Good speaker wire

slester99

I have Lsi 15s and a xpa-5 amp, I was wondering if y'all have any suggestions on good affordable speaker wire. I would like to get as much out of the speakers as posible. I'm using some monster xp wire right now that I got cheap. Any suggestions?

chumlie

Click advanced search, type in speaker wire, clck titles only. Should keep ya reading for the rest of the weekend. Welcome to CP & goodluck.

falconcry72

I like Signal Cable's Ultra speaker cables. Very well-made product, and good customer service at a great price.

http://signalcable.com/ultraspeaker.html

EndersShadow

I would suggest getting your read on as there are thousands of cable threads on this subject. To break it down quickly here are a couple of the most recommended brands for those looking to get better than Monoprice stuff.

Signal Cables - Good cables, we get a break on price so make sure you mention your a Club Polk Member
Blue Jeans Cable - Also really good but the preference is normally Signal Cables over Blue Jeans
DouglassConnection - Doug is a member here on the forum (helipilotdoug). His cables are custom made so you can get custom lengths to fit your needs. I have talked to him and he is a great guy!

drumminman

Don't forget DIY.

There are some truly excellent designs that you can make if you're willing to invest some sweat equity.

slester99

Cool thanks guy

helipilotdoug

EndersShadow wrote: »

DouglassConnection - Doug is a member here on the forum (helipilotdoug). His cables are custom made so you can get custom lengths to fit your needs. I have talked to him and he is a great guy!

slester99 if you have any questions please let me know. As Dan said, we can build you some excellent cables, or you can go the DIY route, and build your own. We can help you either way. https://www.douglasconnection.com/contactus.sc

seabeerob213

doug i just wanna say thank you for your service, i love how were both military dudes and both with the name douglas too

helipilotdoug

Thank you for your service too. If I can help you with anything, please let me know. I'll give you a Military discount, as well as a Club Polk discount. Save you some $

seabeerob213

thank you, i was really interested in those furez plugs so i will be in touch

leftwinger57

There's always the Rodger Russel way of thinking. Depending on the length of runs it does not matter what wire you run at long as it'sat least 16gu and w/in 20'.Me again I'm going w/ the McIntosh engineer, inventor,writer of multiple papers and as of yet not to be proven wrong . If you have the $ to spend hundreds on a few feet of cables be my guest. I do not think you will hear any difference if you had to justify the coin you just spent.For ICs though I did go w/Frank at Signal Cable and they were a fine product,but once the llenghts start to add up your looking at a big pile of money to spend.

tonyb

LW, are you professing to tell people what they will hear.....not having experienced it yourself ?

Incidently, since you brought up Mcintosch, not one person I know of who owns that gear, has it hooked up to home depot 14ga wire or monoprice type wire.....not one.

Cables are like a piece of gear in your system and your system is only as good as the weakest link.

BlueFox

leftwinger57 wrote: »

There's always the Rodger Russel way of thinking.

Stick your head in the sand, and ignore all the data and people who swear different cable gives different sound? Or be a lemming and say you read something on the Internet, so it must be true?

Face

leftwinger57 wrote: »

There's always the Rodger Russel way of thinking.

You mean by being a complete hypocrite and using Cardas wire?

zingo

I think this is a reasonable view of cables from Steve Guttenberg:

High-end cables are a controversial subject, even among audiophiles. I know an extremely wealthy audiophile who uses cheap hardware store wire in his $200,000 hi-fi system. He thinks audiophile cables don't make a difference, so he doesn't use them. That's fine with me.

When I was a high-end audio salesman I sold a lot of very expensive wires to my customers, including customers that didn't initially believe cables would make any real difference in the sound of their hi-fis. "It's just wire" was the classic rebuke, I've heard it thousands of times. I'd offer my customers a choice of "free" wire or high-end cables for $500 or more. Some customers would just take the free cables and be done with it. But I'd get some doubters willing to try the expensive cables, with a promise that I'd return their money if they didn't hear a difference. I'd suggest starting with the good cables and live with them for two weeks, and then replace the expensive wires with the free ones. If they sounded the same, great, they'd get their money back. Only one out of four would bring back the expensive cables, and I think that best demonstrates my case. Even when people are motivated to return cables to get a refund, most did not. They heard enough of a difference to keep the expensive wires.

