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I'm new to your site. I have a pair of Cornwall I's from the mid 70s and Adcom separates...amp is GFA 555. Although I've not used the system for 5 years the Cornwalls still sound wonderful...horns are an acquired taste.

Question...I've always used plain copper 12 gauge monster speaker wire. The run between the amp and Cornwalls is about 8 feet. Are any of the new high end speaker wires worth the money? If so, have any of you found any that are?

thanks...charles

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What's that creaking noise I hear?? Is it the lid of Pandora's box opening?? smile.gif You've hit, Charles, on probably the most controversial topic on this board (along with interconnect cables). If you do a search on speaker wire, you'll see several threads debating the topic.

Bottom line -- buy some mid & real expensive stuff from somewhere that will let you return it, and listen for yourself. FWIW, Paul Klipsch has pretty much used zip cord with his personal speakers.

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I gotta chime in here.

Find a dealer who sells Belden CAT5 cable, buy the stuff with teflon insulation, and use that for speaker wire.

To do the "full monty" you need to strip the outer sheath off and separate all the individual pairs, leaving the twisting aspect intact. Then braid three pairs into one, another three pairs, and another three, and then braid those three braids into one, for a total of nine pairs of wire. Strip back about four inches on both sides and carefully strip the whites and colored wires, bundling the whites together as one large conductor and the colored together as the other. Repeat on other side of cable. CHECK FOR SHORTS OR MISTAKES with an ohmmeter.

Repeat for second speaker cable.

There, I've said it.

IMO, you won't find better speaker cable out there at any price.

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Charles

Please check out the "The Cable Company" website at:

http://www.fatwyre.com/index.html

They offer in home trials at no risk, offer used and closeout specials, have a huge database of customer reactions to different cables in different systems, and are generally speaking a nice bunch of people who really want you to be happy with whatever you might wind up buying from them. No risk way to determine whether different cables make any difference to you, in your system.

Ray

------------------

Music is art

Audio is engineering

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I think that what you've got now is more than enough. More better bigger is not gonna hurt, though.

As I've said before, anyone who braids CAT-5 gets my respect. On the other hand, I cring when a boat load of money is spent on cable and the cash goes to suppliers which I consider hucksters.

Do spend the money on better speakers, more CD's. That's what I think.

Gil

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I have been listening to vintage Cornwalls since 1981 and always with "lamp cord" speaker wire. I'm a long time happy customer.

Well it's not really that bad as it's fairly thick wire but certainly no Monster Cables or the like.

Having said that I DO believe that hearing is believing. I won't "dis" the speaker wire enthusuests before trying it myself. I may find an audible obvious difference. Maybe smile.gif

I personally and respectfully will believe it when I hear it.

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Stu, I'm going out on a limb here with this comment.Five or six years ago I replaced the interconnects and speaker wire on my KG 5.5 speakers.I bought several pairs of Monster Interlink 400 MKII 1/2 meter pairs @ $29.95 a

pair and about 40' of Audioquest Type 6 speaker wire @ $2.75 a foot.The difference was as apparent to me as the sack on your head. biggrin.gif

Keith

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TalkToKeith:

That being true you should replace the lamp cord used in your crossovers with Monster Type Cables.

I'm not saying there's no difference. I'm simply skeptical that a short run of 12 or 14 guage wire will be that much improved using expensive cables. I for one won't be paying good money on the "chance" the improvement, if any, will be worthwhile.

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yeah I had the same thoughts back a year ago or so. Had fat 12 gauge lamp cord for twenty years(!) or more and didn't see any reason to change.

Then I heard the difference between the standard interconnects that come with pretty much everything and a "cheap" pair of Wireworld Atlantis interconnects ($50).

Crimeny!

Rather than pop big bucks for speaker cable, I went the cat5 route for about $70 and about 24 hours of my time and 1/8" of my finger's skin, and feel, within reason, that I now have cables that I would need to spend ten times as much to better.

And I've compared them to Goertz MI-2's and think very highly of the cat5's to this day, and probably will have them until I get independently wealthy and don't mind blowing $10,000 on speaker cables.

Are they worth it? Only you can decide. Do you want to ignore a possible improvement for $70?

I didn't.

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I would fully agree with those posts before hand... As long as you have A) the proper gauge for the amount of wattage you're attempting to throw at the speakers, as well as a proper design, exhibiting as much noise rejection as possible, you'll be fine... I have built many data type cables (using "Cat-5", Level 6, and Level 7), as well as some hand-stranded designs of my own, and have found the results to be very similar... All very good... Matching and surpassing the results from Kimber 8TC, and the like... In my opinion, there's a fine line, between improving the overall sound quality with cable, and jewelry... The expensive cable is great, but put your money in your speakers and source unit, all else will follow suit. =)

------------------

-Klifton

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I was skepticlal on speaker wire myself, till my dealer let me "test" a couple different types. I have my RF-3's biwired with monster cable, Center Biwired as well, and high end monster to surrounds RS3, Monster cable to my "test" ksw10 with Y adapter. Wouldn't have it any other way!!

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RF3, RS3, RC3 and KSW12

Sony DB840

Sony DVD

Sony VCR

Sony CD

Sony dual cassette

Sony TV

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  • 1 month later...

It comes down to you as the primary listener on what you like. I actually used Original Monster MC20/20 to power a pair of Khorns(93)but have switched to the Monster Reference series Z2 biwired and also for my C7 centre (Hersey's when the cash flows again, dry spring). My La Scalas are going to run off that original MC20/20 cable from 93(also a pair of KG.1's at 1 time) and it doesn't seem much different, only when I go 2 channel on the Khorns...OH BABY!!

It was a toss up between Audioquest and Monster, and as having used Monsters product for almost 10 years now, why change, great stuff. Why spend 2000-10K on wire???

If I had 30+K speakers maybe.

Khorns(93) Monster Reference Z2 biwired.

LaScala(01) 1993 Monster MC20/20 Original cable

C7(Hersey's to replace in 02)Monster Reference centre channel biwired.

Adcom AC-515 Enhancer

Marantz SR18EX Receiver

2-Marantz MA700 mono block amps(Khorns)

Marantz DV3100 DVD

Marantz VM5100 S-VHS

Marantz DR4160 3 Disk carousel with single tray CDR.

Marantz CD4050 casette

Toshiba 50HX70 HDTV

DVDO iscan line doubler(nice toy!)

This message has been edited by boomer9911 on 05-12-2001 at 01:10 AM

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>>amp is GFA 555<< For a huge improvement in the sound of the bass and midrange add a 22µF 100V cap in parallel with each of the 15,000/100 blue beer can sized filter caps.The cheap $1 each electrolitics will give 90% of the improvement that you would hear from $50 each film types.If you like what it does and want the last 10% then spend $200 for the film caps.If you don't like it you are out $4.Try this before fooling with wire.Warning: If you like inarticulate, mushy bass and cloudy midrange do not do this to your GFA555.

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randy the nexttime we exchange audio goodies I am going to ask you to knit me some cables instead of sending tubes!!! anything you looking for lately (besides the sub?)?

charles: I too have tried higher end cables and heard the difference...I can heartily recommend audioquest type 4 cables as an upgrade from thick zip cord or monster cable zip cord...I also bought some cardas cable recently and wow!...regards, tony

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