Analysis Plus Speaker cables

Sean, don't understand your "vendetta" against AP? Using variation in design configuration or conductor size is not unusual or bad. Look at the back cover of any current Audio mag and look at AQ new cable line. Many different conductor sizes and design configurations, all using the same underlying AQ design themes. AP still employs braided hollow oval in all cables, just different variations. I don't see this as "unethtical" nor is it unusual for a company to claim their products are the best, lets be positive here and applaud companies that provide great products to audiophiles at reasonable prices.....regards Sam

Sam, you're very knowledgeable about wire. What are your sonic and overall impressions of AP products? Thanks for your consideration!

Trelja, check 7/30 AP subject with 27 posts, I go into detail there, obviously I like them because I bought double runs for my Musical Fidelity X-AS100 monoblocks, but I am no expert, except in knowing what I like for my system, regards Sam

Sean, I'm with you.

Sam, i don't have a "vendetta" against AP in specific. It's against "scam artists" in general. I am just amazed at the amount of "hoopla" surrounding these wires and have to wonder why. I tried them and found them lacking in two of my systems that are completely different from each other. My girlfriend even commented on how bad they sounded. We put them into my brothers system, which again is quite different than the other two, and had similar results. While i know that components and cables do perform differently in various systems and combinations, that's a 100% negative rating in three different systems from three different people. Believe me, i was wanting to like these things. My girlfriend could care less about things of this nature, yet took the time to comment how bad the AP's sounded and how much better my Goertz sound without any form of prodding from me. My brother is skeptical of EVERYTHING pertaining to wire and cables. He becomes a believer when he hears or sees the difference. It was a fair test. I've talked to others that came out with almost identical results, so i know that we're not alone in our observations. My comments about their design geometry are quite simple. They show pictures of all of these other designs, badmouth them and then say how great their design is. How can you do this and then change your design to something that you just got done badmouthing ??? If you were to believe their "white paper", you would think that their original geometry was infallible. According to them, it was based on computer designs and articulate electrical measurements. If the original was so far beyond everything else, why would you want to change the geometry ? After all, this changes all of the electrical characteristics ( inductance, capacitance, impedance, magnetic fields, etc ). Their measurements, computer formulations and theories must all have pretty wide tolerances / margins for error to them. I was initially told that they changed the design for the silver cables because of the differences in the metals and their conductivity. Sounds reasonable If you don't really understand these things. The hole in that theory is that the newer 14 gauge cables are copper and use the same design as the silver cables do. This is NOT the design that they show all the fancy pictures and claim that all of the research went into. The bottom line is that i think that these folks are good at marketing and don't mind lying to your face. While the prices are not astronomical compared to many others on the market, they are still "wire bandits" nonetheless. This is not all that different from many companies on the market today. The difference between the other Wire Bandits and AP is that they say and show you one product to your face and then sell you something different, hoping that you won't notice. Would you like to be the "victim" of a scam like that or would you rather that someone told you what was up before you made a mistake ? I think that the answer is obvious. Listen with your ears, analyze with your mind and enjoy with your heart. Sean >

I use the Oval Nine in a high res system and found them to perform better than the HT Pro9. In either case, Oval 9, Oval 14 or Silver Oval they still maintain the oval concept where the crossectional area for current flow (near or at the outter layer of metal) is optimized. The commonality is that all copper cables have hollow ovals stacked on top of each other. Analysis Plus started with the Oval 9 design originally. My question is how do you maintain the same wire gage in the positive and negative wires in the silver oval cable and how easy is it to manufacture them that way. Truely it must be more costly for manufacture because the silver content alone doesn't account for the price difference.

