IF you have money to burn through, the best cables I have heard were Goetz and Western Electric's or Dueland's imitations which may sound even better than the originals. 50 years ago Western Electric cables delivered clear voices from coast to coast. You could, assuming that you knew the person at the other end, easily discern who you were speaking to through thousands of miles of cable.. Goetz cables need to be zobeled to ensure that your amp doesn’t go into oscillation at frequencies above your ability to hear it and burn up. You can't be sure that aresistor or capacitor lead won't break, and you won't likely even know that your amp is in trouble until it's too late. They are now selling counterfeit Western Union cable, so I have gone to Dueland for all my new cables. Some will warn you that the tin will create a diode effect. I don't care if it does, cables present their own load to the speaker, hence Goetz cable's capacitance burns up some amps. Regardless of what they claim I've tried home made concoctions, and expensive cables and most just made things worse. The Dueland cables just work, and I can't explain the theory because getting the proper resistance, capacitance, and inductance, crunching those numbers ignores the amp and speakers which are also part of the circuit. As the cables appear to perform regardless of the circuit I just don't care about the why, I am just thrilled to have cables that work. Perhaps I should get the Dueland cables for the speakers, but my old Western Electric cables are the real thing, and I am content with them as speaker cables and Dueland for all my ICs.
How Big of a Difference?
Hello all,
I have near completed upgrading my system, but have left my speaker wire the same. My system is as follows- Laptop (Tidal) > Schiit Gumby Multibit > Freya S > Vidar monoblocks > speakers. My usb cable is Supra usb, and I am using xlr connections with amazon basics cables. If I am not mistaken, xlr is already super good at being noise resistance so I shouldn't need to spend more $ on fancy cables at my current level of audio equipment. My speaker wire is traditional 12 gauge wire I spliced from the spool. Nothing fancy. The reason I feel I shouldn't spend money on better speaker wire is because I traded the Supra usb for a super cheap usb and could not hear a difference. On top of that, I used to use single-ended connections using Chord C-line cables, and I could not tell the difference between those and cheap ones. What is everyone else's consensus? Can you guys hear a difference in your system? Thanks for the help.