(Van den hul VS Oelbach ) do these make a difference (speaker wires)

[quadklipsh]

dudes .....

i have my klipsch RF3s setup with 2230 marantz ,using van den hul speaker wires . earlier i had the oelbach wires bought a year before VDH. i checked them side by side using the same gear . and to me the oelbach were more bassy ,but ,so to say ,less defined in the bass region. i switched to VDH for more clarity and refinement .

has anyone of you geeks had a similar wiry experience ?lolz.

is this a wise idea to spend more money on wires ?to get petty differences ?

i got the VDH wire at the rate of $3.0/foot (20 feet wire )

plz share ur experiences .

[wuzzzer]

I paid about $17 for 100 feet of 12 gauge copper wire. I like to spend my money on things that actually affect the sound.

[InVeNtOr]

wuzzer, that's not nice to say. wires, cables, interconnects do effect the sound. i am not saying you can have a junk system and then magically after you plug in brand X cable you now have an amazing system. i would always agree, wire, cables, and internects should be one of the last things you spend your money on, but a good to great system with the right cords (that have the best symmetry) will enhance you listening pleasure.

from all the tests i have recently done, regarding HT, i would start out with basic wire and cables. in a HT environment it's very hard to hear differences due to the type of audio. i do have all custom made cables but after lots of listen tests and tweeking there is now a difference between those and my stock ones (including monoprice). you have to have a good system dialed in before you can start changing out cords to hear a difference.

in 2 ch set ups, i would stress more importance in cables but they still would be the last thing i would buy. it's more important to have good symmetry between cables then all the top brands with the best reviews.

anyways, that's my opinon, take it for what it's worth.

[wuzzzer]

wuzzer, that's not nice to say. wires, cables, interconnects do effect the sound. i am not saying you can have a junk system and then magically after you plug in brand X cable you now have an amazing system. i would always agree, wire, cables, and internects should be one of the last things you spend your money on, but a good to great system with the right cords (that have the best symmetry) will enhance you listening pleasure.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude. I personally don't want my wires affecting the sound - that really shouldn't be their job.

[Blvdre]

Cables should have low capacitance, inductance, and resistance. The connectors should be of decent quality, and the insulation should be such that your conductors don't oxidize. Anything beyond that, IMO, is snake oil.

[Mallette]

My experience is that you should insist on 100% copper. Accept no subsititutes.

Dave

[InVeNtOr]

not trying to be a fan boy, but if you want a speaker wire that will not effect your sound and reproduce what ever your gear sends out, then you want www.anticables.com. it's 5N continuous spun copper. it has a think enamel coating to take any dampening out of normal wire insulation. i used it to make a power cord and being honest, out of all the power cords i made, it sounded the best.

a quick story. Paul (anticables founder) tested his cable with a very high end CD player (don't remember the name but he said it was a very very popular one and it cost about $5k). when he used it combined with his speaker wire, he said it was a very high harsh horrible sound. after a little head scratching, he switched out his anticable wire for an old set of high end speaker cables. tested it that way, and it sounded much better. the issue was that CD player has an emphasis on it's highs (that's why so many people love it - as so he was told). since his speaker wire doesn't dampen the highs, it was a bit too much.

anyways, it a good product, works well, not that expensive either. you can get it for $1.25 a foot. (unless you are making star quad power cables...lol). i would suggest this type of speaker wire only for 2ch and still stick with monoprice for HT.

[Groomlakearea51]

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Mr. Russell retired as the chief engineer for McIntosh.....

[Islander]

A friend of mine in the Toronto area recently called to tell me he'd installed Anticables and was impressed with the improved sound, although I don't recall the details of the differences. His system is fairly high-end and his listening room has a good amount of acoustic treatment, plus he's been listening long enough to be able to hear any changes in the system's sound.

As for me, I go with big cables for minimum resistance and minimum reduction in the amps' damping factor, so I'm using 8AWG for the woofers and 10AWG for the tweeters in my bi-amped JubScalas. In theory, the bigger cables allow the amps to more precisely control the speakers' drivers, which should be a good thing.

Looking back, 10AWG would likely have been sufficient for the woofers, but I like the idea of "no compromise", especially when the upsize is affordable. The improvements may be marginal at that point, but even slight improvements are worthwhile if it's not too costly. Both cable pairs are Knukonceptz Karma Kables, a fine-strand twisted pair type.

Electrical engineers may say that as long as the cable is big enough and long enough, that's all that matters and anything else is just your imagination, but different speaker cables do seem to have different sonic flavours. If you can hear a difference, there is a difference, so choose the cable that sounds best to you.

