Why some speaker cables sound different - in layman's terms
I changed from QED silver anniversary to Gale XL-315. Basically the Gale is thicker and not silver plated.
Thx for that.....silver coated copper can bring an artificial brightness to a system.....glad you got sorted.
BTW It's possible to keep the detail while losing the brightness, with brands like Atlas and Telurium Q.
Look RS , you popped up your head with the 1998 remark ok? Can we just agree to stay out of each other's way? You brought yourself into the debate, and Steve DOES dictate that we're hearing things in our head when we can tell differences, if you can't fathom that you can call me uncivilised. And you missed my point completely about speaker cable - that I don't necessarily disagree with Steve as I spent extra money on Chord speaker cable. So you've been copying CDs since 2003? Big deal, I bought my first recorder in 2000. And back in 2002 when WinXP was released I copied test CDs using WMA rips at 128k (the Windows default back then using XP's built-in CD copy facility) and it sounded awful. And at the time I was reading no articles in hifi magazines about compressed music. If there were any it completely passed me by.
I did indeed pop up with that remark on this and on another thread you posted on. Your comments sound like they come right out of 1998, though as it is, I wasn't far off with it.
Sorry, did I need a history of your hifi buying abilities...? I don't recall asking. You mentioned on another thread you'd been burning stuff since 2007 or something, hence my comment. Whatever.
Either way, your prejudice is your own, and is pretty incorrect as your post highlights. God knows what you were listening to, but 128k is enough, 192 is fine and anything upwards most folk and I include you in that, couldn't tell the difference. If they do, it's minutiae they're listening for, and that's not a fun gig anymore, it's nitpicking between formats or hardware.
As for your suggestion, I normally do avoid your posts, but when you post "MP3 is rubbish" or words to that effect, it deserves to get shot down.
I changed from QED silver anniversary to Gale XL-315. Basically the Gale is thicker and not silver plated.
Yes, as Cno pointed out, silver and copper brings the biggest difference between cables IMO. I ditched some Nordost interconnects a few years ago as they were far too bright thanks to the silver. Made everything sound unnatural.
Cables.. Nice!! 
New edition of Hi-Fi world give all the Black Rhodium range of cables 5 stars.. From interconnects to mains cables to speaker cables... 
I did indeed pop up with that remark on this and on another thread you posted on. Your comments sound like they come right out of 1998, though as it is, I wasn't far off with it.
Sorry, did I need a history of your hifi buying abilities...? I don't recall asking. You mentioned on another thread you'd been burning stuff since 2007 or something, hence my comment. Whatever.
Either way, your prejudice is your own, and is pretty incorrect as your post highlights. God knows what you were listening to, but 128k is enough, 192 is fine and anything upwards most folk and I include you in that, couldn't tell the difference. If they do, it's minutiae they're listening for, and that's not a fun gig anymore, it's nitpicking between formats or hardware.
As for your suggestion, I normally do avoid your posts, but when you post "MP3 is rubbish" or words to that effect, it deserves to get shot down.
Well said.
Look RS , you popped up your head with the 1998 remark ok? Can we just agree to stay out of each other's way? You brought yourself into the debate, and Steve DOES dictate that we're hearing things in our head when we can tell differences, if you can't fathom that you can call me uncivilised. And you missed my point completely about speaker cable - that I don't necessarily disagree with Steve as I spent extra money on Chord speaker cable. So you've been copying CDs since 2003? Big deal, I bought my first recorder in 2000. And back in 2002 when WinXP was released I copied test CDs using WMA rips at 128k (the Windows default back then using XP's built-in CD copy facility) and it sounded awful. And at the time I was reading no articles in hifi magazines about compressed music. If there were any it completely passed me by.
I did indeed pop up with that remark on this and on another thread you posted on. Your comments sound like they come right out of 1998, though as it is, I wasn't far off with it.
Sorry, did I need a history of your hifi buying abilities...? I don't recall asking. You mentioned on another thread you'd been burning stuff since 2007 or something, hence my comment. Whatever.
Either way, your prejudice is your own, and is pretty incorrect as your post highlights. God knows what you were listening to, but 128k is enough, 192 is fine and anything upwards most folk and I include you in that, couldn't tell the difference. If they do, it's minutiae they're listening for, and that's not a fun gig anymore, it's nitpicking between formats or hardware.
