2. cables
  3. 1239768833

Are "good" cables needed for vintage system?

I have just put together a very inexpensive 2 channel semi vintage system. I Have maybe $700.00 in it total. It consists of a NAD 1020b pre, NAD 2155 power, Pioneer PL-112 TT with shure M97xe cart, sony HD dvd player to use as a CD player for now, and it all comes to life through a set of Pioneer HPM 150's. I'm running crapshack cables right now, and I'm wondering if upgrading the cables is worth it on this old gear? Surprisingly I do enjoy the sound I'm getting to a "point". But that's why I'm wondering about upgrading cables. Can I get it past that "point"? As you might have guessed, I'm not going to spend much on cabling, but if it'll help, I'll start serching for used stuff.
Any ideas on this thought guys??
What cables would you recomend?

Thanks for you time,
Shawn
128x128shawnlh
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
'good' is a relative description, but most systems (vintage are not)will sound fine with radio shack connects and wire.
istanbulu
291 posts
 
.

I have a set of Ridge Street Audio Poiema ICs RCA and Morrow SP2 SCs on a C41/MC225 monobloc system with Tannoy DC3s... VPI TT (Morrow PH2 ICs) and MacMini/iRoc DAC (RSA Poiema USB cable)....

and the cabling makes a huge difference... worth every $... lifelike, detailed, musical, simply awesome in every respect.

Also the impedence match between the C41 and the C225s brings a nice synergy that cabling enhances.

:) listening,

Ed
audiophile36
17 posts
 
IMO vintage systems benefit from "good" cables,just like todays modern systems.

In most cases you can have your cables terminated to work with your vintage gear,or you can upgrade the vintage connectors with modern connectors.
rodman99999
6,030 posts
 
You may as well extract as much music from your present equipment as possible. Find some used Kimber PBJs, in here or on eBay. When you improve the rest of your system, you'll have a head start. The PBJs outperform many more expensive interconnects, with regards to transparency.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Right now is a great time to get excellent cables for a song. I'm not completely sure, but I suspect Belkin is either dropping or scaling back their PureAV Silver series cables. The Silver Series (but NOT the Blue Series) are all PCOCC 99.997% pure copper. I'm using a double run of their 14ga speaker cable in my analog 2-channel system and they are sweet.

If you go to eBay and simply search for "Belkin PureAV Silver" you will get lots of hits, most of which are from a couple of vendors blowing out this series at DIY prices. Examples: 4' interconnect pair for $18.49, 12' speaker cables for $20-40. They are superbly built with very nice jackets and terminations.

Best of all, they are liquid and effortless. Signal transfer is very clean and smooth. For all the cables of various formulations and configurations I've had over the last 20 years (Kimber, AQ, Straightwire, TARA Labs, MIT, AudioMagic, PS Audio, Monster), I've found that PCOCC copper has the most noticeably positive effect on the sound quality.

As for whether they'd make any difference on vintage gear, I say it's all about the signal transfer, and if you have a cleaner signal transfer with lower impedance, skin effect, inductance, and capacitance, it's going to showcase the music-making ability of these classic old components better.
More to discover