I do not recommend quickly switching back and forth between cheap and expensive cables, that mostly produces confusion, and "proves" there's no difference. The best way to determine the worth of the wire (or any upgrade) is to simply live with it for at least a week, then go back to your original gear. If at that point you don't hear a difference, don't buy the new cable. That's the bottom line: don't invest in better cables if you can't hear the difference.
I believe the right cables do make a difference, but before we go any further I have to concede that "better wire" probably wouldn't be the best way to spend your money if your hi-fi isn't pretty good to start with. Redirecting that $500 to better speakers, an amp, or turntable would provide a far better return on investment. If you're not an audiophile, I agree, investing in better cables isn't a smart move.

But once you have a well-matched, $4,000+ system, a $500 cable upgrade might be worth considering. I use XLO Signature 3 cables in my high-end system with my Magnepan 3.6 speakers, Parasound JC-2 preamp and Pass Labs XA100.5 power amps. The XLO cables produce a more precise soundstage, higher-definition bass, and sweeter treble than any other cables I've tried. I recently added AudioQuest Sky interconnect cables between my VPI Classic turntable and the preamplifier, and the AQ cable unleashed a significantly more holographic soundstage, with less background noise than any other cable. I use Zu Audio cables when I'm using Zu speakers in my system, the cable/speaker synergy brings out the best in the Zu speakers sound.

drumminman

The quality of the wire in cabling is only one part of their sound quality. IMHO just as important is dielectric, geometry, quality of connectors.

In my system, with my ears, there's no doubt that cabling makes a difference - I've heard it. Cables don't have to be uber expensive either if you DIY.

falconcry72

leftwinger57 wrote: »

...it does not matter what wire you run...I'm going w/ the McIntosh engineer, inventor etc...

There are a lot of smart engineers on both sides of this topic. I suggest trying for yourself and going with your own ears. Plus, when someone comes here looking for advice, it's a lot more meaningful if you can say "well, in own experimentation I found that ________", as opposed to saying "well, I read somewhere that some guy thinks _________".

Cheers.

transmaster

These threads remind me of two people arguing over which is better a Chevy truck, or a GMC truck. When the answer is obvious GMC is the best, of course.

mdaudioguy

zingo wrote: »

I think this is a reasonable view of cables from Steve Guttenberg:

I like that, too. Thanks for posting it.

Btw, the comments section from the original article quickly disintegrated into the very type of thread that occurs everywhere this subject arises. Even after a well-written piece that acknowledges both sides of the "debate". If you can detect a difference, good for you. If you can't, that's fine for you, too. Unfortunately, never the twain shall meet.

gp4jesus

I agree w/Z man, Drummer, & that Falcon dude! I'll chime in w/a paraphrase of part of Z's post as it was the mantra where I worked*worked back in the mid '80s for all products: if you can't here the diff, why pay for it? (Z: "That's the bottom line: don't invest in better cables if you can't hear the difference.")

My $.02 on a topic we SO need a sticky AND waste TOO MUCH cybor space arguing.

gp4jesus

Here's one for all on both sides of this argument:

I had 2 dual driver DIY subs* each connected w/a single run 10' of 10 ga, XO'd @ 80hz. Later, just for fun, I bi-wired them w/a double 5' run of that 10 ga. Imagine my unexpected surprise that I had turn down my now too loud subs because my system CLEARLY sounded unbalanced!
* important: 3 ohm final impedance!

F1nut

slester99 wrote: »

I have Lsi 15s and a xpa-5 amp, I was wondering if y'all have any suggestions on good affordable speaker wire. I would like to get as much out of the speakers as posible. I'm using some monster xp wire right now that I got cheap. Any suggestions?

Addressing the comment in bold, at this time you'd be better served by getting a better amp. What are you using for a pre amp, a source?

98Badger

Forget new wire or amps for now. Look into proper room treatments and speaker positioning. It will get you more for your money.

Inspector 24

98Badger wrote: »

Forget new wire or amps for now. Look into proper room treatments and speaker positioning. It will get you more for your money.

This times elebenty. I've experienced rather large differences by moving speakers a few inches towards or away from a wall, toe-ing them in or out, using carpet spikes, using acoustic panels, ect ect. I've had more than a few people listen to two channel music and honestly believe the center channel was working. The upgrade from a Marantz SR7002 to a 7006 even in pure direct mode gave a slightly wider center image.

Play with it, play with all of it.