A Perennial Debate For Which I Seek Help

Markphd, poor logic. Like saying of a car, "If the engine in the car was better, there would be no point in changing the tires to performance tires."

Nycwine1,
Question: Is this supposed to be a "no compromise" speaker? Are your expectations for its construction/quality realistic? I ask because it's not too often that a speaker considered primo is ripped into for modifications. Is this a new, high profile speaker which has shocked you at the construction, or an observation about a speaker which is less than "only the best"?

My guess is there are a lot of ugly internals in many high end speakers, especially ones which are not going to be opened easily. Back to the car illustration; a lot can be happening under the hood.

Douglas_schroeder, poor logic in your analogy.

My logic: Speaker: wires/connection internal...wires/connection external. The common denominator in the analogy is the wires/connection.

Your logic attributed to me: Car: engine...tires. No commom demoinator between the two as in my logic above.

You better practice your logical analysis a bit before you write the GRE exams.

I am glad this point has been brought up. After years of equipment swapping and cable testing I have come to the conclusion that most ‘audiophile’ cables are overpriced and superfluous.

For example, Totem’s design team utilizes14-gauge multi strand linearized oxygen-free, silver plated copper wire with thick Teflon dielectric shielding in all their designs—sound expensive, right? They build and test their speakers around this wire. They even use it in their speaker leads (which reinforces the fact that the posters speakers are poorly built). The best part is they sell it as ‘Tress’ for $5 a foot.

I wouldn't doubt that behind the pretentious 'jewelry' on most expensive cable is simple copper wire.

I also have a question for the Audiogon community. Why do we use connectors? Other than convenience and looks, what value does it add sonically? If the signal is only as good as its source, then why do we add one more conductive material in the signal path [that is different from the original]? It cannot make the sound ‘better’ because the signal it receives is what it is (the wire). I started thinking about this seriously after I read Lavardin recommends using bare wire for connectivity.

Baroque lover, like you I am very sceptical about a lot of cable pricing in terms of value for money. I can understand why some cables might cost more. They may be hand made in small batches. Ot they may use exotic/expensive materials. However, for most cables this is not the case. Any audio retailer will tell you that cables are high margin items. That's why the big box stores push them so much, to add some profit to the low margin TV or CD player they are selling.

As to the value of the cable in improving the system. I think a distinction has to be made between a cable making a "difference" and a cable producing an "improvement". A difference is not necessarily an improvement. I think many cables produce differences, but not always improvements. Certainly, many people will swear up and down that a certain cable imnproved their system. I think this can be true. A cable can compensate and mate with what it is attached to in the same way that a component can mate well, or not so well, with another component. But I would expect cable improvements to be more subtle since there are fewer variables to work with when changing a cable as opposed to an entire component.

And if you do a good job inside like Totem, there is little to compensate for with an extenal cable, which was the point I was suggesting in my original comment. In this circumstance, cable changes are more likely to produce "differences", but not "improvements". Or if it is an "improvement", it is an improvement in terms of the person's personal taste, and not in an absolute sense.

I am always surprised that one of my favourite manufacturers, who make some extrememly expensive stuff, don't seem to give much of a rat's tail about cables. All they recommend is a good quality 4 mm multi stranded copper cable. They don't seem to have any regard for all of the exotic material and construction (and marketing) that's behind a lot of expensive cables.

I'm not wealthy enough to experiment with a lot of cable changes anyways. So if my thought are wrong, I remain happy in my ignorance. I feel no need to change anything.

As for connectors, they seem to be a necessary evil, like cables, unless you have all of your components hard wired together. I don't think bare wires by themselves produce a strong enough conenction.

Nycwine1 -- to return to your question, yes -- if the terminations are iffy, it will affect the sound.
SO, do solder solidly those driver terminations. If you wish to change the internal wire, try single core, thicker for the woofer than the tweet; do not forget to twist the new internal wire!
On the bright side, better (i.e. low tolerance) components on the xover do make a difference of course.