the eternal cable question


Hi Everyone,

My goal here is to whittle down the mess that is the interconnect jungle with the help of my wise, knowledgable, and generous Audiogoners.

I have been researching and reading tons of stuff, Copper, Silver, Silver over Copper, Gold, Palladium, Rhodium, Fluids, 4N-9N, 99.999%, 99.9999%, 99.99999%, OCC, OHCC, OFC, Twisted, Helix, Double Helix, Solid wire, Stranded wire, Teflon, Air, Shielded, Unshielded, XLR, RCAs,.... Head Exploding!

Some of you have given me some great advice already but I have more questions. 

There seems to be a rule of thought that Silver sounds better with Tubes and Copper / Gold sounds better with Solid State. And well made Pure Solid Silver will sound good with both. Of course I know that it will all depend on my own ears when it comes down to it. However is there some truth to that? 

Is it true that mixing metals can produce different sonic results? Example... Gold RCAs will help tone down Silver wire? Or Silver Eichmanns RCAs can liven up Copper wire? It has been suggested that I use Silver plugs with Silver over Copper wire in teflon. That is the Morrow configuration.

Is it best to go with one company if they offer all the different cables or is combining different okay? You'll see from my list below that Almadi, Cabledyne, and Cerious do not offer a full set of cables.

Should I use the same company for interconnects from the VPI to the Herron and then the Herron to the Coda? The Herron is a Tube Phono preamp. 

Would like to hear from those of you who own SS amps and or similar systems to mine. Those of you who own Tubes amps will have to convince me that your interconnects will sound good on SS.  

My current system is

Coda CSIB Integrated Amp
Oppo BDP 105D
VPI Scout Turntable with an Ortofon 2m Bronze mm cartridge
Herron Audio VTHP-1 Tube Phono Preamp
Revel F52 Speakers
SVS SB13 Ultra Subwoofer
Furman Linear Filtering AC Power Source Conditioner ELITE-15 DMI

Currently running Blue Jeans between everything with 12 gauge copper for the Revels.

They sound alright. A little grainy in the upper ranges, Sound stage fluctuates with the recordings. The biggest thing is that I can't help but think that my sound can be better.

My budget is $1500 for all the cables and interconnects. Used is good.

My current list of cables to audition consists of Morrow, Almadi, Cabledyne, Cerious Graphene Extreme, Gabriel Gold Revelations.

Thank You for your time and generosity in teaching this Audio Grasshopper the ways of the Audiophile Force.

Peace,

Mark 



meambler
I can't sleep at 5 AM on a Saturday so I'm trying to be coherent writing about cables! ugh

My take on cables has always been to try the out-of-the box designs because trying a .99% copper vs. a .999% copper from different companies seemed like the Chevy vs Ford thing and there really wasn't enough improvement to bother.

I liked silver for years and just like Cu they can be implemented well or poorly. Silversmith silver was the most profound silver cables I ever used. Gave me goosebumps when I installed the IC's and more of them when I added his speaker cables. Jeff does not build power cables. I assume his Palladiums are even better. They are silver ribbon versus silver plated Cu. Regardless, these are over your price range

HFC with their magnetic technology are really onto something, but if you knew they actually run the signal through the magnet and not inside the magnet before you tried them you might avoid them. Again, a different technology versus "just wire". And to many, a pleasing result.I own 3 pairs of their RCA adapters and often move them in and out of the system.

Morrow does something ingenious that some others do and he avoids the skin effect of signals jumping from wire to wire by using very small silver plated wires all individually insulated form one another. I still have a pair of MA-5's hanging in the room if I ever need another IC because they are very good for the money. Not a cheap cable to just hang around and not be used but a good cable if you need it.

On the different technology path I tried all the pieces of the Cerious Tech graphene extreme series. This is adding very fine highly conductive graphene fibers to traditional wire wrapped up into something different from the rest of the herd. I use their power cables and have not found a speaker cable to replace theirs. The best SC's for full body and weight I have ever tried. Highly recommend their SC's.

Staying with the different technologies theme, I tried and still use the Teo liquid metal Game Changers IC's. Completely different thinking and gratefully, a completely pleasing sound. They really lit my fire for truth in sound. Instruments sound like real instruments.

So you can see that my set-up is now comprised of liquid metal, graphene fibers, and sometimes, magnets. And if I have to use traditional wire, it is configured to avoid some common pitfalls of wire touching wire.

Having said all that, the biggest improvements I get are still with the electronic pieces. I never saw the benefit in spending more money to get someone's .999999% wire in some crazy weave they call proprietary. I am sure they sound fine but I like the designs that solve technical issues with creative solutions.

Mark, I think you can easily better the BJC's without breaking the bank. There are some nice suggestions here but be careful not to just incrementally move up with your dollars. You might not get a significant improvement over the BJC but only different sounding results.
There is only one way to know how any cable is going to perform in your system. Try it!

Go to THECABLECOMPANY.com and access their lending library.  

Also see JPSLABS.com, their cables are superb.

Mark,

You seem to be already quite knowledgeable about audio cables, so I'm not sure if my comments will be of any use.

Usually, one can expect soundstage, and even the perception of brightness or grain, to vary from one recording to another. A revealing sound system will do that, so I'm not sure whether swapping cables will help improve the sound of your system to any significant degree.

From the components you have listed, I would personally stay with copper, especially with your budget in mind. I would choose cables from name-brand companies, such as AudioQuest, Cardas, or Transparent Audio. Those are my favorites when cost is of no consideration, and I need to control system brightness.

For me, cost is always a consideration, a big one in fact, so I would try River Cable (http://rivercable.com/) in your case.

From my experience, I don't begin to hear a significant sonic difference among cables in systems costing less than six figures, but maybe that's a limitation of my hearing more than anything else.

Post removed 
Thanks for the updated posts everyone. I have had my Teo GCs for about 2 months and close to 300 hours on them (of that about 100 hours of actually listening to them).

My ears are very impressed with the sound coming out of my system with them in line.  No ear fatigue ever. I get sad when I have to stop listening and live my day to day life. They sounded great right out of the container and have continually improved to this point. All I can say is that for $500 the cost to performance ratio is fantastic. I'm not sure what their higher ended cables might do for my system. The good thing with the GCs is that I don't need to know.

They have now come out with Game Changers 2 for $600 for 3 meters. I don't know if they will be significantly any better then their original GCs but I do need another set between my Herron and Coda. So maybe I'll give them a try.