Are you buying the right interconnects ?


In the late 90's I purchased a pair of Paradigm Active 20 speakers from Definitive Audio. Prior to buying I purchased a 3 meter pair of MIT interconnects from Audio Advisor. Regular retail price was $700 and they were on sale for 50% off. 
Hooked every thing up and waited a month for a full burn in. Wasn't satisfied. I thought, whats going on here? So I decided to try the Paradigm stock interconnects that came with the speakers. They were twenty feet long and looked really, really cheap like you find in a department store. They cost $20 a pair. I switched them out and was blown away.
The sound from those 20's suddenly sounded, rich, full, very sweet top end and the bass sharpened up to complete focus. I called Paradigm and spoke to an engineer and asked why the sound difference? He said the MIT's are not a match since they are a high impedance/capacitance cable and it has nothing to with the price. He mentioned the impedance/capacitance value numbers vary with different brands. He said you should always talk to the engineers at the amp/preamp companies, and ask which cable values would best match their components. Once you get the specs, go to a local electronic supply house, the one's that sell cables to TV station's and radio station's. Give the measurements to the salesperson to find a match and your good to go. 
audiozen

Showing 2 responses by jtcf

MIT used to sell speaker cables with whatever was in those boxes(resistors?) customized to work with your specific equipment.They may still make them.That still doesn't guarantee they would sound good though.
The fact is you can take several cables from different manufacturers that will measure exactly the same on test equipment but each one will sound different.There's many different theories as to why but nobody really knows for sure.

atdavid if you are really interested in learning more about Teo Audio there is a very long thread here about it.
Anyway I kind of like the idea of the "tuning bullets" that Synergistic has come up with.Tuning the cables to be warmer or cooler sounding instead of replacing them if they didn't work well with a new component.Interesting concept, but my bank account says nope.