The most detailed speaker cable??

Just about any speaker cable of appropriate guage will "preserve that
signal."

The notion that your signal is lost in the speaker cable is something that was
dreamed up in a cable marketers advertising meeting.

The signal is lost in your speaker -- not the cable.

There are rather large problems in just about every speaker and most rooms.

Just about all speakers are only linear +/- anywhere from 1 to 3 db (or more)
and roll off at the extremes.

Cables are far more linear by comparison.

Listening rooms, unless they have been specifically designed for listening to
reproduced music, usually have rather large problems with rather large peaks
and valleys, introduce time smear, boomy bass, hardness in the highs, etc.

No one has ever been able to measure distortion caused by a cable, despite
what cable advertisers say.

Cable companies have done a brilliant job of getting people to focus
suspicion on their innocent cables while ignoring the rest of the chain.

I'd wager that a couple of hundred dollars spent on acoustical consulting or a
speaker upgrade would go exponentially further in fixing what is wrong or
improving the sound of 99% of the systems on Audiogon.

In most cases, money spent on expensive speaker cables -- where improved
performance is questionable and controversial at best would be better spent
elsewhere in the chain.

Regarding silver: The only thing silver has to offer is that it has less
resistance, which means all you have to do is use thicker copper cables to get
the exact same effect.

I think the fixtion on silver is a carry over from people who play musical
instruments. For example, steel strings sound different from bronze, brass
horns sound different from silver, etc.

Cables are not plucked, they do not make music by vibrating -- they just
carry signal. The signal doesn't pick up any sound from the silver or copper.

If you've been using copper and you switch to the same gauge silver cable
and you don't level match, it is possible the silver cable simply makes the
music slightly louder, and any audio salesman knows you can trick customers
into thinking one component is more detailed than another simply by playing
it a little louder. We all know that sometimes just a few ticks more volume is
enough to make the speakers open up and become fuller.

Other than that, there may be some psychological effect from thinking of
silver as shinier, whiter -- and thus more pure than copper which is, of
course, copper colored.

Rsbeck, I see that you have alot of money tied up in equipment (Meitner Emm Labs, Levinson, Monitor Audio), but there's no mention of interconnects and your speakerwire is listed at $100. Have you tried any of the upper end cables- interconnects and speakerwire? You sound as though good quality wire doesn't matter much. Or am I understanding you incorrectly? There's alot of people that would disagree with you.

>>You sound as though good quality wire doesn't matter much.<<

Let's be specific. You select the particular speaker cable and tell me what
makes it worthy of adulation.

As you can see by the rest of my gear, money is no object. I can afford the
most expensive cables out there and would if I were convinced they offered
superior performance.

I've looked into all kinds of cables, heard all the hype, and I haven't seen any
claim for "high end" cables that doesn't dissolve when
investigated. Most of the claims I see regarding high end cables aren't just
unfounded, they are laughable.

Speakers have a far more complex and difficult job to do. Listening rooms
commonly have large peaks and valleys -- and yet I see a lot of focus on
cables.

Cable companies have clearly done a masterful job of creating doubt in the
mind of the audio enthusiast about his/her cables. They do this by coming
up with bogus maladies and then you see these myths repeated until they
become accepted.

Next thing you know, you've got a lot of audiophiles feeling like they need
new cables -- when there is no evidence the old one had any problem, that
the new one will cure the allleged problem and without investigating other
areas where real problems are easily documented.

When someone asks for help, I think we can do better than that.

If *I* am going to solve a problem, I first want to make a good diagnosis, then
I want to make sure the "cure" is going to solve it.

I am going to focus on real problems rather than bogus ones that have been
made up by cable marketeers that have no basis in fact.

Rsbeck, First, let me say that I agree with you concerning alot of what you've been saying. I think that for total system improvement, room treatment and dedicated power- ( I noticed that you too have dedicated A/C lines.) are some of the biggest improvements that you can make. There was a major change in my system when I went to dedicated A/C; as much improvement as an upgrade in equipment. I tried powercords for my preamp a year ago, courtesy of the Cable Company. The powercords ranged from $700 to $1500 list. I tried Acoustic Zen Krakatoa, Acoustic Zen Gargantua, Shunyata Research Taipan, and the Elrod Signiture 2. All these cables changed the system sound, but in the end I preferred the stock cable that came with my Bat vk5i. But... at least I tried these products to see what they sounded like in my system. With all due respect, analytic research is good, but, for me, I prefer to listen with my own ears.

Talon: While cost may not be an object to Rsbeck, he refuses to listen for himself and draw his own conclusions, even if it costs him nothing to do so. Instead, he chooses to regurgitate the "hype" that he has been fed by various cable naysayers based on poorly conducted and less than thorough tests. In effect, his responses may come across as both sensible and reasonable in approach, but his actions speak louder than his words. Sean
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