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Speaker cable vibration?

After trial and error, I discovered that a certain 'edginess' and lack of coherence I was hearing from my speakers was due in part to the physical vibration of the speaker cable and connectors. As music was playing, I felt the connectors where they connected to the binding posts, and they had significant vibration, in direct relation to what the drivers were doing. Also, to a lesser degree but in the same vein, the speaker cable itself was also vibrating.

I then tried damping the the cable and connectors with very DIY items from Home Depot -- pipe insulation and felt washers for sinks. The result was a much tighter, smoother more natural and direct sound.

I am in the middle just now of receiving different speakers after selling off the ones I was using. I have wondered if poor binding post insulation was the culprit, and will find out more definitively once I try the new speakers and see if vibrating binding posts are still an issue.

I bring this up, because:
1) The issue seems significant in its affect on the sound
2) I haven't read/heard much about this before (I would think any significant source of vibration would have been jumped on by the tweak companies by now)
3) Why haven't speaker cable companies addressed this
4) Curious to hear from others

The sound has been improved, but looks-wise, I've got speaker cable wrapped in pipe insulation. Not very WAF to say the least. I do know of one company -- Acoustic Revive -- that I think has some sort of insulation in their connectors. FYI my speaker cables are thick Synergistic Research with WBT 0645 banana connectors.
tholt
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
Hey THolt

I got another pair of bookshelf speakers that have binding posts that are recessed into the speaker rather than the ones the stick out and I still did feel some vibration from the posts. Those speakers were connected via spades rather than banana plugs. For my KEF Q300 speakers that I felt vibrations from the binding posts that stick out I went to a bare wire connection and I still felt vibrations.

Have you ever spoken to any diy speaker builders or pro speaker builders in general here about the vibrations from the binding posts? If so what did they say? Also I wonder if you tried a vintage speaker with push pin connections if you would feel any types of vibration back there? Maybe in your speakers if you could put some blu tack or a piece of dynamat on the interior to absorb the vibration it would help?

Now I did talk to one audiophile who had a big dollar system about speaker cable vibrations and he combatted it with pipe insulation that he wrapped around his cables. That and some cable elevators but I don't remember what brand.

I'm guessing membership is having some fun with you and are trying to tell you not to take this issue seriously. I mean if Harbeth has speakers where there are binding posts that vibrate I'm guessing it isn't much of an issue?

I'll report back when I check my floorstanders for binding post vibrations.
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
'Rok2id - to address your specific post, I wasn't referring to speaker cones vibrating (wait, those are SUPPOSED to vibrate???), but the binding posts and the cables connected to them. Never mind.'

I got that. I was just sort of irritated that you would discover that the posts and cables were vibrating. How / why did you do that? How did they give themselves away?
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alonski
158 posts
 
I would think that the degree of vibrations in binding posts, cables, or anything attached to a speaker cabinet for that matter, would be in direct proportion to how solidly the speaker cabinet was constructed.

I have found, for my taste, that I end up choosing speakers with really solid enclosures like Thiel and Von Schweikert because they sound better. To me, I meant to me! Whew, that was close. And not that it matters, but Jodie was over here last night and we cranked the Von Schweikerts and the twin RELs to an uncomfortable volume, and could barely detect any vibration at all in the binding posts or speaker cables.

Jodie said casually, that in the forth dimension, she heard some really kick ass audio gear that was immune to vibrations, but that we shouldn't hold our breath because they are made with materials not currently available on Earth (apparently, shipping charges would be a bit prohibitive).

Hey Tholt, where did you get your anti-sarcasm robe? I could've used it a couple of threads ago!
wolf_garcia
6,737 posts
 
I put sorbothane Vibrapods under my speakers...now MUCH less vibration goes into the floor from the main speakers so my cables seem to just lie there peacefully while moving the electrons along. They are massaged by the subwoofer a little, and I think they like that...who wouldn't?
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