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johnrtd
07-02-2008, 16:43
A lot has been said about cables and there are some guys around promising us a heaven on earth which only can be realized with their very very special cable techniques.
Now you might ask what is it a cable does or don't. A loudspeaker cable should give a connection for any signal within the audio bandwidth transporting voltages and currents. This may look to be a simple task easily done. We just have to do with some electrical laws and almost any type of cable will do. So what's the heck?
When transporting electrical signals we have to do with:

- insulation
- resistance
- conductivity
- inductance
- capacity
- electro/magnetical fields
- dielectricum

When talking about relatively small signals and power, just to be able to listen to music at home the insulation is hardly important because voltages are low. So any type of insulation will do.

We have to do with loudspeakers which show rather low impedances, hence there's current! And when those currents show peak values of say 10 Amps you'll need a minimum thickness of the conducting core of around 1,5 - 2 mm. If the cable length should be longer then average (>3- 4 meter) you better look for something thicker. That thickness defines the resistance. Common copper results in values below 0,1 Ohm at the mentioned lengths and thicknesses.

Conductivity as an area where the real d.i.y. hobbyist can do something! First off, the easy part, leave out any conducting device. Don't use bananas, spades or whatever but connect the cable directly on both sides. And ........ take care with bare conductors! Almost any type of material, be it copper, silver or whatever shows oxidation after a while. So, when buying a new cable, always leave the cable somewhat longer and cut off a few centimeters each year. That way you will always have a "fresh" connection. At the inside of the core there will also be a corroding process. This is a rather slow process but after some 5 - 10 years the entire cable will be corroded. So don't think your cable (or any part of your audio set) will be there for the rest of your life. Not so and a good reason not to spend too much.

A different case is the conductivity of the core material itself. Copper is a very good conductor but silver, in principle, is a better one. A disadvantage of silver though is that it corrodes even faster then copper. When transporting signals at various frequencies (yes we're talking about music, let's not forget) the current has tendency to use the outer surface of the core when the frequency goes higher. So it could be a good thing to have "silver plated" copper.

Inductance and capacity are things where almost nothing can be done. It's all there but happily the values are small and hardly interfere with your musical adventure.

So let's look at fields. If a current moves through a conductor a field will be generated. And that field "moves" according to the "corkscrew law". A while ago there was a lot of discussion about the so-called "surface effect", the same as mentioned above. The solution was to create more "surface" forcing the electrons to use it. Manufacturers then started producing cable cores made out of thousands of very thin strands. This seemed a good idea but it didn't work out, no one could hear any difference. Or even worse these "newly invented" cables even seemed to give a "woolen" type of sound. Thinking about the fields we thought the fields of the individual cores could interact with each other so those cores would start moving to and fro each other. This way we would have a varying "surface".

You can easily find out by yourself (it's about d.i.y. remember?) if a single core gives an extra dimension to your musical experiences. Just take some cheap ("solid"!) mains wire and try out! That type of wire costs almost nothing but don't forget you'll need two wires per loudspeaker. And always mark the wires at both sides so you can distinguish the plus and minus connections.

The really serious audio amateur might also try out something else. We talked about corrosion. Did you ever see a transformer (or a filter coil) with corroded wires? Not so. The same experiment could be done with that type of "enamelled" wire. Another advantage is that the outer insulation is very thin and that way it will have less (negative) influence on sound quality.

So far we didn't speak of the "WAF"! I really wonder about ladies' comments. Let's hear it.

to be continued

Vinyl Grinder
07-02-2008, 18:00
Two really important factors are Resistance & Inductance above others.I for one have been a Ray Kimber afectionardo since the word go, his philosophy make very good sence to me.The theory that multi-guage stranded wire (TCSS, 7 strands) is the better option (Providing executed correctly).This construction keep both the two problems very low.

Read the below that explains the construction techniques...Kimber '8TC' is one of the best sounding Kables i've ever used...Our good member Thundebollox uses this & i'm shure he will agree...

John you seem to be very sure about what you preach but it's impossible to put forward recommendations for the best & worse way of doing things..I can smell sales hype a mile away so stay clear. Kimber on the other hand makes perfect sence, sounding good to my ears which is the most important thing...

