Speaker cabels for dark sounding speakers?

Whether Nelson pass has an EE or not, he understand engineering and he would not use silver wire to tune the sound of his amplifiers. He does appear to be a good businessman so perhaps he would include it to sucker in the gullible, but he does not seem the type.

No, Nelson pass uses REAL ENGINEERING to tailor the sound of his amplifiers, not made up engineering and science. He will be the first to admit he tailors the real (not perceived) characteristics of his amplifiers.

The Op, can go to a doctor when he is seriously sick, or he can go to a faith healer.  Room acoustics, interactions of a particular tube amp and a speaker, listening and speaker positions, that is real medicine.  Silver plated cables is the audio equivalent of a faith healer.


What a weird rant about EE's.  Believe it or not, most major audio companies employ lots of EE's, some of them quite good actually.  Of course, you are likely to find better EE's designing audio stuff at Bose, or Harmon, or Sonos than you are at most boutique audio companies.  If you are smart enough to be a good EE, and you are still an EE, then you probably are not in it for the money anyway.  If it was about money, you would have been a doctor or lawyer or investment banker.


p.s. "Sound engineering" has absolutely nothing to do with electrical engineering. It is not even what most would call engineering, so again weird rant.  Of course, many do quite well working in the acoustics field.

So back to this Nelson Pass, thing. The engineers you have never heard of design the vast majority of the audio products bought today whether by dollars or by units. High end is but a small subset.

OP, at least in my system the use of silver speaker cables made a difference. With my second system in the study, I had a similar problem as yours, the sound was a bit dark (dull?). I swapped the cables with silver ones and things got better - at least in the areas I wanted them to be. Incidentally, I'm using the same cables in a different setup, and now I have the opposite problem ... lol!

Having said that, I don't think you should expect a night and day difference just from switching cables. IME, cables are like using spices to add a bit more flavor, but they can't turn a frozen aisle burger into a steak.

I say give it a shot (silver cables), let them settle in, and then make an informed decision. In the past I have bought based on measurements and 'sound' science alone, and have learned the hard way that just because something measures well doesn't mean it will sound good to my ears, with my equipment, and in my room.

I agree.  See if you can borrow some Nordost Valhalla and have a listen.   If it doesn't work to your satisfaction,  return them...easy.

Jose.

Nordost is amazing cable, but contrary to how 2 posters described it, definitely not "zippy city".

I upgraded from Clear Day silver XLR's to Nordost Tyr 2 about a year ago and one of the changes was a much weightier mid range. Excellent cables, musical, 3 dimensional, and detailed, just not "zippy".

Within the last week I upgraded my Clear Day double shotgun speaker cables and jumpers to Valhalla 2 and Nordost reference jumpers, but they are both still settling in and I cannot yet accurately comment on them except to say I love the evolving improvements so far.

So, it seems that this is the majority opinion: silver is bright, gold is warm and copper soft. Are they describing the sound, or the color of the wire? I don't get it. Is it as simple as imagining the sound in your mind while thinking of the wires color, or is this just a coincidence?