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Cable Madness

Hello to all, my first post...anywhere... taking the leap from lurking ...well fingers crossed as I really need some help with this. I have now spent far too many hours researching cables and I'm not sure if I'm even getting anywhere, so in the interest of sanity I hope I can get some advice on what cable/s might best suit my gear. I am putting together my first quality audio system and the components, currently in transit are...Sunfire TG4 pre and CG Sig 7x400 amp and a pair of B&W Nautilus 800's. Still undecided on a playback source but have been leaning towards the Esoteric DV-50S ( as with the Sunfire for home theater reasons). I am looking at spending up to $1000 (quite happy to go used) for what I need to run the system in 2channel and am leaning towards balanced IC's and bi-wire or even bi-amping the speakers as it will be a while before we can purchase any of the surround speakers I will have the available outputs. Thanks in advance for your opinions/help, much appreciated.
rockethouse
wellfed's avatar
wellfed
690 posts
 
Welcome to the club. The subject of cables is pretty broad in its scope. While I haven't tried any of his cables yet, check out Chris Ven Haus offerings. There are lots of good choices out there. I would suggest you define what you are after before starting your search.
oldpet
295 posts
 
One thing you will find. There are as many opinions as there are people. Ultimately -You, will be the jury and judge. If you buy something and don't like it. Sell it. Yes, you'lll probably take a monetary hit, less so if you buy used, but nothing in this 'game' is cut and dried. It's all trial and error. If you ever figure it out, write a book - you'll make a million. :-) good luck.
Paul
nighthawk
259 posts
 
There are lots of good cables out there. Some of them will 'click' with your system and some won't. If you want to save money, buy used and sell the ones you don't like. If you want to save time, the Cable Co. has a rental program where your rental fee goes towards purchase. They have a huge library of cables. You can try out most commonly available cables. (No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.)

I think you may be limiting yourself with a $1000 budget for 2 balanced ICs plus a bi-wire cable. For used cables, $1500 would give you more choices.

Some good ICs to try - Cardas Neutral Reference, Audience AU24, Shunyata Aries, Acoustic Zen Matrix Ref. II, Luminous Audio Synchestra Signature. These are all good copper ICs that are fairly neutral in character. I would avoid silver ICs until your system gets broken in and you're really familiar with its sound. Then you can tell if you'll like the sound of silver. In my system, I use a silver IC from CD player to preamp (Kimber KS1130) and a copper IC from the preamp to power amp (Cardas Neutral Ref.) This provides a good balance in my system.

For speaker cables, Kimber Bifocal XL is my favorite of the biwire type and can be found for about $1000 used. AZ Satori, Shunyata Lyra, Cardas Neutral Ref. are also good choices.
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