Dielectrics do make a difference, i evaluated all three of his early products the Teflon sounded best (8TC)


http://www.kimber.com/Products/LoudSpeakerCables/8TC/8TC.aspx#

johnrtd
07-02-2008, 20:40
Resistance is not that important. Between the output transistors (or inside the power fets) and the loudspeaker itself, including a filter, there's probably around 0,5 Ohm already. And I said 0,1 Ohm for the cable, but that's a really worst case number. Almost all cables I know of (and which I measured) do show some figure around 0,02 Ohm at 3 meter. I know there's some hype out there about inductance, but that has more to do with psychoacoustics (or better: marketing?) then the real world we're living in. With interlinks it's a different thing, because of the higher impedances there inductance (in cooperation with capacitance) does play a role.

BTW I don't sell any mains type of cable. And yes Kimber is one of the very best I know of.
Keep on grinding.

John

Vinyl Grinder
07-02-2008, 21:12
John
By your somewhat offending PM..I think you may have read :

''I can smell sales hype a mile away so stay clear''

& took it personally. I was refering to sales hype by so called high end cable manufacturers not you, obviously should have explained more simply...Sorry if you took this the wrong way but read it properly please.I should have placed an 'i' between so & stay..

Thanks.

johnrtd
07-02-2008, 23:04
Okay André it seems I didn't look twice and being Dutch ........... Let's give it a big laugh!
Sorry I'm not a big rock fan. For me it's the classical way and some jazz.

We'll keep on grinding.
John

johnrtd
08-02-2008, 09:10
By the way, I'm going to give your speaker cable thing a try tonight, I have some 2mm mains cable that I use for making power leads. If it works I'm going to fly over and kiss you. ;)

Ok, maybe not kiss you, but thank you in some way. :D

Cheers, Rob.
Rob what a marvelous idea to use non-stranded solid copper core for the power leads. Let's face it, the entire mains installation in your home is made with that stuff. So why not use the same up to the rear end of the equipment.
When experimenting with anything in audio, and this goes for loudspeaker wires as well, don't trust a first impression. Leave the new thing in place for a week at least. Thereafter go back to the original thing.

John

Marco
08-02-2008, 09:55
Hi John,

Where did you get that quote from Filterlab? He hasn't posted on this thread...

As far as cables go, mains or signal carrying, in my experience there are simply too many variables to be considered to dwell on which particular type is best. However, if pushed, my preference is for either copper or solid silver. Good copper cables usually give a warm and 'natural' sound, but solid silver done right can be stunning in terms of the amount of musical information it reveals. I don't like silver plated copper cables though as in general I find them to sound somewhat bright and strident.

Far more important to me though is synergy, and in my experience that means using the same brand/type of cables throughout from mains leads, through to interconnects, and then speaker cable. I find there is more cohesion to the way music is presented and communicated that way, as well as the tonal balance being more 'natural' with no particular emphasis on an part of the frequency range.

After much experimentation, I use Transparent cables throughout my system and Music Wave Plus for speaker cable. It is truly excellent because most importantly it doesn't get in the way of communicating the music and it has a very even-handed and natural sounding tonal balance, at least that's the inherent effect it has on the musical signal. I don't believe in using cables as tone controls.

http://transparentcable.com/products/audio/musiclink_spkcable.html

Marco.

Vinyl Grinder
08-02-2008, 10:10
Rob what a marvelous idea to use non-stranded solid copper core for the power leads. Let's face it, the entire mains installation in your home is made with that stuff. So why not use the same up to the rear end of the equipment.

John

No no John ;)..I would sugest using the multi guage wire just as the Speaker cable i mentioned, but much thicker. The three obvious problems you have to over come in mains connection are:RFI,Mains Noise in general & Voltage spikes.To combat the RFI braiding the cable (The longer the cable the better,as this technique is actually working as a low pass filter.the longer, the more improvement to a certain extent)..You need a mains filter to combat mains noise (Watch out some make matter worse, infact disasterous)..The voltage spikes are cured by surge protectors..

