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A Perennial Debate For Which I Seek Help

Wire, Terminations, Dielectric, Solder, in summary, the linkages in our systems, the terminals in the path. Doubting your cabling can only lead to paranoia, and thus, fearing the snub of fellow audiophiles, you shun the Tuesday night shootouts, the gatherings that once made Tuesdays better than Fridays. Please, don't shun the shootout, I know of no gathering more intoxicating. They remind us we are alive and human, no mere beast in search of flesh and sustinance alone.

My Situation - I recently had a pair of speakers upgraded with new caps, chokes, posts, wire, etc... Not until I went to install the reworked crossovers, however, did I realize how cheap the connection was at the drivers. The woofer has a small terminal board mounted on the basket where the lead wires attach to two stamped rivets. The rivets and brackets are both loose. These clips are followed by a 3" wire to the woofer, some sort of tin-coated cotton or wiring of similar texture and tensility.

As for the tweeter, one of the even smaller pins used for the lead wires snapped off. I could try to solder it back on, yet more fundamentally, with all the money spent on speaker cables, IC's, perhaps hundreds on binding posts alone, aren't these shoddy driver terminations, hidden inside the cabinet, an egregiously weak link in the chain, or am I missing something specific about this particular connection? Any insight is truly appreciated.
nycwine1
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
Learsfool, we're not so far apart; there's many things we see similarly. Most different is the amount we would each contribute to the cables in a system and their "importance" overall. Everyone has to decide that for himself.

At first it sounded like you were indicating leaving the cables unplugged for a short period of time, hence my choice of the term "breathing". It seems you're rephrasing the action of unplugging and plugging them in again. If there is indeed an audible effect I would never experience the degradation of sound from leaving cables connected too long, as I break down and rebuild systems on a regular basis.
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
I agree that we are not very far apart at all, that's what I was trying to say in the first place. I also agree that everyone needs to decide for themselves what is the most important to them in their own systems. For me, I go back and forth between whether speakers or source components are the most important, usually siding with speakers. Amplification would be third, and recent experiments/reading are beginning to convince me that power conditioning may be more important than cables and interconnects as well, though I am undecided there. Unfortunately, being a musician, I don't have the financial luxury to switch things in and out all the time, so I did an awful lot of listening and research for quite a long time and bought the best I could afford, and don't anticipate being able to change or upgrade anything for a long time yet. I still listen to other stuff as much as I can, and read about a whole lot more, including things I will never be able to afford. And I am very fortunate, as I said, to play in a great concert hall almost every day, and have played in many others all over the world, so I have an unusually large frame of reference which no audio equipment will ever truly live up to, of course. Sure is a fun hobby, though I am really much more interested in comparing recordings than equipment. It's all about the music for me, the equipment being merely a means to that end.
iplaynaked
193 posts
 
Right on! - one of the better posts I've seen in a while.
Kudos! I can concur and sympathize with your angst and inner turmoil here...
Um, yes to all of the above. And, I'm sure performance would likely improve if we could change every connection, flow-path, electrical connection, power-source down the chain, and have a perfect acoustical environment. Yep, you take your best shot, hope for the best, and sit back and enjoy the journey for what all it offers...and hopefully take it all in with a friend at your side.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,483 posts
 
Douglas-Schroeder Your point on Anti-Cable does not hold true in my system. I have chosen anti-Cables after an intensive search for the best cable for my system...money was not a consideration. I experimented with Cardas, Wireworld, Purist, Audioquest, Kimber, and others...all with their top end silver, etc. offerings. None sounded as good as the Anti-Calbles, though Audioquest SKY was very good indeed. They ranked second behind Anti-Cables with Cardas being the very worst. My dealer then told me of a supercable made by Audioquest...many times the cost of Sky. I tried that cable as well...my wife thought I broke something in the system after swapping out an Anti-Cable interconnect with the super Audioquest.
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
Stringreen, As variety exists in cables so also (I think we all would agree) people's perceptions of what constitutes "good" sound. Between the two, I'm sure there's any number of cables which would work to sound good to a proportion of the audiophile population. The key is that you did your homework, and you found what is for you a great sound! From your response it seems you feel the effort was worth it.

Your comment about your wife's reaction, all judgments of quality of cables aside, is a fine illustration of how important/effective cable changes can be. You changed one IC (as I read it) and a second party noticed the change easily. I hear such dramatic changes as you did on a regular basis; you know exactly what I'm talking about. You have excellent gear, so this does not surprise me at all. :)
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