Nice stuff. Does not change anything I have said. I use standard Belden mic cable and Cannon XLR's made to length, or just plain stranded 75 Ohm coax with generic RCA's.
There is still more generic wire in the B&W crossover than whatever you do with external cables, and the amp still has an output filter and emitter resistors. Hope all you want. That hope has made a lot of people a lot of money. Considering your system, I suggest a nice bottle of wine, good bread and some music. It will do far more than cables. Have you done anything with room treatments? My rule of thumb is every dollar spent on speakers should be matched on the room. Have you set the amp bias to spec? Great piece, but old enough for the caps to be drying out. What DAC are you using? What crossover between mains and the sub? Only one sub?
Where I am going is there are several places you could look to make improvements. Cables just don't happen to be one of them.
cheap cable
My old friend of 30 years , who owns a highly respcted stereo shop and several of his installers and another long lived stereo shop owner have heard my system and said there is nothing left to do unless i want to buy higher end componnents, and they carry Krell, focal and higher end cables,,,, but, they and I don't think I need them The listening room has been treated, is 16 x 30 x 9.5 ft high canvas ceiling, I just thought, since I have the wire, cotton sleevling and ptfe, and a lot of spare time, it might be a fun experiment.
My old friend of 30 years , who owns a highly respcted stereo shop and several of his installers and another long lived stereo shop owner have heard my system and said there is nothing left to do unless i want to buy higher end componnents, and they carry Krell, focal and higher end cables,,,, but, they and I don't think I need them The listening room has been treated, is 16 x 30 x 9.5 ft high canvas ceiling, I just thought, since I have the wire, cotton sleevling and ptfe, and a lot of spare time, it might be a fun experiment.
Hi,
Go for it, just don't expect anyone to be able to predict the results.
Apparently your current $300 for a 10ft pair speaker cables are
"great value" according to some and "difficult to better under $1K".
rgds, sreten.
My speakers cables are CAT5 solid core, 3 plaited together, and the twelve
100 ohm twisted pairs connected in parallel for a nominally 8.3ohm cable.
They look very funky being purple heatproof CAT5, cost - about $1/ft.
Actually, redecorating your room will probably actually have an effect on your sound.
cbdb. Absolutely correct. Sreten is lucky his cables did not turn his amp into an ultrasonic oscillator as that very high C design is apt to do. Must have an amp with very good stability margins. As Dave mentioned, "it depends"
Many years ago I had a CM Labs amp that blew up when I switched to Kimber 8TC. We did not understand it way back then (70's) but looking back, stability problems were the likely cause. They were not very stable to start with. I went back to my twisted zip cord after it was repaired the second time and it survived until I upgraded to a Hafler.
Many years ago I had a CM Labs amp that blew up when I switched to Kimber 8TC. We did not understand it way back then (70's) but looking back, stability problems were the likely cause. They were not very stable to start with. I went back to my twisted zip cord after it was repaired the second time and it survived until I upgraded to a Hafler.
Yes, at high frequencies most loudspeakers have a rising impedance. This means that the amplifier primarily sees the cable capacitance, which is always what happens when a short cable has a termination impedance which is higher than the characteristic impedance. Capacitive loading can often upset an amplifier.
The normal cheap speaker cable or mains cable has an RF characteristic impedance somewhere around 50-100ohms so this problem does not occur. If anything the amp sees an inductance, which is unlikely to do any harm. At lower frequencies the cable acts like a resistor anyway, whatever its RF impedance.
People who seek 'matching 8ohm impedance' speaker cables show a lack of understanding about transmission lines, speakers and amplifier loop stability. As in many other audio cases, you actually should want an impedance 'mismatch' for best results!
The normal cheap speaker cable or mains cable has an RF characteristic impedance somewhere around 50-100ohms so this problem does not occur. If anything the amp sees an inductance, which is unlikely to do any harm. At lower frequencies the cable acts like a resistor anyway, whatever its RF impedance.
