Yes another speaker cable thread

Astropet

I highly recommend Audio Sensibility cables. They are occ and are sold direct. They offer exceptional value.

There is a 30 day no hassle return policy. I compared 2 cables and had no issue returning the one I didn’t keep.

http://www.audiosensibility.com

I have no affiliation. I’m just a happy customer after I couldn’t tell the difference between their Signature interconnect and my Siltec Classic Anniversary 770I which I paid more than double for.

BlueFox

I have the MIT Shotgun S1.3 cables, and they have moved from my stereo, to the HT, and now just are used for the center, and rear of the HT. The stereo, and front for the HT, now use Shunyata cables. I have found Shunyata to give better performance at a lower price. Your experience may differ.

headrott

Gardenstater wrote: »

That company MIT certainly has a dizzying array of their own marketing technological buzzwords that they use and I see they have lots of whitepapers on their website. What would you say are the key construction features in the Shotgun S1's that give them superior performance? I know very little about their cables.

I can speak to a few things off the top of my head that make MIT Shotgun S1 cables a spectacular speaker cable. First off is the cable design. Jesse (@F1Nut) sold me some bulk cable that I made to connect my Dreadnaught with and terminated the cable mself (with Jesse's guidance). The design is excellent at reducing signal degredation via RFI and EMI interference, with copper mesh and individually insulated positive and negative wires.

Another thing that makes MIT cables stand out above others are the Impedence matching boxes. I can personally attest to the fact that the impedence matching makes a big difference in how the audio reproduction sounds. I replaced an Araon 8008bb with a Pass Labs Aleph 30 amplifier and accidentally left my S3 cables at the impedence setting for the 8008bb. The audio sounded muddy, with no dynamics, and limited soundstage. I thought to myself, "Does the Aleph 30 really sound like this?" I was checking all the connections, and realized that I left the impedence setting on the highest setting for the 8008bb and it needed to be on the lowest setting (if I remember correctly). I switched the impedence and the audio sounded phenominal. The soundstage opened up, the dynamics came back, and the frequency response improved. As far as I know, MIT is the only cable company that offers impedence matching with your equipment to better suit the audio signal in your system.

Cable synergy can make a difference in your system, but with impedence matching, I totally believe it helps with synergy in everyones' system.

I hope this helps you out @Gardenstater.

Gardenstater

That's interesting. In the Goertz Ribbon Cable Patent, they mention that the impedance of the cables is important, and stressed that existing cables had impedances that were much much higher than the impedance of the speakers they were connected to, whereas the ribbon design in the patent brought the impedance of the cable down to a value close to the speakers. They didn't make any mention of the amplifier as being a factor so that is interesting. I mean I know that different amplifiers vary in their capacity to drive certain impedance loads. The Goertz Ribbon cable design has absolutely no shielding. I was of the opinion, perhaps mistakenly that shielding was much more of an issue for interconnects because of the extreme amplification that occurs after them. Perhaps it is a factor for speaker cables too, but to a much lesser degree.

Maybe the Goertz Ribbon design self shields due to the close proximity of the +/- foil conductors and there may be a noise supression effect due to the contradicting magnetic fields? Not sure.

Gardenstater

Since I appear to have killed this thread anyway (lol) here's an interesting article I'm reading on speaker cables, and it even mentions the Polk Sound Cables which are rarely found anymore. Radio Electronics, Dec. 1978, p. 60. Pretty clearly proves lower distortion over lamp cord:

https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Electronics/70s/1978/Radio-Electronics-1978-12.pdf

jdjohn

That's a good article. I think one key quote is: "A speaker cable has to be considered an extension of the amplifier." This is as it relates to the cable's impedance and DC resistance, and the amp's ability to handle it.