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Final Report, Canare 4S11 Speaker Cable

I posted this in the original thread yesterday, but it is so buried that unless you were following it, you would never see it.  At the end I will add a few more comments.   

This is the final report on the Canare 4S11 cables.  I let the 25 foot pair break in on my secondary system for almost 19 days 24/7.  At the 445 hour mark, I reinserted them into my main system.  I first removed the $1500.00 Groneberg Quattro Reference speaker cables and coiled them up under the floor in case I decided to go back to them. After my son helped me install the Canare cables (I had to make larger holes in the floor for the banana plugs to fit) and routing them perfectly, I am happy to say my system now sounds much better.  I no longer have the softness in highs I had with the Groneberg cable and the bass is tighter and deeper.  I was always under the impression that the higher the price, the better the cable.  The fact that a $130.00 pair of speaker cables bested a $1500.00 pair should be a lesson for everyone regarding price VS performance.    Now I have the Canare in both of my systems and I am one happy audiophile. 

A few more thoughts:    The cables sounded good when brand new with a slightly ragged treble and loose bass. I was told it could take up to 500 hours to fully break in.  For myself, I did not hear any changes after the 300 hour mark.  I let the cables cook longer than planned because I needed help from my son as i had to drill larger holes in the floor to account for the locking banana plugs.  My son lives in another state so I had to wait for him. The construction of the terminated cables is as good as many of the more costly brands.  I purchased 2 pairs of these cables in 15 foot and 25 foot pairs.    My secondary system now has the 15 foot cables back and I am continuing to break them in as I removed them from the system at the 250 hour mark.   A lot of people bash McIntosh but my McIntosh MA6600 integrated amp and McIntosh tuner never failed in 19 continuous days of 24/7 service.   The heat sinks were never more than slightly warm to the touch.    
That’s all folks.    
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Showing 1 response by jaytor

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jaytor
742 posts
 
I think the Canare cable is a good budget priced cable, and in some situations might be a better choice than "higher end" cables. I used to have a pair of Magnepan 3.5r speakers driven by a Krell FPB-300 and was using older Nordost Red Dawn cable. I switched to the Canare and found the sound much fuller and smoother. 

I'm currently using this cable in my home theater where I have moderately long runs to seven speakers and couldn't really justify anything more expensive. It works well for movies and TV. 

But in my two channel system, I found this cable to be kind of dull sounding and lacking image detail compared to other speaker cables I've tried. I'm currently using a DIY cable similar to Kimber 12TC (woven multi-gauge OFC copper with PTFE insulation). My cables are only about 3ft long since I use monoblocks that sit directly behind the speakers, but this cable sounds much more open and lively than the Canare cable. 
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