Cool speaker cables, the famous CAT5

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
For anybody interested in some cool designs for speaker cables but not only, also interconnects, mainscables and cable for inside cabling of amps and preamps check these links:
The naked truth about cables
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spkcbl_e.html
might make a few people think about what we really need.
New design http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ffrc_e.html
Older design http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ubyte2e.html
and more http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html
have fun reading.
I would like some opinions and ideas from anybody also interested.

Ilias Kamouzis
 
CAT5 cable maybe still very cool, but I personally never found it very convincing.
I tried CAT5 cables in different variations for interconnects and speaker cables but in many applications and different amps this cables did not perform up to my expections: So always try out yourself and do not believe every hype.
Example1: CAT5 (solidcore, single and doubled) against Naim NACA5 with a NAIM NAP250 and a Mission Cyrus1: The NACA has for Example much better bass and general pace, more insight in the musical flow. But the NAP250 does not like the cables with higher capacity anyway.
Example2: CAT5 (like above) against CableTalk 3.1 (solo and biwired) with a NAD 2200PE: The CableTalk sounds simply better in all aspects.
Example3: CAT5 (like above) against a selfmade solidcore cable (1mm diameter, pu-isolated and cotton covered, slightly twisted) with my prototype ClassA amp (a crossbreed between JLH and DoZ more or less): The solidcore cable let you "look" inside the music much better, with the CAT5 I had the feeling of something going slightly wrong.
(All LS cables tested in 5m length)
Example4: CAT5 (as an interconnect, all 4 pairs paralleled, screened und unscreened) against different interconnects, from pretty basic OFC stuff to a homebrewed unscreened single silver solidcore: All bettered the CAT5 at least in some aspects.

Why should we take cables, which trade in the small inductance with a lot of capacity, making the amplifiers much more unstable?
Why should we have to tame big (american) amplifiers with cables which brake them down to a reasonable, musical acceptable amount?
(I remember listening to Krell and MarkLevinson amps with different cables... )
Why should we take cables, which are somehow necessary to change or adjust or trim the sound which would otherwise be out of balance?
I would recommend perfect impedance matching with the lowest values possible and the use of balanced connections if possible. Remember the hundreds of meters of pretty basic cables our valued musical signals have to pass through in the recording studio before a master is done. This would never work without the right matching.

Recently I assisted a friend in a highend exhibition, setting up a system with Talk audio amps and Ruark Solus speakers. The biggest difference was the change between the expensive topnotch QED silver cable to a basic CableTalk cable, the latter was so much better! It was like the amp was somehow unchained, an effect which I have encountered already several times.

best wishes
Klaus
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.