Upgraded Monster to Belden 89259 Cross Connect

[Charles Turner]

I know speaker cables are a hotly debated topic but I thought I'd offer some brief remarks on a recent upgrade. I have always used generic zip cord, or for the last few years, 12 guage monster cable. This weekend I constructed the Belden 89259 cross connect speaker cables designed by Jon Risch and recommended by others on this board.

It took about a day to construct a 25' and 15' set...I decided to use the remainder of the 100' roll for some simple interconnects and forgo equal lengths.

Since I do not speak true audiophile I'll use simple English...in brevity, a lot more information is reaching the cornwalls now. The closest comparison is the difference I hear with a new phono cartridge. The individual performers are more easily identified (more air) in the recording and the music extends further to the left and right and rear of the room (better soundstage). The upper midrange is cleaner and the higher frequency is smoother and less fatiguing. The bass is better defined and the notes end quickly and distinctly. These cables have only been "broken in" for two hours and supposedly after a few weeks the bass dynamics improve even more.

The differences are more noteable on a small group jazz piece or on a rock recording such as Supertramp's "Crime of the Century" and less obvious on a straight up rock piece such as the Stones or the Who.

While I doubt I would ever spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a pair of esoteric cables I would highly recommend spending $200 or less on these if you currently own monster or zip cord speaker cable.

1976 Cornwalls ALK crossovers

Stax Lambda Signature earspeakers SRM T1 tube driver

Rega P25 turntable Benz Micro H2 cartridge

McIntosh MC225 amplifier

McIntosh C15

McIntosh MR71 tuner

DIY 89259 cross-connect speaker cable

DIY Superlatives interconnects

[mike stehr]

You'll think have any of that 100' roll left over when you finish your speaker wire and interconnects?

I'd be interested in what's left if your willing to part with it.

EDIT:

Now that I think about it, you probably don't have much left.

[artto]

First, let me also state that it is not my intention to piss anyone off with this post, or start a big argument over the big cable/wire debate (AGAIN). This is simply some food for thought.

Second, I must admit that Im not a big fan of Jon Risch. While this guy is obviously qualified, some things of his Ive seen makes me wonder. A lot of it seems half-baked. He seems to have the appropriate concepts & math down in the beginning, & then somehow ends up misapplying it half way through. His so-called bass traps are a fine example. I call them Treble Traps. Because thats really what they are more effective at doing.

I read a while back, some technical info, on the Cardas website I believe, about how wires/cables can create voltage just by moving them around. My first thought was BS. At the time, I was in the process of biasing up my tube amps, when it occurred to me that every multimeter Ive owned, would show voltage changes just by moving the probes around. In fact, all you have to do is put the multimeter on some low setting, such as 200mv, leave the wire/probes lay still, & move your hand towards the wires. Poozah! The meter is showing voltage. Move the wires around & you see even more variation in voltage.

George Cardas goes on to explain how & why, even brand new cables can hold a charge for a long time. This, along with my own observations with the multimeter made me wonder about how simply moving cables around that have been connected for some time might be creating some amount of charge in the cables. Could it be that this sort of charging or discharging of the cables is one of the things causing the change in sound, not necessarily the cable change itself? Obviously, some cable construction will be more susceptible to this phenomena than others due to the dielectric qualities of the materials used.

Another interesting thing I observed (which I also thought was BS, & surprisingly from Sheffield Lab) had to do with demagnetizing, not only cables, but everything in the system. It now makes me wonder if this also has more to do with the sound difference one might experience when installing new cables than anything to do with the new cable itself. Sheffield Lab, in conjunction with XLO Electric, put out a CD called the Sheffield/XLO Test & Burn-in CD. There is a track on there called the Demagnetizing Sweep. It been common practice in recording studios for decades, to demag tape heads, even before each use. In recent years, however, its also been learned that phono cartridges & even such apparently non-magnetic elements of a playback system such as its copper internal wiring, circuit board traces, mounting leads, connectors, crossover inductors, cables & speaker voice coils, can, and do become magnetized resulting in an audible degradation of sound.

The magnetization comes about because wherever there is a flow of current, an electromagnetic field is formed around the conductor, which, if, it is made of or contains magnetizable metals (iron, nickel, cobalt, etc), will tend to leave the conductor with a residual charge. No such thing as 100% pure copper. Even the gold plating is done on metals that have impurities in them.

At the time, many of my components had not been changed, or even moved, for years. I tried this demag thing & my god it worked! I could not believe it! Then I did some more research on this & found that even things like large mechanical motors/machines, planes & ships went through a demagnetization process occasionally as part of regular maintenance!

So maybe, its not so much the cables per se, as it is things like moving the cables around (charging them), or the cables eventually becoming magnetized to some degree? Like I said, just some food for thought.

[Kudret]

Several months ago I was one of the people who believed that speaker wire did not make any difference, until I had my Cornwalls and started to experiment with the cross-connect idea with some mini coax cable that I had at home. I was comparing the coax cross connect speaker wire I built with 12 ga Home Depot wire and I was amazed to be able to hear the difference between these two speaker cables. Each seemed to have its pluses and minuses. I liked the 12 ga HD wire for its warmness, and coax cross connect for its tighter bass.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Then I decided to buy 100 of Belden 89259, as this was the recommended cable by Jon Risch, instead of fooling around with unknown coax that I had at home. Finally, last week I built two 8 Belden 89259 cross connect speaker cables and I have been comparing them with the 12 ga Home Depot cables. One thing that I noticed again is that the bass is tighter. All the vocals and instruments also became more defined and crisper (is this what is called transparency?). However, there seems to be some loss in the warmness of the vocals that I am accustomed to getting from the 12 ga HD cables. In fact, I came to realize that I prefer this warmness to tighter bass.

Ive been using these Belden cables for about 50 hours now, but I am not sure if things will improve after a while. It seems like my search for a speaker wire that keeps the warmness of the vocals, but tightens the bass and improves the clarity of the instruments still continues.

[artto]

Kudret, honestly, I found what I was looking for years ago. And it wasn't in a wire. It was all around me in the room itself. Quite frankly (no offense to anyone), but there's really much, much more to found in improving the sound through acoustics. IMO, until that is done, all this other stuff is nothing more than a trivial pursuit.

[Clipped and Shorn]

Improving room acoustics is more difficult to do than buying stuff. Shopping is more fun, and new stuff also looks cool. We are talking human nature here.

C&S

[Charles Turner]

I agree room acoustics are significantly more important than speaker cables. When I returned to this hobby three years ago my first task was to decide which room "sounded the best". I literally carried the Cornwalls from room to room until I found one which sounded the most natural to my ears. It turns out it was not one of the larger living areas with the high ceilings but an isolated upstairs bedroom. I later realized the rooms dimensions, 12' x 15' with an 8' ceiling, were close to what some consider optimal room dimensions.

So, after three years of replacing every component except the Cornwalls I am down to the last step, the cables. Since I originally came to the BB three years ago searching for information on speaker cables it seemed appropriate to post a comment on the end of my project.

[artto]

.......there you go mahn!.....very good!

(by the way, glad to see you have a strong back!)

[AndyKubicki]

Well shiver me timbers! I bought a CD for cleaning and testing players and it too has a demag signal, which I thought was more audiophile hocus pocus...but I have been changing around so much in my system that I can't tell if the demag worked or not. Still, it's an interesting concept!