Help with Cables "which ones best for my set-up?"

08-05-10: Tvad
My experience has been that gauge matters more than materials, construction or brand. A larger gauge provides more richness. A smaller gauge provides more detail, and a more "open" sound.

But if you have a cable made up of several small gauge individually insulated conductors twisted or wrapped or woven together to create an aggregate large gauge (e.g. Kimber 8TC or 12TC) you get the best of both--richness and deep bass control as well as delicacy, air, and inner detail.

I'm currently running Zu Audio's 10-gauge Libtec cable and it definitely provides both in spades (or bananas, nyuk-nyuk).

08-07-10: Tvad
Could be, Johnnyb53. I have not directly compared identical gauge cables made of stranded wire, and of several small gauge individually insulated conductors twisted or wrapped or woven together.

Have you done this comparison?

I definitely have woven/twisted separately insulated bundle cables of the same approximate gauge range as 2-conductor multistrgand. My first "upscale" speaker cable was Vampire Wire at a whopping $0.79 per foot. It was over 400 very fine strands (not separately insulated) making for a 10- or 12-gauge conductor. Such a cable offers lower resistance, meaning less insertion loss and possibly better bass clarity and extension. Since this is really just a higher grade zip cord its "improvements" over lamp cord are barely noticeable. However, I have used several individually insulated conductor cables of various configurations with about the same aggregate gauge: Straightwire 8-conductor ribbon at about 14 gauge, various configurations of silver-plated Audio Magic making a 12-gauge aggregate, 14-gauge OCC copper Belkin Silver PureAV Silver Series, PS Audio XStream Bi-Wire, designed as bi-wire from end-to-end: 6-gauge solid core for the bass run and maybe 14-gauge aggregate bundle of silver-plated solid core copper for the treble, and my current favorite, Zu Libtec, which is a bundle of various gauges of copper/silver alloy making an aggregate 10 gauge.

In all cases, the bundles of smaller gauge conductors have a more focused midrange, better transparency and clarity, and a more resolving high treble with fewer spitty sibilants, more realistic cymbal overtones, a more delicate violin tone, etc. And in the cases of the bigger gauge bundles, the bass improves too. The PS Audio and Zu Libtec are particularly good about this. They do it all. I like the Zu better because it manages to do it in a small diameter (about 1/2") easily bendable cable.

Some of the bass improvement may be a time-alignment issue. Different diameter conductors favor transmission of different frequencies, and reduced skin effect (which the small conductor bundles help reduce) results in extended bandwidth. This extended bandwidth results in a faster cable with faster rise times at all frequencies, including bass which tends to be slow. If the fundamental and overtones of a bass note all arrive more simultaneously, that bass note will subjectively sound stronger. And faster rise time at all frequencies means more of the subtleties and delicacies of music--more of the sounds of notes forming, blooming, and fading, more space between notes as the source dictates, more dynamics and more nuance.

08-07-10: Almarg
While I have no reason to doubt Johnnyb53's sonic observations, the explanation is not quite right.

Slowed or degraded risetime is NOT the result of time-alignment issues, or of some frequencies arriving at different times than other frequencies.

I never said they did. Maybe I didn't explain well enough but I was trying to say that rise time tracks with HF bandwidth. "Fast" cables have HF response well into the MHz or even GHz range. Components with a rolled off treble also show a corresponding slowness and greater curve to the corners in their square wave response.

...
Slowed risetime is the direct result of ATTENUATION (reduction in amplitude), not delay, of high frequency spectral components, which results in turn from bandwidth limitations.

That's what I was trying to say, especially when it comes to detail and clarity. Limited HF response slows rise time, which by definition smears the onset of the signal. In other words, HF response also affects the time domain by determining rise time.

The other part about arrival times was speculative on my part. However, when there is a poor impedance mismatch, can't that result in signal bounce between the terminals, setting up some time smear that could be audible?

All I really know is 1) the Zu cables are wicked fast (1 GHz interconnect; even their iPod cable is 100 MHz) and 2) they transmit tight, focused, and extended bass. 3) They also transmit a lush, detailed presentation with extended and delinated soundstage. I *think* the bandwith/fast rise time has something to do with all this.