Hi Banzai, thanks very much for the detailed response! It's quite interesting you hear such a big difference. To me, of your speculations about what might cause this effect, the most plausible is that EM radiation from the power cable could interfere with your audio equipment or interconnects. However, if this is the case I think the predominant effect would be 60 Hz noise, which sounds like a low hum if it's getting to the speakers. Did you hear anything like that, which went away when you swapped in the shielded cable?
Anything else (besides shielding) seems a bit hard to buy... for example, using 12 gauge wire is fine, but what's the gauge of the wiring in your walls? I'd guess 14, but may be wrong. In any case, using thicker wire and conductive grease can reduce the resistance of the connection and therefore lower the voltage, but by a really tiny amount - for example, go here and compare gauges: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm About your friend - the thing is, if I put myself in his place, and you'd just swapped in some fancy cable and asked me if I heard a difference, I'd be hard pressed to say no, I don't hear anything... so it's tricky. On the other hand some differences are really apparent, like between two sets of speakers. Would you say the difference is at that level? About bi-wiring, if both cables are connected to the same post on the amp, then bi-wiring just doubles the number of wires going from amp to speaker (so in other words it's just like using thicker speaker cable wired the usual way). It shouldn't matter that the wires are connected to different posts on the speakers, since they are in electrical contact at the amp end. I suppose one thing that could happen is that, since there might be some physical separation between the cables, there could be some extra capacitance or inductance induced which wouldn't be there in a single wire pair. Usually, that would be considered a bad thing (since it will change the frequency response), but I guess it might sound better in some circumstances. In any case if that's the explanation you could probably test it by re-arranging the cables to see if that has any effect on the sound. For example, if they're long enough, try coiling them up - that should maximize the inductance. I'd tried bi-wiring once before and didn't hear any change, but I'll try it again later this week when I have a chance. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22000 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