People who seek 'matching 8ohm impedance' speaker cables show a lack of understanding about transmission lines, speakers and amplifier loop stability. As in many other audio cases, you actually should want an impedance 'mismatch' for best results!
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have you read Cordell?
He draws our attention to the number of folk that forget about the non audio frequencies that get into our cables/connectors.
Terminate the HF stuff and the AF stuff should be less corrupted.
In most systems, nothing is exactly terminating the HF stuff whatever the cable impedance is. Fortunately this probably doesn't matter. Better to ensure that the RF doesn't get into the feedback loop, which is mainly a matter of filtering not termination. Correct termination, even if achieved, does not magically remove RF away.
Have you read Henry Ott (home page) or had a look around here:
EMC Information Centre - The EMC Journal (Free in the UK)
plenty of info on what to do with EMC problems.
Terminating for high frequency is to ensure high frequency signals get from a to b with the maximum signal integrity. One of the best way to stop high frequecy noise RF is a ferrite bead or core round the cable... hence they apear eveywhere these days.
Don't confuse low power network cables for high power audio cables. Yes, the physics is the same, the relevance is what changes. Most of those chokes are to reduce EMISSIONS for FCC legal requirements.
In less time than you can tread this thread, you could have just plain tried twisted zip or single pair CAT5 and would know for yourself. DIY.
In less time than you can tread this thread, you could have just plain tried twisted zip or single pair CAT5 and would know for yourself. DIY.
I'm not, they are also used to reduce rf input into devices as well, they work both ways.
Anyway its not for FCC compliance its for CE over here
They are almost the universal panacea for EMC noise, I do numerous boards where ALL the inputs are protected with either a ferrite bead on its own or more commonaly with caps in a pi configuration (quite often in a combined 3 terminal package), this is not just for digital signals but also low/high frequency analgue, where they protect the inputs from EMI picked up by the interconnections to the outside world.
Whether they would have any affect on speaker cables...
Personaly I have an open baffle set up with 2 15" Eminence/ FE207, I use CAT 5 two strands for the FE207 and something a bit thicker for the 15"s, cant remember the make but it has a nice orange sleave (possibly from the Audiophile section of the local gardening centre). Bi amped by the way.
Anyway its not for FCC compliance its for CE over here
They are almost the universal panacea for EMC noise, I do numerous boards where ALL the inputs are protected with either a ferrite bead on its own or more commonaly with caps in a pi configuration (quite often in a combined 3 terminal package), this is not just for digital signals but also low/high frequency analgue, where they protect the inputs from EMI picked up by the interconnections to the outside world.
Whether they would have any affect on speaker cables...
Personaly I have an open baffle set up with 2 15" Eminence/ FE207, I use CAT 5 two strands for the FE207 and something a bit thicker for the 15"s, cant remember the make but it has a nice orange sleave (possibly from the Audiophile section of the local gardening centre). Bi amped by the way.
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Hi,
FWIW I am well aware that there is very little point to my "8.3 ohm" cables.
Thats just how they ended up after lots of experiments with my amplifier
and speakers. (I had a lot of time to waste). I ended up preferring one
run instead of, say two of the CAT5 to bass/mid and one for the treble.
YMMV. The best bog standard speaker cable I've come across (and we
are discounting high impedance amps and FR's) is 4 core 3 phase mains
cable wired as a star quad and both ends simply tinned, no bi-wiring.
rgds, sreten.
FWIW I am well aware that there is very little point to my "8.3 ohm" cables.
Thats just how they ended up after lots of experiments with my amplifier
and speakers. (I had a lot of time to waste). I ended up preferring one
run instead of, say two of the CAT5 to bass/mid and one for the treble.
YMMV. The best bog standard speaker cable I've come across (and we
are discounting high impedance amps and FR's) is 4 core 3 phase mains
cable wired as a star quad and both ends simply tinned, no bi-wiring.
rgds, sreten.
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