Depends on the task. My amp can get capacitive enough cable, ain't a Spectral or a Naim, its DIY $700 in parts, so I go 3082 in my speakers for instance, since I use Speakon too. Not heavy currents bcs they are 95dB and my amp is 20W triode so its OK it isn't heavy. Interconnects I go thin too. Has a thin line. I generally avoid much metal. Akward, non bending, and if there is something into materials, certainly less can be better. You would like the 2803 for IC because you are a cable guy, but its a pita to strip and solder.
Interesting Salas, I've never tried a coaxial speaker cable, will have to get some.
I could not find a 2803.
Yes, it's the Mogami cable.
http://www.mogamicable.com/cab_assemblies/goldassambl_links/platinum.html
They're everywhere, they're everywhere!
John
My thinking is to keep the FR of all equipment flat, then sort out as much of the room effects as possible with speaker / listening position, bass traps, diffusers and absorbers. EQ only make for a more complex signal path and I believe that only result in loss of detail and focus. Not so sure that our brain are that sensitive to small variations in SPL caused by the room.
Doug,
Since you still have disposable income. Go here, buy a pair of Fonken cabinets with Fe 127 eN drivers.
http://www.planet10-hifi.com/
Wait a bit while craftsmen do their thing. Hook them up to a reasonably good quality 40 watt amp and begin to find out what the next level in audio is about. Quite a bit beyond the high end you are currently aware of. And, some pretty decent cables for pretty nice prices can be had, if you like.
Bud
Oh shucks, then pro-audio have audiophools too, what now!
Perhaps they started to learn after-all.
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Oh shucks, then pro-audio have audiophools too, what now!
Perhaps they started to learn after-all.
He, he, I am ahead. Both studio construction quality and price, plus the literature to boast as an audiophile. Hey dig that, mine are compatible to the original mix tonal shading, because they have been there somewhere.
Well I know one thing... digital can suffer from bad cables too... I couldn't play DVD's on my linux HTPC.. the errors I got in the syslog when googled always turned up the same thing... "Buy better quality SATA cables"...
Eventually I did, and what do you know I can now play DVD's.. Now I suspect in this case it is more the connectors on the ends of the cables than the cables themselves, but I had tried at least 4 cables (all cheapies, some sata and some sataII), and none had fixed the problem. When I got the "special shielded ones" that cost three times as much (as a last resort) to my surprise it started working.
Good old composite can suffer from bad cables too. I had a (supposedly better than normal quality) video RCA lead from Jaycar which when I used it there was a wide band down the middle of the TV set, it was quite noticeable. If I swapped to another RCA lead it completely went away. And no, I no longer use composite
Tony.
That's now a used to be true comment John. I know, everyone of them you have heard sucked. Everyone of them I had ever heard also sucked.
Was at the PNWAS meeting over last weekend, with a demo set up, not double blind, just casually informative, about what is now possible. At the end of the show Rene' Jaeger demanded that the Fonkens be brought into the main room and hooked up.
They absolutely trashed everything but one pair of speakers, built by Dave Rosgaard, and this included a pair of Geddes waveguide speakers. This is not to say that ANY of the speakers there were poor in sound quality, most were very good. It is just that the Planet 10 connfections embody a technology that steps quite a bit beyond what is common in audio.
Enough so that small single drivers can, except for matters of volume and low bass performance, handily exceed the performance of multi driver systems, designed and built with care by folks who frequent this forum. These products of skill and thought have absolutely nothing to apologize for, they just did not have what the Fonken's had.
Bud
That reminds me of what I heard at BAF 2007. I'd heard a number of good speakers and checked out of the main audition room for a while. I was chatting with folks in the smaller room when I heard something really good from the main hall, so I put the conversation on hold and had a look. It was a tall baffle with a single 8", but on a small jazz vocal combo it sounded right. Came back to my interlocutor, the audition room went through another few speakers, then something else sounded really fine. Went back again, and sure as hell it was another small speaker in a large box, this time with a tweeter to help above 10 kHz.
What got up my nose double was that I've been working on a big multiway system, yet these theoretically compromised things did such an excellent job on small groups that, for a moment, I reconsidered my love of large-scale music. The impulse passed, but the single drivers at BAF 2007 were an education. The only thing I heard which matched them for vocal coherency was a triamped rig with linear-phase crossovers, but that's a whole other level of complexity.
