Show me your CABLES!! Please...

Well no, but ok.


A cable thread! How did I miss this?

The thing is, after arbitrary figure of 50 bucks, there are no sonic differences if the cable is built properly to defined spec for the application.
If someone wants to spend more for something awesome, go for it!

One can argue that all you want. The science that made it possible for us to even discuss it says so. Think about it before you two keep arguing.

Cable risers. Why are the all so ugly? There has to be a better way.

Don't get me wrong pls.
I love seeing the cables, keep them coming.
I disagree on the differences they can make, and I'm not talking ridiculous priced cables here, It's all about metallurgy and build, Impedance and Resistance are a big consideration and are the two things that are ideally low when measured.
But the types an metal or combinations of, and the purity of the metals can be significant to performance I believe and also experienced. Along with the dielectrics used there are a few things that have an effect of the end result.

I never talk about night & day differences, but whether the differences are obvious or not is what I'm interested in when looking into cables.

Of course synergy comes into play also, and the better the system in It's transparency and ability to show differences in component changes the more noticeable those difference may be. And no one cable will be the best performer in every system either.

You might argue this is not science, but i think you are better than that, as metallurgy is and material science is. What it might come down to is how audible it is in a given system.....this is where we might disagree.

So we may not agree, but It's an audio forum so It's no big deal, just different views & experiences and both are valid to those putting them forward the way i see it.
 
... the better the system in It's transparency and ability to show differences in component changes the more noticeable those difference may be. ...

Another perspective is that it may have nothing to do with "transparency" so to speak. For example, some preamps (or sources) have (relatively) high output impedance which makes them inherently more susceptible to influences of the cable, such as capacitance.

All of my preamps have relatively low output impedance, a couple spec 47 ohms. One specs <20 ohms. The highest I think is 300 ohms. This makes them relatively immune to the effect of cable capacitance.

Is that the reason I am generally unimpressed with cable changes? Maybe, at least part of it anyway, or not.
 
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I struggled when I was trying to decide on what word to use there, even that word seems to mean different things to different people in an audio/system context.
I agree though that there can be other factors that might contribute to some perceived or real changes, depending on what those are. Like high capacitance can send some amps into oscillation (old NAIM?) but those are few?
 
Here's mine... A motley bunch, for sure:

52" Bohlender Graebner ribbons, selected by Tom Bohlender himself.
Dayton Titanic Series I 12" woofers
Emotiva XDA-2
Emotiva UPA1 (4), running 350WRMS into 4 ohms.
Behringer 2496 crossover (mods in the "savings bucket", to be added soon... )
Basic balanced cables
Ribbon cables are teflon insulated, silver plated, random "braids", effective gauge = #12
Woofer cables are the braid, stripped from above silver wire, pulled taught and wrapped. Effective gauge = #8

Makes me happy, though.
DSCF1175.JPG DSCF1176.JPG DSCF1177.JPG DSCF1178.JPG
 
Here's mine... A motley bunch, for sure:

52" Bohlender Graebner ribbons, selected by Tom Bohlender himself.
Dayton Titanic Series I 12" woofers
Emotiva XDA-2
Emotiva UPA1 (4), running 350WRMS into 4 ohms.
Behringer 2496 crossover (mods in the "savings bucket", to be added soon... )
Basic balanced cables
Ribbon cables are teflon insulated, silver plated, random "braids", effective gauge = #12
Woofer cables are the braid, stripped from above silver wire, pulled taught and wrapped. Effective gauge = #8

Makes me happy, though.
View attachment 1013422 View attachment 1013423 View attachment 1013424 View attachment 1013425

Very clean rig, Well done
 
Hey ,, David D.,,,
Great looking rack..
And I like the Balanced look to everything..
How long have you been into 2 channel audio??
Is this your first higher level system??
 
Thank you. I can't take credit for the design, I saw the rack design years ago at the CES. They're 3/8 threaded rods, blacked with gun bluing, and kept oiled for rust prevention. The shelves are 3/8 oak ply, nothing special. I needed to have a place where I could put the TV, as well as quad amplifiers, and the divided, balanced rack just made sense. I'm a symmetry hound... I love a balanced system over a big tall rack, with everything stacked up on top of each other... :)

First? No. Oldest living? By far. LOL I started building my own speaker systems in the late 80's, and those were bookshelf speakers, with Morel/Infinity, Vifa/Seas, Pioneer/Pioneer, and other combos. Series crossovers, bi-wired, bi-amped... you name it, me and the "Audio Buddies" explored it. Our crowning achievements are still in my buddy Dave's house - a pair of refrigerator sized, 300+ pound transmission line, 18" driver gorillas, tuned to 13Hz. Fun... Those were put into use the Friday before the Northridge Earthquake, in 1994, in preparation for a large 2-channel demonstration scheduled for the following weekend. We had over 6kW of Threshold, Adcom, and NAD power to run the system, and the earthquake lent its' name to these Subs: The Northridge 94s. This particular system has lived (with minor upgrades through the years) since roughly 1999. It started with a pair of NAD216 amps in stereo mode, then 4 NAD216s in bridge mode, then upgrades on the woofers from the Eclipse 12" polypropylene car woofers to the Dayton Classics in place now. I love those drivers, and honestly, with the relatively narrow bandwidth they'll be playing in the near future, they're perfect. For the price of entry, and the cost of upgrade, I don't know that I could really gain TOO much in the SQ department. Speaker wires were an experiment. An experiment with quite a happy result. I purchased a spool of Teflon-insulated (good for high-frequencies, yes?) silver-clad (good for low resistance, yes?) balanced RF wire, with shield, at a surplus store for 20 dollars. There was about 1000 feet of the wire there, and i decided I was going to try some random-lay wire geometries. With the twisted pairs, mimicking a Litz configuration, the capacitance was vanishingly low between the plus and minus wires, and it was a very FAST, vanishingly-low capacitance, with almost zero inductance. I soldered the ends together, put some nice ends on, and I've used them quite happily for some 8 years. Plenty of people have thought they were very transparent, and I can't say I cannot agree. The braid, not to be wasted, also silver-clad, was pulled to "close the tube up", cut to the same length as the high's cables, terminated, and insulated. More than enough cross-section for 125Hz and down for the 10 feet the signal travels, I did, in fact hear a difference with those. Bass was deeper, tighter.

