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Cables in vintage speakers are really good?

quanghuy147 said:
I wonder if cables in mid to top end vintage speakers such as Tannoy, JBL, Rogers, etc. are good?

I found that in my case , the Rogers pairs have very simple and thin cable inside in comparison to thick and complex appearance of the hi end cables nowadays like Nordost, Kimber, etc.? However, with these "vintage" cable the vintage speakers produce the SOUND inarbitrarily IMO unquestionable.

So if the answer to my first question is : "these cables are just normal" --> do we need to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on cables?

If the answer is "these "vintage" cables are great, high quality", I wonder why don't we sell or have auctions of vintage cable as we do with vintage speakers and amps?

I am looking forward to your reply, please forgive for my inexperience.

Huy.
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I've never seen anything to indicate anyone in the audio industry thought much about wire except gauge, before the seventies. The "High End" wire & interconnect industries didn't really get going until the eighties, with companies like Tara, Kimber, Audio Quest, etc. popping up like mad by the mid eighties - fueled largely by articles in magazines like Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and Audio... can't blame Stereo Review, or Hi-Fidelity, they both advocated simple wire all the way to their ends. The most "high end" of speakers before the mid seventies would have used good general copper, or silver wire based on worries of corrosion, and gauged to suit the circuit... it's as simple as that. I have KLH9s, and speakers didn't get much more high end in the sixties than that, and they're wired with low grade solid core bell wire - no different than you'd expect to find in a battery operated toy robot. A Klipshorn or Bozak from the fifties has simple copper "bell wire" going from it's crossover to the drivers, and owners were instructed to use "suitable good quality wire". That translated to "lamp cord" from your local hardware.

I've found I can sometimes hear small differences between some speaker wires, on some systems... the trouble is, it doesn't seem at all related to how "good" the wires are, so much as how well they happen to work with that amp & speaker. On one system, a really expensive wire seems to be worse than zip cord, while on another it may work much better. I've decided to personally limit my wires & interconnects to those that seem well made, and reasonably priced, and "call it a day". I understand both sides of these arguments, but I'm too lazy to put much effort into it.
 
frommerstop said:
I've never seen anything to indicate anyone in the audio industry thought much about wire except gauge, before the seventies. The "High End" wire & interconnect industries didn't really get going until the eighties, with companies like Tara, Kimber, Audio Quest, etc. popping up like mad by the mid eighties - fueled largely by articles in magazines like Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and Audio...
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That's what I find disquieting about this wire thing, the timeline. That wire became an issue at the same time drug addled, spoiled, narcissistic, self indulgent and gullible Baby Boomers were coming into money and becoming the main market for hi-fi. I mean these are the people who think an accountant who drives an Audi is different in some fundamental way from an accountant who drives a Buick.

Then I think of the first generation of hi fi fans from the post WW II time; guys who'd been through the Great Depression and then fought the Germans and Japanese and THEN put their noses to the grindstone after the war. No nonsense guys who had few illusions and were very hard to bullshit. Not much talk of wire.

Then the engineers who actually invented hi fi: Hilliard, Blackburn, Lansing, Olson, Klipsch, Briggs, Bozak, Walker and such. Again, not much talk of wire.

This doesn't prove anything, just gives pause.
 
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I can see where you are coming from. And the wire thing can become crazy. Some manufacturers are out there with interconnect that costs more than a top flight pre-amp or a great pair of speakers. I call bull crap on that sort of thing.
I believe that everyone should experiment with these products, find a comfort level and then pull the trigger.

I'm friends with a Danish speaker manufacturer called Peak Consult. The capacitors he puts in his products are insanely expensive yet he tells me that the sonic benefit is there.

The answer lies somewhere between "parts is parts" and "everything matters".
At least I think it does.
 
Has anyone here bought some high quality speaker wire or interconnects and then went back to using lamp cord and freebie rca's?

a couple of guys have said they have conducted test and found no difference in expensive and cheap cables, however they never seem to say what they did as a result of the test, I mean did you decide to sell off the expensive cables and switch back to the cheap ones? Were the more expensive cables just loaners? did you have the expensive cables in your system then do the test and switched to cheaper cables or did you have cheaper cables, do the test and decide you didnt need the more expensive cables?

It just seems to me that the guys who have actually bought and use expensive cables feel they are worth it, I would like to hear from someone who bought and used expensive cables (actually had them in your system for a while, not just tested them in the system) then switched back to cheapies and lamp cord. If so could you please share you experience with us. thanks
 
rcspkramp said:
During the parts sourcing phase of a product development cycle these sorts of scenarios would occur. It would invariable lead to a shoot out under highly controlled blind listening sessions.
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I am surprised to hear this. My impression from many who post on these and similar forums is that peoplem who know they can hear a difference know they can hear a difference, so they believe a blind test is unnecessary.
 
sebrof said:
I am surprised to hear this. My impression from many who post on these and similar forums is that peoplem who know they can hear a difference know they can hear a difference, so they believe a blind test is unnecessary.
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The engineers conducting the tests I took part in decided on the test parameters. Blind listening, matched levels, etc.
 
rcspkramp said:
Most of what I have seen has been either 18 gauge or 16 gauge used for all the connections. I've gravitated to solid core for my own use and I've not seen this inside production speakers.
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If you read some of the "papers" at Blue Jean Cables solid conductor wire is always best where it will not be moved much or at all that means internal speaker connections are an ideal application for solid conductor wire. You don't see solid conductor wire because it can complicate the final assembly of a speaker, Stranded wire is much easier to work with. During a production run of a speaker the way things are accounted from a cash flow aspect in penny's. If the labor time to solder sold conductor costs 5 cents more per speaker then strained to install in labor time multiply that 5 cents by an entire production run by of say 5,000 units and that works out to $250 dollars. That might not seem much but add that to the rest of the labor cost building of such a speaker it adds up, and every step of the process is scrutinized to make it cheaper, hopefully without compromising quality.


