cheap cables

[tvrgeek]

Originally Posted by henrylrjr

Thanks for all the replies. The system is: OPPO BDP-95 or Meridian 506.24 > Audible Illussions M3A > Aragon 8008BB > B&W Nautilus 803 speakers and a Velodyne HGS10BG sub woofer. Presntly connections are, XLO reference 2 Series interconnects and, XLO Ultra 6 speaker cables. I am hoping to hear an improvement, via speaker cable design I described due to, reduced number of 22AWG wires in each leg to get to about 17AWG and, the cotton sleeving, ptfe and braiding.

Henry Rancourt

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.

[henrylrjr]

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.

[DF96]

It might be a fun experiment. Redecorating your music room will probably have a similar effect on the sound, and may also be fun.

[6speed]

Originally Posted by henrylrjr

Thanks for all the replies. The system is: OPPO BDP-95 or Meridian 506.24 > Audible Illussions M3A > Aragon 8008BB > B&W Nautilus 803 speakers and a Velodyne HGS10BG sub woofer. Presntly connections are, XLO reference 2 Series interconnects and, XLO Ultra 6 speaker cables. I am hoping to hear an improvement, via speaker cable design I described due to, reduced number of 22AWG wires in each leg to get to about 17AWG and, the cotton sleeving, ptfe and braiding.

Henry Rancourt

Just curious, how do the OPPO and Meridian compare?

[tvrgeek]

Sounds like the good bread and wine is your best bet.

[sreten]

Originally Posted by henrylrjr

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.

[cbdb]

Originally Posted by DF96

It might be a fun experiment. Redecorating your music room will probably have a similar effect on the sound, and may also be fun.

Actually, redecorating your room will probably actually have an effect on your sound.

[cbdb]

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.

Your cables have an 8 ohm impedance (look again)??? Are you one of those that wrongly believe RF impedance matching is good to do at audio freqs?

[tvrgeek]

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.

[DF96]

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!