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Help Match Cables To Gear Please
Hello all.
I’m a long time member and lurker but have never dove down the rabbit hole of cables mainly because all the misinformation floating around.
Little back info-
I’m 40 years old and have never been in the camp of denier or believer in High-End/HiFi/Audiophile cables but always knew better than to flush money away on something I couldn’t return if wasn’t satisfied with purchasing. But now that I can listen to demos on the internet and clearly hear a difference on some of the videos I feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in purchasing higher end cables over the internet.
I live in a rural city in SW Kentucky so have never had the opportunity to demo various high end audio products while growing up. I did however purchase my first AVR and big box 15” speakers at age 11 so I have been into both audio and video relatively all my life.
I’ve always just gone by the reference, “you get what you pay for” with pretty much everything. This approach has at least kept me away from cheap zip cord and the such but also has kept me from trying any sort of audio cables that I feel would better match my gear since there weren’t any vendors in my area. Sticking to brands that are known in the industry like Mogami have been my “go to” for speaker cables and interconnects.
When I was trying to find demos I could actually hear a difference over the internet I stumbled across a cable demonstration by Danacables that clearly showed how one of their designs helped control the actual speaker by making it stop faster than regular off the shelf zip cord.
Between physically seeing a cable affect the speaker and being able to hear differences I felt like there really couldn’t be that many “snake oil” companies out there if real companies are in the market too. I’ve always felt like we have been introducing all kinds of new pollutants into our environment with new technologies yet I’ve never tried upgrading cables that could help eliminate these unwanted pollutants. Not only would these new unwanted variables be put in check but also some of the newer speaker cable technology in general could be applied at the same time. I’m no scientist but have a feeling cable can’t just be cable when I’ve been using the same product that was basically used by my grandparents for the most part. Maybe I have the oxygen free advantage but that is it most likely. The rest of the world surrounding us has changed greatly since my grandparents were purchasing speaker wire but yet Ive been using the same thing out of pure ignorance listening to those who claim cables are cables.
Now that I believe I have a “permanent” system in place in my dedicated theater room I want to try to match my gear to some cables that should in theory bring out the best in the total system.
Being that this is a theater room I have to consider which way to proceed as far as spending money on cables since I can’t afford to wire the entire room with ultra expensive cabling. There are just way too many channels, amplifiers, and speakers to purchase crazy expensive cabling for all of it.
My thinking is to run the best possible speaker cables to the LCRs. Use upgraded power cables for all the amplifiers, and use upgraded XLR cables to the LCRs while sticking to Mogami XLRs for the rest of the surrounds unless I notice a dramatic difference when swapping my LCR cables to the surrounds.
My system consists of the following-
Pre Pro- Trinnov Altitude32
LCR- Quested Audio LT20s (custom) totally active
Lc/Rc and DTS-X Pro Front Heights LCRs are all LT10s
Remaining Surrounds- Quested Audio Z8s
LCR Mid and Sub Amps- MC2
LCR AMT Amps- Hypex NCore 500 Monoblocks per AMT driver.
So with that gear my experience tells me that the AMT drivers across the board from my LCRs to the Z8 surrounds have a very revealing, crisp sound with a super wide soundstage. Sorry I’m not good at descriptions with audio products.
The midrange drivers are super clear but not quite ultra revealing, more cool than warm, and have huge transients.
The sub drivers are what I would call fast and crisp but lacking in punch or attack. I also have separate modules ran to the LCRs for further ULF extension making them a 4-way instead of a 3-way. These bass modules are using AE 18” drivers in a vented enclosure with #10 OFC wire but willing to upgrade this wire as well if it’s not outrageous being that the bass setup in home theater is generally completely different than general stereo applications but I’m all for better sonics regardless.
Then I have way too many subs and mid bass modules to detail. Most of the subs are 21” and 24” high xmax drivers all ran for maximum Ultra Low Frequency extension for movies. They are flat down to 3-5hz at the MLP. All these subs and bass modules are currently wired with the same #10 OFC wire as the LCR sub drivers.
I think I covered my situation and background well enough as I hate dragging those who read this along even more. So if there are any who think they have experienced greatness out of certain combinations with similar gear please do share!
Bests
Alex
I’m a long time member and lurker but have never dove down the rabbit hole of cables mainly because all the misinformation floating around.
Little back info-
I’m 40 years old and have never been in the camp of denier or believer in High-End/HiFi/Audiophile cables but always knew better than to flush money away on something I couldn’t return if wasn’t satisfied with purchasing. But now that I can listen to demos on the internet and clearly hear a difference on some of the videos I feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in purchasing higher end cables over the internet.
