Best $200 speaker cables for overall performance?

D_Edwards: I have several pieces of audio gear that are 20+ years old that still measure within spec and sound quite good. Age has little to do with actual performance so long as the unit has been used on a regular basis and hasn't been thoroughly abused and / or in a severe environment. Regular use not only keeps the caps energized, but problems related to thermal drift are also minimized. Simple rotation of the controls and flipping of the switches i.e. "normal use" also helps to keep oxidation and pitting from damaging said controls.

Other than that, my suggestion as to speaker cables were for the long term. That suggestion was also made in response to a specific question that someone had posted.

As a side note, just because someone is using "Brand X" gear today, that doesn't mean that they will be using that tomorrow or in two years. I know that the cables that i recommended can work quite well with these speakers and are capable of revealing what the electronics up-stream are capable of. Whether or not one likes what they hear with these cables in the system will depend on how pure & stable the signal is being fed into the speaker cabling and / or the end users own personal preferences.

As such, improving the signal fed into it these speaker cables will improve the performance of the system as a whole. I make mention of this as not all speaker cables are capable of revealing the differences in components, simply because the cables themselves introduce their own sonics and electrical loading characteristics into the equation. Should Mtrot ( or anyone else in this situation ) choose to upgrade their components, there would be no need to upgrade their cabling. After all, this cable has been shown to be linear to well beyond 100 KHz, offering minimal signal degradation within or anywhere near the audible passband.

Other than that, i agree that one should have "timbre matched" speakers at all points in a multi-channel system. I also think that one should have "timbre matched" amplification at all points in a multi-channel system. That's why i took the approach that i did with my multi-channel system. Sean
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D_dewards,

I really do appreciate your efforts to assist my hapless self! The cables under consideration in this thread are for another system in the back room, which has Legacy Classics for the L/R, along with a Legacy "Satellite" for the center speaker. The Nak receiver is about 5-6 years old, and seemed to sound pretty good in the other system with the Legacy Sig IIs.

I am now considering several possible culprits as to why the sound is not so good(poor soundstage and imaging) in the back system:

Room reflections/bad room dimensions.
52"RPTV between speakers.
Panny RP91 DVD/DVD Audio player(one of the first DVDAudio players) player as source.
Nak receiver problems.
Legacy Classics not nearly as good as the Signature IIs.

As I said, the Goertz cables do seem to improve the sound noticably over the stranded cables. But nothing like what I am getting in the other room system.

As far as the Nak receiver's volume control, what kind of shop can address the issues you mention?

Mtrot, just curious, did you try the Goertz cables in the better room?

That's a good question Unsound. Glad you thought of it : )

The Sig II's and the Classic's have different bass alignments. As such, they will not only sound different, but also load the amp differently. Both designs ( in stock form ) have a pronounced bass peak at a relatively high frequency ( 90 - 120 Hz ), so room placement and nodes can really come into play. This is besides any other speaker / room interphase situations taking place, which can also effect imaging, soundstage, etc...

Due to the difference in loading on the amp, the Classic's may simply require more than what your receiver can cope with. You might want to try swapping both the speakers and speaker cables in your main system and see how things work there. If you can get the results that you want with either set of speakers and / or either set of speaker cables in the main system, then you know it has to be room and / or "power" related in the secondary system. Sean
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Unsound,

No, not yet. I have a bi-wire set of Tara Labs RSC Prime(at least 10 years old) in there, which have always sounded pretty good to me. I have been thinking about trying the MI-2s, bi-wired, in there to see if they can make a significant improvement over the Taras. But I would have to shell out another $200, which is a lot of bread to me, in order to find out. I guess I could try them as a single run, just to hear the basic sound differences.