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Atma-Sphere with which speaker cables?

Hello Everyone,
I am driving a pair of Dali Megaline speakers with a pair of MA-2's and a Krell. The MA-2's are presently driving the ribbons and the Krell drives the woofers. I am awaiting a pair of MA-1's which will replace the MA-2's on top and the MA-2's will be moved to the woofers.

I have been using a pair of Alpha-Core AG-2 and MI-2 cables which sound good. However, I now need to reconfigure the equipment area and will need to purchase longer speaker cables. I have read that Alpha-Core cables, at least in theory, do not work well with amps that have high output impedance, and one post seemed to be saying that anything over 1 ohm is high. The MA-2 has an output impedance of 1.75 ohms and the MA-1 has an output impedance of 2.3 ohms. The nominal impedance of the speakers is 6 ohms. I have heard, but have been unable to confirm that the impedance of the MI-2 cables is 2.5 ohms and I do not have any information about the AG-2 cables.

I am curious to know if the Alpha-Core cables do mate well electrically with the Atma-Sphere amps, and I would also like to hear which speaker cables other Atma-Sphere owners are using. I would rather not spend a fortune on cables at the moment, but I look forward to hearing suggestions for both reasonably and not so resonably priced speaker cables. Thanks in advance for your time and suggestions.

All the best,
Dennis
dgclark0007
emailists
923 posts
 
I'm a little late to this thread, but I having great results runing older MA-1's with Cerious Technologies liquid speaker cables, and XLR to feed the MA1's as well. I have not really compared to other cables, and I am running the Cerious T00/bass speakers, so obviously YMMV. I am am about to try some Zero autoorformers in the system, since the speaker is 4 ohms.
rlips
105 posts
 
My MA-2 Mk3's seem to like the Jena Labs cables I am using.
lewm
12,600 posts
 
I've been using Alpha Core Goertz Silver cables with my Atma-sphere amps for several years with no complaints. Yes, the Alpha Core cables are relatively high in capacitance, compared to some others, but this will not at all negatively affect the performance of the amps. The amps are completely stable into the load presented by Alpha Core Cables, and the amount of capacitance involved will not attenuate HF response. (SS amps will often go bonkers when used with Alpha Core, but not tube amps.) You wrote something about "impedance". This is actually a virtue of the Alpha Core cables, as they tend to have a very low "characteristic impedance" (4 to 8 ohms) compared to other commercial products (which can be as high as 100 ohms, e.g., Nordost products). Characteristic impedance is defined by the square root of the inductance divided by capacitance; thus it is independent of the length of the cable you are using. I tried my Atma amps with Nordost cable (see above) and the results made my ears bleed. I returned the Nordost shortly thereafter. Other cables with low characteristic impedance that might work well with Atma are Transparent and MIT.
jtimothya
612 posts
 

I have heard, but have been unable to confirm that the impedance of the MI-2 cables is 2.5 ohms

Yes, the characteristic impedance of the MI2 is 2.5 Ohms. Inductance is 6 nanoHenrys/ft, capacitance 0.95 nanoFarads/ft.

Tim
jayarr
117 posts
 
If you enjoy the Alpha-Core sound as I did then I would recommend a like upgrade to Silversmith cables. These are also silver ribbon cables but with more refinement,transparency,smoothness,naturalness than the A-C. They are however much more expensive.
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