Hi all; and wishing you a reflective Memorial Day. This is no place for politics, but I would encourage everyone to watch Adm. Mullen's comments this morning, essentially the same remarks, on all three networks!
First, I want to make a general comment about something so CLEARLY illustrated in this thread: and that is for most of these forums/discussions/threads to be a source of MEANINGFUL information for both the original poster AND the respondents, it is SO IMPORTANT I think, for AudiogoNers to post their systems -- AND, to keep them UP TO DATE!! For without ACCURATE contextual information, most of these forum discussions amount to a pointless waste of time and thought -- in fact I will usually pass on some otherwise interesting topic, because I see that the OP has not provided a link to a 'System Page'.
Everyone here (so far ;--) has a System page and that's great (even though one of them apparently needs a little updating? ;--))
to John (Frech): You have the good fortune to have climbed all the way to the top of 'PAD Mountain', a view I will never get to see in this life, unfortunately. I remember that John and I started out with all Venustas systems -- and it should say something to the rest of you about PAD cable, that John always seemed to do his (system wide) cable upgrades using PAD products, even though it would have been so easy (system wide) for him to switch manufacturers; but he didn't!
Dan and John and Floyd use speakers with drivers that produce strong reactive loads; so it's important to use cables that don't add induction. In fact, the easiest way to eliminate BOTH capacitance AND induction is to separate the cable runs, a la Virtual Dynamics, PAD Provectus, and (don't laugh!) Speltz Anti-Cables, to name just three. As for clean-bass-with-tube amps, keep speaker cable length under 8 feet -- the shorter the better -- and use the biggest wire size available in your favorite make/model -- but at least 10 AWG, 9 AWG, or even larger depending on speaker power handling capacity and amp power. Also, if anyone wants to take a second and look up the specs ;--) you will see that Mogami 3104 in quad config. (their 'biggest' speaker cable) has a capacitance of 38.7 pF per ft. and a maximum conductor size of only 12 AWG. Compare just THOSE TWO parameters to Venustas: around 18 pF per foot (11 for Provectus) and 9 AWG and you'll understand why Mogami could sound glary with many speakers; and with just 12 AWG of conductor 'meat' in the Mogamis, good luck getting much energy transfer (i.e. -- bass!) which is going make your system sound (relatively) even more treble-ey! Mogami is NOT a neutral sounding cable, and its reputation goes back to the old days when power was low and speakers very efficient. Not so today.
Really any power cord with minimum 9 AWG conductors will provide good energy transfer for amps, power re-processors/regenerators, and for (I still don't know why ;--) dacs and digital stuff in general. Shielding is nice, but really only mandatory on digital equipment. Mechanical isolation (like the Ferox or Fluid jacketing on PAD PC's) seems to make a huge difference.
. . . . and to Floyd (last, but so not least -- it's your thread after all -- and you asked the question!) OK, at least with respect to mounting and placement of speakers (that is, putting aside associated gear and cables for a moment) for best/cleanest bass output, and MOST accurate/articulate transient response, ALL LOUDSPEAKERS should be lag-bolted to a concrete slab, or, to a 1.5" double-thick plywood sub floor! Can't manage that? OK, spikes are second best (and not second by too much really, but read on.) Spikes should first of all be VERY SECURELY ATTACHED to the bottom of the speaker. And if the speaker weighs over 100#, use 4 spikes; 3 puts too much stress on the contact point with the floor. If you have a joisted wood floor, there are certain rules and strategies for locating the spikes relative to the joists underneath in order to minimize rocking or swaying. If you have carpet + pad, the spikes' sharp points must PUNCTURE THROUGH the carpet + pad, and BITE INTO the concrete slab or wood sub floor underneath. Even the heaviest Wilson or other Mega-Boom-Buck loudspeaker, placed on the THINNEST carpet, is going to ROCK BACK AND FORTH in the opposite direction of the drivers' travel. YOU MIGHT NOT SEE IT, but it WILL MOVE!, and the speaker's performance (as anticipated by the speaker's designer, anyway) will never be realized. A loudspeaker enclosure MUST NOT MOVE. All the energy from the movement of the drivers MUST TRANSFER DIRECTLY TO THE AIR!! All the gear-swapping you can afford will never improve your loudspeaker's poor performance if it's due to poor speaker mounting technique; and what's worse is most folks go for years (or FOREVER!) without realizing how much better their speakers could sound. SO TAKE CARE OF THAT FIRST! And if you CAN'T take care of it first, then you'll have to (temporarily) PUNT: once you SORT OF KNOW (within a couple feet) where they will go, place the ALREADY SPIKED loudspeakers on 1.25" (kitchen counter thickness) by 2ft. (+/--) plywood squares, with short, looped pile, outdoor carpet (slides best on the floor) GLUED to the bottom of the plywood -- or use four small casters if you really want to make life easy ;--) When you think you know where you want the speakers, have a friend help you take them off the dolly and onto the floor. Set the spike points TEMPORARILY, on floor protectors. If you have a really heavy speaker, set the metal floor protectors inside nylon piano leg protectors, so you can still slide the speaker around a little bit. Eventually though, you must let the spike points bite into the floor -- you can only forgive yourself for NOT doing this if you have a pristine polished marble or parquet floor and you don't own the house!!
