Another Speaker Cable Thread

nooshinjohn

This has most likely been discussed at length... but thought I would take a swing at this for myself. I am looking for a 15ft pair of bi-wired speaker cables that would be a good match for my 1.2TL's and the Sunfire I have driving them. The rub is that I want to stay as far below 200.00 dollars as I can, and still have something that is of decent quality. I am one that believes in the merits of the speaker cable debate and believe you cannot expect lamp cord to be able to handle the load, so no comments please from those that feel otherwise, as this is not a debate.


Anyone with ideas please?:)

leroyjr1

15ft biwired speaker cables are very expensive. For that price it's not alot out their in the new department. Signal Cable might be your best bet or used Type 4's

nooshinjohn

That's what I am finding out as well... hopefully one of our enlightened bretheren will have suggestions

dkg999

I haven't checked the prices, but either Signal Cable, AudioQuest Type 4, or Kimber 4TC would be my recommendation to look at. The other thought is that Canare S411 with some good nanners might be a good match. It's often overlooked and is a very good modest priced cable. You can go to Blue Jeans Cables website to check it out.

nooshinjohn

those all look pretty good, but with exception to the Canare s411, all the cables suggested are twin lead. I am hoping to find a biwired/biamped set...

Thanks so far with all the help...

Jogb

dkg999

Call Frank at Signal Cable and discuss what you need with him. I have Signal Cable Ultra bi-wire cables and they are fantastic for the price.

george daniel

Most likely gonna cost a little more than your budget,,but,,MIT T-2 "grey".

JohnLocke88

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

and

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023901&p_id=2789&seq=1&format=2

Great for DIY... for bi-wire, just use a twist or braid pattern, equivalent of 9 AWG stranded.

kawizx9r

JohnLocke88 wrote: »

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

and

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023901&p_id=2789&seq=1&format=2

Great for DIY... for bi-wire, just use a twist or braid pattern, equivalent of 9 AWG stranded.

+1
I got this same exact wire (well 14 ga.) for a on-the-cheap solution replacement to my surrounds/rear center. The stuff is great, cheap, and offered a type of quality feel you don't get from other 'plain' speaker wire. The jacket was thicker than other jackets of this gauge, and very flexible too. Off the spool it was easy to handle and didn't coil up like other wire generally does.

As far as cables for your fronts, I'm running 12' pairs of Belden 5000 12ga. and love it. Noticed a slight punch in bass, and maybe you can call it a "placebo" affect but everything seemed just a tad bit cleaner. Terminated at the ends with nanners from BJC as well.

Face

Or you could only go with a single run and use some extra wire to replace the crap jumpers.

BigMac

Here are some links for you to check out. Some cables are a little more than $200.00 and some are less.

Less than $200.00
http://hcmaudio.com/comp.asp?len=7&conID=29&compID=283&priceU=130.95&quant=1

http://www.cobaltcable.com/speaker-cable-pair.htm

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AQT4B

http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?lookup=1&region=US&currency=USD&pf_id=3141&customer_id=PAA1024082809576GQIPDHQEIQBSQRZV



More than $200.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/Audioquest-Gibraltar-Loudspeaker-Bi-Wire-Speaker-Cable-_W0QQitemZ140336584974QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090730?IMSfp=TL090730152004r37757

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?cablspkr&1254956981&/Mit-Terminator-2-15-'-Bi-Wire-

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?cablspkr&1255035995&/Audioquest-Bedrock-bi-wire-w/-

http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?lookup=1&region=US&currency=USD&pf_id=3131&customer_id=PAA1024082809576GQIPDHQEIQBSQRZV

vmaxer

Has anyone tried this wire??

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023901&p_id=4037&seq=1&format=2

Ricardo

Bi-wire is overrated. +1 on Signal Ultra and Type 4.

nooshinjohn

the bi wire sets are all nice and I am grateful guy... I fell like a total idiot as I should have said biamped in my op....

dkg999

With bi-amping you may not want the same wire for the mid/bass and tweets so you could use your current wire for one or the other, and invest in some new wire that has either good high-end or good mid/bass characteristics, then at a later point invest in the other side.

JohnLocke88

nooshinjohn wrote: »

the bi wire sets are all nice and I am grateful guy... I fell like a total idiot as I should have said biamped in my op....

