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Of speaker cables and interconnects......


Bonzo

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Thanks for the info spekerfritz, you obviously know your wire. You bring up an interesting question, to me anyway. If you upgrade to higher quality and/or larger gauge speaker cable from the amp to the speakers, shouldn't you upgrade the speakers internal wiring also? I think Chris, popbumper, uses 14 gauge copper wire with his K-stack crossovers which seem to work fine. I have seen 12 gauge Monster Cable on K-horn crosses. Probably tough to solder larger wire onto a circuit board unless you are using connectors? It appears the internal wiring in my speakers, Forte I's and Chorus I's, are 18 gauge? They sound pretty good to me but, maybe I'm missing something?

Resistance is measured in ohms (or more likely, small parts of ohms) per foot, so the short lengths in the crossover have less effect than the much longer cables from the amp to the speakers. I don't think electrons back up like a traffic jam when they come to a smaller cable or connection. Even so, I did replace the factory 16 gauge cabinet-entry-to-crossover lead-in cables in my speakers with 12 gauge. It was only 10 inches, but why not minimize bottlenecks if it's easy to?

Another point is that the various cables inside the speaker are each carrying only part of the power (to the tweeter only, the woofer only, etc.), while the cables from the amp to the speaker are carrying all the power, so it's logical for them to be larger.

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......I am sure there is a lot of research, science and technology that goes into the high end cables that I can't even begin to understand. I know all of that does cost money but, how much is too much?

.......

I just can't see paying $3,000 for a set of inter-connects that may give you 10% better sound than a $50 cable.

That is the unfortunate part. I am convinced that not much research, science and technology are involved. I think a great deal of marketing, PR and hype are involved.

It is questionable whether there will even be a 10% improvement. Worse than that there are companies that actually deliberately corrupt the signal by filtering.

In that case, Different: Yes, Better: No

Good Luck,

-Tom

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Same vein but more specific question:

The interconnect from output devices, ie, DVD, CD, Tuner to th Pre-amp/processor: how important is this? I've recently installed a new pre/pro (Rotel) with the stock cables provided. I've been using BlueJeans stuff from my processor to amps for a while. Do I need the same quality (or better) to connect the output devices to the pre/pro? Especially, regarding analog 2 channel for CD and multi-channel analog for SACD and DVD-A (obviously not digital toslink connections). What's the dope on that?

thanks...

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"I don't think electrons back up like a traffic jam when they come to a smaller cable or connection."


This view comes up often....the view comparing a 12 guage cable to a 10 gauge cable when a 14 guage cable will due.

High end designer cable does not work on this principle.....you need to understand your talking about cables that have had intentional manipulations that effect sound.   Put a 25mh inductor,  two hundred ohm resistor on each end of a speaker wire across the terminals along with a .01  capacitor across the ends of both speaker terminals and then wrap a few layers of capacitor film material around the condutors before putting the insulation on.  The wire will sound different than the lamp cord.  Are resistors and capacitor installed on wire this way no...but the cables are manipulated to alter their electrical properties....these manipulations cost money....it's not just wire painted different colors.

Some will say I don't want to change the sound...but actually if you think about it....why send signals below 10hz and above 20khz to your speakers...it will just get turned to heat.






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"I don't think electrons back up like a traffic jam when they come to a smaller cable or connection."


This view comes up often....the view comparing a 12 guage cable to a 10 gauge cable when a 14 guage cable will due.


Some will say I don't want to change the sound...but actually if you think about it....why send signals below 10hz and above 20khz to your speakers...it will just get turned to heat.




How many audio signals have content below 10Hz, or even 20Hz for that matter? CDs don't have any content above 20kHz and LPs probably don't either. Wouldn't it just be SACDs that have such a great bandwidth?

Also, it sounds like some of these exotic cables may be aiming for "euphonious distortion". Would you agree, speakerfritz? More seductive than accurate, but then some listeners like their music flavoured.
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"How many audio signals have content below 10Hz, or even 20Hz for that matter?'

none...it's system induced noise and harmonics



"Also, it sounds like some of these exotic cables may be aiming for "euphonious distortion".  Would you agree, speakerfritz?  More seductive than accurate, but then some listeners like their music flavoured."

Alot of noise floor reduction techniques rely on the manipulation of inductance, capacitance, resistance.   Things like the Zero Autoformer increase impedance at the amps output resulting in greater dampening factor, reduced noise.  Same is true of AC line conditioners....just a buch of inductors and capacitors in the power path.  High end designer cables are basically manipulating inductance, capacitance, and resistance in the same way.

The initial question was a "how" question.  Answers to "how" questions should be provalbe....and they are....a multi-meter across open and unconnected Mnster M2.2 cables will show 100 ohms...clear evidence of manipulation of impedance....if i had a capcitance and inductance meter....we could probally quantify some numbers there as well.  


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Thanks for clarifying that, fritz. Anything that can lower the noise floor has to be an improvement. I haven't had the chance to listen to any high-end cables (well, to listen to a system that includes such cables, I mean). Sounds like it's a whole different sort of item. So far, I've just noticed improvements in my system by going to bigger cables, but they're neither expensive nor exotic. The Knukonceptz Karma Kables (8 gauge twisted pair) give pleasing clarity, improved dynamics and fuller bass response and only cost $1.65 a foot, well within my budget. The megabuck cables will have to wait.

In your experience, do the exotic cables require matching to each system? What I mean is, can you just assume a respected brand will improve your system, or do you have to try a few "flavours" to see which one matches best? For instance, I've read stuff like "Don't use brand Y cable with brand Z amps or the sound will be too bright, dull, whatever..."

Almost forgot, what about those late-model speakers and supertweeters that claim to have treble response up past 40kHz? Wouldn't some of those cables wipe that right out?

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Cables are like tubes....folks try and either like or dislike...sell off and buy others to try...or like and decide to step up to the next version.


As far as specific's to technical questions....it would be great to get my hands on a capacitance and inductance meter to take some measurements and do some math...All I have is an ohm meter.

On paper...it would only take .006mh of inductance to divert frequencies above 20Khz away from a tweeter.   I wonder how many wraps of wire around a tooth pic that would be.





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UFObuster. Over the past 3 months I have been listening, many hours a day, to my system. I have 74 year young ears. I listened to different interconnects from the CD player to the pre amp and from the pre amp to the power amp. All three, CD, pre, and power amp are pretty good units. If they weren't perhaps my observations would have been less dramatic. Momoprice were nice, sounder good, and were cheap. I wanted them to win. But blue jeans were obviously better. I sent the monoprice back. I then tried anti cables. They were quite a bit better. So I sent the blue jeans back. I was very happy with my anti cables for about 400 hours of listening. By dumb luck, I heard about these rave reviews on Cat Cables. I gave there best ones a try. The silver Kingcats. Not cheap at about $200 for a one meter set Amazing improvement. It made my present $ 6K system sound better than anything I have ever heard or had. My system in the mid 1980's was about $28K. Yes I had K horns then and monoblock Tube ARC amps. Now I have RF 7's due to space changes were I live. These IC changes would probably sound different had you made them in your system, with your ears and listening preferances. I'm just talking me, here. My wife noticed the Kingcat cable improvement. That is definately a FIRST. My very skeptical brother even agreed its the best sounding my system has ever been. He Heard all of the system changes over the past 22 years. That's my story to date.

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Thanks zuzu....you have a few years on me but not that many!

So, it will make a difference....shopping I go....I've heard references to Cat Cable before, maybe I'll start there. BTW, never had the big Heritage speakers, opted for the RF-7, also due to room limitations.

Thanks, again

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