Sometimes less is more.
I'll bet you can find mini RG-8, also called RG-8X. Run four of those in parallel to get the equivalent of 10 gauge.
Yup, unless of course it is loaded with resistance ports from Scott Lindgren's fertile mind.
With room gain, all that is missing is the 30 to 20 Hz region and mid 30's and up are very satisfying. I am, trust me, very surprised by these little things. And then, there is the bell like clarity and a full 90 db of clear, coherent information.
Bud
John.
I do think that single drivers offer some advantages over multi-way for vocal and jazz music and small small ensembles. No they are no where as dynamic, but they have coherency in spades. I believe that they are an acquired taste. They also offer a great speaker system for the SET crowd where hi efficiency is a plus. I heard one pair with a SET system that I thought were very natural and definitely cohesive. Very musical if I must say! Scott and Dave in the Full Range forum look like that they are creating some great speakers that seem to have the single driver fans really excited. I was considering give one of the designs a try and build a SET that I have some transformers for laying around here somewhere
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One of the most interesting single driver systems I ever heard used some WWII vintage drivers and pentode SE amps from the same era. It pretty much fell apart on large ensembles and dynamic music, but wow was it ever sweet on string quartets and small-scale vocals! Not real, but very attractive and easy.
Having lived with an unconventional single driver system (full range linesource ESL) and a multiamped 5-way system (though admittedly the midrage driver covers the vast majority of where the music is), I have to say that it would be tough to give up the sheer dynamics and ease of the Big Boy. Though maybe it was the change of cables from orange to black that did it....
Having lived with an unconventional single driver system (full range linesource ESL) and a multiamped 5-way system (though admittedly the midrage driver covers the vast majority of where the music is), I have to say that it would be tough to give up the sheer dynamics and ease of the Big Boy. Though maybe it was the change of cables from orange to black that did it....
These were Planet 10 Fostex Fe 127 eN drivers.... the dreaded EnABL process leaking out into the sort of mainstream....kinda.
I have to say, that on an organ recital, some of Bach, these little things filled a 30 by 60 by 12 foot room, with very convincing bass. Not the floor shimmer that truly powerful systems will provide. But for quality, depth of field and sheer dynamic presentation, they were just amazing.
It seemed ridiculous to me that this could be so, and then Rene' put on Contate Dominae, with organ, and male and female chorus hammering away. The Fonkens just brushed aside all seeming effort and provided a room full of very detailed, very beautiful and powerful music.
And then I had Rene' play Ferd Groffe's orchestration of Gershwin's Rhapsodiy in Blue, conducted by James Levine and sporting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I hope you have heard this, it is stunning. Even the fortissimo piano passages, with full tilt CSO, playing at loud levels, didn't seem to be any thing difficult.
Quite a few witnessed this too, one Terry O, a noted skeptic on this forum, comes to mind. I suppose I could get folks to come and provide praise, but that really sort of misses the point, since none of you could be there to be personally surprised. I had no idea they could play at this level, they never get above 80 dB in my living room, and usually much quieter than that, so I was not prepared for what they delivered.
Bud
I have to say, that on an organ recital, some of Bach, these little things filled a 30 by 60 by 12 foot room, with very convincing bass. Not the floor shimmer that truly powerful systems will provide. But for quality, depth of field and sheer dynamic presentation, they were just amazing.
It seemed ridiculous to me that this could be so, and then Rene' put on Contate Dominae, with organ, and male and female chorus hammering away. The Fonkens just brushed aside all seeming effort and provided a room full of very detailed, very beautiful and powerful music.
And then I had Rene' play Ferd Groffe's orchestration of Gershwin's Rhapsodiy in Blue, conducted by James Levine and sporting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I hope you have heard this, it is stunning. Even the fortissimo piano passages, with full tilt CSO, playing at loud levels, didn't seem to be any thing difficult.
Quite a few witnessed this too, one Terry O, a noted skeptic on this forum, comes to mind. I suppose I could get folks to come and provide praise, but that really sort of misses the point, since none of you could be there to be personally surprised. I had no idea they could play at this level, they never get above 80 dB in my living room, and usually much quieter than that, so I was not prepared for what they delivered.
Bud
They make really good (and versatile) mids when you want to push them further than they go by themselves.
dave
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