I'm going to start with a caveat. I have been an unbeliever in mumbo jumbo wires and such - firmly used zip cord for all my speakers in the past. When I got a pair of Vandersteen 2CE speakers a few years ago, the seller gave me some Xo biwires with them and it seemed better. A few months later I bought some MIT Terminator 2 Biwires, tried them with an open-mind, and had to admit the sound "opened up" to some degree. So I kept using them.
Over the weekend 3 of us went to a local listening party where the owner had a pair of UREI 813C monitors on a pair of JBL 18" subs he built to cover the space from 70 Hz down. The UREIs are meant to be soffit mounted in a studio and can be bass shy if they are not.
Thus, the subs. An exceptional system, to be sure.
After demoing a number of CDs through his gear, and us being amazed at the lush open sounds, he mentioned he used Mapleshade speaker wires and some of their ribbon type interconnects.
And as a demo, he switched to Mogami (sp?) interconnects and good but not excessive speaker wires. When he turned the gear back on and played the same tracks we had just heard, we were gob smacked. The sound field collapsed and it was like all the life in the music had gone away.
He was not selling us anything - he was not affiliated with Mapleshade in anyway other than being a buyer and a fan, but the results were audible.
I ordered 1 pair of the lesser priced ribbon interconnects for my system - Mapleshade offers a 30 day return policy on their gear, and I'll post results later
The speaker image is my friend's UREI system -
The other image is the Mapleshade interconnects I just received - pretty weird looking, I'll agree, but its all about the SOUND ...
I also ordered some 18 gauge solid copper magnet wire this week as well - I'll be making a pair of stereo speaker wires with them and seeing how they sound. (I do have a slim budget, over exceeded this month!) The Copper magnet wire speaker lead is very similar to what the mapleshade Golden Helix leads are supposed to be - and what some other folks have recommended in the past. I'll cut the enameled leads to length, mark one wire as Neg/Black in each pair, and chuck the ends in a cordless drill to make them "twisted pair".
A $10 spool of such wire should be good to test - and well within my budget!
Over the weekend 3 of us went to a local listening party where the owner had a pair of UREI 813C monitors on a pair of JBL 18" subs he built to cover the space from 70 Hz down. The UREIs are meant to be soffit mounted in a studio and can be bass shy if they are not.
Thus, the subs. An exceptional system, to be sure.
After demoing a number of CDs through his gear, and us being amazed at the lush open sounds, he mentioned he used Mapleshade speaker wires and some of their ribbon type interconnects.
And as a demo, he switched to Mogami (sp?) interconnects and good but not excessive speaker wires. When he turned the gear back on and played the same tracks we had just heard, we were gob smacked. The sound field collapsed and it was like all the life in the music had gone away.
He was not selling us anything - he was not affiliated with Mapleshade in anyway other than being a buyer and a fan, but the results were audible.
I ordered 1 pair of the lesser priced ribbon interconnects for my system - Mapleshade offers a 30 day return policy on their gear, and I'll post results later
The speaker image is my friend's UREI system -
The other image is the Mapleshade interconnects I just received - pretty weird looking, I'll agree, but its all about the SOUND ...
I also ordered some 18 gauge solid copper magnet wire this week as well - I'll be making a pair of stereo speaker wires with them and seeing how they sound. (I do have a slim budget, over exceeded this month!) The Copper magnet wire speaker lead is very similar to what the mapleshade Golden Helix leads are supposed to be - and what some other folks have recommended in the past. I'll cut the enameled leads to length, mark one wire as Neg/Black in each pair, and chuck the ends in a cordless drill to make them "twisted pair".
A $10 spool of such wire should be good to test - and well within my budget!
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