I do not believe in using a sheild to combat interference as i don't with interconnects.

Filterlab
08-02-2008, 19:30
Hi John,

Where did you get that quote from Filterlab? He hasn't posted on this thread...

PM :)

johnrtd
09-02-2008, 09:42
No no John ;)..I would sugest using the multi guage wire just as the Speaker cable i mentioned, but much thicker. The three obvious problems you have to over come in mains connection are:RFI,Mains Noise in general & Voltage spikes.To combat the RFI braiding the cable (The longer the cable the better,as this technique is actually working as a low pass filter.the longer, the more improvement to a certain extent)..You need a mains filter to combat mains noise (Watch out some make matter worse, infact disasterous)..The voltage spikes are cured by surge protectors..

I do not believe in using a sheild to combat interference as i don't with interconnects.

Well André first I like to state that I don't "believe" anything, especially in electronics.

And yes our mains suffers from spikes, noise and other types of unwanted signals. So when designing anything for audio purposes one has to take a lot of care to avoid having those types of distortion destroying the audio quality. But that should be done inside the type of equipment we're talking about. Filtering "inside" the cable connections in my opinion is the wrong way to go. But ......... having said that I know there's a lot of equipment around with bad power supplies! So if you own such an item you´ll have to ..... filter.

There's Ohm's Law of course. Longer cables mean more resistance.
We're talking now about loudspeaker connections. Impedances are low and currents are relatively high, so .........

An abberation nowadays is the huge amount of HF signals in the air. So shielding does matter. The loudspeaker connection could act like an antennae and pick up that type of signals. The loudspeaker doesn't care, it's HF so there's no loudspeaker which will convert this into audible distortions. But there could be another problem if the amplifier is designed in a way where there's "overall feed back". Even tiny HF signals then can be fed back to the input, be detected and amplified. Happily this is a `worst case" scenario.

You didn´t mention the `skin effect`and that´s the main thing I was talking about!

John

Vinyl Grinder
09-02-2008, 14:07
There's Ohm's Law of course. Longer cables mean more resistance.
We're talking now about loudspeaker connections. Impedances are low and currents are relatively high, so .........

An abberation nowadays is the huge amount of HF signals in the air. So shielding does matter. The loudspeaker connection could act like an antennae and pick up that type of signals. The loudspeaker doesn't care, it's HF so there's no loudspeaker which will convert this into audible distortions. But there could be another problem if the amplifier is designed in a way where there's "overall feed back". Even tiny HF signals then can be fed back to the input, be detected and amplified. Happily this is a `worst case" scenario.

You didn´t mention the `skin effect`and that´s the main thing I was talking about!

John

Last first then:

Solid Core suffers alot from 'Skin effect' as it favours a particular frequency band...

Multicore(All same size strands) are simular to solid core hence suffer the smae as solid core...

Screened cables do not sheild the cable from RFI, the sheild actually acts as an ariel injecting the crap directly into the signal ground.The cable cannot correctly function with a screen anyway...

As explained before the way to combat RFI is within any cable be it mains, Speaker or interconnect is to cross conductors at right angles several times per inch, this will effectivly oust RFI amongst other related nasties.I have also metioned before that this effectivly be creating a low pass filter..I know your not suppose to do this but these cables can be run along metal surfaces & say interconnects at side of mains cables etc without any interaction.

All this may sound familiar being a Kimber fan:The basis of his Mains,Speaker, Interconnect all start life from the single multi guage wire which contains & different diameters of hyper pure strands (x7) with a teflon composite insulate.Each strand being of different thickness spread over 1:10 ratio that inturn spreads the skin effect..Different applications require more of the same wire before weave.I'm also a firm believer that the same wire should be used throughout the system regardless of application.As the key to the whole Kimber design is the actual muliti-diameter strand wire, this idea would not be open to DIY unless you could obtain the same off role.

Mains:

Cheap mains cables let RF rubbish into your mains transformer through the rectifiers inturn creating a background noise which is clearly audiable. Replacing with this woven cable technique that i've been babbling on about clearly shows vast improvement which put forward proof works.Equipment power supplies should also be corrected but thats another subject..


