What Stereo5 says doesn't surprise me. I will say a higher level of Transparent wire will be clearly superior to...
Transparent Cables and Bi-wiring to Vandersteens
I have Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures--capable of delivering a lot of information about what is being fed to them. I have immense respect for Richard and his products, thus I want to believe him when he dictates that his speakers must be bi-wired and that two less expensive runs of cable to each speaker sounds better than one for the same price.
Alternatively, I worked at a Transparent dealer out of college many years ago and became loyal to their brand. I have spoken with Transparent about the whole bi-wiring thing, and their official stance is that for what it costs to do a true bi-wire (that is, their Bi-"CABLES", now discontinued), one can simply move up a level in their lineup and attain equal, if not better, results.
So who do I believe? I have never had access to someone with a lot of Audioquest stock to try their bi-wire speaker cables or other brands. Transparent's current "Bi-wire" cables are the same as using jumpers. They just build the jumpers into the end of the cables for you (taken straight from them), so they are not true bi-wire cables.
I recently moved from Music Wave Ultra MM to Reference MM2 and decided to go through the re-connections of doing a little test that dawned on me while I had both in my possession--do a true bi-wire with both sets of cables. Reference MM2 for mids/lows and the Ultra MM for the highs (I know, right?! Keep both--ha). I keep seeking more depth and did not get that or what I would say was better imaging, but what I did get was a little bit more organic sound in the upper frequencies, which means a lot to me. I want it to sound real. Switching back to just the Reference and jumpers, I guess I would say that I hear more distortion in the upper frequencies. I couldn't quite place it, but some other things sounded a little better, though. Imaging and air maybe. Perhaps better attacks. It also occurred to me that the Reference are calibrated to a High-Z value and that the parallel speaker cable runs would have cut that in half and possibly put it out of range.
So what do I do? I think I have the most basic Transparent jumpers, so I could upgrade those (they recommended this). Maybe the upper frequencies would get better then. I could sell both of what I have and search for an older bi-cable in Ultra or Reference, both of which are very hard to find. Or I could abandon Transparent for speaker cables and go with someone else entirely.
I appreciate others' testing and experiences more than opinions. Who has compared Transparent speaker wire to other brands? Who has experimented with their bi-cables and bi-wiring? What other brands would be on the same level as Reference MM2 and for roughly the same cost or cheaper? I am trying to put all Reference MM2 in my system now (interconnects, speaker wire...).
Thanks a lot!
Alternatively, I worked at a Transparent dealer out of college many years ago and became loyal to their brand. I have spoken with Transparent about the whole bi-wiring thing, and their official stance is that for what it costs to do a true bi-wire (that is, their Bi-"CABLES", now discontinued), one can simply move up a level in their lineup and attain equal, if not better, results.
So who do I believe? I have never had access to someone with a lot of Audioquest stock to try their bi-wire speaker cables or other brands. Transparent's current "Bi-wire" cables are the same as using jumpers. They just build the jumpers into the end of the cables for you (taken straight from them), so they are not true bi-wire cables.
I recently moved from Music Wave Ultra MM to Reference MM2 and decided to go through the re-connections of doing a little test that dawned on me while I had both in my possession--do a true bi-wire with both sets of cables. Reference MM2 for mids/lows and the Ultra MM for the highs (I know, right?! Keep both--ha). I keep seeking more depth and did not get that or what I would say was better imaging, but what I did get was a little bit more organic sound in the upper frequencies, which means a lot to me. I want it to sound real. Switching back to just the Reference and jumpers, I guess I would say that I hear more distortion in the upper frequencies. I couldn't quite place it, but some other things sounded a little better, though. Imaging and air maybe. Perhaps better attacks. It also occurred to me that the Reference are calibrated to a High-Z value and that the parallel speaker cable runs would have cut that in half and possibly put it out of range.
So what do I do? I think I have the most basic Transparent jumpers, so I could upgrade those (they recommended this). Maybe the upper frequencies would get better then. I could sell both of what I have and search for an older bi-cable in Ultra or Reference, both of which are very hard to find. Or I could abandon Transparent for speaker cables and go with someone else entirely.
I appreciate others' testing and experiences more than opinions. Who has compared Transparent speaker wire to other brands? Who has experimented with their bi-cables and bi-wiring? What other brands would be on the same level as Reference MM2 and for roughly the same cost or cheaper? I am trying to put all Reference MM2 in my system now (interconnects, speaker wire...).
Thanks a lot!