I’ve been casually reading this thread because I’m curious as to what 4000 watts and a 90dB speaker sensitivity have to do with speaker cable. On the loudest of musical passages, in a large room, how many transient watts are passed to the speakers. I’m going to specify that nobody is to have permanent hearing loss and no drivers will be destroyed in the process.
Should I upgrade my speaker cables?
I got 4 Classe 25s that are bridged and pumping out 4000 watts to my Bower 802D3s , im bi amping and running 1000 to the highs and 1000 to the lows of each speaker, got 2 sets of Nordost Heimdell 2 speaker cables, which have 18 lines of 22 awg solid core copper. I feel that might be to thin to be running 1000 watts and considering selling the Heimdell 2s and upgrading to something with thicker gauges, am I fine with the Heimdells or should I upgrade now that I’m running 1000 watt’s per cable? What is recommended? My budget is $5k-$8k per set, I need 2 sets
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First - 1000 watts is the max output of your amp, so unless you are using it to drive speakers in a very large hall I doubt very much that you are coming anywhere close to using 1000 watts of power Second, Classe amps are a high current Solid State design and as such, speaker cables having a high capacitance can drive amps of this design to a point of oscilation which can seriously damage the amp i.e. damage the internal circuitry High end Cardas cables have a very high capacitance, so this is one brand of cable I would steer well away from - they are great for tube amps though. An aquaintance had this same problem with his Ayre amp and later his Gryphon amp and TOTL Cardas speaker cables - very costly - switching to lower capacitance cables resolved the issue I am of the opinion that the cables you have are perfectly adequate for your setup. If its the quality of sound you are concerned with, try Hijiri cables for a more refined presentation As a comparison - a 1700 watt hairdrier normally has a significantly smaller power lead, so the efffective gauge of the Nodost cables is more than capable of handling the power at play here. Regards - Steve |
I’ve not heard them but the Enjoy the Music review along with several others here who own them rave about them got my interest. I just read on another thread here that they may offer a 30-day, risk-free trial so might be worth looking into it further. |
Audio cables are a special piece of equipment, and speaker cables even more so. The sound of each speaker cable will have its own unique emotional state, independent of price. I explain this mechanism of action in my article "Peculiities of the Audio System". You may find some interesting sound effects by experimenting with different speaker cables. Over the past few months I've made matching cables for Genesis 200, Usher - Dancer Mini Two, German Physiks Borderland Mk IV, Tannoy TD 12, B&W Nautilus 801, ELAC Adante AF-61 speakers. The cable to match the ELAC Adante AF-61 was sent to the user a few days ago and he has yet to receive a comment. Every other user has sent me their surprises after 2 weeks of using the matching cable. The matching cable is fully refundable so you can try it out to see how clear your speakers can sound. |
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