Longer Speaker Cable or RCA: Which is Better?

tonyb

Man, cable debates are bad enough, now we have to debate the meanings of words and phrases ? Does anyone just say wtf they mean anymore.....and does anyone understand simple words anymore ? Sheesh.....talk about splitting hairs.....

BlueFox

You guys are night and day in your hearing abilities.

tonyb

nbrowser wrote: »

I dunno, I've had some morning and afternoon differences in Beer....just sayin...

Fixed that for ya pal.

steveinaz

It's a self-fixing dilemma if you have enough audio experience. I know if someone says their $600 DAC is a "HUGE IMPROVEMENT" over their $400 DAC, they are either full of sht, just overly excited, or have a broken $400 DAC. I have compared $120 CD players to $1800 DAC's and indeed heard "significant" improvements---they weren't "huge" by any stretch of the imagination. Again, context, experience, and the author of the review all need to be taken into account.

Having said all that, I believe speakers may qualify for the "huge improvement" observation; but not much else when speaking in relative terms.

PSOVLSK

kevintomb wrote: »

So when I read about the DB840 woofer change in the Lsi15 for instance ((which I happen to own a pair)) I see descriptions ranging from ....

Barely sure is was different at all.....
a very small differerence......
It was far better sounding......
A day and night difference.......

I described the change in the db upgrade as "subtly significant." And I think that can describe a lot of changes we're talking about here. It's not something that my wife will notice, but its significant to my ears and increases my enjoyment level.

txcoastal1

...a little subtle this and little subtle that, it can all add up to a dream system

PSOVLSK

txcoastal1 wrote: »

...a little subtle this and little subtle that, it can all add up to a dream system

Amen! That's part of what makes this such a fun hobby. I've made mostly subtle improvements to my system over the past 5-6 years and I've enjoyed the thrill of each improvement. Few, if any, of my changes were jaw dropping, but to compare the system I have now to the one I had 6 years ago would be no contest.

SCompRacer

When my cables are a little short, I use a cable stretcher.

tonyb

txcoastal1 wrote: »

...a little subtle this and little subtle that, it can all add up to a dream system

Bingo....add them up and you could have a totally different system on your hands. Audio is so personal to each of us, it's more of a journey than just plopping down a set of speakers and hooking up any xyz receiver.

Only by way of personal exploration can you arrive at those "ah ha " moments. When you stick your hand in your pants and only count one instead of 2.

steveinaz

txcoastal1 wrote: »

...a little subtle this and little subtle that, it can all add up to a dream system

Absolutely, good point.

SCompRacer

Keiko wrote: »

Rich, I have this high end cable stretcher that's extremely effective.

Damn, your cable stretcher is much better than mine!

steveinaz

Back on topic; this is really a question of potential interference---not cable differences. It's much better to have shorter low-level signal cables, which are more prone to interference. So I would opt for longer speaker cables, shorter IC's.

SCompRacer

I'll repeat my actual experience with long RCA IC's. They were in close proximity to one 20 amp power cable run from wall on right to the two amps in center between speakers. Pre amp was single ended ModWright SWLP 9.0SE pre amp.

Longer speaker cables would not be a solution in my old setup. IF I put the gear between speakers on that south wall, digital or vinyl wouldn't sound good due to the bass loading that occurred when speakers are boxed by corners. Talk about vibes, bad vibrations. Gear, except for amps, had to be on west wall. I could not play anything above 75dB with gear between speakers on that south wall. Had tube CD/SACD player, tube pre amp with tube phono.

"If you want advice based on actual experience, long RCA's works just fine. I used shielded coax, stranded center conductor for flexibility. They are 18 or 20 feet long and still in use connected to R and L subs as I have since went balanced to amp with different gear.

The system was dead quiet and as dynamic as shorter RCA's. Period. "

I can supply names of folks that heard this setup. Jay (agfrost) Doug (DKG999) Aaron (ALL212) to name three.

F1nut

^ Listen to the man, he knows what he's talking about. ^

tonyb

I've never had a problem with long runs of either. I think as long as you buy a halfway decent cable, it isn't going to matter much unless we are talking the extreme in distances. Most decent cables are pretty good at noise rejection these days, it's the cheap stuff that I'd worry about.