highdudgeon;141025 Wrote: > Yes. Buy any 14awg or larger braided copper cable and you will be fine. > Chuck Hinton, McIntosh Labs technical rep -- and these people KNOW > high-end audio, and practically invented it -- once told me he uses 14 > awg low voltage outdoor lighting cable from Home Depot. Alan Shaw, the > CEO and designer of Harbeth speakers -- amongst the best in the world -- > uses generic orange outdoor electrical extension cord cable. A very > well known speaker reviewer for TAS (Robert Greene) uses generic > cable. > > The fact of the matter is that cables don't really matter -- no matter > what the placebo effect some people experience. If anything, some of > the more expensive cables actually manage to make frequency shifts. > This can change the sound, yes, but is that a good thing? Will you > listen to marketing hype, or will you listen to respected, serious > companies like Harbeth and McIntosh? > > Personally, because I'm too lazy to crimp stuff myself, I use 10 awg > speaker cable from Blue Jeans Cables. Very reasonably priced and 24hr > turn-around on orders. I think it comes out at 70 center or so per > foot, not included terminations (spades or whatever). Workmanship and > materials are absolutely top-notch (the the Belden or Canare cable used > are, ahem, used in lots of other stuff). I compared it against Analysis > Plus Oval Nines, Acoustic Zen Satoris, and Dimarzio M-PATHs -- all of > which I bought out of curiosity -- and there as no significant > difference. > > If you want a real difference, look up the Allison rules (very easy) > for speaker placement and work on proper speaker placement, alignment, > etc. Save some money for CDs!
All wise words - cables aren't quite snake oil, but all I've normally heard when changing between cables is differences, rather than improvements. It has often been difficult for me to gauge the benefit in musical terms, even though there can be quite dramatic differences in immediate terms. But McIntosh - I was a a hifi show last weekend, and heard their ginormous speakers and amps that were almost as big. Boy did it suck! It all looked like they were trying to find a way to justify the price, so they put in loads of drive units; then you need a trillion watts to drive them. Rarely have I heard such a 'hi-fi' (derogatory sense) sound. Harbeth though, that's another thing - those guys produce lovely speakers. I have a pair of HLP3ESs in my kitchen system, and that might get a Squeezebox... :) -- adamslim Shanling CDT-100, Rotel RT-990BX, Esoteric Audio Research 859, Living Voice Auditorium IIs, Nordost cables, Squeezebox due on my birthday :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ adamslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7355 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27857 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
