2michaud's Cable Review - Finally!

2michaud

:oSo, I apologize for the long wait for this review, as I have been ridiculously busy with departmental exams, a full-time job, and getting accepted into college. But as promised, here is my review of Bill Ayotte’s custom-made speaker cable.

I have long been aware of the ongoing debate over whether or not expensive speaker cable makes any difference at all over el-cheapo cable. I have to say that for the longest time I was completely undecided in this matter. I was perfectly content with the 18-gauge speaker wire that was included with my Logitech Z-5500 computer speakers. I connected everything as it should have been, and I was on my way.

That was, until I got my Polk’s. I set my first set of loudspeakers up with 12 gauge Home Depot wire and never looked back. I figured they needed something a little heavier than the 18 gauge from my Logitech’s. I guess you could say this is when I started to lean closer towards the believing side than the naysayer side. So fast forward about 5 months, Bill’s cables finally arrive at my house.

Upon first seeing the cables in person, I was highly impressed and awed by the fine detail and craftsmanship that had gone into these two cables. From the braided covers to the locking banana plugs, the cables seemed to scream hifi. Not to mention the overall thickness of the cables compared to my 12 gauge Home Depot wire. These were my first impressions.

Finally, I had the day off of work and school - a rare occurrence. I decided I would hook up the cables, sit down with a couple cans, and have a listen. The process of connecting the banana plugs to my Harman Kardon AVR-247 was very simple, and the connection felt very good. However, I found the spades to be a little bit cumbersome and hard to work with on the other end. It was tricky to get the nuts tightened firmly onto the spades without one of the prongs going up into the hollow part of the nut. But in the end, I got the spades connected to my satisfaction. I disconnected my subwoofer, surrounds, and centre so that I could enjoy the RTi8’s on their own with the cables being the only thing between my speakers and amp.

I realize that this next part will be of great controversy, and no matter what I say, someone out there will be shaking their heads thinking what I fool I am. As I said before, I was riding the fence in the whole issue, neither a naysayer, nor a believer. Upon receiving my Polks, I would have to say that I became a more of a believer than a naysayer, and that is where I have sat for a long time.

I sat down, a good distance away from the speakers to form an equilateral triangle between my and the speakers as all experts recommend. I turned the volume up to a decent level, and turned on one of my favourite tracks – one that I was use to. This way I would be able to really tell the difference between the two species of wire.

After about 25 seconds, I was disappointed. I know half of the people bothering to read this far are likely going to stop here. Please stay with me. I felt that there was really no noticeable difference between what I had heard before with the Home Depot wire and what I was hearing then with the fancy stuff.

I went into this with a completely open attitude, and I was even a little bit biased. I wanted to hear a difference. I wanted to discover a whole new realm of high-fidelity audio, and sound. Unfortunately, these cables failed to fulfill these possibly lofty expectations.

Having said this, there is more fat to chew. I realize that my speakers are not the best sounding speakers out there, and they won’t ever compare to some of the speakers you fellas own. It may be, that speakers with built-in subwoofers can benefit from cables such as these. I also realize that I was using CD’s in a DVD player as opposed to vinyl. Lastly, my amplifier is rated at 50 WPC high current (some say equivalent to 100 WPC). It could be that with more power, cables such as these will begin to shine….which starts a whole new debate – whether or not high WPC really makes a difference…

The final word: I, myself, with my speakers, could not hear any difference between the cables from Bill Ayotte and my Home Depot 12 gauge. However I acknowledge the possibility that in different circumstances, these cables may sound as fantastic as they look.

Thank You’s:

Bill Ayotte, for making such a fine piece of work and generously passing them on.

Joe , for passing these cables on once more, and shipping them to me so professionally, free of charge.

Club Polk Members, for your encouragement and product wisdom over the months.

2michaud

BottomFeeder

Ach well! This sure seems to be a "to each his / her own" type of thing.

Maybe figure it this way: the fact that you can't hear a difference just means that you don't have to spend as much money as those who do!

Happy listening.

NotaSuv

BottomFeeder wrote: »

Ach well! This sure seems to be a "to each his / her own" type of thing.

Maybe figure it this way: the fact that you can't hear a difference just means that you don't have to spend as much money as those who do!

Happy listening.

i too have tin ears...........have had to honor of trying high $$$$ speaker wires and my lamp cord specials....sadly I dont hear THAT much of a difference...but thats me and maybe as my ears become more educated to finer audio I too will see the light......if not for a pair of nice wires given to me from a good friend to "clean up my look" LOL he thought the brown lamp cords were ugly....but my rears are simple brown home depot stuff....but again in the end its what makes you happy and its what sopunds good to you.

SKsolutions

You may not hear a difference right away. Let them run in for a week or two, then compare.
I didn't hear much difference until the star-quad that I'm currently using, 'broke in'. I swapped out the old one for an hour then put the quad back in. That was when I was able to make a direct comparison, and there was a difference, . . to me. Not huge, but noticeable and better. I swear!

