Whether they actually sound better or not, I don't really care but I have a fetish for beautifully made, anaconda sized audio cables, especially with unusually well made connectors. Any ideas here especially where 2nd hand is a deep discount would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Very Happy with Vitual Dynamics Revelation. Been thru Au24, Nirvana SX Ltd, Siltech, Audiovox, Sigma Retro Gold, Venustas and top to bottom, get the best presentation out of the VD's in my system.
I use common HOME DEPOT #14 AC SOLID COPPER, plastic insulated, HOUSE WIRE (15 cents/foot) for my RCA interconnects. I run a SINGLE WIRE from preamp to amp without any shielding. The amp and pre-amp are then grounded together with common standed wire. I strip back about 1 1/2 inches from each end of this wire and then bend back (180 degrees) about 3/4 inch, then I tightly crimp the folded wire. This forms a perfect center RCA pin to insert into the RCA jack. ALSO #12 GAUGE colid core HOME DEPOT AC house wire makes FANTASTIC/IDEAL speaker wire. ONE WORD OF CAUTION: the single wire RCA #14 interconnect has DIRECTIVITY, so you must test the sound quality in one direction and then reverse the wire to find out which is the best direction ( this effect is likely due to the way the wire was maufactured, a larger guage wire is passed thru a machine die while being pulled in one direction)
I had the Fulton golds and you really got your money's worth in weight.They are long gone from my system but I wonder how they would compare with today's offerings. I could try some battery booster cables,oops!
Lacee, when I had Fulton golds, I thought they sounded good but familiar. I never found an exact match, but welding cables looked much like them and sounded as good.
I suspect that some of today's speaker wires would sound better.
Hi I have been in search of the best stereo system for many years. And this includes wires. Wires have been the most difficult to judge. For those on the same mission, here is a few thoughts I have for you. I am Calif. State Lic. Electrical Contractor. Lets start with a few facts. ALL music signals are AC current. The only reason we use wire is to complete the circuit. (ya need something that conducts current to get from point A to point B) There are 3 parts to a wire, CONDUCTOR, INSULATOR, & what ever else you put on the end, spade,bannana,RCA,etc. Gauge of wire is determined by load. 14g wire is rated for 1800 watts, 12g wire has a rating of 2200 watts. these are not peak ratings. This is continous power! That means even the big bad ass McIntosh 2000 watt amp only needs 12g wire. AC current is carried on the outside of the wire. Thats why we use multi stranded wire, it increases the surface area and at high current it disapates heat better. Ohms is another rating. Resistance. even the cheapest of the cheap goes below .000 so I'm not going to say anyting more on this subject. Yes silver has a lower resistance, but gold is even lower. Why nobody has come out with pure 24ct gold wire is beyond me. I'm sure there are a select few who can afford pure gold. Now lets talk about INSULATORS. ALL wire is subject to RFI (radio freq Interference) But you lower this to almost 0 when using XLR cables. Think of every wire in your house acting like antenna picking up noise. This is the reason for power filtering and surge protection. Gordon Gow wa right when he said wire is wire! Transparent and MIT add network boxes on there wires. And I must say I like both. They add the 3rd demention to the music. Better detail, deeper sound stage, yes the cables are over priced but once you have had these network boxes in your system I can't see myself without them. Shotgun S3 & Musiclink Plus are about the same and both are good. But I have up graded to Ultra's by Transparent. I am very happy.
Horsestoharleys, yours is a strange post. It starts off along the usual path of arguing wire is wire. Suddenly, it turns to Transparent and MIT and says they are better wires?
I agree with you I wa pressed for time and did not fully finnish my though process. It's nice to see people are reading. Thank you I did want to spend more time on the insulators of the wire. For one thing being in the construction business. I come across old speaker wires. I see the affect of time on cables. the wire is always copper and turns green over time I live close to the coast and we might be more affected here than other places. This will affect the sound signal. I have seen where mice have eaten away the insulator. Some might bring up EMF (elctro magnetic fields) This will be greatest around the power cords. A good sujestion is try to keep your power cords and IC's apart from each other. I use wire ties to guide all of my wires. Keep the wires as short as you can. I hope this helps someone. Good Luck
The biggest interconnect cables are from Bocchino Audio. http://www.bocchtech.com/bocchinoaudio/complete_cables.html
I know because I make them myself. Users consider them the best value for money. I make everything from the connectors to the cables themselves. All custom made.
A bit of self promotion but read the reviews there and contact the individuals who have done the reviews for their comments.
I love people saying that what they have is the best with no evidence that they have made any comparisons. It really causes me to what to try what they recommend!
It is very interesting how little agreement there is about the best sounding interconnects, speaker wires, and power cords. Are our tastes so different, our rooms so different, the impedances of our equipment so different, the resolutions of our equipment so different, or do our pocketbooks define what we like?
I have a few long sets of Fulton Gold cables which are about 50 feet long as well as a number of short pieces of Fulton Brown interconnect wire. Anyone have any idea of what the Fulton Golds are worth?
