Comparing Speaker Cables


I have accumulated several pairs of speaker cables that I have never tried to do careful A/B comparisons of because the time it takes to swap them is longer than my audio memory. But my speakers are bi-wired and it occurred to me that I could hook two different cables up and then only swap them at the amp which would be much faster. Is there any sonic downside to having a pair of unconnected cables hanging off one of the sets of inputs while the second set is connected to the amp?

pinwa

Showing 1 response by mijostyn

That is not a problem at all.

The design of the cable tells you all you need to know.

You always want your cables as short as possible. This is why we put mono amps behind the loudspeakers. This is most important with low impedance loudspeakers.

For full range speakers and subwoofers you also want heavy (low) gauge wire 12 gauge or lower with as low inductance as possible. Kimber Kable makes the best speaker wire although I do not care much for their interconnects. The real sonic difference to listen for is low bass performance.

Have fun!