Your first point:What ever Mr Ohm says must be strickly correct :D

Filterlab
13-02-2008, 11:43
So effectively a multistrand cable will perfom better than a solidcore (given that all else is equal)?

Vinyl Grinder
13-02-2008, 12:43
So effectively a multistrand cable will perfom better than a solidcore

Providing the multistrand is of multi guage construction.


& says kimber on it

:lol:

Filterlab
13-02-2008, 13:01
...& says kimber on it

:lol:

:lol: You on a bung mate?

Vinyl Grinder
13-02-2008, 13:46
Sounds amazed me over others ever since they first appeared.:)

johnrtd
20-02-2008, 14:05
Rob did you ever try out the solid cores? Please let us know even if it was desastrous.

John

Filterlab
20-02-2008, 14:12
Rob did you ever try out the solid cores? Please let us know even if it was desastrous.

John

Haven't yet mate, realised I didn't have any left so I have to pop to the electrical wholesalers when I have time. Will let you know though. ;)

Lowrider
21-02-2008, 10:59
So effectively a multistrand cable will perfom better than a solidcore (given that all else is equal)?

Individual strands must be isolated from the others, still, it might or it might not perform better, depending on application...

Kimber cable is not bad, but not very good either... :confused:

Marco
21-02-2008, 11:35
Individual strands must be isolated from the others, still, it might or it might not perform better, depending on application...


This is absolutely true, in my experience. A good multi-strand as described above to my ears always sounds better than an equivalent solid-core. Solid-core cables that I've heard (and I've heard a few) never sound 'musical' - they always have quite a matter-of-fact presentation that fails to engage me in whatever music I'm listening to. It's not that they're bad or do anything wrong, quite the opposite in fact, but they way they reproduce musical signals always leaves me cold.


Kimber cable is not bad, but not very good either...


Antonio, which Kimber cables have you tried? In my experience they're generally pretty good, particularly their entry-level interconnects and speaker cable. Their more hi-end stuff though is quite often outperformed by equivalents from other manufacturers, hence why I use Transparent.

Marco.

Lowrider
21-02-2008, 11:45
By recommendation by the store, I used 4TC with Sonus Faber speakers, tested 4PR and 8TC, but didnt like...

That is until I started testing other brands, sold them quickly...

Same with ICs, Timbre, PBJ and some "Select" or whatever expensive ones...

I use multistranded, isolated with teflon, with regular efficiency speakers, and use solid-core with high efficiency speakers...

Vinyl Grinder
21-02-2008, 11:47
Antonio, which Kimber cables have you tried? In my experience they're generally pretty good, particularly their entry-level interconnects and speaker cable. Their more hi-end stuff though is quite often outperformed by equivalents from other manufacturers, hence why I use Transparent.

Marco.

The high end Kimber offering are bull, there just playing on the original design to get a step into the big bucks market...

Marco
21-02-2008, 11:50
You're absolutely right. Can you tell that I have quite discerning ears? ;)

Marco.

Filterlab
21-02-2008, 11:51
So which is the best Kimber cable of the lot?

Marco
21-02-2008, 11:59
I'll let Andre answer that one as he's got more recent experience of Kimber cables than I have :)

Are you thinking of trying some?

Marco.

Filterlab
21-02-2008, 12:01
I'll let Andre answer that one as he's got more recent experience of Kimber cables than I have :)

I'm sure he 'works' for Ray you know. :)


Are you thinking of trying some?


Yeah, I love the cables I have but the prices and all round praise of Kimber makes me think I should at least have a go.

Lowrider
21-02-2008, 12:15
Yeah, I love the cables I have but the prices and all round praise of Kimber makes me think I should at least have a go.

Famous last words... :doh:

Marco
21-02-2008, 12:16
You won't go far wrong with their good quality basic stuff.

Aside from interconnects and speaker cable, their mains leads are also very good - they really work at removing a lot of crap from the mains. I know you've designed your own, but you'd be surprised at the difference one of the Kimber ones makes.


