What speaker cable made a major difference in the sound quality of your speakers??


I am curious what speaker cables made a big "jaw dropping difference" in the sound quality of your current speakers.  What most impressed you about the difference;  that is, overall musicality, tighter, deeper bass, midrange clarity and soundstage depth, etc.etc. 

Keep the price of the speaker cables chosen or auditioned at  between $800- $1000 or  from  $1000-$1500. Was the cable bought new or used??

  Thank you,   SJ

sunnyjim

Showing 2 responses by akg_ca

(1) The effect of cables -- as an improvement or conversely as a detriment-- to the audio performance in your rig is entirely system dependent .... full stop. There is no one-size-fits-all option.

(2) the effect(s) of cables as a potential improvement is an alchemy of ALL your cables together , Including the ICs and power cords. To parse out speaker cables by themselves as the potential definitive "silver bullet" is an incomplete or failed step.

(3) Without prejudice to the points above, and ignoring the simple fact that "jaw dropping improvement" is a highly biased anecdotal and personal value judgement at best ,; At either a $500 or capped $1,000 pricepoint, there are no "jaw dropping" improvements in available speaker cables, in the common sense general application of the term. I have never seen any product in this price strata that even approached a scintilla of that type of description. ... Improvement ..."yes". ....but "jaw-dropping".... never.

I have auditioned significant audio improvement by performing contenders , that are not subtle in the first part and certainly separate themselves from the pretenders (as a full ARRAY of IC, speaker, and power ) , but these were integral in crafting a system synergy in high-end audio systems with cable price-points to match in lock-step. Even these "high -end" cables would fail any long step approximation of "jaw-dropping" in the common sense term.

That term in terms of application to audio speaker cables is an audio unicorn proxy.
The most impressive array of cables that I have seen and heard personally ( that comparison is a highly subjective one) was an all-NORDOST ODIN cable array on a $500,000 2-channel ultra high-end system (source, preamp, power amps and speakers )

Ka-Ching, ka-Ching....but WTF, it follows in tandem with what’s in front of it. The cables are the final link in setting up a system synergy overall that transmits the good, the bad, and the ugly produced in front of them. Garbage in, garbage out. It’s the electronics that serve to create some approximation of a slack-jawed audio experience, not the cables .

Cables can either perform well and certainly augment an audio system to attain peak performance, but they will never be the genesis by themselves of an "A-ha" moment. Poor cable selection generally can take away from peak performance, they don’t invoke a walk down the yellow brick road to The Emerald City in OZ .

i auditioned many cables for MY system (emphasis added ) and settled on an all- NORDOST FREY cable array (all of speaker, IC and power) as MY preferred choice AT THEIR PRICEPOINT (emphasis added again...) using the 10% of the system ex-cables guidelines .

Takeaway:

Even though I reside in the "pro-cables ... yes, they do make a difference" camp in the senseless, boring, and pedantic anecdotal cable wars perpetrated by the forum trolls,  , even I will agree that at a $500 pricepoint, the audio performance differences between Brand X versus Brand Y in speaker cables is minimal to nil if they are mass-marketed built with a generic run-of-the mill (cheap?) parts and assembly quality standard. The build quality of the cable connectors on a particular cable (e,g quality built all-Cu WBTs or the like) versus the cheap-as-you-make-them crap quality made-in-China plated Brass alloy ones, have an overall larger effect than the actual cable itself .

Particularly at that pricepoint, many brands simply don’t make their own cables but just order up mass-produced cheap kit from 3rd party suppliers. That’s where much of the snake oil acrimony in cables discussion starts.

In my experiences, the informal and anecdotal "10% of your gear suggested $$ outlay" price-point for cables will get you towards the system’s peak performance available strata .... that’s about as good as you can hope for.

At a suggested $500 price-point strata, the audio performance differences in choosing one cable over another is system dependent for sure, but the degree(s) of improvement are marginal to incremental at best and not any epic "jaw-dropping" step-up.