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
I plan to go to the LA audio show next month so i will check out Cardas. Thank you.
The best is Cardas Clear speaker cable! Big money! Big sound! Cheaper Cardas available! Check site! You can afford McIntosh,  Cardas is the only choice! Industry reference speaker cables!
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.
Human brain above all tries to keep a balance .
If you might upset  that balance by changing long held beliefs, it can and often does, stop you from hearing ,seeing or even grasping anything  that might change them .

As Trump said , he could go out on 5th Ave and shoot a stranger and not lose a vote .
Ever seen a hard-core racist change his mind through rational discourse ?
Neither has anyone else .

I don’t think the choice of speaker cables will and should make a night or day difference unless you’re running very long runs, like 100 feet+. I also believe the difference in cables, speaker or interconnects, is very system dependent. The only time I could easily distinguish between an average quality speaker cable (10’ @ $75)and a high end cables (10’ @ $2400), all else being equal, was in a system consisting of an 8 wpc SET tube amp driving a pair of Zu Druid (100 dB @ 1w) speakers. As close to night and day as I’ve ever come when switching speaker cables.
No worries.  The cables running from crossover to speakers are so short that the added resistance to the speaker system as a whole is negligeable.  If you would change these cables for less resistant ones, it would be like taling off 10lbs from your car to get better accelerations.
if you have a 12 or 14 gauge cable made of really vgood copper, well insulated and exhibiting very low inductance, and great connectors, you are not missing anything.
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. 

ZD 542....I spoke to Richard about this very subject.  He said that they use many different brands and kinds of wire for internal connections.  They choose the wire that suites that particular speaker connection.  There may be different types connecting the various speakers in the enclosure.
Experiment with DIY silver wire. the cheap 999 purity sounds amazing. Try the different awgs. Bass lines needs to be thicker than the high frequency lines.
"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?"

First, its not too hard to find out what kind of wire a speaker manufacturer uses. I know my Vandersteen's use AQ. Second, the brand of internal wire used in the speaker has absolutely nothing to do what you should be using externally. Speakers are designed as an enclosed unit. For example, a designer may have needed to use a certain cable going from the xover to the tweeter in order to get best results. If you were to remove that cable and put something else in place, just because you have the same brand speaker cables, you could easily make it sound worse. Also, following that logic would mean that you would need to do the same thing with other components, like your amp. What if your amp uses Cardas internal speaker cables to the binding posts, and your speakers have Kimber? What do you buy then?

This same argument comes up all the time with power cords. The argument is why do you need expensive PC's if they didn't use them in the recording studio. The answer, of course, is the same as what we have here. Its a completely different application.