My first" audiophile " speaker cables were Polks.
Luckily the pretty green and gold wires never destroyed my amp.
But out of fear I tossed them in favour of the original Bad Boy- the Fulton Gold.
Kept them for a few years,then they too proved too user unfriendly and didn't really sound all that great.
I think they are out there somewhere. |
Well that is a new one to me I am no wire god but solid rod 8awg for interlinks is the biggest contradiction in interlink technology I've ever heard of.
I'll try it and let you know but the best I,ve heard is the polar opposite.Remember this is supposed to sound acoustic live not some impressionist creation leave that to the art world. |
Yeah, they were hard to put into place :)
As to the skin effect, I found that the utilization of magnets, and shielding thereof to manipulate the flux lines, seemed to overcome it to a large degree. I have a lot more linearity than I did before. I don't hear any roll-off in the highs at all, if anything they seem more full-bodied, natural and more present than I have heard before. Every frequency range seems tighter, more controlled, less distorted, but has power and weight to it. I have played a few of the pieces I use for reference recordings with professional orchestras, as well as attend live concerts as often as possible, and I now find that impact in my system. I never expected that, didn't believe it possible really, I just wanted a system that didn't hurt my ears to listen to.
Well, I didn't intend to write so much. Everybody has opinions, I think even a lot of scientific theories are opinions that have some research behind them, and are true although they may not be the whole story, and I just wanted to share a little about what I did with some of mine. Still in utter amazement at what I hear, and if anyone is in the Edmonton area, I invite you to come give a listen!
Happy listening, best regards, |
Then I made some cables with 3/8" rods of copper and a lot of the Virtual Dynamics technology, and am in complete amazement at what I got from it. Not worried about the "skin effect" I suppose. Regards, |
I bet those 3/8" rods are difficult to maneuver around!!!! |
I have followed this thread for a little, I guess I might add a little of my experience in the last 6 months. Tried Virtual Dynamics Revelation 2.0 series (6 gauge) and loved it, and talked with the owner of the company a bit. Then I made some cables with 3/8" rods of copper and a lot of the Virtual Dynamics technology, and am in complete amazement at what I got from it. Absolutely amazing, I will never go back to wire again! (Even managed to get the ends of the rods machined down to 8 awg to make interconnects as well, same result of amazement and tears). |
Tbg, contact cleaner is toxic. So are a lot of things around the house. What is the point of the remark? Teo Audio cable have a HMIS Health rating of 1, meaning it is not typically any threat to your health. I ask Teo Audio about these cables at CES, I was told no long runs or phono. That rules out all but two cables in my system so I never tried them. |
Tbg, contact cleaner is toxic. So are a lot of things around the house. What is the point of the remark? |
Essentialaudio, so I learned from an email from Cerious Tech. They say the Teo Audio mix is toxic. |
Norm (Tbg), it's true that both use liquid conductors, but that's where the similarity ends. Cerious uses ceramic material, whereas Teo Audio uses a proprietary alloy of gallium, indium, and tin which was initially developed as a relatively safe substitute for liquid mercury. |
Maverick, I did find the reference and found TEO Liquid Cables. They seem no different from Cerious Technology cables as both use a liquid conductor. |
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/salon_son_image_2009/becker1/page2.htm
scroll down the page to you get to the lafleur speakers you will see the liquid cables mentioned there and they are still in business this was at the 2009 CES show in Montreal in april |
Maverick, please tell us more about these "liquid" cables. At first I thought you were talking about the Cerious Technology cables, but I don't think they are still in business. |
The sickest cables i have heard to yet is made by liquid cables. Was the first time ever i heard a huge difference in sound. I came about them at the CES show in Montreal when 2 rooms were carrying the same speakers. Lafleurs. One room must of had well over a 100,000$ of equipement hooked up on them as for the other was hooked up on some Chinese xindak. You would never guess which room had the most amazing sound there. You guess it ........ xindak room. Why? The wires were worth 15 000 but man what a difference. No comparaison. I was blown away and so were 30 other people in a small room crammed in. |
That is weird...no accounting for individual systems, rooms and tastes:O) |
Dave_b, it just shows the futility of forums on sound. I found even the SR accelerator superior to the Oracle Analogs or the Nordost Odins. The SR Apex are in their own league. I just hope this continues to hold as I bought many SRs. |
Silver bad, copper GOOOOD! I've gone through the mill again with cables and tried all the new offerings such as SR Tesla and the winner IS.....MIT! Me likey:O ) |
I found it difficult to understand the undisputed claim that gold has a lower level of resistance than silver, according to the periodic table silver is the best conductor, followed by copper, gold however is quite a bit less conductive. I therefore conclude that it is used to gain a sweet (slow?)sonic presentation, rather then its conductive properties. I am very impressed with the UPOCC silver, and at present presume this to be the best metallic conductor available at present. |
Tbg, I had Audioquest Big Red too. You're right, it was not great sounding, I remember Kimber being superior and it was WAY smaller. |
Twenty years ago and friend and I used Distech speaker wires in shotgun wirings to make power cords. I still have a pc with four. He went all the way to 16 and said he was still getting an improvement. I dropped out at four.
Somewhere in all the crap in my storage room I have Bill Low's Big Red speaker wire. It is about 1.5" in cross section. The copper now is oxidized, but I don't remember it being very good. I don't know what gauge this would amount to, perhaps 2? |
I've got my lawn mower orange 100 foot extension cord all choopped up into about a 4 to 6 guage wire shotgun 3 times over. I couldn't go any farther my connectors wouldn't hold anymore.LOL
i'LL NEED TO LISTEN TO THEM AGAIN.
I've been swaping stuff in and out of system just experimenting alot |
In another thread, someone mentioned that the flexible 4 AWG as sold by partsexpress.com for about 2 bucks a foot is pretty darn close to the insides of certain mega buck, monster cables.
So another idea for this timeless thread: is there some way we could twist together 2 or even 3 strands of the 4 AWG and terminate it? |
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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. |
Baddest Jormadesign Prime, makes you want to hold on to your favorite childhood toy. |
Soundstring Bi-Wires are pretty beefy |
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.
This is all just my experience, of course. |
Purist Proteus Provectus not the biggest but possibly the baddest, they can make you teary eyed. |
Nordost Odin-just plain sick. |
TRANSPARENT OPUS MM2. THE WORLD STATEMENT. |
try some big bad 8 gauge, acoustic zen matrix 2 speaker wire |
Perhaps Jeff Weber's "WeberWire" speaker cable: Threshold Corp.'s reference during the Nelson Pass era.
*Cable cross-section = 4 gauge;
*0.00053 Ohm resistance per linear foot for transmission and return paths combined;
*Can manage 100amps rms to 500amp peaks;
*Capacitance = 0.2 nanoFarads per foot;
*Propagation delay = 3 nanoseconds/foot.
Info. from WeberWire/Threshold Corp. brochure. Using WeberWire between our Threshold & Innersound ESL setup. |
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. |
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... |
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. |
Big & Bad = MIT Oracles. period. |
As the author of this thread from the year 2000,
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".
Let's get back to BIG and BAD.
Cheers,
cwlondon |
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 |
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.
http://www.fadelart.com/productpages/speakerconnecting.html
|
http://www.sterlingcable.co.uk/spk.html
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. |
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. |
Biggest Baddest audio cables- MIT Oracle,by far. Also the best sounding. |
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. |
|
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. |
I just upgraded to MIT Oracle V1.1 IC's and speaker cables. I also have Transparent MM power cords...now those are cables baby!! Yeah...grrrrrr |
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. |
what about the reverse? anyone try crystal cable's ultra reference series power cord? |
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 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? |