I live in a rural city in SW Kentucky so have never had the opportunity to demo various high end audio products while growing up. I did however purchase my first AVR and big box 15” speakers at age 11 so I have been into both audio and video relatively all my life.
I’ve always just gone by the reference, “you get what you pay for” with pretty much everything. This approach has at least kept me away from cheap zip cord and the such but also has kept me from trying any sort of audio cables that I feel would better match my gear since there weren’t any vendors in my area. Sticking to brands that are known in the industry like Mogami have been my “go to” for speaker cables and interconnects.
When I was trying to find demos I could actually hear a difference over the internet I stumbled across a cable demonstration by Danacables that clearly showed how one of their designs helped control the actual speaker by making it stop faster than regular off the shelf zip cord.
Between physically seeing a cable affect the speaker and being able to hear differences I felt like there really couldn’t be that many “snake oil” companies out there if real companies are in the market too. I’ve always felt like we have been introducing all kinds of new pollutants into our environment with new technologies yet I’ve never tried upgrading cables that could help eliminate these unwanted pollutants. Not only would these new unwanted variables be put in check but also some of the newer speaker cable technology in general could be applied at the same time. I’m no scientist but have a feeling cable can’t just be cable when I’ve been using the same product that was basically used by my grandparents for the most part. Maybe I have the oxygen free advantage but that is it most likely. The rest of the world surrounding us has changed greatly since my grandparents were purchasing speaker wire but yet Ive been using the same thing out of pure ignorance listening to those who claim cables are cables.
Now that I believe I have a “permanent” system in place in my dedicated theater room I want to try to match my gear to some cables that should in theory bring out the best in the total system.
Being that this is a theater room I have to consider which way to proceed as far as spending money on cables since I can’t afford to wire the entire room with ultra expensive cabling. There are just way too many channels, amplifiers, and speakers to purchase crazy expensive cabling for all of it.
My thinking is to run the best possible speaker cables to the LCRs. Use upgraded power cables for all the amplifiers, and use upgraded XLR cables to the LCRs while sticking to Mogami XLRs for the rest of the surrounds unless I notice a dramatic difference when swapping my LCR cables to the surrounds.
My system consists of the following-
Pre Pro- Trinnov Altitude32
LCR- Quested Audio LT20s (custom) totally active
Lc/Rc and DTS-X Pro Front Heights LCRs are all LT10s
Remaining Surrounds- Quested Audio Z8s
LCR Mid and Sub Amps- MC2
LCR AMT Amps- Hypex NCore 500 Monoblocks per AMT driver.
So with that gear my experience tells me that the AMT drivers across the board from my LCRs to the Z8 surrounds have a very revealing, crisp sound with a super wide soundstage. Sorry I’m not good at descriptions with audio products.
The midrange drivers are super clear but not quite ultra revealing, more cool than warm, and have huge transients.
The sub drivers are what I would call fast and crisp but lacking in punch or attack. I also have separate modules ran to the LCRs for further ULF extension making them a 4-way instead of a 3-way. These bass modules are using AE 18” drivers in a vented enclosure with #10 OFC wire but willing to upgrade this wire as well if it’s not outrageous being that the bass setup in home theater is generally completely different than general stereo applications but I’m all for better sonics regardless.
Then I have way too many subs and mid bass modules to detail. Most of the subs are 21” and 24” high xmax drivers all ran for maximum Ultra Low Frequency extension for movies. They are flat down to 3-5hz at the MLP. All these subs and bass modules are currently wired with the same #10 OFC wire as the LCR sub drivers.
I think I covered my situation and background well enough as I hate dragging those who read this along even more. So if there are any who think they have experienced greatness out of certain combinations with similar gear please do share!
Bests
Alex
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- 45 posts total
Noone past the age of about 35 will be able to tell the difference between speaker cables of 20 bucks versus 1000 bucks. Get some 14 or 12 gauge copper wire and you will be set. Any stray capacitance or inductance of a wire less than 20 feet will be negligible and unhearable by a human (and even a dog). Just dont go thinner than 14 gauge and dont get copper clad wire. Make sure it is copper all the way. Save your money. |
alford_35: read this http://www.ielogical.com/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php and the links to Garen Galeis papers in the middle to understand what and why cables do what they do. Then forgeddaboudit. Multichannel audio is so phase f.....-up as to render cables next to meaningless. |
- 45 posts total