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A Perennial Debate For Which I Seek Help

Wire, Terminations, Dielectric, Solder, in summary, the linkages in our systems, the terminals in the path. Doubting your cabling can only lead to paranoia, and thus, fearing the snub of fellow audiophiles, you shun the Tuesday night shootouts, the gatherings that once made Tuesdays better than Fridays. Please, don't shun the shootout, I know of no gathering more intoxicating. They remind us we are alive and human, no mere beast in search of flesh and sustinance alone.

My Situation - I recently had a pair of speakers upgraded with new caps, chokes, posts, wire, etc... Not until I went to install the reworked crossovers, however, did I realize how cheap the connection was at the drivers. The woofer has a small terminal board mounted on the basket where the lead wires attach to two stamped rivets. The rivets and brackets are both loose. These clips are followed by a 3" wire to the woofer, some sort of tin-coated cotton or wiring of similar texture and tensility.

As for the tweeter, one of the even smaller pins used for the lead wires snapped off. I could try to solder it back on, yet more fundamentally, with all the money spent on speaker cables, IC's, perhaps hundreds on binding posts alone, aren't these shoddy driver terminations, hidden inside the cabinet, an egregiously weak link in the chain, or am I missing something specific about this particular connection? Any insight is truly appreciated.
nycwine1

Showing 1 response by tonywinsc

tonywinsc
583 posts
 
I had some planar speakers that I bought in the late 80's. After a few years the ribbons went bad and I bought a replacement set and changed them out myself. I was shocked at the low quality wiring in the crossovers and to the drivers. I replaced all of that wiring, soldered some roll film caps into the networks and yielded a very satisfying improvement- good change- in the sound of my speakers. Since then, I have always checked the internals of my speakers and I am pleased to see that high end manufactures (at least on my brand) have stepped up to the expections of us demanding lot.

Now, my other item of pondering is this: House wiring is plain old solid copper wire with big flat blades at the plugs and at the circuit breaker. So how does some expensive 1 meter piece of wiring between the wall and the amp/preamp/source make a difference? Yes, I am a believer and user of expensive interconnects and speaker cables, but I just cannot bring myself to spend the money and try high priced power cords. I have a dedicated breaker to help with isolation and voltage droop as well as a power conditioner. Am I really missing something? If so, how?
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