$10 / foot speaker wire

DeKay, sidetrack all you want, this has been interesting. Cables have to connect somehow.

Here is a follow-up on my wire search:
Brands tested, (all were 12 foot lengths, terminated with spades except Mapleshade has bare wire):
12 gauge ZIP cord from Home Depot .31/ft
Canare 13 gauge star quad .41/ft
www.markertek.com
Luminous Audio Technology Prestige $4.99/ft www.luminousaudio.com
Mapleshade Clearview Golden Double Helix $14.16/ft
www.mapleshaderecords.com
LAT International SS-800 $11.42/ft and cryo treated SS-1000
www.latinternational.com
Audioquest Granite $11.67/ft on sale ($27.00/ft regular price)
www.audioadvisor.com

NOTES:
* Room is highly reflective 4-8 dB bump at 4k-8k.
* Speakers: Nautilus 804 Amp: Musical Fidelity A3.2cr
* Cables cooked with Audiodharma cable cooker (most wire sounded tizzy and really bad when first put in system after being cooked) (told by LAT International cooking cables is virtually worthless). Thanks to generous loan by Audiogon member.
*Differences were heard for first few seconds after wires were changed. After a few seconds, couldn’t hear the differences. With new wire, I would play through a variety of songs the first night, noting perceived differences. The next night, compare different brands on just a few specific songs which I thought would show the most obvious sonic differences.
* Some nights there were no audible differences between ZIP cord and other wire. Other times the differences heard were not the same. For example, comparing ZIP cord to Audioquest, one night there were differences in depth of bass. Another night it would be definition of bass or pereceived volume level of bass. Sometimes ZIP cord sounded grainier. Other times it didn’t sound grainy at all. I don’t know if this was how my hearing was tuned that night, volume level, power conditioning issue, air humidity or what. I tried to make sure connections were very tight with all wire.
* I would not listen to music for 1-3 days between listening sets to let my ears relax back to neutral and to be interested enough to pay attention so the same songs over and over again. After only 5-15 minutes I could get ear fatigue and comparing sound after 1 hour of listening was worthless.

COST:
The speaker wire seemed to improve the sound by about 1/5-1/10 that of solid state amplfiers. Since I have $1,600 in amplifier, spending 1/5 that amount seemed justified. I would not spend more than this because for an extra $1,000, I would upgrade my amp to a Pass X-150, Clayton, Edge, or Roland Model 2 which would give more improvement to the sound than $1,000 worth of wire –as best as I can tell, not having heard really expensive wire.
Note that wire could change the sound by more than 1/5-1/10 that of a power amp as a tone control. But I don't see the ability to improve the sound quality more than 1/5-1/10.

12 GAUGE ZIP CORD FROM HOME DEPOT

I have been living with this for a year. It pleases on its own terms. Meaning it does nothing to annoy me. Whatever graniness, loss at frequency extremes, or leading edge transient losses it has are not that obvious to me without direct comparison to better wire. Better wire brings me closer to the music.

CANARE 13 ga. STAR QUAD
I got this wire after getting enthused about hearing differences between Audioquest and ZIP cord. I wasn’t sure if I needed to spend that much money. Didn’t really hear any difference / improvement over ZIP cord.

LUMINOUS AUDIO TECHNOLOGY PRESTIGE
This wire is solid strands of 18 gauge wire wrapped around a hollow tubular core. It is a large diameter, plain, dull gray PVC covered wire with TINY, cheap spades that had to be bent to fit on the amp’s ¼ - 5/16(?) binding posts. This wire did nothing for the sound, before and after cooking. I don’t know why as it is the same construction as Acoustic Zen cables ($74.25/ft) reviewed in January 2003 Stereophile.
It was hard to use and I didn’t like the looks so I was glad to see it go. It probably wasn’t too fair to compare this to wire that cost 2-3x more money and Luminous Audio does have some $12/ft Renaissance speaker wire.