There is one thing I have never read anything about in reference to speakers. I am sure you have heard the term "twisted Pair". Twisting wires decreases interference because the loop area between the wires (which determines the magnetic coupling into the signal) is reduced. In balanced pair operation, the two wires typically carry equal and opposite signals (differential mode) which are combined by addition at the destination. The common-mode noise from the two wires (mostly) cancel each other in this addition because the two wires have similar amounts of EMI that are 180 degrees out of phase. This results in the same effect as subtraction. Differential mode also reduces electromagnetic radiation from the cable, along with the attenuation that it causes. When I was inside my Polk Monitor 10B's I looked at the wiring from the crossovers and I would have twisted them but it would have made the wiring just a little too short. If I ever decide to rewire the 10B's internally I will use solid core copper, and I will twist the wires.
 
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transmaster said:
If you read some of the "papers" at Blue Jean Cables solid conductor wire is always best where is will not be moved much or at all that means internal speaker connections are an ideal application for solid conductor wire.

There is one thing I have never read anything about in reference to speakers. I am sure you have heard the term "twisted Pair". Twisting wires decreases interference because the loop area between the wires (which determines the magnetic coupling into the signal) is reduced. In balanced pair operation, the two wires typically carry equal and opposite signals (differential mode) which are combined by addition at the destination. The common-mode noise from the two wires (mostly) cancel each other in this addition because the two wires have similar amounts of EMI that are 180 degrees out of phase. This results in the same effect as subtraction. Differential mode also reduces electromagnetic radiation from the cable, along with the attenuation that it causes. When I was inside my Polk Monitor 10B's is looked at the wiring from the crossovers and I would have twisted them but it would have made the wiring just little too short. If I ever decide to rewire the 10B's internally I will use solid core copper, and I will twist the wires.
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That's exactly what I do. Twisted pairs of solid core copper. Works like a charm. :thmbsp:
 
It's non-stranded. So a single insulated strand of copper of anywhere from 22 gauge to 18 gauge. Harder to work with because it's a bit stiff.
 
the prism is in full operating order ....

sebrof said:
I am surprised to hear this. My impression from many who post on these and similar forums is that peoplem who know they can hear a difference know they can hear a difference, so they believe a blind test is unnecessary.
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That's not quite how it is usually presented. There's a little more context than that. The call for blind tests are usually used to make the believers "prove" their case, because the other side can't accept the experience of others as valid on its own.

If people who want to do a blind test, they are free to do so. And challenged and encouraged to do so to present their case. Just as many here have held and posted informal shoot outs and personal experience in the past week.

That's the impression I get.

Besides, if people in product development do a blind test, then it is already done by the time it hits the market. Wouldn't a consumer blind test be redundant?

So I'm a bit surprised credence is given to the production team here.
The other side will usually argue they don't trust the manufacturer and their cohorts or their blind tests.

Funny how anything can be presented to further any case. ;)
 
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jeremyjustic said:
Has anyone here bought some high quality speaker wire or interconnects and then went back to using lamp cord and freebie rca's?

a couple of guys have said they have conducted test and found no difference in expensive and cheap cables, however they never seem to say what they did as a result of the test, I mean did you decide to sell off the expensive cables and switch back to the cheap ones? Were the more expensive cables just loaners? did you have the expensive cables in your system then do the test and switched to cheaper cables or did you have cheaper cables, do the test and decide you didnt need the more expensive cables?

It just seems to me that the guys who have actually bought and use expensive cables feel they are worth it, I would like to hear from someone who bought and used expensive cables (actually had them in your system for a while, not just tested them in the system) then switched back to cheapies and lamp cord. If so could you please share you experience with us. thanks
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I have.
I do still use the nice wire that I've bought when it's convenient. I'm currently using a doubled pair of 25' power cords from Home Depot for the main speaker runs under my living room floor - it doesn't get much more pedestrian than that. So, I'm lacing one stereo & two mono Luxmans to a pair of KEF 107/2s (80wpc top, 150wpc bottom) with 100' (4x25')of tan colored indoor/out door extension cord, with the ends cut off & connected to Radio Shack wall banana jacks... funny thing is, from the wall to the speakers, I have probably $300 worth of Kimber, and another $100+ in AudioQuest from the wall on the other side, to the amps. It would have cost me over a grand to make the entire run in Kimber, or good AudioQuest!
Like all my other equipment, I've collected quite a few "good" speaker wires (usually 6'-8' lengths), and a bunch of interconnects, but at this point, I usually just use whatever seems handy. Heck, I even cut up & make custom cables out of them with Radio Shack RCAs - blasphemy, I know.
On some systems, if I can, I'll try and use all one brand (usually Kimber - i have more of it, and they're easy to resize), I can't say I notice any difference, but it looks better behind the equipment rack. :D
 
Good grief!

Please cease the hijack about "solid-core" wire. Either take it to pm, or start a thread about wire nomenclature, but leave this thread for the OP's question.
 
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