Recently on Agon I found a pair of Shunyata Research Alpha v2 speaker cables. Like wow. Here’s another set. If they will let you try ‘em. Please do! FYI asking price is very good too..
Speaker cables with good timbre
As the title says, i would like to hear recommendations on a pair of speaker cables, copper, that have a very good midrange, imaging and truth of timbre or faithful reproduction of instrument sound. As i get older i started to realize i value those characteristics the most when i listen to recorded music. Thank you in advance.
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I was not aware that timbre could be adjusted by speaker cable. I have about five different speaker cables but see no point discussing them since I would have no idea how they would affect timbre. You can try an affordable cable like Canare 4S11G(OFC) and if you're handy, finish them your self with several choices of solid copper connectors from eBay or just have Blue Jean knock off a pair. The bulk cable is $2.05 Ft at Performance Audio. OFC copper which is different than there regular 4S11 plus a high quality polyethylene insulation, about as low a dielectric constant you'll find in a cable. |
Put down the snake oil. Claiming certain cables have better timbre is just absolutely ridiculous. Science and quantifiable facts usurp all of your biased opinions, folks. No wonder being called an 'audiophile' has become insult when claims like this are still present in this community. It's embarrassing. It's almost 2025, people; get out of your parent's basement and go educate yourselves. Like honestly. |
My favorite speaker cables to this point are the Anti-Cables 4.2 Flex speaker cables. That said, my system is currently disassembled (building a dedication audio room), and I have acquired or built several new cables. I have a fun winter project, building DIY cables.......all using extremely high end Japanese cable (Oyaide PCOCC-A, Acoustic Revive Triple-C, Neotech UP-OCC, SAEC Triple-C, and Furutech OCC - Nano OCC - and DUCC-OCC). Getting all of that cable was expensive, and difficult as I had much of it imported from a friend who lives in Japan. But it'll keep me busy all winter; very excited to get them going. |
Not sure why people like you feel it's your goal in life to dump on people that make statements that you don't agree with. A brief look at your interactions on this site show that you have never started a discussion. All you do is post negative responses and scream that audio products are scams and snake oil. Pretty sad, if you ask me.
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@squared80 purposely going into a cable territory and saying things that square80 is saying deserves a ban. |
@squared80 if cables don’t matter, I want you to explain to me why my new cables have 70% less bass the first 12 hours of ownership. my speakers have 4 10-inch woofers with 4 dedicated internal amps powering each of these woofers, they are not bass shy. So when I say 70% less bass because of the cables for the first 12 hours, it is serious. Please explain to me why this is so or gtfo. |
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@decooney you are funny. Not funny ha ha either. But I bet you got vaxxed. https://analysis.plus/downloads/ https://www.qed.co.uk/downloads/qed/soundofscience.pdf https://www.l-acoustics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/RS2015-Cable_Effects.pdf |
Don’t go into a cable section and call it snakeoil or this and that. If you do, you should get banned IMO. Naysayers don’t take the time to question whether the purity of the conductor matters or not. The type of conductor, the quality of the connectors and the solder process. The geometry. Thousand of different variations. How can a respectable person not take this into consideration. The connector by itself is a huge variable even though it's just a small part of the cable. |
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@decooney Yes I did, case and point. You should so what of the other two? Fair and balanced boy. |
@antigrunge2 you are right, and late we moved on, at least I have. Enjoy the day. |
@antigrunge2 great idea, taking it one step better - deleted my former posts targeted at one individual in response to nonsense. I have nothing to prove about cables, testing, or nice timbre or tone that Im listening to right now. After 45 years of designing/building speakers, I’ll say good wiring and cables can truly help a worthy system. My own driven cable journey restarted many times and ended with the best from George Cardas. All of the timbre and tone anyone could ask for. Best of luck to all on the journey! |
There are some many good cables to select from, and I recomend that you a select a few and try them your system with your music in your listening environment to see if its characteristics meet your needs and expectations. I would not buy any without trying them in my system. I have Kimber Kables and interconnects in my system and think that the mid range, imaging, soundstage is great. Although I have all types of music in my collection, my listening prefernce most of the time is jazz. Have fun and enjoy your system. |
Hi audiogabby...thanks for your question, A reminder we are all on differing phases and stages of our hobby-pastime-passions. Having worked intimately with a small cable manufacturer, I look for similar tastes in presentation to mine. I suspect George Cardas and I would have a grand time in a listening session. Additionally, tonality - timbre...sounds as YOU know them, is always primary to my goals as well, audiogabby. My limited budget solution was buying a run of used Cardas Clear Sky X4 cables and retrofitting one end to bi-wired at the loudspeakers by Cardas. I also upgraded the 12 ends to forged spade connectors. Time has taught me the connectors can be AS or MORE important than the wire. Clear Sky | Cardas Audio (scroll to X4 Speaker) The X4 is a biwire design, however, the Cardas Tech cautioned biwiring the ends may not be appropriate for full range applications, particularly the deep bass. My situation was okay as I cut off the 80hZ at my pro Focusrite DAC, sending deep bass only to my RymiK L12 subwoofer. Above 80hZ, using SPDIF from the Focusrite, that signal is sent to my NEW Geshelli J2 DAC, running the most current AK4499 dac chip along with the terrific Sparkos 2590 op amps. Never has $555 been spent more wisely in my long hi fi journey. Wishing all our USA members a warm "filling" Happy Thanksgiving week! More Peace Pin (caps for old eyes) |
imo, probably the best value in the lineup for the cost. Less grainy sounding than Parsec, or in my system at least. If you jump up to Cygnus quad wire it gets to be even more detailed. Clear Reflection has its own old/new design blended from Cardas with a tad more weight and richness I like. Standard Clear is exactly that. Some people who've never tried any of them love to jump in and report expensive cables don't make a difference. Cardas does. .Good, better, bad, or just different - in a transparent system there is truly a different result with each of these cables. Congrats on the Clear Sky X4. |
DACs and cables. The biggest black hole money pit in audio. This is a merry-go-round I stay away from. Sort of interesting to start to read a thread like this until it becomes so tedious that my eyes begin to cross. So many people think that you must try a bunch of different cables to achieve that magic "synergy " we hear so much about. With all the different recommendations suggested about companies, most of which I (speaking for myself) have never heard, finding the right cable seems to become a daunting/impossible task. To be clear, I am not a cable denier. I am very much a sceptic. I have actually spent insignificant amounts of many on interconnects lately since I replaced some "mature" equipment in my system, I have kept them in place for just in case, even though I can't actually detect any significant difference. If you have the discretionary funds that you can afford to spend significant amounts of money chasing Nirvana, more power to you. I, OTOH, although I could spend significantly more than I have, choose to enjoy a more diverse selection in my golden years. Many will disagree, but that's OK. Just my rant of the day.
