Wow, I cannot answer all those questions Telja. First of all, the JPS cables I bought are balanced, so I am limited as to where I can run them. I bought them because it was reported my amp and preamp were designed for balanced cables and would work best using them. Also, this may seem trivial, but the selector for CD is a balanced input, so, obviously, if I wanted to use the CD selection on the preamp, it had to be balanced. My equipment is: Meridian 557 amp, 502 preamp and 508.24 CD, I use JPS on these. I was using a MIT MI330 for preamp to amp and a MIT PC2 for CD to Preamp. There was a huge improvement when I changed, but that was over 2 1/2 years ago, I cannot tell you what all changed. You can go to www.jpslabs.com and they have some reprints of reviews. I also have a Nak. ZX-9 & CR-7a cassette deck and just picked up an old Sansui TU-717 tuner. These are the areas where I would like to make upgrades in interconnects. |
Brian, thank you for the response! What type of equipment do you find the JPS stuff is best with? What are you using? How do you compare them to others you've tried? What are the strengths/weaknesses? Thank you, again. |
Not all silver cables are the same gauge, or use the same conductors, geometry, or purity of silver. As a general rule, no, they don't hurt the bass. IMO, as a general rule, they hurt the MIDRANGE. I'm trying Wireworld, Siltech, Purenote, Silversmith, Stealth, Sonic Horizon, and Vantage interconnects right now (comparing them to my AudioTruth Diamond, and MIT EVO). Not all of these borrowed ones are all silver, some are part silver/copper, silver/gold, or all gold. I may post a review of all of them, but it is likely that Audiogon will be blighting this forum from existence in the next few days, so I guess it'll be somewhere else. |
Trelja, I use JPS cables and have been happy with them. The only negative I can say of *mine* is that they are the orginals, before they had flexible ends. JPS cables are very stiff and w/o the ends being flexible, it makes things very difficult! |
Nedlabs_stereo, could you please give me your impressions of Van den Hull cables. I have no experience with them. What are the pluses/minuses. How do they compare to other cables. I've wondered about them since I heard they were graphite. Also wonder about the JPS Superconductors, with their unique metal use. Thanks! |
Years back I bought some bannana's to make life easier in hooking up my amp, I was bi-wiring and the two sets of spades would not easily fit on the post of the amp. I could not believe how much these degraded the sound!! I did not keep them. |
I think better RCA's are definitely worth pursuing. The RCA's at HomeGrown are gold plated brass(like almost all others). They claim to hear no difference between these, and more expensive ones. However, I would like to try. I have found RCA's(and spades/bananas) from Axon, which are solid COPPER, not brass, and very cheap(maybe $4). Perhaps solid copper will sound much better, but I've yet to try. Kimon Bellas is the US rep, and is a wonderful person to have representing them. They are a French company, and also bring Focal drivers(JMlab), Solen/SCR caps/inductors, etc. to the US. Their products are used in some of the finest, most expensive speakers, and all are very cheap. I think we should try. Would also be interested in silver RCA's also(I bleieve AudioQuest uses them), but that is further down the road. Let's keep this issue alive! |
I went to their Web site Trelja, and I must say it sounds very interesting! Anyone else try these? What about better RCA's, would it be benificial to buy other RCA's such as WBT's? |
Kimber KCAG is as Nedlabs_stereo says. Better for tube amps and/or soft dome tweeters. KCTG is same, but 2X the conductors, better bass. If you are at all interested in KCAG, do yourself a favor, and check out HomeGrown Audio. They have the same cable as KCAG, except theirs is solid core(5 - 9's 22 ga. silver, teflon insulated) vs. stranded. I find it superior(but very close). A little smoother, more liquid, less veiled. But, you'll REALLY love the price: $70(RCA terminated)/m!!! If you're willing to put the cable together yourself, price would be about half of that! How do they make money? THIS is what wire should cost. |
Does anyone have experience with Kimber KCAG, they are silver? |
I also have recently upgraded to silver interconnects and have found the bass to have tightened up a lot. Much better definition though, in parallel lead and bass runs on much of Jethro Tulls work the tandem melody lines are enhanced without the boominess as an example |
Have to back up what everyone has offered up. I think wire gauge is one of the more important factors in bass reproduction(assuming the speakers can reproduce those frequencies). Lower frequencies are produced by woofers(duhh), which have larger cone area(also duhh), this requires increased current, compared to mids/tweeters. Current delivery is aided by larger conductor size. Some silver might get a bad rap, as you said, because wire guage is often much smaller. |
No, not if they're thick enough and your pocket is deep enough. |
Do yourself a favor and call Celestial Audio ask for Ricardo and buy some Siltech. You'll be happy. The way the silver is made is liek no other how they fill the holes in the crystal with gold. Sound is out of this world. Works with any electronics, be it bright Krell to warm Conrad-Johnson tube. Just works magic. Never have I had better cable in my system |
like hdm, i too recently upgraded to silver interconnects. there was no bass compramise at all. on the contrary, i think my new cables do a better job of controlling and extending the bass than my old (network) cables. |
Between 2 cables of the same gauge and construction geometry, one being silver and one high purity copper the silver cable will have lower resistance (ohms/ft) and therefore better damping with the amplifier so it will have better bass. If the gauge of the silver wire is thinner than the copper then the inherently lower resistance of the material can be overcome by the higher resistance of the thinner geometry and it will have less bass. As with Solid-State vs. Tubes the differences between silver and copper cables are starting to blur. By all means listen for yourself. |
Recently upgraded to Silver Audio Silver Bullet 6.0's, and I can assure you that the bass was not compromised in the least; in fact bass response (as well as everything else) improved in a major way-fuller, deeper, & more extended. The Pure Silver Sounds are probably also worth a look. |
