Speaker wire/cables opinion


I have some decent speaker cables in my system running from my McIntosh MC601 mono blocks, and audio space EL34 tube amps to my speakers. But I started to think, should I spend more for speaker cables when I don't really know the quality of the cables that goes from the speaker terminals to the speakers? For all I know they might be lamp cords connecting the speakers. I have never seen it anywhere, where the speaker manufacturer disclosure what type of wire they use. Can you imagine paying over $2K on speaker cable to find out they are connected to lamp cords that wire the speakers? I wish we could buy our own wires to connect the speakers internally (am I on to something here?). This would ensure consistency in the speaker chain. Probably that's why people and reviewers (not people=cats and pooches) say cables sound so differently. The internal speaker wires could be the "weak link". I am inspecting my speaker to see if I can get to the internal wires. What are your thoughts?
almandog

Showing 3 responses by almandog

I guess to each is own. Everyone will hear any given system differently. What sound like crap to me might sound good you or someone else. I just finished testing out some $10K and a $2K speaker cables and I could not tell the difference. I went as far as to order 10 feet of Bluejeans speaker cables to try out against these high $ cables, still could not hear the difference. I went as far as going to Home depot and bought 10 feet of 10 gage  cable and to my surprise there is almost no difference that I could  say "Wow". Then again others might differ in what they hear. Imaging listening to a nice piece of music in your car with the windows wing up. When you wind down the windows what happen? you quickly wind it up again because of the difference in sound you hear. This is the kind of night and day difference I was expecting to hear when comparing the high $ cables with the cheaper cables. No way close in my experience.
 I think it all boils down to what suits you/me in our listening room, so lets agree on that.
I will keep my Bluejeans, Home Depot, and Audio Art speaker cables for now. 

Kalali:
I do agree with you on long cable runs. I can see how resistance would have an impact on the signal with lengths over 10'. And I do believe that cables do make a difference in the audio system. Because I have experienced that before; but in my system I was never able to tell the difference between the cables that I tested. I am running an all McIntosh system (MC 601, C2500, MPC1500, MEN220, MCD 301) with Wilson Audio Alexia speakers, and VPI Classic Signature turntable. If anyone has a similar setup and has experience the differences with cables (both interconnects and speaker cables) please let me know which cables you are using. I am not searching for only the differences, I and searching for a good set of cables that matches my system.
I plan to go to the LA audio show next month so i will check out Cardas. Thank you.