Speaker wire questions...
- Thread starter RunOutGroove
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RunOutGroove
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You're pretty much reiterating the process that I've already laid out... Though I think that you may be right about the guy I spoke to having a bit of an overreaction to the danger of my test methods. It seems like possibly with tube equipment, which seems to be more sensitive to this kind of thing, that it might be a bigger deal but with my old SS amp probably less so... or at least that would be my guess.
The extension pieces that I was thinking about are the ones that are available on Amazon and surely not too high quality (inexpensive), though I'm kind of rethinking that part. I suppose that I could buy those things and do some kind of test, with and without, and see if they really do cause some lack of SQ, but there's something about the idea of having a cheap section of cable that will likely be a bit of a bottleneck and prevent the good stuff from working at full capacity. I'm not really interested in Audio Quest extension pieces because those things will pretty much just be shorter AQ cables and as such will cost more than I'm willing to spend. Therefore, I think that I'll just buy the adaptors, put them together with the AQ wires, move my speakers temporarily closer together, test it against the non bi-wire speaker wire that I'm currently using and than if I decide that the AQ bi-wire solution is a worthy improvement I'll just plan on buying similar longer wires in the future...
Can you post the link to the adapter on Amazon? Slamazon links are allowed here. Also I am wondering if you could maybe make an "extender" from parts they sell at Blue Jeans Cable or maybe they sell something that you could use...
For testing purposes I think you could probably use some sort of homemade extension, although not ideal. Not sure where any of this will end up anyway, so give it a shot and see what happens... As long as it doesn't cost a whole bunch to do the experiment... BTW, exactly how long are the Audioquest cables and how long are the cables you are using right now? You can always get a deal on some KabelDirekt speaker wire in 14 gauge. 50 foot of it for about $20 and it is every bit as good as that Monster cable... The 14 gauge stuff that I bought was actually a bit too big for both the speaker connectors and the connectors on the amp.
For testing purposes I think you could probably use some sort of homemade extension, although not ideal. Not sure where any of this will end up anyway, so give it a shot and see what happens... As long as it doesn't cost a whole bunch to do the experiment... BTW, exactly how long are the Audioquest cables and how long are the cables you are using right now? You can always get a deal on some KabelDirekt speaker wire in 14 gauge. 50 foot of it for about $20 and it is every bit as good as that Monster cable... The 14 gauge stuff that I bought was actually a bit too big for both the speaker connectors and the connectors on the amp.
Yeah, sorry about that -- I only picked up on the first part of your test, which was extender vs no extender, and missed the part about monster single vs AQ bi-wire. A couple of other things I would suggest to help make the test more meaningful:
1. If the speakers are easy to move, then stack one speaker on top of the other for the comparison, or directly beside the other. If you don't do that, left and right will sound a bit different regardless due to acoustical interaction with what is surrounding them, the room itself, and where you are in the room.
2. Before you begin the comparison of differing cables, first do the mono back and forth left/right comparison on the existing Monster single cables. I would suggest this regardless, just to establish a baseline for comparison, but with a vintage amp it is not at all rare for there to be subtle tonal differences between channels due to factors such as non-uniform aging of capacitors.
The difference between cables, if you can hear them at all, is typically very subtle, so it's important to be fairly disciplined in your approach. I look forward to hearing the results of your tests.
RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
Amazon seems to carry only one product that will work, link posted below. I'm wondering if it might be falling into the category of "don't even bother" though. I did look on the Blue Jeans Cable site and they were the only one of several cable manufacturers that I checked out who do extension cables. They have a sort of "cable calculator" on their site whereby you can type in the cable style and the ends on each side of the thing. It'll tell you the cost and you can order it. If I went with this thing it would cost me $80-$100 (and likely more with postage) for a pair of these things, which was more than I wanted to throw at this thing, but that may be a better idea than throwing away money on cheap Amazon cables and would have the advantage of not also needing adaptors as the correct ends would be built into the cable extension piece.
https://www.amazon.com/CESS-029-6f-...07Y5NK52C/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Maybe I'll call the Blue Jean Cable folks and see what they think about it. They could tell me if they even think that it's a good idea and if it is, what's the best kind of cable to order to match that of my Audio Quest cables. Hopefully they're the kind of people who are honest about this kind of thing and aren't motivated only to make a sale. It does seem though that most folks in the world of audio are honest with their expertise.
