speaker and interconnects, how nice do I need
Clear Day Cables for the IC's. Great IC's for the money. I've not heard anything for the money anywhere close. Paul's Double Shotgun is the star of his line, and for the money a steal, but they might be pushing your budget. With smaller speakers the model down from there might be the best choice and less expensive. Kimber 4TC is always out there used and that would work fine as well, but nowhere near the Clear Days. |
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You can get around the cost factor and end up with excellent cables at a fraction of the new price, buy used or go DIY. I am using (new) AntiCables for speakers and they are an outstanding bargain. I keep toying with making my own silver speaker cables via wire and oversized insulator from http://www.tempoelectric.com/cables.htm Also, homegrown audio sells DIY kits as well, but they are quite pricy. The finished "Silver Lace" interconnects are excellent for the price. Before I bought the Silver Lace interconnects, I used dirt cheap interconnects from cables to go... (They showed their limitations as I upgraded my components, which is when I switched them out.) A few years back, I made several power cables according to Chris Venhaus' well-known "recipe", that was a very good decision as they made a huge difference. I believe it is good to go the DIY route for some cables, as you can make a huge improvement for very little cost ...and it won't kill you if you don't like the result. |
Make your own, make your own. I would go SUPERcheap - the cheapest you can possibly buy. A few bucks. Then try more expensive cables, and see if they make a difference. You may find that cabling is the least cost-effective way to improve your system, For line level interconnect, I use pro microphone cable, Canare StarQuad L-4E6S with ETI connectors. Mogami W2534 and ETI connectors is a good alternative. For speakers, I use Goertz. About $200 all in for two interconnects and two speaker cables. Just one caution - if you are soldering teflon jacketed wire, be very careful to exhaust the fumes. Mogami is probably a better choice for that reason, but I have a soldering station with a fume hood, so I can get away with it. Works for me, and my system is far from cheap. I would rather spend money elsewhere. |
Before trying anything else....order some Canare 4s8 speaker wire and make your own cable. Super inexpensive and I was impressed by how good my little Dynaudio Dm 2/6 sound w/this wire. As far as interconnents, make your own. I made some using Mogami 2549 wire. Recently bought some Wireworld Luna7 and I was impressed how good they are for $40 a meter. Lots of choices and good luck finding the right combination! Bill. |
Buying used is a great Idea. The cheapest speaker cable I have used is 12ga. jacketed in wall cable for ~$0.50/ft.. That and Inexpensive interconnects can be found on Ebay. This would get you by while exploring the market. A pair of 10" Audioquest Type 4 cables could be had for ~$65. Check out Ebay also. The Canare cable may serve you well. The 4s11can be had for ~$1.50/ft and the 4s8 is less. I bought 20' of the 11s however never put them into service so can't speak to how they sound against the Type 4s. Guess I need to do that. Music Direct was selling Audioquest Diamondback interconnects for $75. Can't say if they still are. I bought from them a 0.5m pair sold as demo for $45. Check them out online. |
I concur with the recommendation to start with Canare 4s8 or 4s11 as a baseline for further exploration, if you feel you need to. Buy whatever length you need from some place like https://www.markertek.com/. Don't bother with connectors at first, just twist together the white and red conductors in each cable and connect the bare wire to your amp and speaker terminals. Listen for a good long time and only then begin to explore if you feel it's necessary, or interesting. |
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I can say that as long as you buy a robustly built connector, you’ll be fine. Cables are a nasty part of this hobby with many thousands of dollars, in my opinion wasted. balanced power from companies like Equitech or Running Springs will do more then some snake oil vodoo cable ever will. wire world sells a very nice entry level interconnect. The key points are (1) built robustly (2) adequate shielding to prevent your cable from acting like an antenna (3) in lengths that are the absolute minimum needed. ground noise and hum can be fixed with devices from the companies listed above. Those key points are also applicable to power and speaker lines with one exception.. Use 10 gauge speaker wire. That's good for anything you'll be using for power. good luck |
In looking at your system components I see a couple of technical factors that will work in the direction of reducing sensitivity to cable differences, compared to many other circumstances, but that have nothing to do with your system being on the "economical side," as you put it, or with its sonic quality or musical resolution. One factor, affecting speaker cable sensitivity, is the relatively high impedance of your speakers (shown here), which is well above 8 ohms at most frequencies and above 6 ohms at all frequencies. Another factor is that both of the electronic components appear to have two-prong IEC receptacles, which isolate them from AC safety ground and therefore eliminate the sensitivity to interconnect cable differences than can result from ground loop effects, especially with unbalanced interconnections such as you require. (Ground loop effects can cause low level high frequency noise, affecting perceived detail and ambience, as well as causing low frequency hum). Also, as alluded to in the previous comment most cable effects are proportional to length, so if you just require relatively short lengths that would also reduce sensitivity to cable differences. A relative of mine has the same speakers as you do, and has been happy with these speaker cables from Cable Solutions, which cost a bit under $100/pair in typical lengths. Sensitivity to interconnect cable differences is also contributed to by the output impedance of the component driving the cable. Lower output impedance = less sensitivity to cable differences, everything else being equal. Unfortunately the output impedance of your Marantz player does not appear to be specified. But given that it is a solid state component and that its output voltage is spec’d based on a relatively low load impedance of 10K its output impedance is probably reasonably low. So all things considered I wouldn’t sweat the choice of interconnects too much, especially if you require a relatively short length. A number of good possibilities have been suggested above, in addition to which you might want to consider Blue Jeans LC-1. Regarding the mention of Mogami by a couple of the earlier posters, here is a link to a convenient source of Mogami 2534 in an unbalanced configuration. I doubt that you would be going wrong in choosing it. Good luck. Regards, -- Al |
