Best $200 speaker cables for overall performance?

After I performed thousands of dollars worth of upgrades to my Father's system, I changed his speaker cabling. We went from some Audioquest stuff ( can't remember the model ) to Goertz MI-2 Veracity. Upon doing so, my Father exclaimed "that speaker cable made more of a difference than ALL of the other "upgrades" put together !!!". Needless to say, he was pretty happy with the results.

While the system did come to life and sounded FAR more natural than it ever had before, what really happened is that all of the other upgrades were being "stifled" by the old speaker cabling. Once some good cabling was installed, the benefits of all of the other upgrades could now be heard. As such, it "seemed" like the cabling made the biggest difference by itself, but it truly was a culmination of upgrades that led to the final event. Changing to the Goertz MI-2 Veracity's was simply the crowning achievement of it all.

As a point of reference, the speakers in this system were Legacy 1's, which was the fore-runner to the Classics. Bill Dudleston himself had assembled these for my Father. My Brother and I later modified them in drastic fashion. The improvements were even more staggering than all of the other system upgrades prior to that. Sean
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PS... one should ALWAYS use the impedance compensation network that Goertz will supply free of charge for their speaker cabling, whether you think you need it or not.

No problem Marc, go ahead and drop me a line. Just be a bit patient as i sometimes get more email than i know what to do with : ) Sean
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As a point of reference, I have always recommended the use of MI-2 Veracity's over the MI-3 Divinity's. The MI-3's are too low in nominal impedance for most systems, causing excess current to flow. Since most amps aren't up to the task, the end result is that they tend to "muddy" the sound a bit, losing clarity, focus and definition as compared to the MI-2 Veracity's.

All of this is due to the slightly higher nominal impedance of the MI-2's ( as compared to the MI-3's ), which adds a slight "buffer" to the what the amp sees. As we all know, the difference between just a few ohms ( at amplifier load / speaker level ) can make for a BIG difference in both performance and stability.

For that matter, the MI-2's may even be too low in nominal impedance for some really "anemic" amplifiers. If such is the case, then the next step would be the Goertz MI-1's. This is a 13 gauge cable, which is heavy enough for most short runs. By "short", i'm talking about 6' - 8' or so.

As with all of the Goertz cabling, i ALWAYS recommend using their impedance compensation networks, regardless of whether you or Goertz think you need them. Obviously, one must pick and use what they think works best in their system. After all, you're the only one that HAS to listen to it on a regular basis. Sean
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The "impedance compensation networks" or "Zobel's" as supplied by Goertz are not wired in series with the signal. They are placed across the speaker terminals in parallel with the signal path. They only come into play at frequencies WAY beyond audibility and are only used to help stabilize the amp that they are connected to. These are in NO WAYS similar in design to MIT's, Transparent's or other cabling with networks of "filters" built in. Sean
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I used the AP Oval 9's when they first came out. Ran them for well over 500 hours with music playing non-stop 24/7. They were connected to a high powered amplifier directly driving very low impedance, very low sensitivity full range speakers. There was no crossover to get in the way of what the amplifier produced and what the speaker tried to reproduce, making for the shortest, most direct path possible. That is, with the exception of "active" loudspeakers. Then again, one wouldn't need speaker cables for those anyway : )

Due to the very low sensitivity and very low impedance, i was forced to pass much more signal through the cabling than a normal person would have, just to get the speakers to "move". On top of that, these cables were previously used, so they had been "pre-conditioned" prior to my use. For how long or at what amplitude, i have no idea. In other words, these cables should have been "fully broken in".

After all of that, i found the top end of these cables to be phenomenally tizzy sounding. The treble was very smeared, bright and pronounced. On the other end of the spectrum, the bass was phenomenally weak, lacking in output and extension. The combo of these two gave me the effective sonics of a very large and high powered transistor radio. It was almost as if someone had taken a transistor radio, cranked the treble and turned down the bass. NO impact what so ever. To be fair here, the midrange was quite good and i didn't really have any major problems with it.

