2. cables
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Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

After wading through mountains of claims, technical jargon etc. I'm hoping to hear from some folks who have had experience with good, neutral, reasonably priced cables. I have to recable my entire system after switching from Naim and want to get it right without going nuts! Here is what I'm looking for and the gear that I have:

Looking for something reasonably priced-i.e. used IC's around $100-150. Used speaker cable around $300-400 for 10ft pair.

Not looking for tone controls. I don't want to try to balance colorations in my system. I'd like cables that add/substract as little from the signal as possible.

Looking for something easily obtainable on the used market i.e. that I can find the whole set up I need without waiting for months and months. I guess this would limit you to some of the more popular brands. Without trying to lead you, here are some I've been considering:

Kimber Hero/Silver Streak
Analysis Plus Copper Oval/Oval 9
Cardas Twinlink/Neutral Reference (Pricey)
Wireworld Polaris/Equinox

Here is my gear:

VPI Scout/JMW9/ATML170
Audio Research SP16
Audio Research 100.2
Rotel RCD 971
Harbeth Compact 7

I would really appreciate your help on this. Thanks, as always.
dodgealum

Showing 5 responses by mprime

mprime
92 posts
 
Sean,

It would be nice is to understand the objective characteristics which lead to these subjective differences we hear with interconnects, as opposed to speaker cables. It seams to me (this is offered as a straw-man) that interconnects are suppose to offere a voltage signal to the various components where speaker cables are suppose to deliver current to their load; the hypothesis is that the amp upstream equipment (connected by interconnects) is more susceptible to the voltage/current differences than the amp is. The analog is a circuit designed to measure/deliver voltage is quite different than that to measure current.

Perhaps this is what you've been saying all along?

Best,
mprime
92 posts
 
Interesting, Tommy.

I must say this site (have never run across it before) appears to have an axe to grind. For example, they slam the Goertz speaker cables for introducing a large phase shift; the problem is it's out of the audio band and therefore irrelevant. In fact, when you assess their data on the cable, it's quite flat in the audio range.

Seems hard to get an "objective" opinion.
mprime
92 posts
 
Fair enough, Sean (though attempting to reconcile claims with physics is not bad-mouthing).

My first order understanding of shielding is akin to a Faraday cage (I have yet to see one made out of carbon). Or more precisely, shielding is a function of a material's skin depth, which - while a decaying exponential inside the material - is driven by the material's conductivity and permeability (for a given frequency). Therefore, how does an inefficent conductor act as an effective shield?

Particularly at low frequencies....

Sincerely,
mprime
92 posts
 
While I can appreciate an enthuiastic review of an excellent product, the following statement is pure hokum:

"Unfortunately, the SRIIs are so revealing and transient rich that the metal shielding elevates record noise and blurs timing, etc. relative to the Empress ICs. The new carbon shielding is non-metallic/non-magnetic and serves the same purpose but with extremely superior results."

Effective EM shielding uses effective conductive materials; carbon is not an effective conductor.

I would suggest the excellent performance of these cables is due to some other physical property of the design (excellent conducting material, novel conductor geometry, etc.).
mprime
92 posts
 
Well, okay....

To offer closure, in order to achieve the same EM shielding as a typical conductor, carbon must be 500 to 1000 times thicker than such conductors. From this factual statement, one may observe different designs and see how their claims reconcile with physical facts. For example, one may look at PAD products and notice that while they take an 'unconventional' approach to shielding, the design is consistent with their chosen material properties (i.e. it is a *significantly* thicker cable).

Again, this is not to trash or bad-mouth any particular manufacturer, but it is an honest attempt to reconcile product claims with basic physics.

Sincerely,
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