Different Cardas cables for bass and mid-highs ?


I tried to link the B&W 803D with two pairs of Cardas Golden Reference speaker cables.

The result was an excess of mid-high frequencies: I believe that a Cardas Golden Reference is perfect for driving the three woofers of the B&W 803D, but I think that another Golden Reference gives too much power to the midrange and the tweeter.

I believe the problem is the excess of current for midrange and tweeter, and that a thinner cable than Golden Reference may work better on the mid-highs.

I thought that the "perfect" cable (by section and electrical characteristics -low energy storage-) could be the Cardas SE9.

I would use this configuration:
- Cardas Golden Reference (5 AWG, 16.8 square) for the three 7" woofers
- Cardas SE 9 (9.5 AWG, 5.9 square) for the 6" midrange and the tweeter

5.9 square section (9.5 AWG) of the SE9 is similar to the 5.6 square (9.7 AWG) of the 4 conductors (of 12 total conductors) of the biwired Cardas Golden Reference speaker cable (some people told me that the biwired G.R. is not as good as the full range G.R. in the bass depht and impact).

What do you think of this possible solution (Golden Reference for bass, SE9 for mid-highs) ?

Many thanks

Emanuele from Italy
biggy79
Many thanx to all.

I read that Whathmough for its biwired speaker cables uses 4.5 square conductors for bass and 1.75 square conductors for mid-highs (http://whatmough.com/cables-whatmough.htm), in the belief that they have very different needs.

As I told before, even Cardas uses twice the conductors (8) for bass than for mid-highs (4) in the Golden Ref. internal biwired speaker cable.

I don't think the B&W are so unbalanced, I prefer to think that (instead of two identical cables for bass and mid-highs, the real mistake) I can fid the right internal biwired cable or the external biwiring configuration with different cables for woofers and midrange/tweeter.

I read elsewere in Audiogon (http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1211006947&openfrom&1&4#1) that Cardas Golden Presence speaker cable is very similar to Golden Reference (same geometry), but with 4 conductors instead of 12...

Maybe it's the Golden Presence (not the SE9) the right choice!

I will contact Cardas askin' them whath they think about this solution.
I know of the problem that you are having. You have a couple of issues to deal with here. One aspect of the problem is tweeters that B&W uses (both aluminum and diamond). I'm not a huge fan of B&W for this reason. In general, they either have to much energy on the top end and/or just doesn't integrate all that well. Also, Cardas is not a great choice to biwire with. They make excellent cables overall but not for your speaker. I haven't actually heard your system to verify the problem (you might want to list the other components in your system), but was able to help out a couple of friends (and myself) with a similar problem. Normally, I don't like to use things like cables and accessories to fix problems, because it makes things harder when it comes to upgrading. In your case, though, I believe it is justified. Synergistic makes a cable called the Signature 10. It is an internal biwire cable that actually uses 2 different types of materials for the high and low freq. If you put that cable in your system, it should fix the problem you are having. It does make a big difference and is quite a bit less expensive than the cardas. I don't know if that model is still in production, but I'm sure they make an equivalent current model. The best dealer for this is the Cable Company (www.fatwyre.com). I would get in touch with them and see what they can do for you. You should be able to get thoes speakers sounding pretty good if you can fix the HF.
This comforts me, I'm not the only one!

In my post I forgot to say that, in the Cardas Golden Reference biwired, the 4-conductors I mentioned are dedicated to mid-high range, while the remaining 8 feed the bass.

I could then use the entire Golden Reference on bass (without loss of depth and impact for the loss of 4 conductors, dedicated to the mid-highs) and a cable to the mid-high range with a section just above (5.9 vs. 5.6) than that of 4-conductors, ie SE9, perhaps more suitable for the tweeter for its electric characteristics.

I'll have to try ...
I use different weight cables on my tweeter/ midrange than the bass. I did quite a bit of experimenting to achieve this so I think you have a good idea here.