speaker cable; what to do?

I agree with ALL of the above. Now let me tell you truth : )

Keep ALL of your cables as short as possible ( within reason ).

If you must use long speaker cables ( more than about 10' at most ), use something other than a side by side design ( aka zip cord, lamp cord, monster type, twin-lead, etc..) for best results. That type of design is best suited for low frequency response at the expense of other frequency ranges. While You DO have to worry about the gauge, but you also have to worry about other electrical measurements such as inductance, capacitance, nominal impedance, etc... I would suggest something that was of a heavy gauge i.e. at least 12 gauge and of low inductance. Something along the lines of Audioquest, Axon, XLO, Kimber, Nordost, etc... all make good yet reasonably priced stuff. Each brand and model may have their own "flavour", so talk to someone that is knowledgable before buying or try with the option to buy ala "The Cable Company".

Make sure that all of your connections are clean and tight. This means on all of your component cables and at the amp and speakers. If you have nothing to clean them with ( Q tips and a high purity rubbing alcohol will work if nothing else ), then simply remove them and re-insert them into the proper places. This will break up any oxidation or corrosion that is taking root and re-seat all of the contacts to fresh metal. Careful routing of signal cables away from power cords should also be done at this time.

Spend the necessary amount of time placing the speakers for optimum performance. There are a LOT of different approaches on how to do this, so do some reading on the various websites that are available. Speaker placement is one of the biggest factors in the overall tonal balance and spacial characteristics of your system.

Disregard all of the comments here ( mine included ) and enjoy your tunes and system : ) Sean
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Aball,

$500.00 or less for two channels. I run a bryston 3B ST with the Reference 60v2s. LOVE THEM as well.

Glad you love them. That is the main point, afterall. Also I meant zip cord was 3 to 4 times Worse than my MITs. I got it swapped around. Maybe that is why Bob contributed nothing in his post.

In all wires running near each other, capacitance can be a problem especially when electromagnetically coupled with the wires' inductance - something that will invariably occur in any pair. The capacitance is between the wires and inductance is in series. This coupling will cause slight signal phase variations in the current due to flux variations due to frequency changes, known as ringing, so there will effectively be ghost frequencies "contaminating" the sound (visible on an oscope). Whether these are audible or not is the question since they generally will be only at very high frequencies, but regardless, it is always good to have runs of wires separated by at least a couple inches where possible to eliminate capacitance. However, with increasing length, the capacitace decreases and inductance increases so there is an optimal length acheivable (not too long and not too short).

All of this is true UNLESS you have well shielded cables - the main design objective of all good audio cables. Best way to not have contamination is to not let it "in" in the first place - something zip cord cannot do hardly. This is the condensed version of wire dynamics and illustrates why copper zip-cord wire is not much different than copper Valhalla wire. The cost difference is mainly in the shielding and somewhat wire quality with the main objective to lower inductance (and resistance although that is more of a efficiency solution than audio-noise solution) and to shield from the flux of neighboring cables. MIT attempts to correct some of these phase effects, that nevertheless happen - nothing is perfect remember!, with their passive element boxes in the cables but I am not convinced that they do a whole lot since excellent correction of these problems is only really acheivable with ACTIVE elements (as used in balanced amps and preamps with balanced connections) but then you have a catch-22 situation because active elements add noise themselves.

I left out many details but it does not matter since your ears can tell you everything you need to know. I said all this to objectively support my argument above (not to mention the well-known Law of Diminishing Returns...). Just listen and see what you budget will allow. For MIT, I find audio advisor to have good prices on new stuff but Ebay is the best in general if you ask me.
Arthur

George, although my personal opinion of MIT cables differs from Aball's, he apparently knows your speakers and I don't. My advice is don't ignore anything said above, except that which I take it you have already ignored. If you are interested in cables, read through some of the threads here and visit Audioasylum's cable asylum. Lots of do it yourself (DIY) ideas there.

You don't say anything about your source (e.g., cd player), but as was said above, start first with speaker placement. The position of your speakers, their relation to each other and to everything else in your room that will reflect soundwaves, including, but not limited to floor, walls and ceiling, will have more of an impact on bass, soundstaging and imaging than anything else you do. Just experiment.

If you can't move your speakers because of the configuration of your room or the veto power of someone else with whom you share your room, you may have to be satisfied with the bass, imaging and soundstaging that you have now. And if that is a significant compromise from the best sound that your speakers are capable of delivering, I would not waste my money chasing after cables. No cable is going to make up for a real problem in the way your speakers interact with your room.

Have fun.

Paul

Thanks everyone for responding! :)

My sources are an Arcam CD92, Magnum Dynalab 101 Tuner and a Beogram 3404 TT. Speaker placement is good: 6-7' apart, 8-9 from couch, 2 from rear wall and 7 from sides. Changing location is not an option. I like the sound now, but I'd like to squeeze as much out of the system as possible. MORE MORE MORE! I'm sure everyone relates to that! :)
From what I've hear so far, I should hear a positive difference with better cable i.e. anything other than the home depot 12awg zip cord I'm using currently.
Moving the electronics closer isn't really an option for a couple of reasons; the "honey do" list is too long to warrant a battle at this time. :) So upgrading the speaker cable is the way to go. I could move the power amp but that puts the long ICs out of my budget.

Again. thanks for the help. Please feel free to comment on my ramblings. I like the abuse :) :)

George