As for your suggestion, I normally do avoid your posts, but when you post "MP3 is rubbish" or words to that effect, it deserves to get shot down.
RS,
[EDITED by Mods]
I NEVER said MP3s are rubbish - they're just not my first preference, and I'm entitled to that perfectly logical practice. Can we just now mutually agree to get out of each other's way please????
I did indeed pop up with that remark on this and on another thread you posted on. Your comments sound like they come right out of 1998, though as it is, I wasn't far off with it.
Sorry, did I need a history of your hifi buying abilities...? I don't recall asking. You mentioned on another thread you'd been burning stuff since 2007 or something, hence my comment. Whatever.
Either way, your prejudice is your own, and is pretty incorrect as your post highlights. God knows what you were listening to, but 128k is enough, 192 is fine and anything upwards most folk and I include you in that, couldn't tell the difference. If they do, it's minutiae they're listening for, and that's not a fun gig anymore, it's nitpicking between formats or hardware.
As for your suggestion, I normally do avoid your posts, but when you post "MP3 is rubbish" or words to that effect, it deserves to get shot down.
Well said.
What exactly was well said Fr0g??? Especially when in this very same forum you admitted that your first preference is FLAC downloads? As I replied to RS I never said MP3s were rubbish - I just don't prefer them to lossless/uncompressed music. Is that my crime as dictated by the Audiophile Flat Earth Society?? Can we just lay this to rest now please???
What I'm curious about is this: if cables don't make a difference, then commercially-minded loudspeaker makers should use the cheapest cables inside their products. I'm not 100 % sure about all manufacturers, but I'm pretty sure they don't. Or to phrase the question differently, would you pay top dollar for a speaker that's wired internally with cables from the corner electronics shop, or would you prefer to buy something with cables from Cardas/Nordost etc? Just wondering aloud here.
Good man....there will soon be enough of us to start a Cardas owners thread! 
I'd be more than happy to oblige sir - three days with the Cardas and it's like I have a whole new system! Cheers and Happy New Year!
I have speakers with really thin cheap internal cabling. They also have possibly the crappiest terminals ever. They're spring loaded, with a small diameter hole and somewhat oxidised.
Now, how do you think these speakers sound? Oh, and by the way, these speakers do sell for top dollar.
Now, how do you think these speakers sound? Oh, and by the way, these speakers do sell for top dollar.
Just imagine the unfulfilled potential they have! 
and so it rolls on and on.......
and so it rolls on and on.......
It seemed to have died down.
Happy New Year.
Cno
Now, how do you think these speakers sound? Oh, and by the way, these speakers do sell for top dollar.
Just imagine the unfulfilled potential they have!
Ah yes, but looking at the tweeters in these speakers they have a voice coil through which the signal passes that is made from the thinnest wire. Thinner than hair. If you unravelled the coil it would be a couple of metres long. The thinness of this wire explains why these speakers have a power handling of 50 watts continuous and 150 watts peak. Any more than that would burn out the voice coil like the filament of an old style light-bulb. The filaments of old style light bulbs are really thick and chunky compared to the wire used in this tweeters voice coil.
It will be the same in every traditional speaker. You will have long lengths of very thin wire in the driver voice coils. Or in the case of Quad Electrostatics you have a transformer with 2 lengths of very long thin wire in the transformer windings.
So I find it difficult to imagine that replacing the wire from the terminals to the crossover and from the crossover to the drivers would unleash a lot of potential, if any, when the signal passes through such thin wire in the voice coils.
- Login to post comments
Speaker cables definitely do have an effect on the sound. Just today I have changed cables in my system and have tamed an artificial sounding top end to a more natural sound at the expense of some detail, but worth it. Now I'm not getting a headache after 10mins of listening.
I'm not imagining it, the results are real. Not all cables sound right in all systems. The construction, cross sectional area and materials used will affect how different frequencies are carried.
What have changed to, and what have they replaced?
I changed from QED silver anniversary to Gale XL-315. Basically the Gale is thicker and not silver plated.
NAD C326BEE Amplifier, Sony CDP-XB930 CD Player, Pioneer PDR-509 CD Recorder, Arcam irDock with iPod Touch, B&W DM 601 S3 speakers, Jamo 20"Stands, Revolver Rack, QED cabling throughout, Sennheiser HD 518 & HD 565 Ovation Headphones, Beyerdynamic DTX-101iE ear buds.