Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

Psychic & Audiofankj: The reason that i didn't "jump" on the offer to check these out is that i currently have four out of five systems down and torn apart. The only one that is running is my HT system, which is XLR based. On top of that, i've got all five speakers pulled apart for crossover upgrades and am using other speakers temporarily. As such, i can substitute these cables into this system, but it wouldn't really be an apples to apples comparison between an RCA based cable and balanced cables. On top of that, the speakers that i'm using aren't exacly a good match for this system, but it at least gives me tunes and movies for now.

Yes, i can "cobble" at least one of the other RCA based systems together, but it will be nothing that i'm used to and won't be nearly as "dialed in" as i'd like. Yes, i can get a "feel" for what these cables do, but it wouldn't be a fair trial of their potential.

For sake of clarity in case you're wondering how i could have so many systems down, i damaged one of the speakers in my office system, possibly to the point of no repair.

I sold / traded my amp in my tube system a while back. No other tube amps on the premises. Want to build my own tube amp for this system, but it will have to wait until i can get some of my other projects caught up.

I have the speakers in my bedroom system pulled apart for crossover upgrades. As with the speakers in my HT system, i'm letting all of the caps "form" and then selecting them one by one i.e. the cream of the crop once they are fully settled in. This involves charging the caps up to or near rated voltage, letting them discharge naturally and then cycling them up to voltage again, several times over. From there, i can check to see which are discharging faster than others ( due to higher dielectric losses )and compare their measured values in terms of matched values. Yes, i buy TONS of extra caps for any project, which allows me to pick and choose as needed.

My main system is down due to problems with my midrange panels. I'm thinking of scrapping them, but don't know if i want to attempt rebuilding them or if i'm going to try and replace them with something else i.e. a commercial offering.

Yes, i'm doing more work on the gear than listening lately. Given that i've also got a PA system that i'm building for a local band in my free time, my own personal projects are coming about even slower than normal and i'm not exactly "fast" to begin with.

Flex: Great post. Thank you for presenting another well thought out and reasonable summary of the situation.

Psychic: I agree to a certain extent. That is, much of the technology that we have today was derived through scientific research conducted for military purposes. If it didn't come from the military, it came from deciphering alien technology : )

Twl: standardizing input and output impedances on components wouldn't be hard to do and / or drastically compromize the sound quality of any given design. This would be a HUGE step forward and get rid of many of the variables that account for the difference in sonics with interconnects that many encounter.

As far as standardizing speakers, that would be a good one. No real way to do that as far as i can see. While you could have standardized impedances, etc... i think that the designers would be more worried about meeting the certification specs in terms of input impedances and levels of reactance rather than achieving the best performance possible. As you mentioned, speakers like this might be good for those that want a "plug & play" system, but would probably not be best suited for those seeking optimum performance. Sean
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Sean with most speakers out there having their crossovers dangling on the positive leg of the amplifier and nothing on the negative side of the amp would you not think this imbalance is more of an issue than the cable impedance seen by the same amplifier? Tom

Sean, I hope you are still watching this thread, I had a quick question, which is just barely on topic!
I'm doing an internal rewire on Maggie 3.6's and also replacing caps/inductors. I'm looking round for good hookup wire to replace the cheap crappy stuff that Magnepan use. Since I'm using Goertz speaker cables (these are still breaking in, but are sounding a little better each day), I thought about using similar cable internally. I spoke with Goertz and they can custom make a single conductor version of their MI 1 cable, which is similar in design to the heavier guage MI3. It's quite pricey, at $264 for a 50' spool. Can you see any potential downside in using this kind of cable internally. I actually think it would be quite easy to work with, they sell a 'notching tool' that cuts a notch out of the end of the wire and turns it into a spade connection!...talk about minimizing soldered joints.
Would appreciate your expertise to hopefully help me avoid a potentially expensive and time consuming blunder.

Cheers

Rooze

Tom: What you bring up is a good point and something that most people never really think about. I have often wondered about the effects of "everything on one side of the line" type crossovers in the past. I have discussed this with my Brother at times, but we've never actually taken any type of measurements on stuff like this.