I'm sure he 'works' for Ray you know.


Andre just feels safe with baldy men because they can't compete with his 'mullet' :lolsign:

Marco.

Filterlab
21-02-2008, 12:18
Famous last words... :doh:

Tell me about it. :lol:



You won't go far wrong with their good quality basic stuff.

Aside from interconnects and speaker cable, their mains leads are also very good - they really work at removing a lot of crap from the mains. I know you've designed your own, but you'd be surprised at the difference one of the Kimber ones makes.




Well I might just have a fiddle about. I'll wait for Andre to comment as his experience of Kimber stuff is good. :)

WikiBoy
21-02-2008, 12:18
The high end Kimber offering are bull, there just playing on the original design to get a step into the big bucks market...

There is nothing specially about any cable it is all LCR. People are just mugs for the marketing. If you want good cable buy at ebay, not the second hand BS merchants cable but the small guys buying good raw material and assembling by hand, and save yourself over *100%* on price. No 30-40% distributor margin, no 50-100% retailers margin. OK someone will say but I can't hear them, yes you can, legally you have to have refund if you buy on line if you don't like it in *any* way - that is the law!

I only produced cable to match my amps as they are fussy about cable, I couldn't really give a toss if they work with other amps, but it has turned out I sell a lot more cable than amps, and it sort of gives an intro into what nva is about, and then they come back for amps.

Vinyl Grinder
21-02-2008, 16:50
So which is the best Kimber cable of the lot?

Basic Kimber for me was:

Interconnects:'PSB-J'..don't think he does this anymore, if you insist on silver, the 'Silver Streak', i wouldn't advise wasting money on the more upper end models cos there not worth it.

Speakers:Mixture of '4TC' & '8TC' if you into being 'Bi.But on a modest system '4TC' is right enough & will deliver the goods.

Mains: The 'Classik'..If you fancy wasting a bit of dosh the 'Reference.

Don't know what Russ andrews is playing at but this cables seems to have taken on a new asthetic look for the worse.

Buy them all second hand & you'll get em cheap as well as looking better than the new look...Only negative points with the 'PSB-J' interconnect was the Kimber 'Ultra-Plate' phono plugs, although they were good plugs they look shite.Please remember Arm leads with PSB' will buzz if using Magnets, you'll wan't 'KC-1' for this purpose although it's killing the Kimber ideal slightly.All these cables are directional...

Vinyl Grinder
21-02-2008, 16:57
I only produced cable to match my amps as they are fussy about cable, I couldn't really give a toss if they work with other amps, but it has turned out I sell a lot more cable than amps, and it sort of gives an intro into what nva is about, and then they come back for amps.

What that car tyre coiled pressure hose?

:lolsign:

Filterlab
21-02-2008, 20:58
Andre; Cheers matey, I'll have a scan on ebay for some 4TC, my speakers are single wiring only.


Richard; I know just what you mean by the small guys hand assembling, my interconnects are Krystal Kables Avengers made by Frank (Effem) who lurks on the hi-fi forums, cost me pennies each and beat hands down every other interconnect I tried, and some of those retailed at £300-£400 each.

Apparently the Gotham cables are very good, so I hear.

WikiBoy
21-02-2008, 22:33
What that car tyre coiled pressure hose?

:lolsign:

I have no cable that comes even remotely near that description. Are you sure you are not confusing it with someone else.

Vinyl Grinder
21-02-2008, 23:29
I have no cable that comes even remotely near that description. Are you sure you are not confusing it with someone else.