No, I pursue 2-channel. I am not a fan of "surround-sound", it's too easy to ruin the music if you try to cheap-out, and it's too expensive to do it REALLY well. So, I split the spectrum. Relatively high-end, but as budget-minded as one-can-expect-for-the-performance-point stereo, and do it well. Actually, since that picture was taken I've designed a pair of new transmission line subs, using a Tymphany LAT-700 each side, 220W per voice coil (four of those. LOL) and the designs all point to 121dB anechoic at 17Hz, for the pair. F3 on those systems is expected to be in the 12Hz to 13Hz range. I love the ability to reproduce reference levels of infrasonic bass. They won't be small, and they won't be light. LOL. The front will be effectively a 4 foot square, 13.5" deep, and weighing in at roughly 200 pounds per side. Here's the LAT info: https://www.madisound.com/store/manuals/LAT70006001-04.pdf

I'm rambling. Love to talk more for those that really do care. LOL
 
Ramble on, I read every word.
Very interesting..
Your speakers have me interested in hearing a good set of ribbons..
Maybe there will be a pair at the next LAAS 2018
 
Being a newbie I had to set Realistic budget for each piece of the puzzle..$1200 to $1500..per component..
Using the "bottle neck" theory, I tried to keep all the components build/audio quality at the same level..
( a $10,000 components capability will not pass through the audio pipe of much lower quality components

I already asked this question to other member but didn't get a lot of replies.

Using the botte neck theory you'll also need to match cables inside your speakers. Do you know what's inside?

My personal experience is limited : vintage speakers usually have unknown brand. My other speakers are DIY so I know exactly what's inside.

Someone told me that since they are shorts it doesn't matter. And secondly there's less interference. So I pointed out that inside a woofer's cabinet their's a lot of vibrations as well as strong magnetic field as well as everything external cables are exposed.
 
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I don't get it, can't someone else answer? have a view on this?

Ah hell, I think it is a good idea to use good quality internal wiring also, but it will not negate the benefits of using better speaker cables if you don't. But the system as a whole will dictate how much that benefit might be, and also the speaker cables used.

Sorry if you didn't want someone other than the OP to answer. Though I can't see how answering with a view could start a debate.....debates take more than one person and only happen when both need to have the last word.

Edit: just so my view has a context, I have the mid-bass drivers connected directly to their inductors...the inductor tails connect directly to the driver tabs, and solid core copper on the tweeters.
I have not played around with many vintage speakers so my experiences are more limited there. But I would expect that very old speakers would have very old internal wiring, so that wire should probably be replaced as it's likely to have oxidized, or at least It's a possibility.
 
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I don't get it, can't someone else answer? have a view on this?

Ah hell, I think it is a good idea to use good quality internal wiring also, but it will not negate the benefits of using better speaker cables if you don't. But the system as a whole will dictate how much that benefit might be, and also the speaker cables used.

Sorry if you didn't want someone other than the OP to answer. Though I can't see how answering with a view could start a debate.....debates take more than one person and only happen when both need to have the last word.

Edit: just so my view has a context, I have the mid-bass drivers connected directly to their inductors...the inductor tails connect directly to the driver tabs, and solid core copper on the tweeters.
I have not played around with many vintage speakers so my experiences are more limited there. But I would expect that very old speakers would have very old internal wiring, so that wire should probably be replaced as it's likely to have oxidized, or at least It's a possibility.

I don't think it's a good idea to have the inductors very close to driver's magnets.

Usually when we layout crossovers, the way inductors are placed is important (nulling the effect), I'll try to get a link.
 
Please remember I'm new ( about 1 year ). My system is on the lower side of hi-end..
So I couldn't see spending Real Big Money on wire. But I wanted to see if replacing the stock PC's would make a improvement. They did !!
So I tried replacing the Speaker cables, Also made an improvement ,, So then the IC's, again a small improvement in SQ
( the IC 's and Speaker cables were Groneberg which came with the amp / preamp combo ).
Groneberg wire is in the amp connecting the Board to the Speaker Terminals,, so I believe that changing out the Groneberg wire in the amp to a "Better" wire would make a improvement ,, of coarse that leads us to the wire in the Speakers to be done as well..
As a guess I would say choose a CABLE your happy with and can Afford ,and run it through out your entire system inside and out, as much as possible..
I don't know if there would be any advantage to using a more Notable/Advanced cable in ONLY (1) PARTICULAR area of the system ??

My Cable Guy also will do Mods on you stereo equipment , I saw he had posted on his Facebook page (Cullencable) that he had recently upgraded a customers Emotiva Amp with "better" wire and Speaker Terminals..
That sounds right up my ally for the next "Tweek" to my system ..
 
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