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OP - I too am running Totem Forest Signatures and using Audio Envy's SP14 ribbon speaker cables made with OCC copper and an active ground. Good luck in your search. https://audioenvy.com/product/speaker/sp14/ N |
@mglik , didn't you just start a thread about needing hearing aids? And yet here you are....Silversmith Feefeelium, 6k cables, cable 'timbre' n all...
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Lots of arguing here, I'm staying out of all that. But have been happy with a few of the Veritas Cables I've picked up over the past few months. Relatively sane prices compared to the big name brands, excellent construction, appearance, and top caliber service too. I do use Signal Cable in a small bedroom setup I have. Those are very affordable and I would recommend them to anyone who "believes" in cables but doesn't want to spend much. |
I don’t know if your posted system is up to date, but if the higher level Morrow and Argento cables aren’t giving you what you want, what you are seeking is probably elsewhere in your system. I’ve owned the Forests and I think they are great speakers. But maybe try a pair of Harbeth SHL-5s. They have a very realistic sound on vocals and acoustic instruments. If you are insistent on cables, try Purist. I’ve owned the Poseidon speaker cables. Very natural sound. Only trouble for me is that they were very heavy and hard to put behind the rack. But the totems have low binding posts so it should be less of a problem. Good luck. Just one more thing- as Columbo says- are you sure your Argentos are genuine? I’ve heard the ICs and they were very natural sounding. Great cables. Too expensive for me, but great. |
My posted system is very outdated. Most of those components are gone. To answer your question, the Argento's were clones, not originals cables. They did sound decent but i recently sold them. I just recently purchased the Xangsane SP 6008 off Ali Express and they are very good cables. I keep checking the used market for some of the cables recommended on this thread. |
This is an update to my original message. I decided to start my search at the lower price range. I did that because after 35 yrs in this hobby i've come to realize that more expensive does not necessarily means better. Also the fact that if i don't like a pair of expensive speaker cables i may have to wait mths until they sell. That will considerably slow down my search. Having said that, i've decided to try some Chinese cables from Ali Express. If you are a person with strong political views, you should stop reading now. The cables in question are the Xangsane SP 6008 and the 5N OCC ( Black Jacket ). I'll start by saying that both these cables are exceptional at their price range. The both have great instrument separation, very balanced presentation, transparency and timbre. Of the two i found the 5N OCC to have more detail with sparkling highs and a spot on midrange. The cables feels very coherent and musical to me. I realize that some people out there do not like or want to hear that but thats how i see it. These cables sound like more expensive cables and when you add the price they are asking for it, it makes you wonder. I'm going to continue listening to the 5N OCC for the next few weeks to see if the sound changes with break in. If it does for the better i think i may be all set. They are that good. |
@audiogabby nice find! Congrats! |
@audiogabby Sounds like your journey might be over. Or perhaps you're simply at a resting place... I was a bit of a skeptic but, through a happy accident, I have learned that everything makes a difference. Whether it is an improvement or a degradation will be system dependent. I am using Cardas Neutral Reference speaker wires and Jena Labs Symphony interconnects. They work very well in my system. |
If you want to test out cables, the Cable Company has a lending library. I use it just to hear other manufacturer’s designs, or, if Shunyata comes out with a new design, I can listen to it. They do charge for that (I think 5% of the retail price), but it works out because even if I don’t buy the cable, whatever it cost is held for me, and applied to a future purchase. And recommendations are good, but you should also know what kind of music people listen to. Some cables that sound good on a mainly pop music diet don’t necessarily have all the tonal beauty or micro/macro-dynamics that say, classical or jazz music have in abundance. Furutech, whom I have just written a comment about in another thread, is a very good cable, but cool-ish. I would not want to listen to brass instruments with Furutech; the leading edge will be great. All the "audiophile" stuff (i.e., soundstaging, imaging) will be there, but a faithful timbre? Not so much as some others. Transparent, Shunyata, Synergistic all have cables with a fuller "color" palette, plus some cables that others have recommended. Cardas cables also lean towards "warmth," but that means (or, at least, it used to mean) that all the instruments would sound wam, even ones that should not be warm (Shunyata, up until the Z-Tron line, had some of the same colorations, extremely evident in the CX line. So did Synergistic circa 2015 or so). Asking recommendations is a bit like asking a vegetarian about the best fish dish and they recommend soy tilapia. (I don't even know if that's a real food, by the way!) Taste is sometimes an unreliable arbiter. So if you value good timbre, I’d suggest you listen for yourself if you haven’t found a cable since your original post. What some of us extoll will not necessarily please your own ears. |
Love the shmoose like you coat hanger dude.