New room forces longer speaker cables. K2 must go


Hello All,

A move to a new room is going to require that I no longer have my amp sitting in the middle of my speakers. Hence the Audioquest K2 72V bias 4 ft Bi-wire pair has got to go. What I am in need of is a reasonable ( HA! ) pair of Bi-Wire speaker cables in the area of 18 feet in length. I do love the K2 sound but just can not spend the coin on a long enough set.
The rest of the cables in the rig are 100% silver DIY. 22 awg with teflon dielectric and Cardas XLR and RCA terminations. I tried about 15 different cables including AQ Sky 72v and liked the overall balance of the DIY best by a large margin.

System:

Dunalvy SC-IVa
2 Velodyne HGS 15s connected via the speaker level inputs
Ayre V3x power amplifier
Ayre K1Xe Preamp
Dynavector P-75 phono pre with MC enhancer circuit engaged
VPI Aries original with 10.5 arm
Dynavector Karat D 17 MK II
Musical Fidelity M6 Dac
Ayre CD 7xe Mp ( used as a transport AND as a CD player )
Squeezebox Touch with Digital only out software mod and a ton of power supply and cap mods. Plays FLAC and 24- 192 files from a NAS.

Looking for ideas. Trades even. If you have a long set of cables and want to try monos near your speakers the AQ K2 is excellent cable.

Let's see what thoughts you guys might have.
128x128meadowman
Courant,

Good idea on the Transparent Wall. You are right about the termination bricks adding up.

Ozzy,

Got any recommendations for a DIY speaker cable that performs above the norm?
One option worth considering would be Transparent The Wall Reference speaker cable. These are designed for in-wall and longer lengths.

The Reference in-cable itself is pretty reasonably priced. Where things can get expensive is with the termination bricks, which are specifically calibrated to the length of your cables.

Transparent has varying grades of bricks, so you can attach the more moderately priced "High Performance" or "Premium" bricks to the Reference cable.

I also run 18 feet speaker cables for "girlfriend approval factor" reasons. Essentially, the gear is tucked into a corner nook. The speaker cables run along the back wall behind a couch, with the speakers on either side of the couch and facing into the room.

I was initially running Mogami 3103 and later upgraded to AQ Bedrocks. The Bedrocks are attached to Harbeth Compact 7es3s speakers and an Akurate 2200 amp. I've also used the Bedrocks with an Ayre AX-7e to good affect. I almost upgraded to the transparent The Wall References, but instead chose to save the cash and just stay with the Bedrocks for the time being.

Hope that helps.