Also I have a pair of Fulton Premires speakers. Any idea on what the speakers are worth?
I recently purchased the Revelation Audio Lab Testament speaker cables and the Precept II power cable. These cables are awsome. Top notch performance at reasonable price.
Hi All, I have a Pair of Acoustic Zen Absolute Shot speaker cables and they are BIG (Well not Fire Hose BIG.. but BIg). The finish alone makes them look like snakes and they sound great. sorry no snake HIss.
Billyd10, Fultons! I had Premiers in 1975 and the Gold cables. I would say the only way to find their value is on Ebay or a auction here. I imagine you would get a higher payoff on Ebay.
Tbg- That's funny: I just got in here to recommend he try to find a pair of Fulton's Golds!!! Everyone used to laugh at him, until he hooked them up. It was fun to watch the jaws drop back then!!! He started the entire high-end cable industry with those.
These things are beasts. They're even called Mambas. Do they sound better than X Y or Z? No idea. They're my first and only cables. All I know is, they sound fine to me and they look extremely bad a**. They come with a complete set of 8 heavy screw on spades/bananas (8 of each, very convenient).
When I bought them about a month ago, they were $22 (no, really!) for the cables and $80 shipping from the U.K. (they weigh a ton, thus the pricey shipping). The price apparently went up after a lengthy thread on a UK AV forum made them very popular.
Doesn't seem someone already mentioned Fadel Art GoldLine Speaker Connecting System. In this design, the cables properly speaking, "transmission tubes" Fadel calls them, run through a solid bar on feet.
btw, the GoldLine and the newer Coherence GoldLine come in acrylic bars instead of aluminium as seen on Fadel's website. Wouldn't you wish the amp's and speakers' binding posts were on the front of the gear if you had a few runs of those to brag with ;^) Take a look at the pics here. http://www.fastaudio.com/DE/fadel217.html
I respectfully suggest that the so called "speaker connectors" mentioned above should not be included in a peer group of "BIGGEST BADDEST AUDIO CABLES."
Rather, they might be recategorized in another thread devoted to "WAF Disasters" or "Weirdest Tweaks".
I was looking back at horsestoharleys posts and I understand what he is saying...the network boxes can do more for the audio signal than any ultra grade wire can.
might chime in to continue on horsetoharley's thoughts on surface area: best cables i ever heard were prana natarajas (i almost bought the cosmos, but i couldnt' afford them). the prana, a silver-foil design, bested IMO the transparent reference MM (older model), jorma #1, isoclean super focus, and everything i owned / demo'd prior to it (fair disclosure, some friends preferred the jorma, which are awesome as well).
maybe the surface area is a big thing? i will concede the networks certainly are...
Excepting for some rare system synergies, silver wires (especially ribbon designs)are just not as musical or tonaly correct. I've had some of the best, and they were far from being musical compared to a well done copper cable.
Dave_b, I have had just the exact opposite experience with copper and silver interconnects. With the exception of Kondo copper wire interconnects at one time and more importantly, Townshend interconnects presently, I have always preferred silver wires, often with some gold in them. My Cerious Technology interconnects with liquid crystal, of course, have no metal at all except at the ends. They have a character that I wish I could get in other wires, but also lack other characteristics that I value. They lack the "splash" of metal wires and have better bass, but they do not have the resolution, especially of silver wires.
Temporarily using some Monster in wall $25/50ft spool speaker cable (14gauge) until my new stuff arrives for my Wilson Sophias and I am amazed at just how good they sound.
Hello: Thought I would add my two cents here. I own a Plinius SB-300 along with a Lexicon MC-12B, and a set of JM Labs Electra 1027's, with MIT cables. Although they were $2695.00, they represent a real bargain at this time! This is far below retail. They appear to posess most all of the magic in Elrod's $10,000 Flagship Cables. After reading the reviews,and discussing them with a fellow audiophile that auditioned them at CES, I began to research them. I was intrigued by the many personal reviews on the internet, so I decided to invest in david Elrod's Signature Speaker Cables. I, obviously expected to find an increase in Sonics and clarity, but was astounded at the presentation I observed with these new "Magic" cables. Over the years I have invested thousands of dollars in tweaks, that in many cases were just snakeoil. In fact I have become jaded wioth all the rhetoric I see in audio forums. However, with this new purchase, i think I have finally founf Audio nirvana. Anyone listening to my current system would be hard pressed to decern it from a live audition! The soudstage opened up to a truley Biblical Magnitude. The highs sound somewhat softened with a pristine clarity. The vocals turned Golden, with even the vocalist intake of air clearly audible. The bass is now deeper and and moves so much air in the room, it is palpable. I never thought that a set of speaker wires would amount to such a cohesive improvement across the audio spectrom. I am sold, and I am considering one of Elrod's Power Cords to complete my rig. I think I have finally found the system I have dreamed of. Best/ DR Cervantes
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