The most detailed speaker cable??


Hello All,
I would like some help in chosing a new set of very detailed speaker cables. I want something that is I guess on the bright side. I have used so far... AZ satoris,AZ holograms, Nordost red dawns, AQ bedrocks, kimber 4tc just to name a few. So please help in my search based on your experience with speaker cables.
Thanks
harnellt
I think too often people listen to detailed cables and immediately label them "bright" without listening closer. A detailed cable is one that preserves the signal fed to it. The same cables able to properly convey chimes or the brush of a cymbal is also more likely to be able to convey the pitch resolution of an acoustic bass or a piano note as it decays within body of the piano. Timbre will also be improved in these systems because timbre is directly related to reproduction of harmonics and high-freq extension. A cable that rolls off the high-freq extension too soon will never be able get the timbre right.

One other thing to look at is shielding. If your system is in a high emi/rfi environment then shielding will lower the noise floor help in preserving those tiny details. Thereby extending note decay and etc.

My cables are Pure Note Epsilon Reference or Signature or whatever. I'm not a hard-core cable junkie but they definitely make a big difference.
Thank you all for your help. I am going to call the cable company on Monday and try some of the suggestions. I will let you know how it works out.
Thanks again
Just about any speaker cable of appropriate guage will "preserve that
signal."

The notion that your signal is lost in the speaker cable is something that was
dreamed up in a cable marketers advertising meeting.

The signal is lost in your speaker -- not the cable.

There are rather large problems in just about every speaker and most rooms.

Just about all speakers are only linear +/- anywhere from 1 to 3 db (or more)
and roll off at the extremes.

Cables are far more linear by comparison.

Listening rooms, unless they have been specifically designed for listening to
reproduced music, usually have rather large problems with rather large peaks
and valleys, introduce time smear, boomy bass, hardness in the highs, etc.

No one has ever been able to measure distortion caused by a cable, despite
what cable advertisers say.

Cable companies have done a brilliant job of getting people to focus
suspicion on their innocent cables while ignoring the rest of the chain.

I'd wager that a couple of hundred dollars spent on acoustical consulting or a
speaker upgrade would go exponentially further in fixing what is wrong or
improving the sound of 99% of the systems on Audiogon.

In most cases, money spent on expensive speaker cables -- where improved
performance is questionable and controversial at best would be better spent
elsewhere in the chain.

Regarding silver: The only thing silver has to offer is that it has less
resistance, which means all you have to do is use thicker copper cables to get
the exact same effect.

I think the fixtion on silver is a carry over from people who play musical
instruments. For example, steel strings sound different from bronze, brass
horns sound different from silver, etc.

Cables are not plucked, they do not make music by vibrating -- they just
carry signal. The signal doesn't pick up any sound from the silver or copper.

If you've been using copper and you switch to the same gauge silver cable
and you don't level match, it is possible the silver cable simply makes the
music slightly louder, and any audio salesman knows you can trick customers
into thinking one component is more detailed than another simply by playing
it a little louder. We all know that sometimes just a few ticks more volume is
enough to make the speakers open up and become fuller.

Other than that, there may be some psychological effect from thinking of
silver as shinier, whiter -- and thus more pure than copper which is, of
course, copper colored.
Rsbeck, I see that you have alot of money tied up in equipment (Meitner Emm Labs, Levinson, Monitor Audio), but there's no mention of interconnects and your speakerwire is listed at $100. Have you tried any of the upper end cables- interconnects and speakerwire? You sound as though good quality wire doesn't matter much. Or am I understanding you incorrectly? There's alot of people that would disagree with you.
>>You sound as though good quality wire doesn't matter much.<<

Let's be specific. You select the particular speaker cable and tell me what
makes it worthy of adulation.

As you can see by the rest of my gear, money is no object. I can afford the
most expensive cables out there and would if I were convinced they offered
superior performance.

I've looked into all kinds of cables, heard all the hype, and I haven't seen any
claim for "high end" cables that doesn't dissolve when
investigated. Most of the claims I see regarding high end cables aren't just
unfounded, they are laughable.

Speakers have a far more complex and difficult job to do. Listening rooms
commonly have large peaks and valleys -- and yet I see a lot of focus on
cables.

Cable companies have clearly done a masterful job of creating doubt in the
mind of the audio enthusiast about his/her cables. They do this by coming
up with bogus maladies and then you see these myths repeated until they
become accepted.

Next thing you know, you've got a lot of audiophiles feeling like they need
new cables -- when there is no evidence the old one had any problem, that
the new one will cure the allleged problem and without investigating other
areas where real problems are easily documented.

When someone asks for help, I think we can do better than that.

If *I* am going to solve a problem, I first want to make a good diagnosis, then
I want to make sure the "cure" is going to solve it.

I am going to focus on real problems rather than bogus ones that have been
made up by cable marketeers that have no basis in fact.