Before I would be ordering those cables, I'll order just the adaptors (they cheap enough) from Amazon so I can test these Audio Quest cables (with the speakers in a temporary, closer in config), just to see if I notice any improvement. I might not even hear any real improvement and if that's the case I can sell these cables and offset the cost of the speakers that I bought which came with them...
I honestly think you are not going to get any meaningful benefit using AQ with extenders because the AQ and extenders are serially connected. If you think of it as water running through a hose, you will have water running through 6ft (or whatever the AQ's are) of extremely high quality AQ hose and another 6-feet of regular hose in the extender you linked. Nothing the AQ's can do can undo what the extension does -- and the extension is very long at 6 ft.
If you really want to use extenders, I'd get the Amazon ones , clip them to minimum length, then strip the wire ends, twist them, insert them into the Marantz speaker outputs -- that connection will be just as good as pins -- no adapters required because you (presumably don't care about cutting the less expansive extender). To their credit, the extenders are 11 gauge wire, it doesn't say whether they are CCA or the preferred OFC (you'll know immediately when you twist the wire ends, but at 11 gauge it doesn't matter much).
If you can find female banana plug connectors, then you can just get a short length of 10 gauge (or whatever) OFC speaker wire, and use raw twisted wire on the Marantz side. That will likely cheaper and better than the extender above.
All of the above said, no matter how short you make the extenders, they are still serially connected and will whatever benefit the AQ's provide.
I would test Monster bi-wire against non-extended AQ to satisfy your curiosity. If you hear a meaningful improvement, then still sell the AQ's you have and buy some that are the correct length.
If you really want to use extenders, I'd get the Amazon ones , clip them to minimum length, then strip the wire ends, twist them, insert them into the Marantz speaker outputs -- that connection will be just as good as pins -- no adapters required because you (presumably don't care about cutting the less expansive extender). To their credit, the extenders are 11 gauge wire, it doesn't say whether they are CCA or the preferred OFC (you'll know immediately when you twist the wire ends, but at 11 gauge it doesn't matter much).
If you can find female banana plug connectors, then you can just get a short length of 10 gauge (or whatever) OFC speaker wire, and use raw twisted wire on the Marantz side. That will likely cheaper and better than the extender above.
All of the above said, no matter how short you make the extenders, they are still serially connected and will whatever benefit the AQ's provide.
I would test Monster bi-wire against non-extended AQ to satisfy your curiosity. If you hear a meaningful improvement, then still sell the AQ's you have and buy some that are the correct length.
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RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
That's exactly my plan, except for I'll be testing the Monster non bi-wire cable that I already have against this Audio Quest wire. I have to wonder if I'm likely to hear drastic enough improvement (if any improvement at all) to make wires like that worth it. The AQ wires I have, I got for essentially free as they were included with some speakers I bought (I don't think that the woman who was selling them knew what she had). I looked up the price on these things and new they go for $450... and I would need even more expensive ones as they'd have to be even longer. I'm thinking that this amount of money could get me a lot of speaker, particularly if I were to add to it what I would be getting by selling the speakers I already own. Wires like this make more sense to me if one has a really huge budget and have already sunk a few grand into speakers, as once you've spent that much $500 or so on wires in order to get the most out of it seems reasonable...