While most will argue that "it's an AC signal, so the amp sees the same load regardless of what polarity the crossover is on", that is only true of a Class A amp. That's because the Class A output stage is conducting both sides of the AC waveform. In comparison, a Class AB amp would typically have different types of output devices conducting each individual half ( positive and negative ) of the waveform being reproduced. As such, the Class B amp would see a non-linear load due to having all of the crossover components on the positive leg of the waveform whereas the negative leg has a shorter signal path with a reduced parts count / reduced reactance level to deal with. The ideal thing would be to divide the parts count evenly between both legs, providing both halves of the waveform with a reasonably common load.

Given the differences in electrical characteristics of the various devices used for each "rail" of the amps output polarity, it's no wonder that most amps, which are low level AB circuits, demonstrate different measurements ( levels of electronic stability ) and sonics into various loads. This could be part of the reason why Class A amps tend to sound "more cohesive" and less "disjointed" than Class B amps and do so more consistently with different loads. That is, a Class A output stage is always conducting and sees all of the load whereas an AB output stage sees half of the load without equal levels of the crossover network's reactance equally distrubuted between them. I would think that such an approach would help an amp to offer better stability into a wider range of loudspeakers AND reduce non-linearities in the amp when recovering from overload / momentary saturation.

There's a LOT to think about in the question that Tom brought up and the response that i just posted. I've never really seen anyone go into depth on the subject and it may help to explain a lot of things that are somewhat "unexplainable". That in itself is food for thought on a whole 'nother topic / thread.

None the less, maintaining a consistent nominal impedance for the entire circuit should theoretically ( and in my experience ) produce better results. The fact that most all of my amps operate in Class A for a longer than average period of time may also help things out. Others that have high bias AB or "pure" Class A amps are also in the same boat. Amps running in low level AB or straight Class B would probably be more susceptable to the aforementioned problems with "one polarity" crossovers coming into play. If you're wondering how this specific scenario applies to your system, if your amp idles anything below VERY "warm" to the touch with no signal applied, your amp is not a high bias unit. That would make it either a very low level AB amp or a straight B. This assumes that you're not running some type of "high efficiency" aka "switching amp", which typically idle cool as a cucumber.

With all of that in mind and as most that have read more than a few of my posts should know, i typically prefer "direct drive". That is, amplifier / speaker cable / driver with the crossover duties being taken care of upstream of the amplifier electronically. This removes the aforementioned "problem" out of the equation along with resolving all kinds of other situations. The difference between "direct drive" aka using a good quality electronic crossover and using the same amps / speakers with passive crossovers between them is pretty staggering to say the least.

Rooze: I see nothing wrong with what you want to do. Before buying anything else though, drop me an email with the specifics of what you need. I have some smaller sections of MI-1 that i may be able to help you out with. No promises though as i have to dig it up and see how much i have. I purchased some cables that were damaged and ended up trimming some short sections off during the repair. This "might" be enough for what you need to accomplish your desired goals.

Taking that a step further though, couldn't you just have Goertz build some inductors with the values that you needed with longer leads coming in and out of the inductors themselves? This would leave you with even fewer connection points and a more direct signal path. I don't know if you had considered this, but it would be the simplest and purest way to achieve your desired goals.

As far as "break-in" goes with this cable, i think it is more a matter of your ears adjusting to what you are hearing than the cables themselves "changing parameters". After all, you've only got one conductor per polarity with minimal amounts of a high grade dielectric. There's not much potential for the cabling to shift around internally, altering the impedances and / or the dielectric to change spacing or density, etc...

Out of curiosity, did you receive / install the Zobel networks? Sean
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Sean the speakers I currently use have series wired crossovers. Every signal feed this type of design would have to be sent to the drivers unlike a parallel design which I think dumps unused signal to ground.Unused signal would then be feed back to the amp and must create some type of noise or aberration, deleterious to music..Tom