Speaker cable manufacturers

JMC,I am currently using Music Hose 750. It is too forward sounding and a tad bright and not as clear/clean as a a QED Silver Genesis that I demoed in my system. The MH is quite old by todays standards. I am looking for more laid back smoother and cleaner sound. I was thinking about the Oval 9 or the Oval Silver 2.

Most of these small cable companies sprouted up as a result of the work and study by Kimber, Audioquest, Tara Labs, Cardas and a few others. I'd stick with those guys if you want resale opportunity at anything close to what you are going to spend to "audition" them.

There are a lot of variables involved in cable selection and what you may ultimately enjoy listening through. You might discover that price has absolutely no bearing on what you like. Add to the mix the fact that some cables take several hundred hours to stablize and reveal their true character and you have a real chore on your hands.

Having tried many, many cables from different companies over the years, I've reached my own conclusions on what I consider to be the "house" sound of the big guys. I suspect that has a lot to do with their cable design theory, whether stranded, solid core, rectangular solid core, golden ratio, spread spectrum technology and so on and so on.

As you progress through their line, you mostly increase the size of the concuctors and that effects their inductance, capacitance and reactance that will impart a signature between the speaker and the amp, in the case of speaker wire.

In my opinion, you really have to listen through a lot of different cables for hundreds of hours to really get a handle on their signatures. If someone isn't willing to do that, and who could blame them, it's really not a very worthwhile expenditure of time and money and more of a roll of the dice on what to pick. And that's just for one amp and speaker combination!

Good luck. Ha!

WyWires...Blue would be in your budget

Jimbones, you say that you found the MIT MH750 not be clean/clear, which I agree with, however, you also say that you found it to sound forward and bright, which does not jive at all with my memory of this cable. It had a large, deep stage, but was a bit darker sounding.

Anyway, if you are looking for a laid back sound, I would skip the Analysis Plus cables. I found them to be very clear with good tonal balance, but very forward sounding cables, perhaps the most forward sounding cables I've heard. I had the Solo Crystal Oval 8's. You say that you are looking for laid back, smoother and cleaner sound. In my experiences, laid back and cleaner generally do not go hand in hand. They are heading in opposite directions. Cleaner sound generally occurs when the leading edge of the transient is quick, these cables also tend to have a quicker decay of the note as well, which leads to a cleaner sounding, more immediate (forward) presentation. The cables that sound laid back, which offer good stage depth, offer a slower, more natural decay of the note, though the downside is that they also are not as quick on the leading edge transient of the note. Just as one cannot find a full, warm cable that is also articulate and fast, laid back and cleaner tend to drive you in opposite directions.

If cleaner is your top priority, then the Analysis Plus may work for you, as they are smooth and clean, yet NOT laid back. You may want to try Tara Labs, Purist Audio, or Stealth if you want laid back. The Tara Labs and Stealth will be cleaner, though if you found the MIT cable to be bright, you may also find Tara Labs and Stealth to sound bright. Hell, even Analysis Plus will sound bright compared to my experiences with MIT cables. MIT are much like Cardas and Purist Audio, known for their fuller, deep 3 dimensional stages, yet rather dark sounding with some gear.

If your speakers are DIY have you considered DIY cables? Assuming you chose quality cable to wire the drivers in the speakers you could build speaker cables from the same wire.