That Right Rich! These NVA 'Soundpipes' nothing to do with you then?:lol:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj292/ELPFAN/NVA.jpg

WikiBoy
22-02-2008, 00:15
That Right Rich! These NVA 'Soundpipes' nothing to do with you then?:lol:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj292/ELPFAN/NVA.jpg

Its copper tube not rubber. I find it a bit odd as well, but blame customers. I was only interested in Soundpipe as interconnect and only then as it is the lowest cap out there. Back in the early 90's there was a reviewer called David Rosam who was scribler and a hi-fi nut and a personal friend of Jonathan Kettle who was editing one of the Haymarket hi-hi rags. Anyway he got Dave to write reviews. He reviewed the Definitive Statement monos, the big chrome things, and he loved the Soundpipe interconnects that went with it. He asked me to make a set of speaker cables using it so I obliged, didn't even listen to them before sending them as I thought it was daft. He went so over the top about them I had to go down to have a listen and they were pretty damn good and outperformed everything we compared them with. Much to my head scratching as they shouldn't work as speaker cable. Anyway I put them up as an option and sold a couple of pair a year as they are bloody expensive in raw material cost.

Anyway after closing the old company in 2000 and restarting in 2005 I completely forgot about them, still thinking they were daft and too expensive. Low and behold about 6 months ago someone started rattling on about them at PF having heard an old pair and I got enquiries. So I put some up at ebay. The max length I can get the cable is 3m so put that up and sold two pairs, one UK and one to Italy, both got excellent feedback and rave emails form the customers so I left the ebay pages up. I don't think they will ever be a big seller as they look daft and are very expensive in our terms, but not rip off profit wise. BUT someone will hear the sets in the field and then they will want to buy.

So I don't blame your amusement, I even share it in some ways. AND on second thought I do see your analogy.

Lowrider
22-02-2008, 06:10
The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables (http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spkcbl_e.html)

Filterlab
22-02-2008, 11:52
The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables (http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spkcbl_e.html)

That's a great article, and leads to some very interesting DIY pages. I think I might have a bit of a DIY fiddle over the weekend, when I have two minutes that is! Maplin ho!

Filterlab
22-02-2008, 12:06
This page is very good; The Full Frequency Range Cable (http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ffrc_e.html).

It just so happens that I have 200 metres of this cable laying unused at work. ;)

WikiBoy
22-02-2008, 12:17
The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables (http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spkcbl_e.html)

Best cable article I have seen, thanks.

RochaCullen
04-06-2009, 10:46
That is a very informative article. I was so inspired I went off and made the TNT Triple Ts, which are described here:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html

Has anyone else had a crack at it. I am afraid my ears aren't quite cultured enough to know if I have made significant improvements over the short, large guage multi-strand copper cables I was using before.

I am currently building my own concrete speakers to go with them, I'll have to post the pics when I am done. My prototype bombed however. Too much pressure in the mould caused problems. :doh:

Nathan

johnrtd
05-06-2009, 09:31
well, well, well .......! A concrete cabinet. It's done before and I know of various patents pending. One of the advantages of concrete is that the form is free. So there will be no flat surfaces whatsoever (Mind you, IF you use concrete to build a cabinet with one or more flat surfaces the resonance problem will even be greater then when using MDF and the like!). I know of a Belgian designer making loudspeaker "EGGS"! Those egg-type cabinets are about 1 meter high and very impressive. Impressive to look at, not the sound quality.
More about loudspeaker cables:
As said in the opening of this thread there's the problem of the insulation material having influence on "wavefronts". So various manufacturers experienced with various types of material there. PTFE (teflon) is one of the very best types and mostly used in interconnects. In loudspeaker cables it would be too expensive I think ........ But for the real amateur there's an even better option: AIR! Radio amateurs (hams) use such type of "airfilled" cables for transmitting their short wave signals over the globe. This "AIRCOM" is a cable holding a solid core, air around it, and a screen. The distance between the core and the screen is fixed by spacers.
Aircom is sold by Conrad and rather cheap. I tried it for loudspeaker and interconnect purposes. The results were astounding when compared with cable of about 50x the price. This being said I must add that the advantage of Aircom was better noticed with very good amps such as class-A types, hybrid or SET amps (yes 300B).
Have a look at http://www2.produktinfo.conrad.com/datenblaetter/250000-274999/252930-da-01-de-Aircom_Plus_Funk-Kabel.pdf It's in German but the construction is clear. The price is around 4 Euro per meter.
Aircom has one disadvantage, it can not be bended at small angles.
John

electric beach
18-07-2009, 11:18
In John's opening post he concluded:

"The really serious audio amateur might also try out something else. We talked about corrosion. Did you ever see a transformer (or a filter coil) with corroded wires? Not so. The same experiment could be done with that type of "enamelled" wire. Another advantage is that the outer insulation is very thin and that way it will have less (negative) influence on sound quality.

