Big thick chunky speaker cables?

[DevillEars]

Ideally the best speaker cable is no speaker cable at all! This is why many people place their amplifier as close to the speakers as possible, so as to use the shortest length of cable.

Hi Barry,

There is another factor that needs to be considered in this equation - the total end-to-end distance from pre-amp to speakers - where the power amps (usually monoblocs in extreme cases) sit somewhere between the pre-amp and speakers.

If the total distance is shortish, then the argument for placing the amps close to the speakers makes sense. If, however, the total distance is significant, then one needs to balance the two issues of:

a) Long run speaker cable problems (at high signal levels)
b) Long run interconnect cable problems (at low signal levels)

Using balanced interconnects between pre-amp and power amps can go a long way to mitigating any challenges from long interconnect runs.

If, however, the power amp is a single stereo amp, then the ability to get the amp-speaker runs short tends to be limited (unless one places the speakers adjacent to the stereo amp - which tends to limit stage-width and other spatial cues).

As far as the rest of the post is concerned, I'll keep shtum...

Dave

[Barry]

Useful stuff, Barry. I've looked at the Van Damme 6mm leads in this thread, they look similar to my NAC A5, although I'm sure there are differences.

However, you advocate 'figure of eight' construction, (which I take to be 'woven', though there are only two cores). Both mine and the V.D. are of parallel construction.

As a complete scientific novice, I would have thought that this 'flat' parallel approach would be better; partly to obviate any crosstalk but partly to ensure the equal length of each speaker lead core. Mind you, manufacturing processes may mean that this latter never occurs.

I'd be interested in any replacement speaker leads which delineate the bass better, but not to the detriment of the fine balance in the rest of the audio frequency range.

Hello Mike,

By 'figure of eight', I meant that the two conductors run parallel to one another as closely as possible, so that in cross section the cable looks like:

OO ,

rather than some cables which have a cross section which resembles a 'dumbell':

O-O, or O--O .

in the latter case there is greater separation between the conductors, so the inductance is increased.

Regards

[Barry]

Hello Dave,

Yes, what I had in mind as the ideal situation, would be the use of single channel monoblock power amplifiers each situated behind the respective speaker (or even in the speaker cabinet) and connected to the speaker crossover network by the shortest length of cable possible. The power amplifiers would be connected to the preamp using balanced line interconnects.

In the absence of separate channel amplifiers, a two channel amplifier placed between the amplifiers and connected to the speakers by relatively short lengths of cable, is often better than the situation where the power amplifier is close to the preamp (it might be integrated with the preamp) and long speaker leads are used.

In my case, I have the power amplifier close to the preamp and use long speaker leads (6m and 16m). My aim is to eventually replace this arrangement with one as I have described. As far as the speaker is concerned, the resistance of the cables is in series with the output impedance of the amplifier. The damping factor is thus reduced from say 400 to (in my case) 64 and 36. The amplifier thus has less control of the speaker; however in my case, using elecrostatic speakers there is very little mass to control (in comparison to the cone of a moving coil speaker).

One of the members here, Chris (The Grand Wazoo) employs bi-amping and uses two stereo amplifies placed midway between his speakers. The amplifiers are connected to the preamp and the rest of his equipment using unbalanced interconnects. The preamp etc. is situated in a room adjacent to the listening room, so the low level signal cables are not particularly short.

I would imagine that Chris has tried out both configurations and come to the conclusion that short speaker leads are best. Perhaps he might be able to comment on this.

Regards

[The Grand Wazoo]

Barry & Dave,

One of the members here, Chris (The Grand Wazoo) employs bi-amping and uses two stereo amplifies placed midway between his speakers. The amplifiers are connected to the preamp and the rest of his equipment using unbalanced interconnects. The preamp etc. is situated in a room adjacent to the listening room, so the low level signal cables are not particularly short.

I would imagine that Chris has tried out both configurations and come to the conclusion that short speaker leads are best. Perhaps he might be able to comment on this.

Barry describes my arrangement very well. The pre to power connection is via a pair of double screened coax cables with the foil outer screen connected only at the preamp end. These would be about 8 metres long & have RCA phonos at each end.

They connect into a small box with 1 pair of inputs and 4 pairs of output sockets. From this box, I can run cables to up to 4 power amps. At the moment I'm using 2 power amps & I plug a headphone amp into one of the spares when I need it. The cable runs between the box & the power amps are the same configuration but with Fischer Camac connectors at the far end. These are quite short runs.

The speaker cables would be about 2.2 metres long.

My experiments go back to when I used speakers with 3 way crossovers. I tried various configurations and having the pre to power amp runs longer and shorter speaker cables always worked better.

I'm convinced that having the majority of the gear in another room has contributed a lot to the quality of sound I'm getting, but from previous experience, I'd be very surprised if putting the power amps in the other room improved things more than having the cables configured this way. One day I'll get round to testing that theory.