A/B with/without bananas or spades
woodguru
Posts: 76
I had a chance to see firsthand the difference in coloration spades or banana plugs can make and it is crazy.
Years ago I was a dealer and one of the cable lines I had (DH Labs) allowed it's dealers to buy bulk cable and assemble speaker wires in custom configurations. They did a lot of termination comparison work and provided the spades and bananas that were the most neutral they had found. A cold weld crimp is far better in terms of not imparting any coloration to the sound than soldering. When using solder cable companies have to compare types of silver solder and the amount used technique wise or that can make a difference in the sound.
Speaker cable is one thing but interconnects are even more sensitive to solder than a speaker cable is.
Anyway my point here is that most do-it-yourselfers would never have it occur to them that there is any difference from one banana plug and another. The criteria is the nicer the better in terms of build quality and solidity. The big solid WBT's happen to darken and mute sound far more than some minimalist simple spades made from oxygen free copper. Those crimped on with an excellent high compression crimp set is far more neutral and transparent than a big heavy WBT.
I have a cable made for the military at a cost of several hundred dollars a foot that brought these factors home to me in a very interesting way. I was in the habit of using the cable with bare ends for the best possible unadulterated transparency and found these cables to be as transparent as Nordost Valhalla (100%) without the Valhalla edge frequency emphasis that can be a bit much for some systems.
I silver soldered some ends for a guy using it in a very high resolution system who was comparing it to VanDenHul 3rd that he paid about $8000 in New Zealand. He called me saying the mid range was depressed and bass was out of perspective. I had never heard anyone complaining about this and the only difference was a silver solder that was from radio shack instead of the high silver content I had normally used for speaker wire work. I told him to try stripping back the cable a bit and cut off the half inch or so of silvered wire and see what happened. He called back and told me it was incredible the way the sound opened up and how nice the overall tonal perspective was. A few days later he told me he was playing something while his wife was cooking and she came in and wanted to know why the system sounded so much more open and full.
So.....for those making cables don't rule out the effect your terminations are having on the character of the sound. Coloration at the speaker cable is going to alter your perception of everything upstream, because something sounds good at the stage you are at doesn't mean those colorations won't bite you and influence bad choices on interconnects with them in the system. Those are influences that haunt you later as a system is brought to a higher state of resolution.
It's a real pain to actually evaluate and compare different terminations, most make their choice and live with it. Use recourses that have made objective comparisons on terminations and go with products that tested well. It's a little thing that makes quite a difference to the sound of a system.
For a homemade wire the best thing is to try it with bare ends and give yourself a chance to see how it sounds for awhile, you may find a termination to be unacceptably interfering with the sound that was there with bare ends.
Two things wreak havoc with cable developers, insulation (more equals coloration), and terminations. They use big solid expensive terminations because they lend an aura of quality to the consumer, not because they sound better. I know people that just can't live with the nature of unfinished ends, once you have set them up you won't see it again unless you change things around a lot.
I'll add one thing,
To further complicate the DIY factor speaker cable typically has a burn in or break in factor that will throw comparisons off too much to tell what's up without actually making several sets of cable in each configuration to try. I was comparing the different Eichmann terminations including silver banana plugs and interconnect plugs and they had to send me about $8000 worth of them so I could compare different bi-wire and shotgun configurations. I needed like 90 silver bananas to set up what I wanted to try. I only point this out so as to contribute to my credibility that I have done some pretty extensive cable comparison work.
Years ago I was a dealer and one of the cable lines I had (DH Labs) allowed it's dealers to buy bulk cable and assemble speaker wires in custom configurations. They did a lot of termination comparison work and provided the spades and bananas that were the most neutral they had found. A cold weld crimp is far better in terms of not imparting any coloration to the sound than soldering. When using solder cable companies have to compare types of silver solder and the amount used technique wise or that can make a difference in the sound.
Speaker cable is one thing but interconnects are even more sensitive to solder than a speaker cable is.
Anyway my point here is that most do-it-yourselfers would never have it occur to them that there is any difference from one banana plug and another. The criteria is the nicer the better in terms of build quality and solidity. The big solid WBT's happen to darken and mute sound far more than some minimalist simple spades made from oxygen free copper. Those crimped on with an excellent high compression crimp set is far more neutral and transparent than a big heavy WBT.
I have a cable made for the military at a cost of several hundred dollars a foot that brought these factors home to me in a very interesting way. I was in the habit of using the cable with bare ends for the best possible unadulterated transparency and found these cables to be as transparent as Nordost Valhalla (100%) without the Valhalla edge frequency emphasis that can be a bit much for some systems.