That makes the mono stuff even easier to use. Bi-wire is harder to self terminate, if your using really thick wire. 4 x 12 AWG conductors, in a braid pattern, terminate with bananas (if you don't like monoprice nanners, use these:)

http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=AHH_Banana

Voila. Out the door for way way less than $200.

Face

I found that Monoprice bananas degrade sound quality.

While building my DIY speakers, I used two pairs of Monoprice bananas, piggybacked into each other. In later stages of testing, I started to clean the wiring up, removing one pair of bananas and noticed a increase in sound quality. I immediately removed the second pair of Monoprice nanners and again was pleasantly surprised. Termination is very important, don't skimp out on it. If a nice pair of nanners or spades aren't in the budget for now, use bare wire for the time being.

madmax

AQ Type 4, single run, no bi-wire would be my only choice for under $200, and its not a bad choice.

NJPOLKER

What does bi-wiring do to better the sound quality?
None of my speakers can be bi-wired but I do wonder what its all about.

Face

NJPOLKER wrote: »

What does bi-wiring do to better the sound quality?

It depends on who you ask.

madmax

NJPOLKER wrote: »

What does bi-wiring do to better the sound quality?
None of my speakers can be bi-wired but I do wonder what its all about.

It allows the bass and treble not to affect each other as the currents and voltages of each change. Sometimes it makes a nice change by opening up the sound, sometimes it causes a problem by making the bass and treble not sound coherent. I'm guessing your sunfire has the two outputs per channel? I believe they are labeled as current and voltage? If so you got a lot of testing to do to figure out what sounds the best.
madmax

NJPOLKER

Max, Not me. Thanks for the explanation.

JohnLocke88

NJPOLKER wrote: »

Max, Not me. Thanks for the explanation.

From a purely physics stand point, Bi-wiring lowers the resistance of the cables and allows for even less degradation of signal quality. Bi-wiring is essentially the same thing as increasing the gauge of a 2-conductor wire.

W WALDECKER

You can get Element cable 10 AWG EC doublerun in shotgun configuration biwired for $209.00 a 15 ft pair. these are very well made cables and well worth the money.good luck....WCW III

RCFGuitars

I recently switched to a bi-wire set-up for my 2.3TL's using this 10G wire:

http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KASA10PRL

And these ends:

http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=eKs-BP

I have 10ft runs, and while I am still tweeking and evaluating, I am very pleased with the cables thus far. Your 15ft runs would be right around that $200 mark.

nooshinjohn

I decided to give these a try... Canare 4S11 (Star Quad cable, 14 AWG) from BlueJeans Cables... I already have terminal ends that will get me by for now, and I think for less than 60 bucks shipped that I will be fine for a while with them. I hope to try some higher end stuff when the budget allows.

thanks for keeping the thread civil, even though a few have chosen to tag the thread in the usual BS way:)

John

Erik Tracy

Get rid of tags and the frickin' cowards, too.

Cowards....

messiah

Hey John. You might want to consider grabbing the audioquest 14/4 cables. Mantis swears by them, and I have some and they sound great. They are bulk cables, and are cheap.

leroyjr1

John you should seriously save up a little more money and jump into the MIT club. I have a guy at my job that's suppose to be buying my 2nd set of shotguns if he backs out I'll let you demo them. They're only 8 ft.

nooshinjohn

leroyjr1 wrote: »

John you should seriously save up a little more money and jump into the MIT club. I have a guy at my job that's suppose to be buying my 2nd set of shotguns if he backs out I'll let you demo them. They're only 8 ft.

my initial measurement was off, and actually need closer to twenty feet for one of the runs, but to demo shotguns, I think I can find a way to make it work:) Thanks, and let me know what happens.

kawizx9r

Hey John, I really dont mean to threadjack but I think you (and others reading this) could benefit from what others have to say about my post. Others have recommended you to use BJC, and yes we all know MIT and other such brands provide way better quality but I'm talking about an alternative budget friendly method.

Will running a DIY cable like the one I'm displaying here (that I just made 10minutes ago) outperform something like basic signal cable or even my belden 5000 12awg? DIY is done using monoprice 14awg wire - http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023902&p_id=2748&seq=1&format=2

I ask because if it will, especially considering I used a "braiding" method thats preferred for DIY speaker wire, I'd like to go ahead and finish terminating it along with covering it all up using Techflex expandable sleeves.