MAPLESHADE CLEARVIEW DOUBLE GOLDEN HELIX

18 gauge twisted pair specially treated wire with no dielectric. An extra twisted pair of 18 gauge differentiates this from standard Godlen Helix wire. There must be something to treating wire because this was better than Canare or Luminous audio. It was perhaps the sweetest sounding wire of all that breezed through piano recordings with the least amount peakiness. It may have picked up more small nuances than any other wire as well. No dielectric may also be the reason for the smooth, natural sound. Although dull sounding systems, or personal taste may not lean to this type of presentation. Mission speakers, for example, may benefit from a silver plated wire.
If I had a low-powered SET amp or bookshelf speakers this wire may have been my first choice. But like a MOSFET vs. bipolar amp, it wasn’t the best IMS. Was the bass underdamped? Was it lack of ultimate bass depth? Was it my bias against such a skinny piece of wire? I decided it just lacked authority when compared to AudioQuest. The speakers did not come alive fully and that is something I value over ultimate naturalness or finest nuances in music. Single driver speaker lovers obviously are willing to compromise in these areas and this would be a great wire for that taste / system setup.
NOTES:
* The (+) wire was about 6" longer than the (-) wire. I don't know why but it must be done for a reason.
* I tried holding the wire and also looking at it under a magnifying glass while music was playing to see if it would vibrate from magnetic charges running through the wire. I could see no vibration. I couldn't tell if I was feeling vibrations through the floor or the wire when holding it. So this crude test proved inconclusive but wire vibratrion supposedly affects the sound
I want to say that both Mapleshade and Luminous Audio TRULY offer a no-hassle return policy. Other dealers refund your money after an argument but Mapleshade and Luminous Audio Technology just say “okay” with no questions asked. Some mfg’rs can’t realize their wire isn’t perfect in every system, for everyone’s taste, or that more expensive wire may be better and feel obliged to argue if you don’t feel the same, ughh.

LAT INTERNATIONAL SS-800

The LAT and Audioquest brought similar improvements to the sound but with a different tonality. I liked the LAT's looks the best. It is a ~1/2" dia. wire, deep translucent blue color, with large, high quality gold spades. These spades clamped very firmly to my speakers and amp. Even Nelson Pass is big on tight connections affecting sound quality.

A positive description of LAT would be it makes the music more vibrant. Cymbals stood out more and I could hear echos, reverb of instruments in the hall where they were played, and artifical recording "echobox" affects more clearly. There was also more air and space around instruments and voices. This was similar in effect to the Harmonic Recovery System box I had in my system. With the HRE as a reference, I would call the effect the wire was making as inaccurate phase shift.
Transient attack was quicker in the upper frequencies as well.
I tried some cryo treated SS-1000 as well. It was like the SS-800 but better. I heard no bad effects from the treatment. Music had more body and was more solid. Transients such as drums were cleaner. The decay of notes dropped even further into a black background. The basic tonality of the wire was still the same. I would estimate the improvement as 25% to (optimistically) 50%, in the realm of how wire can improve the sound, over the uncryo'ed SS-800.

To my ears, the LAT's tonality was not as accurate as the Audioquest Granite. I don't know if it's the silver plating or the woven construction. DH Labs Q-10 is silver plated but not woven. If I liked the sound of LAT International, I would definitely A/B IMS to the DH-Labs before deciding which I liked better. I used to have the Q-10 and it was similar the LAT but bigger bass as I remember.

AUDIOQUEST GRANITE

This was the second best looking wire. The green color reminds me of a lizard so not really appealing. It is a double helix design so is twice as wide the LAT. Spade were very good but not quite up to the strength and locking ability of the LAT.

First impression when switching from the LAT was the music was louder. Music had a big, bold sound similar to Classe amps. There was definitely more bass and a slight muting to the upper frequencies. But since the B&W tweeter is plenty revealing and my room is reflective, this effect was welcome. Soundstaging was not quite as crisp as the LAT. But the big improvement was the more accurate tone of instruments. This is something I value highly. I kept going back to the Audioquest as the most accurate reference to the music.
The bigger bass was also good because I could move my speakers further out into the room. This helped soundstaging over the LAT.
My girlfriends opinion was the Audioquest sounded "faster" than the LAT. Maybe something to do with the bass.

CONCLUSION

The Mapleshade may be the best wire for speakers not needing a lot of current. While the LAT and Audioquest wire gave similar improvements to clarity of the music the AQ was more tonally accurate and had more bass. I heard no improvements with Canare or Luminuous Audio Technology wire. Maybe they were there just much smaller than LAT or AQ.

LOL - suckers.

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