2michaud

bumperz

danger boy

if you can feed your speakers more power.. i just swapped out a 50wpc amp to a 150wpc. and trust me it does make a difference.

I am a naysayer when it comes to speaker wire.. I think if you have decent wire to begin with it will sound just fine.. bumping it up to premium wire for speakers usually makes little difference.

I just buy decent wire/cables and don't really swap it out very often for speakers.. now interconnects are a whole other thing.

sagasa

It’s in all your mind, believed me if you stare on a white wall and keep
Thinking blue and you will see blue.

Face

Here we go.

dragon1952

sagasa wrote: »

It’s in all your mind, believed me if you stare on a white wall and keep
Thinking blue and you will see blue.

Yeah, and if you look at Rosie O'Donnell long enough and think Elisha Cuthbert you'll see........on second thought.....nah! :rolleyes:

sagasa

Should do it the other way.

steveinaz

2michaud--
Good for you, now you'll speak from experience instead of "internet parroting" that some around here seem to use to replace experience. Enjoy your new cables!

"Those who don't know, don't know that they don't know."

Ryder888

My .02

I used to use plain old regular speaker wire and never new better.

I then was told ( 10 years ago ) about monster cable. I tried it and my speakers sounded noticeably better, to me. Not knowing any different, i have stuck with monster cable and been satisfied with it

Now i stumbled across this board, after replacing my Bose speakers with new Polks. Now i'm seeing people using $900 wire i've never even heard of ? I'm not knocking it but i am curious how much better it is ?

I've also noticed people for and against b-wiring. Again i thought it was a noticable, but not huge improvement.

I guess my point is, everything new that i tried made small improvements. Logic tells me that if monster was better than regular cable. These high dollar cables may be better than monster. To what degree, i don't know, but I'll jump off that bridge later. Curiousity will get the better of me in the end.

Hopefully this thread will continue, because it's interesting stuff.

Imperitor

I don't have alot of experiance with speaker wire, or speakers for that matter, but heres my experiance. I hooked up my polks with some 20 gauge wire I found arround the house just so I could here my new speakers before my 12 gauge monoprice wire arrived. They sounded great compared to the old speakers I had before. When I finnaly hooked up the 12 guage I definitly noticed a difference, and trust me my ears are not highly tuned so it takes alot for me to notice.
My friend has some expensive speaker cable and I don't think it sounds any better then 12 guage.
In my opinion anything better then 12 gauge won't make a noticale difference unless you need to run a very long cable. It all depends on how sensitive your ears are I guess.

tonyb

The quality of the cables you use should go up along with the quality of your gear.Usually the higher you climb,the more revealing your system is and you will be able to hear more of a difference in cables.Not rocket science here folks.Don't try and compare a 50 buck cable to a 60 buck cable and be shocked you can't hear a difference.Know what I mean?

Face

tonyb wrote: »

The quality of the cables you use should go up along with the quality of your gear.Usually the higher you climb,the more revealing your system is and you will be able to hear more of a difference in cables.

+1...

2michaud

tonyb- I'd have to agree. RTi8's aren't exactly the best speakers out there, lol. There is certainly much better. I think that some of these high-end speakers like LSi's are closer to warranting expensive speaker cable. If the detail is in the song, the amp is able to process it, the cables are able to carry it, but the speakers aren't good enough to play it, there is no point in upgrading the cable. You know what I mean?

I have definitely wondered about more wattage. I know I only have 50wpc right now, but it is a HK and most people seem to think that 50 wpc HK is equal to 100 wpc Yamaha. So I dunno. I'm seeing these 110wpc 7ch. 1.3 HDMI Pioneer's going around for $378. Great price, great amp. Worth the upgrade over my HK AVR 247?

Thanks for any input,

Dan

Face

2michaud wrote: »

tonyb- I'd have to agree. RTi8's aren't exactly the best speakers out there, lol. There is certainly much better. I think that some of these high-end speakers like LSi's are closer to warranting expensive speaker cable. If the detail is in the song, the amp is able to process it, the cables are able to carry it, but the speakers aren't good enough to play it, there is no point in upgrading the cable. You know what I mean?

You're going to be just fine.

I have definitely wondered about more wattage. I know I only have 50wpc right now, but it is a HK and most people seem to think that 50 wpc HK is equal to 100 wpc Yamaha. So I dunno. I'm seeing these 110wpc 7ch. 1.3 HDMI Pioneer's going around for $378. Great price, great amp. Worth the upgrade over my HK AVR 247?

Unless you want HDMI 1.3, I wouldn't bother. If you want more wattage, start looking into external amps. Your HK has preamp outs.

Ryder888

What i noticed about Pioneer recievers, is you do get alot of power for the money, but they also have higher distortion. Judgement call i guess.