Fans of Blue Jeans Speaker Cable?

congrats! sounds good.

I have the 4s11 for speaker cables - they are great.
I have bl-1 for interconnects, but also canare lv61 which I prefer (greater clarity / dynamic range I feel!)

Honestly, I do not see the point going with more expensive cables than canare or belden.

First impressions. I got the Blue Jeans cables yesterday and have been listening to my system with the new LC-1 jumpers on my NAD (a mild improvement compared to when I bought the LC-1 for my CD player, but an improvement all the same: blacker background, primarily). Then I've been comparing speaker cables.

Yesterday morning I terminated and shrink-wrapped the Canare 4S11 (compression bananas on the amp end and bare wire on the speaker end), and I've been going back and forth between them and the Anti-Cables.

When I first hooked them up, my initial impressions of the Canare were of a little less weight in the bass up through the mid-bass (even acoustic guitars seem to lack a little body) and a slight softening up top. This impression has remained, though I've come to appreciate that the Canares do offer a rich and beautifully focused midrange with far better soundstage depth than the Anti-Cables. At the same time, they offer what seems like better midrange resolution--the sound of the room and of reverb decay is much clearer and comes with a greater sense of ease than with the Anti-Cables. High-frequency transients like cymbals and chimes fall back in the soundstage a bit with the Canares, and perhaps have a touch--but just a touch--of grain, where the Anti-Cables seem to throw those sounds outward and upward from the plane of the speakers with great smoothness and tonal purity.

Swapping the Anti-Cables back in, I'm impressed by the bass weight and definition, and high-frequency sounds come forward in the soundstage with clarity--though this also comes with a flattening of the soundstage overall. The midrange is clear and lifelike, though everything seems just a little bit crisper and perhaps a touch less naturally warm. The sound of the room and of decay can be picked out, but it sounds a little more mechanical and less wholly integrated with the instrument(s) or voice. I really enjoy what the Anti-Cables let me hear, but each time I turned the music off I realized I also felt a sense of relief--that the increased sharpness and definition of high frequencies had been a touch fatiguing. With the Canare I found myself leaning into the soundstage to hear things I was used to hearing with the Anti-Cables' definition; with the Anti-Cables I found myself leaning back from the musical presentation as it came toward me.

These are very, very, veeerrrry initial impressions based on just a few hours of listening. The discs I've mostly used are favorites: Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood; My Morning Jacket, Z; Lucinda Williams, World Without Tears; Kenny Burrell, Midnight Blue and Handcrafted; Bill Evans, The Complete Village Vanguard; and Mozart's early string quartets on Brilliant Classics. So far I find myself drawn to the buttery midrange of the Canare even though it doesn't seem to excel at the frequency extremes. I'm going to keep using them for a few weeks before checking against the Anti-Cables again to see if there's any change as the Canare's dielectric breaks in. Good, cheap fun all around.

Thats exactly the difference I noticed between the belden and the rocket 44's. Beldens had better highs and more weight to the bass, more detail but perhaps slightly fatiguing and the 44's had better, smoother mids. Overall, I preferred the belden because of the micro details.

I've continued listening to the Canare cables, and my initial impressions have been confirmed as I've gone along. It seems to me like the bottom end has filled out a little bit since I hooked them up, but I'm willing to admit that this might be placebo effect! In any case, as I've been enjoying the music I haven't felt like I'm missing anything on the bottom end.

The one place where I do still notice a difference is in the highs. With the Anti-Cables, high-frequency sounds and the soundstaging cues that go with them are holographic and immediate-feeling, completely smooth and effortless and clean. The Canares do have a touch of grain in the highs and at times sound a touch "slow" in comparison (I always listen for percussion instruments like shakers and tambourines for this), and cymbals and the like seem to sit a bit further back in the soundstage.

That said, the Canares have a buttery midrange (which isn't a real deficiency of the Anti-Cables) that I've been increasingly drawn to. In my system at least, the Canares have provided a more flesh-and-blood sense of singers and instruments. I feel like I'm hearing a whole human being singing in space rather than a human mouth singing in front of a microphone. A drum kit in a room rather than an assortment of drums with microphones perched over them. Subtle and expressive aspects of instrumental technique--from Kenny Burrell's touch on the fretboard to Andrew Bird's breath control as he whistles--are easier to pick up on and follow and are presented in a natural, organic way. I am, in short, enjoying the music.

Both sets of cables are absurdly good values, to my mind anyway, and do lots of things well. Though I'll probably try something else in the future (audiophilia, ahoy!), I've put the Anti-Cables up for sale (not without second thoughts!) and am sticking with the Canares for now. Vive la difference!