Agree with all of the above. It would be interesting to compare them just for curiosity's sake, but I would definitely sell them since you can't use them without major compromise and because there are better "sound quality" values to be had for what you can sell them for. For your system, I would suggest using the money from the cables to buy a small sealed subwoofer (sealed is much better than ported for music). You will definitely get a lot more sound quality benefit of out that than even if you could use the AQ's.
For speaker wire, I would definitely bi-wire with something like this (https://www.amazon.com/InstallGear-...peaker+wire+installgear&qid=1602270770&sr=8-3). No need for banana plugs, just cut 2 sets of speaker cables, strip, and feed into the amp outputs and speaker binding posts. I picked 14 gauge because if you go too big, they won't fit into the Marantz when two wires are twisted together (again, you can always thin the wires if they don't fit). This one is OFC (oxygen free copper) -- the same brand makes one that's not labeled OFC -- you don't want that. Bi-wire is very different electrically (as explained in an earlier post) -- whether it makes a sound difference I really haven't investigated, but no reason not to do it when you can for $28 (have have a lot of that 100 ft speaker wire spool left over for future projects).
RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
I've got the adaptors ordered so I can do some testing. I imagine that even of I do find some improvement, I'll sell these wires, make a bit of cash and then do some kind of more DIY type thing as you've suggested. I'm one step ahead though as far as the subwoofer thing that you've mentioned. I'm on my second one in fact. I started with a little 8" Energy one, which sounded OK except for high volumes. I wanted to see what I was missing though with a bigger one and bought a JBL 12" one, which is a kind of mid-line model and spent all of $50... for what turned out to be a nice improvement. I have to wonder what a more expensive model would sound like but I'm not going to be finding out any time soon. Like the bi-wire thing, it may make a difference but one which honestly isn't enough to make it worthwhile. I wish I hadn't sold my Energy sub though as I'm thinking that it might work well with the extension speakers that I'm using. Those ones, the Quad 12Ls sound nice, but could benefit form some more meat on the bottom. For the size of room and volumes that I'll be dealing with a 8" one should be enough... I'll just have to find a cheap one via CL...
Thanks for the recommendation on the bulk wire though as I can use some of that stuff and like the fact that this stuff is inexpensive and I'm guessing relatively decent quality. I'm actually using some mismatched (I know!) cheaper quality wire in a longer run through my basement to my set of extension speakers and I've been thinking about replacing this stuff with better wire so a spool of this still will certainly get used, if not for the DIY bi-wire thing, then for my extension speakers. The wires actually run into a speaker switcher box that I use (which has a speaker protection circuit thats handy for when I sometimes run both sets of 6 ohm speakers together) and not directly into my Marantz reviver. The end result is the same though as this switcher box has the same kind of tiny spring loaded connections as the Marantz. Even 14 gauge wire is a bit difficult to feed into this thing, but I've gotten around that issue by using some pin-type connectors that I've found (very handy!). In any case, at some point I will be buying that spool of wire...
RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
No I get that, the whole bare wires and all of that is what I did for many years. I've only recently been playing around with upgrades to my system and since I've been doing that I've also been dealing with some of the small details that I never paid attention to before. I'm actually a bit skeptical that I'll hear any difference with this fancy bi-wires that I've got. I get 'em for basically free though and feel like I want to set them out before I pass them on...
goodolpg
Just an old fart trying to help.
if you want to TRULY hear what the Audioquests offer, DO NOT USE EXTENDERS,ADAPTORS, or anything else that will be in the wire chain.
If you have to use an adaptor, find a banana to pin type. Plug the AQ banana(s) into the adaptor and then the adaptor pin into your receiver or speakers
If you already specified which AQ's you have, I missed it.
Just on their appearance and color I'm guessing Rocket 33?
If you have to use an adaptor, find a banana to pin type. Plug the AQ banana(s) into the adaptor and then the adaptor pin into your receiver or speakers
If you already specified which AQ's you have, I missed it.
Just on their appearance and color I'm guessing Rocket 33?
