Speaker Cables

[cornwolf]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right area but a good enough starting point I think. I am moving house in a few weeks and I think it is time to change my speaker cable and what I currenlty have wont be long enough so I have a couple of a questions. I am running a denon AVR-X2200W reciever and my speakers are the Kef 3005se (I think that this the model) in a 7.1 config. So my questions are:

1) I am looking at the Van Damme speaker cable is it good enough for what I want it for? Cost is an issue because i require 35ft/10 meeters so I needs to be fairly cheap due to the amount I require.

2) Is it worth me crimping the ends of the cables? Does it help? I have a crimping set but never thought about crimping the ends of the cables before. The ends that go in to my amp are banana plugs anyway but is it worth spending the time on doing this?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

In my opinion it is worth spending decent money on decent front speaker cables, but the surround sound ones won't benefit much from anything better than modest multi-stranded copper from Maplin or Amazon or somewhere like that. I don't mean the stupidly thin ones you might get as freebies with the kit, but 12 or 16 AWG / 1.5 mm2 you can buy on a roll.

If you want flat speaker cable to go under a carpet then these can be bought cheaply on a roll as well. Just put the ends under the grpper rods, be careful not to put nails through them, and leave long enough "tails" to allow for your speakers and a couple of re-terminations / trims.

As for crimping, people here will get quite hot under the collar comparing crimped vs. soldered vs. grub screw banana plugs, all vs. bare wire connections. What I would say is that I always maintain it's as much about the terminations as the cable itself - 100 quid a metre speaker cable terminated with paper clips will sound just as bad as 10 p a metre cable terminated with 100% pure "unotainium" dipped in unicorn urine banana plugs costing 1000 quid each.

The main advantage of any plug is that it avoids messy termination of multi-strand cables, the cables hould resist plugging and unplugging over and over again, and the risk of chort circuits is reduced.

If you have the crimping tools, give it a go. Maybe use a sacrifical length of cable and some spare plugs to have a few practices first.

 

[f1only]

In my opinion it is worth spending decent money on decent front speaker cables, but the surround sound ones won't benefit much from anything better than modest multi-stranded copper from Maplin or Amazon or somewhere like that.

Sorry i have to disagree with that, personally i would get the same decent speaker cable for all speakers, especially if it is a matched system of good quality speakers.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

I won't comment - far too many cable discussions here - try a search. Just add that conductive grease is useful for banana plugs.

 

[f1only]

woops too late Robin you have made a comment or was that just a mistake lol

 

[Alantiggger]

Just spend as MUCH as you can afford on your speaker cables to ALL speakers......... most intelligent folks KNOW that it DOES make a MASSIVE DIFFERENCE, they just dunno why is all ....; )

lol

Speaker cables do not make any difference to any sound for any speaker tbh.

My younger brother got all caught-up with this many years ago, he read all mags from what hifi over as to 'how' speaker cables did this or that... we tried lots of them, many costing a small fortune....... sound was always the same though, go figure ?

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

In my opinion it is worth spending decent money on decent front speaker cables, but the surround sound ones won't benefit much from anything better than modest multi-stranded copper from Maplin or Amazon or somewhere like that.

Sorry i have to disagree with that, personally i would get the same decent speaker cable for all speakers, especially if it is a matched system of good quality speakers.

Fairy Nuff. Each to his (or her or ...) own, but I usually use "proper stereo" speakers for the fronts and surround sound speakers for the, erm, surround sound speakers.

I would agree that 1500 quid a pair speakers deserve 25 quid a metre cables, but not so sure the little boxes do. Kate Bush sounding her superb best? Yup. Absolutely. Dinosaurs or robots or helicopters or ... approaching from (or departing to) the rear? Not so sure.

Case in point:

I use to use two runs of Chord Odyssey 4 cables to each of my bi-amped ProAc Studio 140 "proper stereo" speakers when I still had them. 25 quid a metre x 3 metres per run x 2 speakers x 2 cables per speaker = 300 quid. For the surrounds (five of them) using just single runs of Odyssey 4 cable I would need about 40 metres of cable, costing another 1000 quid! No WAY JOSE'!!!

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

My younger brother got all caught-up with this many years ago, he read all mags from what hifi over as to 'how' speaker cables did this or that... we tried lots of them, many costing a small fortune....... sound was always the same though, go figure ?

Should have told him to buy better sources and better speakers....

(or that his particular taste in music would still sound flipping awful if he had the band turn up in person to play in his front room) *biggrin*