When i finally took the AP Oval 9's out of the system, my girlfriend ( at the time ) had just run up to the store and was not present. She had no idea what i was doing or what i was about to do. Upon returning back from the store, she walked into the room where this system was playing and asked "what did you do to the stereo?". I asked her "why do you ask that?". Her response was "because it sounds SO much better". In other words, changing the speaker cables in this system was HIGHLY audible, even under what were essentially "blind" listening conditions to a "non-audiophile". I can't remember if i had replaced them with some Goertz or if i was trying out some YBA Diamond speaker cabling at that time, but either way, whatever i replaced it with was FAR superior.

To be blunt, my opinion is that the AP Oval 9's were probably the most unlistenable speaker cables that i've ever had in my house. After hearing them at my house in my systems, i offered them to my Brother to listen to in his system to see what he thought of them. He refused and said that he was not going to waste his time. His next comment was that i should throw them out into the garbage, where they belonged.

Obviously, this is just my opinion, but YOU asked : ) Sean
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PS... Wonder how many people / AP users i pissed off with that one???

D_Edwards: I have several pieces of audio gear that are 20+ years old that still measure within spec and sound quite good. Age has little to do with actual performance so long as the unit has been used on a regular basis and hasn't been thoroughly abused and / or in a severe environment. Regular use not only keeps the caps energized, but problems related to thermal drift are also minimized. Simple rotation of the controls and flipping of the switches i.e. "normal use" also helps to keep oxidation and pitting from damaging said controls.

Other than that, my suggestion as to speaker cables were for the long term. That suggestion was also made in response to a specific question that someone had posted.

As a side note, just because someone is using "Brand X" gear today, that doesn't mean that they will be using that tomorrow or in two years. I know that the cables that i recommended can work quite well with these speakers and are capable of revealing what the electronics up-stream are capable of. Whether or not one likes what they hear with these cables in the system will depend on how pure & stable the signal is being fed into the speaker cabling and / or the end users own personal preferences.

As such, improving the signal fed into it these speaker cables will improve the performance of the system as a whole. I make mention of this as not all speaker cables are capable of revealing the differences in components, simply because the cables themselves introduce their own sonics and electrical loading characteristics into the equation. Should Mtrot ( or anyone else in this situation ) choose to upgrade their components, there would be no need to upgrade their cabling. After all, this cable has been shown to be linear to well beyond 100 KHz, offering minimal signal degradation within or anywhere near the audible passband.

Other than that, i agree that one should have "timbre matched" speakers at all points in a multi-channel system. I also think that one should have "timbre matched" amplification at all points in a multi-channel system. That's why i took the approach that i did with my multi-channel system. Sean
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That's a good question Unsound. Glad you thought of it : )

The Sig II's and the Classic's have different bass alignments. As such, they will not only sound different, but also load the amp differently. Both designs ( in stock form ) have a pronounced bass peak at a relatively high frequency ( 90 - 120 Hz ), so room placement and nodes can really come into play. This is besides any other speaker / room interphase situations taking place, which can also effect imaging, soundstage, etc...

Due to the difference in loading on the amp, the Classic's may simply require more than what your receiver can cope with. You might want to try swapping both the speakers and speaker cables in your main system and see how things work there. If you can get the results that you want with either set of speakers and / or either set of speaker cables in the main system, then you know it has to be room and / or "power" related in the secondary system. Sean
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Rayhall: The 8TC's are half the impedance of the 4TC's, meaning that a stable amplifier should be delivering more power with improved transients across the band into identical speaker loads.

If you ran into low frequency problems when going from 4TC up to the 8TC, my guess is that either the amplifier was having a hard time with the change in impedance ( 4TC's higher impedance acting as a buffer to the amp ) and / or your system componentry leans toward the warm side and you prefer a slightly leaner tonal balance. Might have been a combo of these two factors too. Obviously, one has to choose and use what they like best within the confines of their system. Sean
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