[the record spot]

Cheers oldric. There is of course the non-performance factor of owning a prestige product, much in the same way someone will buy a fancy watch, an expensive car and so on to consider. People can spend their money on what they want to for those reasons, but they won't be sold short on performance by spending low if they know what they're looking for.

I've gone through a bunch of wires, mostly interconnects, in the last couple of years. I only have - and draw - from my own conclusions in all of this issue, but I'm comfortable with where I'm at and lean more towards the view the likes of Roger Russell and McIntosh have than the persuasive marketing techniques that suggest name brand wires are substantially better performance-wise than their generic counterparts.