The Oval 9's and Oval 12's originally started as coaxial designs. One conductor was inside the other. This would mean that the outer conductor would have to be a heavier gauge wire than the inner conductor. The first ones to go to the stacked design was the silver model. Now the 14 gauge wire uses that also. The 9's and 12's will probably follow suit. This would DRASTICALLY alter ALL of their electrical characteristics. I'm sure that the newer version is far cheaper and faster for them to produce and that's probably the bottom line. So much for the original design being "the best possible". Sean >

Please correct me if this is wrong, Sean, but based on AP's Web site you have the designs mixed up. The Oval 9 and 12 are (and to my knowledge always were) stacked designs and the Silver 12 is "coaxial". The Oval 9 and 12 came first, so the Silver 12 is actually the deviant child. Pondering the questions you posed, is it possible that the Silver 12 is coaxial because a) it is their flagship product b) it *is* a slightly better design, but more difficult/expensive to manufacture and c) these are why it was the later entrant of the three? The Oval 14 looks to be a stacked design (cheaper to make than the coax?) like the rest of the Oval series except that each leg is sheathed separately and both are encased in a common outer sheath. My guess is this is to meet the CL-3 (in-wall) code, so the third design change would be to both to offer a lower cost product (than the Silver series) and for the intended application? Notice that these are posed as questions because they are simply ideas as to why the design varies slightly from product to product, not actual answers. For those we'll have to go to the manufacturer. I have and will share the result if they respond.

Thanks for pointing that out Fpeel. The initial literature that i had seen on these when the Oval 9 and 12's came out had pictured flat oval coaxial cables. This was BEFORE the Silver cables were even introduced. To further reinforce that, EVERY printed catalogue from Audio Advisor that i have seen shows the Oval 9 and Oval 12 as being of the flat coaxial design with the Silver's being stacked. When i first received my Oval 9's, i looked at them and swore that they were stacked. I really didn't pay much attention to this and thought that they might have changed the design to match the Silver models. Since you pointed this out, i did go to the AP website and the pictures there are completely opposite of what i have been stating. This means that Audio Advisor's pictures in the catalogue's and even AP's own literature have been wrong from the beginning. Thank you for making me aware of this and correcting me. This still does not change the situation, even if i was backwards : ) Why have they altered the design at ALL ??? I hope that they do respond to you as i am quite curious as to their explanation. Sean

Here's Analysis Plus' response: Thank you for bringing this discussion to our attention, and also for your very eloquent replies to Sean. You are certainly correct in your response, the copper Oval 9 and Oval 12 were the original designs, and have not been changed. When we added the Oval Theater 14 to our line, we used the same hollow oval geometry as our other copper products, but as you correctly state, requirements for the CL-3 rating required the use of insulation around both conductors. Sean is simply wrong in saying we don't employ hollow oval technology in the home theater cables. The Silver Oval was a later design than the Oval 9 or Oval 12, and uses a different conductor material. We had the opportunity to run further simulations and experiment with other geometries and concluded that due to some of silver's properties, a coaxial configuration would be a better choice for that conductor material. The coaxial geometry increases the cost of the cable itself, and also increases the labor involved in terminating the cable, so this geometry is only used in our flagship model, where the conductor material and cable price justify its use. To address another of Sean's misconceptions, the conductor gauge of both inner and outer conductors of the Silver Oval is in fact the same. Since it is a braided design, the way the cable is wound can be altered, so that the same number of strands are used in both conductors, resulting in equivalent gauge. Thank you again for your responses to Sean, and for trying our products. We wish you many enjoyable years of listening. Mark Markel and Steve Pennock Analysis-Plus, Inc. [email protected]

Looks like the info I presented was correct and the intuition that the coax design used in the Silver Oval is more costly was "on". I'm glad to know that the wire gage is also equal in the positive and negative directions.

Thanks for posting that Fpeel. I would rather be corrected than continue to be incorrect. I apologize for the misinformation that i posted about the various cables and their geometries. I tried to call AP today and ended up getting a recording. While i don't know if you have any of the Advisor catalogue's, but if you do, take a look at what they show in them in terms of a cut-away view and you'll see what i'm talking about. They've had the wrong info shown for several catalogue's in a row. In terms of their statement that the cables are equally sized in the silver cables, that would mean that the outer weave would have to have a much wider gap between strands than the inner conductor would. That is the only way that you can have the same amount of actual wire and cover more area. As i stated, i did try these cables with over 500 hours of running time on them and was not happy with them. Just further proof that everyone has different tastes. Sean >

Like you I'm just trying to be helpful, Sean. Considering all the great info I've gleaned from this site it's nice to be able to add a little something to the discourse. BTW, AP is now aware of AA's faux pas on the cable images.