Suggest speaker cable for long run...?

Thanks for the responses.

It's for both HT and critical listening. I can't fit the amps up front (and if I could I wouldn't want to because my Pass amps glow bright blue...).

Unfortunately my speakers are 4ohms (Wilson Sophias). What I seem to notice with long runs is a degredation of upper bass (everything else seems fine).

What is OCOS cable?

See here:

http://dedicatedaudio.com/inc/sdetail/20951

I've just made a set of the WLM DIY cables and will be trying those along with some other cables I'm making out of a 30' spool of Belkin PureAV Silver Series cable that uses solid core PCOCC copper. The spool cost me $15. You can search for it on the Internet.

In addition I'll be trying out the Morrow Audio SP3 and the OCOS cables. Somewhere in this batch I should find a winner.

I took a look at the OCOS description. While I have no reason to question its being an excellent choice for longer runs (and at $1K for 7.5 meters it had better be!), I find the design rationale offered there to be, um, unpersuasive and incomplete.

There is no indication of inductance, capacitance, or resistance. The terms "characteristic impedance" and "impedance" are used interchangeably, when in fact they are very different. "Characteristic impedance" is a transmission line concept, which only comes into play when cable length is a significant fraction of a wavelength. That is not even remotely the case at bass frequencies for a 50 foot cable. Which makes the graph included in their literature meaningless.

The "impedance," on the other hand, that would result from the inductance of a 100 foot round-trip run of speaker cable certainly can be expected to be significant in relation to the nominally 4 ohm speaker impedance (which is undoubtedly even lower at some frequencies). But the OCOS' inductance is not specified.

Again, while these cables may very well be excellent choices for longer runs, aside perhaps from their cost, their technical rationale is unpersuasive, and the technical information provided is not complete enough to allow a meaningful prediction of the compromises that a 50 foot run will result in, compared to a shorter run.

Regards,
-- Al

I tried a bunch of stuff (borrowed from dealers) and ended up using Canare 4S11. Some cables beat it at shorter lengths, but nothing did at 30ft. I run it single wired instead of bi-wired. I have approx 30 ft runs that I can't do anything about until I buy my own home.

At $1.35/ft from Blue Jeans Cable, its not a huge investment if its not what you're looking for.

What is OCOS?

"'spensive"

I've gone 40 ft with the 4s11 using my receiver to drive my rear speakers without issues.... but they ain't Sophias.

Even with Sophias on the other end, I'd investigate the link Al posted and give that a try first... see if I could live with a DIY set of speaker cables.

I also run a set of SR Sig 10 x2 active bi wires that are 21 ft long with both a HT setup and my main 2 ch setup... on both 8 & 4 ohm speakers with great results.

Maybe you should also check with SR and Bruce at Voodoo cables. He's a very insightful honest, and practical person.