Floyd, you have been madly (and expensively) beating around the bush, and I feel truly sorry for you about that. Almost ANY piece of the gear you mentioned you owned or borrowed I could use as the cornerstone of an EXCELLENT and SONICALLY SATISFYING audio system; but not if I approached the project as you have done so far! So FIRST, find out where those Sashas REALLY WANT TO BE for the best 2-channel reproduction. All you need to know right now is where you want to sit so that you can figure out where to place your front end equipment most conveniently (to the SIDE, of course ;--) Things like room acoustics, the final choice of all other gear and cabling are all lower priorities right now and can be refined as time goes on. Your SECOND PRIORITY should be discovering an amplifier that sounds the best to you with the Sashas. YOU CAN USE ANYTHING FOR A SOURCE, the crappy-er the better, and hook up the amp and speakers with crap too! -- 18 AWG lamp cord will do fine. I'm serious. Using junk associated equipment won't change the winner of your amp contest (I promise!), and things will only get better, right!? Your THIRD PRIORITY should be the speaker cable. You will probably want to make a short list, but they should ALL have certain things in common: Low strand count. Large conductor size, >10 AWG total size for each run, pos and neg. Good mechanical isolation (a fat outer jacket ;--) SIMPLE INTERNAL GEOMETRY. Simple internal arrangement of the conductors, combined with a low strand count (under 6 strands per conductor) USUALLY insures good (meaning low) capacitance and inductance characteristics (but check out the actual specs with the manufacturer.) "Good" means capacitance under 20pF (picofarads) per foot, and inductance under 0.4µH/Ft (millihenries) per ft. This will insure your speaker cables aren't secretly operating under the radar as TONE CONTROLS!
Once you've covered these fundamentals Floyd, you can evaluate/refine everything else and pretty much in any order you like (with certain exceptions.) In the meantime, if you like the Sashas as your loudspeakers, then you need to put them (horses) in FRONT of all those other little carts, or you will NEVER make any satisfying progress. Like I said, I could put together an incredibly satisfying system out of the stuff you (still?) have on hand. But I already have a great system, and I'm going to go listen to it right now! And so should the rest of you. And IF you're NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR SYSTEM, then for God's sake get to work! But work smart; and TAKE CARE OF THE BASICS FIRST! THEY ARE: both in order of importance and deployment:
1. SOLID SPEAKER-TO-FLOOR MOUNTING TECHNIQUE AND CAREFUL CHOICE OF (PERMANENT) SPEAKER PLACEMENT.
2. EVALUATING THE AMP YOU LIKE BEST WITH YOUR SPEAKERS -- REGARDLESS OF HOOK-UP WIRE
3. SELECT A SPEAKER CABLE THAT IMPROVES THE SYNERGY ACHIEVED IN No. 2 BY AT LEAST TENFOLD!
If carried out in an orderly way (after selecting a loudpeaker you really like;--) these three PRIMARY decisions/solutions/purchases should not have to be repeated for a LONG time!
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