Anything beat dh labs t-14 for the money......

It is a great value in my opinion.
Buy some used from here or Ebay.
Unless you need a lot of wire, you won't need to spend $200 bucks.
It will sound different than your copper wire because of the silver coating, but is a very neutral wire overall.

The only comments I have ever read about deficiencies were slightly lean on low end.
I have it and don't agree with that.

I wouldn't go overboard on speaker wire. If you want to try out different things, spend some modest money experimenting with power cords, and IC's.

Marakanetz: The cable that you suggested is basically "generic" Monster Cable. Such a design is best suited for use below 300 - 500 Hz when connected to the typically inductive load of most dynamic loudspeakers. Above that point, you can expect roll-off to take place.

The only time i see cable like this being "suitable" for full range use is if someone were directly driving E-stat's with no step up transformer between the amp and the speakers. The high capacitance of the speaker would be somewhat "tamed" by the high inductance of the speaker cable, offering the amp what would theoretically be a little more of a "purely resistive" load. Since the nominal impedance of most "zip cord" type speaker cables is quite high, somewhere in the area of 100 ohms give or take, this would also help to buffer the otherwise low impedance that the amp would see if using lower inductance cables.

Cables are all about impedance matching. If you know the characteristics of the load that you'll be driving and the output impedance of the device feeding that circuit, doing a little math can take you a long way, both sonically and electrically. Sean
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Phasecorrect...

If I recall, you are using GMA Europa's? I exchanged e-mails with Roy Johnson, and he had two very specific recommendations as far as synergy with the Europa's. On the less expensive end, he suggested Analysis Plus. I took his advice and have been using Oval 12's with very good results. For a bit more, you could try the Oval 9's. And for an even higher end cable, Roy recommended Audio Magic Sorcerer's. The Sorcerer's are out of my price range, but I just picked up a set of Excalibur II interconnects. We'll see how they fit into the system.

I used T-14's for a long time, and I have to say that I prefer the Analysis Plus. Granted, my system has changed a bit since the T-14's were in, but I don't remember getting as much clarity across the entire spectrum with the T-14's. Not a knock at all, I thought they were great cables, but I would say the AP is a step up for not a lot more money. There are quite a few sets up for sale right now.

Best of luck,
Eric

Sean,
I thought always that speaker is inductive load...
The inductive roll-off of offered speaker wire is within mid-tens of micro-ohms for ten meters.

Marakanetz: Dynamic speakers can offer various levels of capacitive or inductive reactance at various phase angles. E-stat's that are "direct drive" ( no transformer ) present a very high capacitive loads. I'm sure that there are other speakers that also offer less inductive loads.

As for the "frequency response" of various cables, Moncrieff went through and documented the results using various cables in IAR quite a long time ago. Due to the high levels of self-inductance, Monster cable aka "12 gauge zip cord" did not look pretty. The only cable that did worse was Fulton Gold, which is basically 4 gauge zip cord. It was linear up to about 125 Hz or so. After that, it rolled everything off due to the phenomenally high level of self-inductance. As such, it works GREAT as a subwoofer cable but sounds VERY "warm & dull" when used as a full range cable. It is for these reasons that so many of the "better" speaker cables strive for reduced inductance.

When it comes to speaker cables, the less inductance, the wider the bandwidth. This can be seen in the rise times of signals as measured at both the amp and at the speaker. High inductance cables will have a large overshoot on the leading edge of a high frequency square wave at the amp and will show a rounded corner at the speaker. Loading at both terminals becomes more linear as inductance is reduced but the amp may go into oscillation if capacitance becomes too high. As such, many manufacturers ( Nordost, XLO, etc... ) strive for a "reasonable" level of inductance with various levels of capacitance. Kimber's designs are less inductive and more capacitive, but not "crazy capacitive". Some other companies, primarily Goertz, Polk, Dunlavy, etc... threw caution to the wind and made very high capacitance cables. Their goals were to produce the widest bandwidth cables possible while delivering a very low nominal impedance. When using such designs, power transfer and loading characteristics are increased so long as the amp is stable. If the amp is not stable, one must take precautions i.e. use a zobel network either at the speaker or amplifier's output terminals. If one fails to do so with such a design, sonics will suffer and the amp may "smoke". Not a good thing, but some of my favorite amp / speaker cable combo's are of this very nature. Sean
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