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First thread in here

jaymanaa

jaymanaa

RIP 1961-2018
I have to admit that I've always been in the group that says if a wire will carry the load, has decent capacitance, and good connections it will work as good as any. Well, tonight I'm putting together a new system and figured I'd try a higher end interconnect and speaker wire. The first pic shows my usual on the right, and the fancy interconnect on the left. The next two show that they do fit properly and have good connections (the fancy cables are even pretty).:yes: The 4th pic shows the new speaker wire (I usually use 16g. brown lamp cord). This new stuff is from the car audio section at WalMart. It is oxygen free 14 g. copper. They only had it in blue.:D The fifth pic shows the components I will be using to conduct the tests. Harmon Kardon CDP to Entach 205 DAC, to homebrew pre running GE Triple Mica JAN 5814s (fancy 12AU7). From that through the cables to be tested, to a recently restored and electrically upgraded Harmon Kardon 250. It's running RCA cleartop 6CG7s, and TungSol brown base 5881s (with Hexfreds doing the rectification). The speakers are "slightly" modified W60s (thankee Ron).The material will be rock (John Melancamp's Cutting Heads CD), Jazz (something blue note, probably Burrel and Coltrane), and antigue blues recordings (from the Time Life series Copulation Blues). Anyone want to make a prediction, or suggest a change in anything for testing purposes?
 
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Jay,

About 8 years ago, I did a very similar test with a rep selling interconnects and speaker wire that he claimed he could prove were worth every penny of his insanely over priced product.

I tested them against interconnects that cost me $1.85 for a 6 footer, vs his $30.00 6 footer...
16 gauge speaker wire that cost me about $1.00 per foot, vs his at $4.00 per foot.
Used the same CDP, Amp and speakers box.

Used a spectrum analyzer and a IR thermometer to monitor amp temp.

Short answer:

The rep left my shop very upset...

I'm with your original school of thought on this one...just my opinion...
 
Thanks guys, well, the 3 dollar cheapo RCA cables sounded pretty bad right at first, but after a CDs worth of music, things settled in nicely and I was able to crank the volume up without cringing. That delay could have well been the amplification gear warming up too. I can't tell a thing about the speaker wire from memory of the other, so I'll have to switch it, then switch interconnects, then back to the blue speaker wire. The fancy interconnects were 13 dollars for a 6 foot pair. Maybe I'll do some measuring on them before I use them.:scratch2:
 
You got your rocks in the right place for this test?

I'm interested to see what actually happens with this comparison.
 
I'm skeptical of finding real differences between interconnects of reasonable quality, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there is a difference between the ones you've chosen. The cheapies might have some problems.
 
Car audio tends to be bright as cars are pretty noisy - I think you'll hear this.

And hopefully it will sound better than the lamp cord! :)
 
Put down the crack pipe and slowly back out of this forum. Good grief man, what were you thinking?
 
If I could add my thoughts I would suggest your sort of comparing 2 turds to see what one is less offensive. OK that was a joke but seriously you talking a $13 gap in price between the two, is it safe to consider this test might be of little value if your going to try to claim this as a definitive cable test?
I hope you hear a difference because it often is there but incase you dont I think trying some cables from a company who actually cares about what it is making may be of more value then a set potentially assembled by a child in China. I like the fact your curious and open minded enough to try this out.
 
jaymanaa said:
Thanks guys, well, the 3 dollar cheapo RCA cables sounded pretty bad right at first, but after a CDs worth of music, things settled in nicely and I was able to crank the volume up without cringing. That delay could have well been the amplification gear warming up too. I can't tell a thing about the speaker wire from memory of the other, so I'll have to switch it, then switch interconnects, then back to the blue speaker wire. The fancy interconnects were 13 dollars for a 6 foot pair. Maybe I'll do some measuring on them before I use them.:scratch2:
Click to expand...

Well of course you had to burn those babies in....nuther couple hunnert hours and she should sound great....:smoke:
 
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