[Islander]

Cables should have low capacitance, inductance, and resistance.

Any engineers can comment on this, but isn't it difficult to get optimum values of all three specs in a specific cable? It's the balance between the three specs that will determine how the cable affects the signal passing through it, giving the cable its individual tonal qualities. Different types of insulation are also said to make an audible difference. I don't know if a cable has ever been made that has no effect on the audio signal it's carrying.

It's sort of like the Iron Law with speakers, where among the factors of small cabinet size, high speaker sensitivity and extended low bass response, you can get two but never three, so you have to choose what's most important to you.

[jheis]

"Different" and "better" are not the same thing.

With a background in electronics from my Air Force days, I'm of the "wire is wire" school.

If a speaker cable is changing the sound, it is adding something which shouldn't be there or subtracting something which should.

James

[Islander]

But don't all cables have a sonic flavour? Is there even such a thing as a totally neutral-sounding cable?

[InVeNtOr]

anticables is going to be the closest to having no flavor or sound change at all. that's why i think some people love them and other hate them. you get to hear what your gear actually sounds like.

[ZAKO]

Sure cables make some difference,,,But its cheaper to use tone controls.

[Ironsave]

All of my speaker wires are 10 gauge copper. I paid nothing for them as they were included with various speaker purchases.

I did the Monster cable upgrade to my promedia 2.1s about 4 years ago. I now own a second set for almost 2 years, these are hard wired (Klipsch changed because of plug problems?) so no upgrading the wires in an easy way possible.

So, I have done a side by side comparison..... the verdict?

Minimal difference. I believe a lot is mental projection, trying to justify the cost and wanting the best for our systems..... Which I do; just like anyone.

I think spending $200-$300 extra on better components/ speakers will have a bigger impact than spending it on "top grade" magic wire.

My .02

Good Luck.

[Don Richard]

Any engineers can comment on this, but isn't it difficult to get optimum values of all three specs in a specific cable?

Very easy. Use monoblocks and hook them to the speakers with inches of any wire you've got. Near zero L,C, and R.

[Blvdre]

Any engineers can comment on this, but isn't it difficult to get optimum values of all three specs in a specific cable?

Very easy. Use monoblocks and hook them to the speakers with inches of any wire you've got. Near zero L,C, and R.

But then you have long interconnects to deal with, pick your poison.

[garyrc]

Sure cables make some difference,,,But its cheaper to use tone controls.

So, let's bring back tone controls! And versatile ones too! I miss the ones on my old 2 channel Luxman; they had three turnover choices for bass, three for treble, and about += 18 dB range for the more central turnovers, and a very subtle + 7 dB MAX @ 15K for the highest turnover for treble.....all this plus 2 different "low boost" switches. I had a default setting (instead of "flat") of "low boost 70 Hz" and a treble default of the highest cut-in of about 3 dB (on one of the continuously variable controls) that had its main effect above about 10K, From there, some disks (about 2/3 of them) got a little customized EQ. Man, do I miss that! My current unit has tone controls (had to really look for one that did) but they are ham-fisted and not very usefull. The Luxman controls did not seem to introduce any distortion, and made more difference than wires ever did (for me). If anyone knows of a nice AV/preamp control center (I want to continue to use my power amps) for 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1, that has versatile tone controlls or parametric equalization, please let me know!

[SWL]

The Luxman controls did not seem to introduce any distortion, and made more difference than wires ever did (for me).

Long live tone controls! [Y]

[WMcD]

I just can't buy into the notion that speaker wire makes a difference, same perhaps if you're replacing really poor, thin stuff.

There is talk that wire has capacitance, inductance, and resistance. That is true. However, look at the speaker itself as its impedance moves around with freq. The complex impedance plot shows great amount of capacitance and inductance.

The information in R + jX is masked from the ordinary observer because of the notation of R and plus and minus "j" X. However, if you do the math, this shows that the speaker is exhibiting capacitance and inductance serveral orders of magnitude greater than any wire feeding it. R too.

As far as the wire being similar to tone controls, I don't see that either. You can run a freq response curve at the amp end of a zip cord wire, and the speaker end, and there is no significant difference, in fact sometimes non-measureable, with standard equipment.

I stand to be corrected if any speaker wire manufacturer can come up with an electrically measured improvement over 16 gauge zip cord, given reasonable length and speaker load. I'd also stand to be corrected if there is any ABX subjective test results. To my knowledge, these do not exist..

Wm McD