So far we didn't speak of the "WAF"! I really wonder about ladies' comments. Let's hear it."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After reading some extremely satisfied user comments I became interested in the Anticables from Paul and Judy Speltz in the USA.

www.anticables.com

Their design is the same as John's suggestion; the use of high quality enamelled wire. Their phylosophy is the same as ours, namely an abhorence of expensive cable exotica and the use of wire connectors as tone controls or signal manipulators.

On acquiring my first preamp my immediate need was for new interconnects. I have always used either Russ Andrews or Trichord of a similar price (£50 - £70) but I experienced the former to be clean but light, the latter dynamic but tonally hard, so I purchased a set of Anti-IC's: analogue interconnects from $100 per metre, depending on the connector choice. You should read the review and customer comments on their website for yourselves to keep them in context, I will just confirm that everything being said I found to be true.

The speaker cables would follow without question because aside from their performance they are:

- Cheap. $10.00 per foot per stereo pair, plus postage.
- Same material and design for speaker cables and interconnects.
- Tolerent of run lengths, long or unequal.
- Gorgeous

With the dollar:sterling exchange rate running at the equivalent of a 50% price hike, I made a DIY experiment to counter my impatience while waiting for the financial markets to regain some sanity. I bought enamelled wire from Maplin - 250G EN Copper, 1.6mm 16swg, loosely twisted two lengths together for convenience (although this could also bring benefits apparently), scraped the ends clean to make unterminated connections and fired her up. Two reviewer descriptions seem pertinent; "an open window" and "revealing of changes upstream". I've played around with different components, made upgrades and tweaked other cables and equipment supports but I can't seem to find a signature to them. It appears to me that they never limit any frequency or indicate a common aspect to the sound that you could attribute to the cables. I've pushed their limits with my system and can't find an improvement (or the removal of a negative) that I might want which I would suspect a change of cable would bring, but possibly in the context of another amplifier or speakers they may show some mismatch or shortcomings.

My nOhr speakers are not particularly sensitive but with their solid marble cabinets and long throw Scanspeak Revelator drivers they are extremely dynamic and effortlessly holographic. They also produce low bass (I use a REL sub for reinforcement at low volume because the nOhrs like to be driven, for improved soundstage and for movies) and my Consonance CD Linear120 is spectacular with metallic instruments, bells, etc. The cables don't find a ceiling in any of these aspects and present the musical flow into the room in an airy, natural and unrestrained way. They just seem to show what they see and any small change made to my system, such as moving the location of an RDC cone under a component, is easily heard. Another example; they bring to your attention the tonal qualities and nature of not only different instrument types, but also of the character of different models of the same instrument played by the same musician, so they are certainly not tonally deficient. Yet they clearly show that the marble cabinets are lacking in any tonal warmth attributed to a wooden cabinet. To steal a quote from a reviewer of the Consonance player - "show me the truth, you say. But do you really want it?". Just don't blame it on the wire!

Well, that's my experience anyway. At £6.00 for 10 metres and 10 minutes effort I recommend you have your own! I've lived with these for a year now and through many equipment changes. My reference were fairly modest but accomplished cables, the Russ Andrews 4PR, but I've tried to consider the ultimate performance rather than relative improvements. I will be buying the Anticables speaker cable in due course though, despite hearing 'no cable'. They are thinner than the Maplin wire and may be a purer copper and I'd welcome a refinement of the same. To address John's last point, the copper wire can look a little 'mad professor in his laboratory', though I personally think they echo the retro image of glowing tubes. The Anticables use a wire with a red satin finish which offers a thin unobtrusive cable that is drop-dead gorgeous, real Hi Fi jewellery and the pictures on the website do them justice. If you don't get maximum WAF with these and instructions NOT to hide them out of sight - get a new W!

Have a nice weekend! :eyebrows: