Best "bang for the buck" speaker cables (bi-wire)
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Anonymous | Looking for cable with neutral yet dynamic performance. Must perform good bass extension along with dynamic mids and highs. |
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Cain Puki | bi-wiring is a sonic placebo...don't waste your money get a nice 14-12 gauge OFC wire at home depot. there's your best bang for the buck. And why are you using wires to adjust the tonality of your sound??? |
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Anonymous | Bi-wiring does make a difference to my situation. Who said I'm buying speaker cable to adjust my systems tonality? I guess I'll wait for a response from someone that can read. Hom.o Depot sells crap. |
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timn8ter | This whole speaker cable thing is a dangerous topic. It borders on religious fanaticism. I've done a fair amount of research on the topic and the bottom line is that for cable distances used in the typical home audio system 12 gauge oxygen-free copper in teflon performs as well as any of the esoteric offerings on the market. People much smarter than me have performed the measurements and calculations and come to this conclusion. If you have emperical data to the contrary please share it with us. |
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Cain Puki | ooooh another zealot with golden ears! I certainly doubt that you can discern differences on a double blind test among different cables, but hey, you spent the money, you may as well stand by them, and while you're at it try and sway other people too. "Someone who can read"...oooh great comeback. PLease, do come back with substantial data, not some assinine retorts. |
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Anonymous | Chill out man! |
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Derek | See Bi-wiring COULD make a difference if you had something like thin 24G wire. By bi-wiring you are simply doubling the amount of copper available to send the amplified signal. Don't waste your time bi-wiring. Just go to the next gauge speaker wire has the same effect. Hope this helps. |
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timn8ter | See. Whaddid I tell ya'? There's only one s in asinine. |
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timn8ter | There is evidence that individually insulated solid copper conductors will perform better over the long haul than stranded fibers. To notice the difference assumes that the source is of highest quality, the internal components of the speaker are of similar quality and the listener knows what to listen for. It doesn't make much sense to put this stuff in front of a speaker that contains cheap crossover parts and thin wire. That said, you could create your own cables with two lengths of high quality coax with solid core conductors. Here's how. http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ubyte2e.html Please note the author acknowledges that Radio Shack's 12 AWG Mega Cable is not bad for the money. p.s. I really don't understand this whole anonymous posting thing. It turns forums like this into free-for-alls. |
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dick hertz | somehow i don't think the 2 s' are intentional.;-) |
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Anonymous | but the again it could be |
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Trent Davis | I've detected a noticable difference after bi-wiring my center channel Klipsch RC-3ii with Monster XP 14 gauge wire, but the difference is one that is not totally dramatic. Most of the difference is subliminal, but there is a difference, nevertheless. Best bang for the buck, if you're a casual listener, is basic cables because they do the job reasonably. However, hi quality cables like Monster or those even more expensive crazy good brands do provide an increase in sonic quality, its just that the law of diminishing returns comes into play quickly. Spending $5 for Radio Shack cables and then moving to $40 Monster Cables is not going to give you an 8-fold increase in sound quality. I basically buy cables in proportion to the quality of my equipment, which leaves me with entry level Monster and some Acoustic Research, which I'm happy with. Will I ever pay hundreds for wiring? Only if I hit the lottery tomorrow. |
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Billy J | Anonymous, What equipment are you using. You must match your inter connects with your electronics and your speaker wires with your electronics/speakers. You will notice definite improvements with the proper match. |
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joe | I'm not going to say what receiver I have or speakers just what happend when I changed wire. Before I was using standard 16 AWG no name wire and now using RCA high-performance DT100SW4 14 AWG. The sound is so diffrent I'm having a hard time geting use to it. Over all it's much brighter and clearer but I'm not sure thats a good thing. I've had to make several changes to get the right sound: *Put the grill's back on (to bright sounding) *Switch from small to large speakers (in setup) *Ajust the sub output (turned it up) *And play at a lower volume setting (more overall volume at the same setting) Was just wondering if any one else had the same experience. |
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tony | Human ears are the worst ear compare to other living creatures. Expensive cables are for saleman and manufacturers. |
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Haywood Jablomi | MMMMM, SNaKe oIl. I love this. If there is one topic to get people going it is cable/wire. Having used miles of wire in the sports timing business the only thing we have found is this: "It can be solid, stranded, copper, oxygen free copper, silver, etc.--or even "magic" wire--as long as the resistance is kept to be less than 5% of the speaker impedance. There is no signal difference as long as the wire is of adequate size." Joe there will be a difference between 16 awg and 14 awg but again it depends on the length of the cable run. You really need to reads this article as well read this series of articles http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/cables.htmI I just laugh when I hear people talk about how much they spent on wire. The latest gimmick is NORDOST anti static spray. You are supposed to spray it on your cables, your speakers etc. It will remove dust (duh!) and reduce static so that the speakers can fully move properly. It will also reduce static in the wires. Geez, once you put a signal to the speakers to the wire guess what - you will get static again!. The only thing that this will remove, is cash from your pocket. |
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Pressurewaves | I noticed there were several comments that bi-wiring is not needed if you use larger gauge speaker wire. The effects of bi-wiring speakers, that are specifically built for bi-wiring, is more complex than the just wires. Without posting boring and rather complex math, if your speaker is bi-wireable, and it's a well known and respected manufacturer, the internal cross-over networks will be engineered for such and the benefit and results go beyond speaker wire and the termination points you see on the speaker. Now that may or may not mean you actually hear a difference because everyone's ears are different; some are shot due to prolonged youth headphone usage. That said, proper bi-wiring and a good cross over network, coupled with a good receiver or amp, and speaker wires of any reasonable gauge, should reward the owner with better sound. |
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Joe Mamma | Ahh, the wire debate. I can't read one of these without putting in my two cents. Here's what I run as a system and what I've discovered playing with different cables: A Sansui 9090DB as a preamp, tranformers removed, caps replaced, completely overhauled. A Hafler Iris CD player modified by SoundValves into a Theta ProPrime IIA DAC. Denon turntable. Tascam Mk II 3-Head cassette. Pioneer 707 Reel. Home-made true 75 ohm interconnects. Dual B&K ST202 amps. Polk SDA-SRS 1.2TL speakers. I've used a number of different speaker wires and also made several sets myself. I've bi-wired as well as run the speakers straight up. After using an expensive pair of Tributaries Straight-Wire Quartet bi-wire cables, you could not tell a difference when I jumpered them together or left them seperate. Friends and I did a blind test this way over and over comparing different music- no appreciable difference. What I can tell you is that after borrowing many sets of more expensive speaker wires, I can only conclude that different arrangements have different inductance and resistance characteristics and THIS ALONE can change the sound. As long as you have wire of adequate guage (read: as big as possible) and don't do anything stupid like wind it around a poorly insulated power cord on the way to the speaker, you should be okay with just about anything. For example, the Tributaries are very, very detailed across the audio spectrum, yet horribly shrill- almost unlistenable. Radio Shack MegaCable is very, very detailed across the spectrum as well, but much, much less shrill and more pleasant to listen to. Solid 12-guage Romex cable sounds exactly the same, but is ugly and a pain in the butt to route around behind the speakers. The bottom line is, there are solid electrical principles that dictate what frequencies and how much of each will be passed through any given design of cable; this cannot be disputed. Whether or not you can figure this out based on the stupid claims made by rip-off cable manufacturers is another thing entirely. Much depends on your personal preferences in sound; much on what's upstream of your speakers in terms of quality and condition of components. Don't spend a lot of money on speaker cables backed by esoteric, ridiculous claims- buy based solely on solid electrical principles. Try different things- solid versus stranded; thin versus thick; straight versus braided. You WILL notice differences. Then, pick a cable you like the sound of; don't automatically assume that because some putz uses teflon-coated red shrinkwrap and plutonium-free flitz wire it's going to sound better. Me, I use the Radio Shack MegaCable, and to be honest, among all the many "audiophile" and "enthusiast" friends I have, my system is generally considered the reigning champion and can kick the crap out of many of their more expensive systems. Maybe it's the components; maybe it's the room; maybe it's the humidity- I don't know- one thing is certain, though: it's not expensive speaker cables. Try the Shack cables, just be careful, because the quality can be inconsistent. At nineteen bucks for 50 feet, you can afford to experiment. By the way, it's made by Monster for Shack, according to the guys at Radio Shack, if that impresses you. Saying that a given designer cable is always better than the others is like saying the same tire is always better on any vehicle you put it on. Sorry for rambling...enough said... |
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| Spank me. |
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Anonymous | Radio Shack 20 gauge works great for me |
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Smitty | From: Loudspeakers
Comments? |
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Joe Mamma | Okay, think about that quote- you aren't isolating anything *unless* you are bi-amping/bi-wiring or you've modified your amp internally and added extra outputs. What's the effective difference if you have the tweeter and woofer wiring seperated by mere inches of wire while attached to a common speaker binding post or you have them seperated by a few feet of wire by running seperate connections back to a COMMON amplifier output? Answer: NO DIFFERENCE. Bi-wiring is merely junk science perpetrated on the public by expensive cable manufacturers. |
