Cables For Simaudio gear

When I wanted some new IC's I bought 5 pairs of AQ Silver Extremes for $90 each from HCM. List price was $400 each! They are superbly made and sounding! Why spend more? Don't fall for reviews touting wire! As for PC's I only bought one - a $90 Pangea from Audio Advisor. Needed it for my Brown BEL 1001 amp. I just wanted to try something more upscale than a Home Depot $6 PC. After listening I don't hear any difference. If I spent 10, 20, 30 ... 100X would I hear a difference? I really doubt it! After all, the sound of an electronic component starts with what comes out of its power supply. Not with what connects it to the wall AC! Heresy for all the wire maniacs on this forum!

In 40+ years of buying, selling and listening to audio gear I have never heard a "bad" sounding IC. That includes the cheap $3 Ch*nese red/black IC's.

@filipedine - FYI..

I have no issue with Cardas but I believe their cables are better suited to Tube amps.

Someone I met had Cardas top of the line speaker cables and they FRIED his $10,000 Ayre power amp because they drove the amp into an oscillating state.

A great many solid state amps will suffer this problem

This does NOT happen with all-tube amps

For great speaker cables take a look at...
https://silversmithaudio.com/fidelium-cables/

For power and interconnect cables I would take a look at Nordost

For a lessor known brand that makes some great cables look at KLE Innovations - even their entry level stuff is better than many other commercial brands TOTL

Regards - Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the input on the Cardas, I had no idear they could cause such issues. Regarding the Nordost IC is there a particular model that works best with the Moon 700 series?

Many thanks

Filipe
 

jasonbourne5279 posts02-11-2021 6:01amIn 40+ years of buying, selling and listening to audio gear I have never heard a "bad" sounding IC. That includes the cheap $3 Ch*nese red/black IC’s.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Your gonna save a lot of money.

As long as it sounds good to you, that is ALL that matters.

Some of your buddies might think different, as they clear out and leave the joint.

Me, I just put plug in my ears if it’s bad and read lips.. Some folks and their gear don’t give a hoot... ME I’m picky.. BUT I have a solution no matter the situation.. Enjoy!! :-)

The oscillating amp issue is because of the network box. Clearly a WRONG choice and if they would have looked into it they would have know. A few of the older cable drove class ds and valve amps into oscillation.
ARC and VTL both had problems, behind cable mismatch.

Regards

@filipedine - just pick the Nordost cable that suites your budget. Their TOTL cables are excellent

You should also take a look at Inkustik cables - they are excellent also

Regards

Hi All,

Was looking at the Atmosphere X Level 1 Alive for IC, Has anyone used Synergistic Research with the moon gear, is this also good option?

Thanks

WillieWonka - I would caution you to be a little more responsible about repeating (mis)information like you did about Cardas.  It is actually impossible for speaker cables to cause an amplifier to go into oscillation, no matter what the brand.  They can cause a dead short occasionally, particularly if hooked up with + and - touching, but not causing an amp to oscillate.  That would be something on the INPUT side of the amplifier, not the output side.

Actually Cardas and Ayre have long had a very good working relationship at the company level and the Cardas cables are one of the top choices for Ayre equipment.

Another vote for Nordost. Have heard SimAudio many times with various Nordost cables.  (AMPS, PRE, CD & PHONO).

I have used a lot of cables over the years and the Raven Soniquil cables and PC are wonderful and priced fairly. 

@jwpstayman - I am simply relating to my experience with Naim amps

This NAIM forum thread states the problem quite clearly
- I believe Mike B. works for NAIM

Mike-B1Jun ’19 anon64018693:

Question is: what is the electrical purpose of approaching Naim’s recommended values, notably for inductance? Is it exclusively to provide compensation for the lack of inductor coil or does it also allow the amplifier to express itself more comfortably in terms of musicality?

Solid state amplifier output stages become unstable due to capacitive reactance. The effects can be audible distortion caused by low level ringing up to the output devises overheating and in some cases destroyed.

To counter this all solid state power amplifiers have a Zobel network across the output stage to damp this oscillation; the conventional Zobel circuit consists of a series capacitor and resistor with values around 100nF and 10 Ohm. The capacitor begins to conduct as frequency rises and the 10 ohm resistor becomes the damping element shunting the circuit Q. With the variable capacitive reactance of the speaker load coupled to a length of speaker cable the Zobel circuit alone may not be enough. This is commonly solved by placing an inductor in series with the amplifier output downstream from the Zobel shunt circuit. The inductor value is set low enough to avoid high frequency roll-off in the audio range but high enough to provide the required damping at frequencies above that.

Amplifiers with a series inductor can use any type of speaker cable, however with a high inductance or excessive length of cable added to the amplifiers internal inductor it risks some roll-off at high frequencies.
Some manufacturers such as Naim do not have an internal inductor and choose instead to use only the speaker cable to provide inductance.

ALSO as stated above - the acquaintance that experienced the oscillation issue when he damaged his Ayre amp using the TOTL (high capacitance) CARDAS speaker cables. He also damaged a loaner Gryphon amp immediately after using the same cables.

Once the unit was repaired he used lower capacitance speaker cables without any issues.

BTW - The Cardas cables were also tested for short circuit and none were found

Coincidence? I do not believe so !

Mis-information? I do not believe so !

But if people want to try this for themselves - Good Luck, but don’t say you weren’t warned !

I do concede that not ALL Cardas speaker cables have sufficient capacitance to cause oscillation issues

But this issue IS NOT a problem for NAIM amps only.

Regards - Steve

All of the above theory aside, I have a Simaudio 700i (version 1), which I greatly enjoy.  I REALLY like Transparent Audio Generation 5 cables throughout the system. I currently have Premium PCs to my 700i and dac, but have a Reference PC on its way to see how it sounds with the 700i. I have Ultra speakers cables and balanced interconnects to my dac.  I have Super rca cables to my phono pre-amp.  I upgraded each cable a time or two to get where I am now, and I am very happy with the combination. 

Hi Mikeylee5,

I’ve looked at the 700i before I bought my combo (740P + 760A) and the 700i is a killer of an integrated amp and I also use a 280D with MiND.  

My current IC are Mogami 2534 and on PC I have a bespoke UPOCC 5N silver copper cad.

I know and understand what copper and silver bring to the table, but a cable is not just this 2 parameters.. shielding, geometry etc... etc... all have impact on the result you get.

O don’t have an idea defined regarding the house sound of the Transprant cables. Will put them in my list of cables to check.

If you where to rate the shielding of the transparent cables How would you rate them ?

thanks for your input.

Filipe

Hi,
ga anyone used the Cardas Clear Cryo XLR, are they worth or is it best to go one level up?

thanks in advance

Filipe

Hi,
ga anyone used the Cardas Clear Cryo XLR, are they worth or is it best to go one level up?

thanks in advance

Filipe

jwpstayman327 posts02-11-2021 1:22pm"...It is actually impossible for speaker cables to cause an amplifier to go into oscillation, no matter what the brand..."

Naim does NOT want owners of their power amps to use high-capacitance speaker cables because it can cause instability to the point of oscillation which can be destructive to their amps and to the tweeters in speakers. Naim does not use any inductors or "snubber" networks on their amps which makes them vulnerable to highly reactive loads.

Some years ago, Threshold amps were self-destructing when high-capacitance Polk Cobra cables were used. Nelson Pass, who was with Threshold at the time, worked with Matthew Polk and they both found that "snubber" networks on the amp outputs solved the problem. Polk received a patent for his efforts.