Phasecorrect: The bass with the MI-2's can be as good or bad as your amplifier / speaker interface is. Given the low impedance of the cables themselves, they don't inhibit power transfer, so the amp can load into the speakers the best possible. There can be a drawback to this though. If you have an amp that is current limited, and you've now removed the "high impedance buffer" that most other speaker cables bring with them, the bass that you hear can actually get "sloppier". That's because the amp is being "sucked dry" and the lack of control becomes even more evident.
Using speaker cables with a higher nominal impedance reduces the current flow that the amp has to produce, giving the amp more breathing room. While this doesn't correct the problem of the speakers having sloppy bass, it doesn't compound the situation either. The use of Goertz in such an installation would end up providing a demonstration of what a poorly built and under-designed amp driving poorly built and under-designed speakers would sound like.
As a side note, the MI-3's present a load that is half the impedance of that presented by the MI-2's. While they will pass more power uninhibited, my experience leads me to believe that the MI-3's may be too low in impedance to work well with most amps. Amplifiers that are built like absolute tanks ( ala Krell, etc... ) probably wouldn't have a problem while other amps may end up getting "loaded down". Nelson Pass discusses using "less than ideal" speaker cables as an impedance transformer aka "band aid" between "less than perfect amps" and speakers that present very tough loads in his article entitled "Speaker Cables". This can be found on the Pass Labs website by clicking "articles".
By the way. That article was written and published in 1978. It would a appear that very few manufacturers and audiophiles have learned anything about the amplifier / speaker interface from that article and the research that Nelson performed, let alone think things through for themselves well enough to develop "more suitable" products. Sean
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PS... When i reference Goertz speaker cables, i am specifically referring to the "flat" series. The models in this series consist of the 13 gauge MI-1 "Center Stage", the 10 gauge MI-2 "Veracity" and the 7 gauge MI-3 "Divinity". These cables are all Copper with identical versions using an AG prefix. The letters "MI" stands for "Matched Impedance" and the "AG" versions are Silver rather than Copper. With both of these designs, the two conductors lay perfectly flat, one on top of the other.
For sake of clarity, the other "flat conductor spiral twisted" Serpent series of speaker cables are not of the same performance level and one should not confuse the two. As previously noted, regardless of what Goertz will tell you, you SHOULD install the impedance matching devices that they provide free of charge. If in doubt, consult the manufacturer of your amp and ask them if there product will have a tough time driving very wide-bandwidth high capacitance / low inductance speaker cables. They should know better what their product is capable of better than Goertz does.