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DenonFan | Joe, The problem with trying to discuss wiring is that people actually believe that spending a lot of money on wires/cables will actually improve the sound. They do not realize that there is the law of diminishing returns. "At what point is there no benefit to spending more on wire"? Wel if you are using the cheapest thinest wire "24g" then upgrading to 18 guage will improve the sound. moving to a better quality wire (and by better quality I mean a better insulate wire) will also improve the sound. Moving again to larger wires (10, 12 14 g) a very small improvement may be heard. At this point the only other weak point in the system would be the connectors. Cheaply made poorly insulated and imnproperly attached will affect the sound. Spending $10.00 or more on banana plug will not make any more of a difference than spending 3.00 on a banana plug. Same with spade, RCA and other connectors. It is the quality of the connections more than the connectors. As for interconnects (sub wires, toslinks, digitial coax) a better quality cable will not be better than a cheaper on. the lengths are to small to actually make any difference. A coax cable is a coax cable digital or otherwise as it is just a pipe. The cable does not know if the signal is analog or digital. That being said I use monster cables cause they look nice. RCA branded or Radio Shack mega cables would work just as well but if I am going to have cables showing I want them to look nice and uniform. I don't use them cause they make a tinkers dam to the sound! Personally I like those guys who spend upwards of 100.00$ a foot for cables. You know the old adage: A fool and his/her money are soon parted and There's a sucker born every minute |
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Johnnyness | Ok, so all that being said, if I were to go get the Radio Shack Monster 12 ga. speaker wire, do I need to insulate the cable in some way to prevent noise in the lines? It looks like pretty much bare speaker wire covered with a little clear plastic, but its only (only?) 99 cents per foot? Do they make some kind of insulating conduit I can put it in? I don't have speakers yet... but when I get them (in the next few months) I want to ensure I am doing the wiring correctly. |
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Smitty | I've just bi-wired my speakers using 8 ft. Ultralink Challenger 12/14 bi-wire. I did a little testing with one speaker using normal 16ga. wire (AR oxygen-free) and the other using the bi-wire. The differences are very subtle at low to moderate volumes, vocals seem to be separated from bass just a bit more. Of course this wasn't a very scientific test so I could just be imagining the difference. At louder volumes the difference is more apparent, the highs are simply clearer. If you have bi-wireable speakers I'd recommend getting some bi-wire speaker cable and try them out, if you don't notice a difference or if the difference is not significant enough just return them. At least you'll know if it really makes a difference in your setup. What else can you do for about $50 that can potentially improve the sound of your system? |
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Anonymous | Smitty: You could try a good quality mains cable as I believe the ones that come with most receivers are not that great. I personally use a silver plated cable that I got at low cost on ebay and noticed that when used on my receiver it improved the treble (clearer) and bass (deeper) and a slight improvement in detail. When used on my subwoofer it gave my bass a significantly deeper tone and many people who have compared the sound before and after also agree. Johnnyness: Anything you can do to reduce RFI (either airborne or mains induced) will more often than not give an improvement in sound especially for cables of considerable length. Denonfan: For interconnects the very basic requirements IMO are firstly OFC copper, secondly good shielding againsts airborne RFI and lastly gold plated connectors for good signal transfer and longevity. What you pay for this minimum spec. is entirely up to you. I do believe there are only slight differences in sound between any interconnect and most people should not need to worry about the sound they get from cable A or cable B. Personally I choose a quality maufacturer/brander and pick one of their budget offerings that meet the above spec. |
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Alex | You do not need a MIT Terminator Box or whatever to Bi Wire. Try this...buy Russound or Monster cable with 4 wires. Buy it in 14 Gauge and run it to your speaker and you have your 4 connections. It only cost about 15 cents more a foot to buy it and you can biwire if you want. If not use two leads for each terminal and your effective gauge is increased. Cable is like religion. Everyone believes their beliefs are correct and you most likely aren't going to change the other guys mind. It's best to know when to back off. |
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Anonymous | so is 16 gauge shielded better than 14 or 12 gauge unshielded? I have seen alot of 16 gauge shielded, but not much at the larger gauges. |
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Haywood Jablomy | Better is such a subjective word. Shielded is not necesarily better than unsheilded either Sheilding actually limits the length of wire that you can use. If you need a really long run (30+ feet) no matter how expensive the 16 gauge it would be the wrong gauge. |
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Anonymous | ok... so if I were to use good 14 gauge wire I'd be better off than spending the time/money to get sheilded... even though my runs are only about 10 to 12 feet in each direction.... maybe I'll buy some shielded wire for the center channel since it sits on the TV. |
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Al Holland | All wire is shielded. Some shielding is just supposed to be better than others. I do not believe that you will notice the difference if the shielding on any 14 ga speaker wire. |
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New member Username: DenonfanPost Number: 1 Registered: 12-2003 | Al, There is a difference between shielded and non-shielded. Sheilded wire has an extra wrap of insulating material (usually a tin foil type of thingy)around the internal wires, that may or may not be grounded on one or both ends - depending if you connect the shielding. here is a link to a picture of a shielded wire http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/shldwire/shldwire.html |
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