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Audioquest or Kimber kable.

So I'm looking for a little guidance on speaker cables.  I recently moved up to Focal Aria 926 and 906 speakers and trying to decide between better speaker cables. The 926's share duty between home theater and 2 channel while the 906 are going to be used in a more dedicated 2 channel. Both are paired to Emotiva Xpa gen 3 amps with the 926's connected to my Yamaha 2050 pre-outs and the 906's to the Emotiva PT-100. I plan on upgrading my Emotiva down the road and would like cables that can grow with my system. I'm looking at Audioquest Rocket 33 and kimber kable 8tc cables. Which direction would be good and would it be worth going up to Rocket 44 ? Thank everyone for any and all advice.  
cvbryso
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
Audioquest is the new monster and they offer no measurements on their speakers with "dbs" or without. THey are snake-oil salesmen.

Yeah, I used to think the same thing years ago until I started testing with them.  The power cables and speaker cables are "sleepers" that can be totally hot-rodded with better terminations.  The interconnects are likely very good too (upgraded with better Furutech rhodium RCA/XLR).  However, I am disappointed with their HDMI cables.

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Disappointed with AudioQuest HDMI cables? Really? I have their Carbon HDMI cables and they’re spectacular. 
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
Yep, I have done a direct side-by-side comparison of a lot of HDMI cables over the last couple years. I tried the Audioquest Vodka, which is a step above your carbon. The video was okay, but audio was thin and a bit bright in comparison to several other cables. The problem here is that the Vodka uses extremely small 30awg conductors. The very old Wire World Starlight 5-2 cable beat the crap out of the Vodka (5-2 series is basically single 24awg silver plated solid core OFC conductors). I can go on with a lot more here, but it would be hijacking the thread.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
I use HMDI cables for TV video. Could care less about the audio. I mean come on, it’s digital.
avhifidelity
45 posts
 
more impact and slightly better bass with AQ Vodka HDMI vs Carbon, but very close to Mocha with DBS.  Video, no difference.
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