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RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
yes... the adaptors that I've ordered are the kind without extra wire. The are just simple pieces that directly attach on the ends. I realize that this sort of thing is necessary to do an accurate test of what these wires are actually capable of. The wires have "33" on them, so yes, the likely are this "Rocket 33" model you speak of.
RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
Ok... I just got those adapter things from Amazon and did a test. I first put both of the speakers very close together, on top of a pair or record racks. This way the effect of acoustics won't really come into play. I then hooked one up to the Audioquest bi-wire cables to one of the speakers (being careful to pull out the jumpers, of course) and left the other one hooked up with the 14 gauge Monster speaker wire. I set it to play mono and then put on a CD, Leon Parker's album Belief (a favorite of mine and a really well recored album, ideal for testing hi-fi). The result: I like the Audioquest bi-wires better! At first I wasn't so sure, but the more that I listened the more I picked up on what these things were doing. There seemed to be more separation between the instruments, more clarity. The bi-wire speaker even seemed to be a tab bit louder, though that could have just been an illusion created by the effect of it being slightly clear sounding than the other one.
Here's my quandary though, I realized that if I move my speaker switcher box to another spot (which is less convenient, but I can deal with it), I could work with the length the Audioquest wires. These things though I see go for close to $450 a set so I figure that I could likely sell these for around half of that and this could buy me a lot of wire, ends, etc to make my own bi-wire rig. As someone else said there's nothing really magical about these wires... meaning that I could, with the right materials build something that's essentially just as good, no? If that's my best plan of action, I'll be looking on the web for some recipes to do that but I'd love to also get any ideas that you folks have about that. I wonder if some variation on the kind of 4 lead wire that I've used for my subwoofer, might be the stuff to use. I've been using some Nakamichi banana plugs (which don't need soldering) and I wonder if these things (or something else) would be idea for the bi-wire thing.
I'm also thinking about rewiring my set of extension speakers as I'm currently running wires that aren't matching and that have been spliced (I know, I put those wires up long before I was really into this hi-fi thing) and this 100 ft spool of
InstallGear 14 Gauge Speaker Wire that Amazon sells which came recommended by peterp1 might be the thing. That stuff looks almost too good to be true though, $29 and free shipping for a big spool of oxygen free coper wire... Oxygen free copper is supposed to be the best stuff, no? Not looking forward to that chore as running wire through the basement and fishing them through holes in the floor is a bit of a PIA, but I'll have a bit of piece of mind knowing that I have a really solid hookup for these other speakers.
Not to gloat, but I really feel like I scored on this set of Quad speakers that I got. Looks like they were $900 new and those wires came with and went for $450... so $1350 worth of stuff for $200! The woman I bought them from was even going to throw in a pretty beefy looking AV receiver (something that I care nothing about) but then thought better of it (that thing will probably only fetch all of $50-75 though, I'd guess).
Here's my quandary though, I realized that if I move my speaker switcher box to another spot (which is less convenient, but I can deal with it), I could work with the length the Audioquest wires. These things though I see go for close to $450 a set so I figure that I could likely sell these for around half of that and this could buy me a lot of wire, ends, etc to make my own bi-wire rig. As someone else said there's nothing really magical about these wires... meaning that I could, with the right materials build something that's essentially just as good, no? If that's my best plan of action, I'll be looking on the web for some recipes to do that but I'd love to also get any ideas that you folks have about that. I wonder if some variation on the kind of 4 lead wire that I've used for my subwoofer, might be the stuff to use. I've been using some Nakamichi banana plugs (which don't need soldering) and I wonder if these things (or something else) would be idea for the bi-wire thing.
