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Need Good Advice - Speaker Cable

I have an Audio Refinement Complete driving Soliloquy 5.0 monitors and a Rotel 855 CDP. I've had them a year hooked up with well seasoned original Monster Cables. The last couple of months, I've been auditioning speaker cables to get rid of some grime in the highs and some thinness to some vocals.

The system with my Monsters is actually quite pleasureable. It has a vibrant, room filling, holographic kind of quality that is very exciting even at low levels. Bass is very good and the midrange can really be wonderful with terrific tone and color to the music. Highs can be very transparent also.

I've now tried in my system Transparent Audio The Wave 100 (lifeless and veiled sounding), Analysis Plus Oval 12 (pretty good resolution and good purity, but too rolled off sounding, not exciting), Mapleshade Golden Helix (amazing stuff really, very pure high end, a bit too bright, some sibilance and some nasality to vocals). Just received and now listening to Monster Cable Z-1 (it has the expansive Monster sound that I'm used too, fair resolution, decent bass, but some grime in the midrange so far).

Almost everything has a cleaner high end than my old Monster's, but nothing is as exciting, enjoyable and colorful as they are. I was thinking of trying a low to mid priced Nordost cable next.

This business of testing cables is still fun, but I'm not sure when/where it will end. Can someone who is familiar with my experiences give me some direction?

Thanks,
Chris
ssglx
irvrobinson
295 posts
 
Larryb, DBTs do not necessarily involve random passages. You are allowed to know a change is occurring, you are just not allowed to have any other information. You can even control when a change is made.

Nonetheless, I don't make buying decisions using DBTs. Too much work, too damn confusing. But I do expect that there must be reasoning that does not violate well-proven electrical or acoustical theories regarding WHY there might be a difference in the first place. This stipulation rules out exotic cables and cryo'd electrical outlets and other nonsense for me.
digitalaudio
22 posts
 
I have been trying for months to find a low-priced cable that would work with my Soliloquy 5.3's and which had the high end clarity and clean midrange that my Lat International 1000-SSD's had but which were just a tad fuller in the midrange and had a tighter deeper bottom. What I found was that every time I auditioned a cable that had the bottom end I was looking for the high end was rolled or hazed. Conversely those which approached the Lat's on the top end were just as loose and shallow on the bottom. Now I am experimenting with bi-wiring with different types of cables for the high and low ends. So far this is yielding much more promising results. It makes me wonder if dollar for dollar you get a better result by mixing cables then trying to find one that does everything just right. My guess is that if you could find a single cable that would do it all, it would hardly be low priced!
ssglx OP
203 posts
 
Digital, I've lately been heading in a similar direection. I had interesting results by shotgunning monster cable and Mapleshade Golden Helix to my 5.0's woofer posts with the stock jumpers. What I got was just about what I had hoped for, very tight and satisfying deep bass, pure (but still a bit hot) and resolved high end, and wonderful soundstage.

When I switched back to the monsters, the bass didn't sound as punchy or in-your-face.

The next thing I'm going to try is bi-wiring Mapleshade to the low posts and monster to the highs. It seems to me the Mapleshades have quicker and more energetic deep bass, and I just like the shimmery softer quality of the monster cable's high end.

A piece of advise for the 5.3's (I had borrowed a pair for a few days), for tight bass make sure you pull them way out from the walls (my 5.0's are nearly 4' out) and use the spikes. If they seem too hot with a given setup, play with the toe-in or point the tweeters down to your chest.

Another very interesting cabling exercise was running the Mapleshades to the top posts, monster to the low posts, and shorting the ground posts together with the jumper. Without the negative jumper, the sound was rather unnatural and not involving. The jumper made things much more musical and involving, better balanced, but softened all the transients a bit too much.

Chris
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