I silver soldered some ends for a guy using it in a very high resolution system who was comparing it to VanDenHul 3rd that he paid about $8000 in New Zealand. He called me saying the mid range was depressed and bass was out of perspective. I had never heard anyone complaining about this and the only difference was a silver solder that was from radio shack instead of the high silver content I had normally used for speaker wire work. I told him to try stripping back the cable a bit and cut off the half inch or so of silvered wire and see what happened. He called back and told me it was incredible the way the sound opened up and how nice the overall tonal perspective was. A few days later he told me he was playing something while his wife was cooking and she came in and wanted to know why the system sounded so much more open and full.
So.....for those making cables don't rule out the effect your terminations are having on the character of the sound. Coloration at the speaker cable is going to alter your perception of everything upstream, because something sounds good at the stage you are at doesn't mean those colorations won't bite you and influence bad choices on interconnects with them in the system. Those are influences that haunt you later as a system is brought to a higher state of resolution.
It's a real pain to actually evaluate and compare different terminations, most make their choice and live with it. Use recourses that have made objective comparisons on terminations and go with products that tested well. It's a little thing that makes quite a difference to the sound of a system.
For a homemade wire the best thing is to try it with bare ends and give yourself a chance to see how it sounds for awhile, you may find a termination to be unacceptably interfering with the sound that was there with bare ends.
Two things wreak havoc with cable developers, insulation (more equals coloration), and terminations. They use big solid expensive terminations because they lend an aura of quality to the consumer, not because they sound better. I know people that just can't live with the nature of unfinished ends, once you have set them up you won't see it again unless you change things around a lot.
I'll add one thing,
To further complicate the DIY factor speaker cable typically has a burn in or break in factor that will throw comparisons off too much to tell what's up without actually making several sets of cable in each configuration to try. I was comparing the different Eichmann terminations including silver banana plugs and interconnect plugs and they had to send me about $8000 worth of them so I could compare different bi-wire and shotgun configurations. I needed like 90 silver bananas to set up what I wanted to try. I only point this out so as to contribute to my credibility that I have done some pretty extensive cable comparison work.
You aren't done with wire and ready for upgrades and other tweaks until you are totally done with wire.
Keith 2006
Keith 2006
Post edited by woodguru on
Comments
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Brass termination sucks."He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche
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Brass termination sucks.
There ya go, basic oxygen free copper with a silver plate seems to be very good, and is way more neutral than the big $60 WBT's.
I figured guys trying their own cable would appreciate the fact that you can spend less and have a better sounding cable.
You aren't done with wire and ready for upgrades and other tweaks until you are totally done with wire.
Keith 2006 -
what does WBT mean?
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[Tomasito what does WBT mean? /QUOTE]
Why Bother Thinking? -
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche
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Can eichmann silver bayonet's be set screw terminated.?SDA-2BTL with custom IC
Adcom 565 monoblocks--Monarchy Audio M-10 preamp
Theta Data Basic Transport--Stello DA100 Signature DAC--Camelot Dragon Pro2 MK III
Harman Kardon T-55c TT
DH Labs Q-10 Signature Speaker Cables With Furez silver plated copper bananas
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver Reference AES/EBU
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver i2s digital cable
4 Furutech FP-314Ag with FI-11cu Plugs/FI-11AG IECs--- Power Cords
DH LABS REVELATIONS ICs-amps
Revelation Audio Labs Paradise cryo-silver ICs-Source to pre -
Yes NO ?? Maybe Ill just go with the Xhadow Banana plugs.SDA-2BTL with custom IC
Adcom 565 monoblocks--Monarchy Audio M-10 preamp
Theta Data Basic Transport--Stello DA100 Signature DAC--Camelot Dragon Pro2 MK III
Harman Kardon T-55c TT
DH Labs Q-10 Signature Speaker Cables With Furez silver plated copper bananas
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver Reference AES/EBU
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver i2s digital cable
4 Furutech FP-314Ag with FI-11cu Plugs/FI-11AG IECs--- Power Cords
DH LABS REVELATIONS ICs-amps
Revelation Audio Labs Paradise cryo-silver ICs-Source to pre -
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche
-
Thanks mikeSDA-2BTL with custom IC
Adcom 565 monoblocks--Monarchy Audio M-10 preamp
Theta Data Basic Transport--Stello DA100 Signature DAC--Camelot Dragon Pro2 MK III
Harman Kardon T-55c TT
DH Labs Q-10 Signature Speaker Cables With Furez silver plated copper bananas
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver Reference AES/EBU
Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver i2s digital cable
4 Furutech FP-314Ag with FI-11cu Plugs/FI-11AG IECs--- Power Cords
DH LABS REVELATIONS ICs-amps
Revelation Audio Labs Paradise cryo-silver ICs-Source to pre