I'm also thinking about rewiring my set of extension speakers as I'm currently running wires that aren't matching and that have been spliced (I know, I put those wires up long before I was really into this hi-fi thing) and this 100 ft spool of
InstallGear 14 Gauge Speaker Wire that Amazon sells which came recommended by peterp1 might be the thing. That stuff looks almost too good to be true though, $29 and free shipping for a big spool of oxygen free coper wire... Oxygen free copper is supposed to be the best stuff, no? Not looking forward to that chore as running wire through the basement and fishing them through holes in the floor is a bit of a PIA, but I'll have a bit of piece of mind knowing that I have a really solid hookup for these other speakers.
Not to gloat, but I really feel like I scored on this set of Quad speakers that I got. Looks like they were $900 new and those wires came with and went for $450... so $1350 worth of stuff for $200! The woman I bought them from was even going to throw in a pretty beefy looking AV receiver (something that I care nothing about) but then thought better of it (that thing will probably only fetch all of $50-75 though, I'd guess).
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Sounds like you learned some things about cables today , that’s good now you have a better idea of what you might like . Oxygen free copper is good and what you want but OCC7N is the best copper (Ohno Continuous Cast), it’s a bit more pricey because it’s copper in what is said to be its purist form.
Audiofreak71
Thanks for sharing your results. There's a lot to parse there. A few comments:
1. Did you try Monster wire left versus Monster right first with the speakers close together and playing in mono to establish a baseline for comparison? That's very important with a vintage amp to make sure left and right channels sound identical and have the same volume under identical left/right conditions (not a safe presumption at all with a vintage amp)).
2. The next thing to try would definitely be to compare Monster bi-wire to Audioquest bi-wire. Use your opposite side disconnected Monster speaker wire to create a bi-wire, twist each half of the pairs together on the amp side, then run one pair of wires to the bass circuit and the other pair to the treble circuit. This comparison will determine whether it is purely the bi-wire connection that is making the perceived improvement (which would be the case if the monster and AQ bi-wires sound the same) or whether the AQ internal wire composition is a factor (if the AQ still sounds better versus Monster bi-wire).
3. My comment was not that that there wasn't any "magic" in the AQ wires, but simply that there was no magic in the bi-wire configuration of the AQ wires (in other words, you can create your own bi-wire simply by doubling your existing Monster wires on one speaker with about 60 seconds of work). I haven't personally tested AQ speaker wires, so I have no opinion about whether or not there is any magic in the AQ wire composition/performance.
4. I didn't follow all of the details about your speaker switch, but you definitely don't want anything "serially" connected in the length of the speaker wires when you are using the AQ cables (any length of normal cable directly in-line with the AQ wires will negate a good part of whatever magic is or is not in the AQ cables).
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RunOutGroove
Addicted Member
No, I didn't do all of these kind of "baseline tests" though I agree that this would have been a good idea... I wonder though if I can make a bi-wire rig that would be a little less unwieldy (just one wire housing instead of two) with a single 4 lead wire, instead of doubling up wire as you suggest. I used that 4 lead wire for a subwoofer and it seemed to work pretty well...
If you choose to do bi-wire, you can definitely use 4-lead wire. To evaluate monster bi-wire against the AQ bi-wire on a temporary basis, as an extension of the test you already did, it seems like you could do that in 30 seconds by temporarily doubling up the monster wire using the wire that was displaced with AQ wire.
Also, the suggested "baseline" test wasn't very onerous, just compare the speakers after moving them close together but before swapping out the Monster speaker wire for the AQ wire.
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The separation between instruments and midrange clarity that you mention is what I consistently find when I bi-amp .
I'm gonna have to try some serious bi-wiring experiments with a single amp and listen ..
I've always had a huge respect for Vandersteen and his ideas .. and he's stating in the above quote that it very much makes a difference..
Over the years, he's consistently been willing to experiment with his designs and his results speak for themselves ..
Subtle improvements add up ..
With Vandersteen speakers it is an absolute must to Biwire them. I never noticed a big difference with BiWiring my other speakers until I bought Vandersteens and the difference is night and day. His speakers are designed to perform their best when biwired but you may not find that’s the case with other speakers.
Audiofreak71