View Full Version : Is this a speaker cable?
Hello, Picked up some bits and bobs from a friend. He gave me these cables that was used in a hi-fi he had.
Anyone seen the likes before. It has three wires pleated together but only fitted with plugs of course.
Cheers
Its that invisible stuff:D
Sorry...too early lol
http://i67.tinypic.com/rigmsm.jpg
Rockford fosgate i think..not obsidian
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80398
walpurgis
23-01-2016, 11:19
It's Ixos 6006 or 6003.
http://i67.tinypic.com/2h35v92.jpg
Should be OK. I quite like Ixos.
hifi_dave
23-01-2016, 11:28
We sold, or gave away, miles of that. It's Ixos.
Looks like someone's been knitting whilst on an LSD trip.
What was done with the third conductor? :scratch:
Looks like someone's been knitting whilst on an LSD trip.
Ha - quite! :D
Why do some manufacturers insist on using gaudy colours on cables? So that they 'stand out'? :doh: It's total idiocy. For me, cables are ugly/practical things, which should be 'heard' and not seen.... If I had my way, they'd either all be black or grey, and be done with it!
Marco.
Ha - quite! :D
Why do some manufacturers insist on using gaudy colours on cables? So that they 'stand out'? :doh: It's total idiocy. For me, cables are ugly/practical things, which should be 'heard' and not seen.... If I had my way, they'd either all be black or grey, and be done with it!
Marco.
Or run under the floor, so you can't see them at all!
Mind you, your yellow-clad Trompeter cable does look rather nice, doesn't it? ;)
walpurgis
23-01-2016, 12:26
What was done with the third conductor? :scratch:
I could be wrong, but seem to recall the the black item was not a wire, just a vinyl cord to assist the weave and probably there for appearance too.
hifi_dave
23-01-2016, 12:35
What was done with the third conductor? :scratch:
It was just a plastic 'filler' used to help with the weave, where you need 3 runs.
Or run under the floor, so you can't see them at all!
Mind you, your yellow-clad Trompeter cable does look rather nice, doesn't it? ;)
Yes, in a pleasant bananay-jaundiced kind of way! :eyebrows:
'Sounds' great though (or rather it doesn't 'sound' of anything), which is the whole point :)
Marco.
hifinutt
23-01-2016, 22:51
some while ago tnt audio gave instructions on making cables from cat 5 cable weaved like this . that's what I think this is . in fact this weekend I dug out a whole load of this cable and was going to throw it away !!!
hifinutt
23-01-2016, 22:52
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/cat5questions_e.html
walpurgis
23-01-2016, 23:04
this weekend I dug out a whole load of this cable and was going to throw it away !!!
Give it a try. Cables don't have to be big and hefty to sound good. I have many thick fancy speaker cables, but the best sounding are some skinny Transparent Audio items that look like mower lead.
Cool. So it is speaker cable of sorts:) Thanks
Audio Advent
24-01-2016, 17:10
In hindsight, the "IXOS" written on the plugs in the photo are the give away! :lol: (we can only see the first two letters but the OP should be able to see the rest..)
Audio Advent
24-01-2016, 17:18
Ha - quite! :D
Why do some manufacturers insist on using gaudy colours on cables? So that they 'stand out'? :doh: It's total idiocy. For me, cables are ugly/practical things, which should be 'heard' and not seen.... If I had my way, they'd either all be black or grey, and be done with it!
Marco.
Personally I find that coloured cable, or non-grey, non-black, non-nondescript cable makes it appear to be different from the rest, something perhaps special or thought about. Therefore it brings in an emotional element. It at least makes you look up who the manufacturer is rather than assume it's 20p/m stuff.
Doesn't matter if it's the best cable in the world but if it's just black or grey and looks like it could be any of the cheapest mass produced cables out there then there is less of a feeling of it being any good.
Hopefully I'm above it but I recognise the feelings stand-out looks invoke instinctively.
Then again, if you look at RFC Pluto's as an example, the cable used off the reel is bright pink or orange under that black mesh.. i.e. it's the OEM cable manufacturer's fault...
Lol - Sam, we'll have to agree to differ on that one! It could be that the cables concerned are not aimed at those who see audio equipment as 'jewellery', and nothing to do with how good they are or not.
The cables in my system are mainly professional types, used in recording studios/broadcast houses, and those tend to be black or grey. The 'business end' of their performance, where the quality counts, is top-notch, and revealed 'under their skin', as it were...
Nope, I don't buy into the 'sexy' thing with cables at all. The only non-black cables I've got, apart from as Barry has mentioned, a digital coax lead, is my VDH speaker cables, which are 'peach' coloured, and as they lie on the floor, are now covered in accumulated dust/dirt from over the years, and look black! :doh: :rolleyes:
Marco.
Audio Advent
24-01-2016, 21:00
Lol - Sam, we'll have to agree to differ on that one! It could be that the cables concerned are not aimed at those who see audio equipment as 'jewellery', and nothing to do with how good they are or not.
The cables in my system are mainly professional types, used in recording studios/broadcast houses, and those tend to be black or grey. The 'business end' of their performance, where the quality counts, is top-notch, and revealed 'under their skin', as it were...
Nope, I don't buy into the 'sexy' thing with cables at all. The only non-black cables I've got, apart from as Barry has mentioned, a digital coax lead, is my VDH speaker cables, which are 'peach' coloured, and as they lie on the floor, are now covered in accumulated dust/dirt from over the years and look black! :doh: :rolleyes:
Marco.
I can understand that kind of anti-foo stance, just a business-like logic to getting the job done well. I would normally assign to that view too if secondhand, more fancy looking ones weren't so cheap, or didn't want to collect a little bit.. (am currently kitting myself out with 90's Deltec Black Slink for no reason in particular!) Just looked at your equipment list - probably a blast from the past from reading the forum before I joined, but I thought you had Yannis Tome interconnects throughout. I see you've changed to Klotz.
It's not to do with what I like to use or what you like to use, I'm just saying that Klotz MC5000 is £3.50/m metre cable.... and it looks like black/grey £3.50/m cable. And if someone were to obtain a load of Klotz MC5000 cable with a system they'd likely dump it all precisely because it's £3.50/m cable and it really won't cost that much to rewire a system again with all new Klotz MC5000 to new lengths that suit them. Of course the RCAs will cost more than the cable and would be kept for the future cables..
Therefore the cables that get kept are going to be the ones which stand out visually, there's some consumer-emotional attachment to them because it's not assumed they are replacable like tires or any other consumable. So it makes sense from a manufacturer's point of view to make them stand out and not be forgettable. If I saw your cables, I wouldn't remember if they were Klotz or Van Damme or whatever... which is no good for any manufacture of interconnects. See what I mean? There's a sound logic to it... but hopefully we do see past it ourselves.
Anyway, most fancy-ish cables look the same these days with black or grey nylon mesh... makes it hard to tell what they are other than the heat shrink tubing.
Therefore the cables that get kept are going to be the ones which stand out visually, there's some consumer-emotional attachment to them because it's not assumed they are replacable like tires or any other consumable.
I know where you're coming from. However, I simply don't view hi-fi equipment, or especially cables, in that way. There is no emotional attachment to it in that sense. It's just simply 'stuff' that does a job. My emotional attachment is with the music reproduced and my physical collection, especially all my records.
The only exception to that is probably my Copper valve amp, as it was hand-built from scratch (as a one-off) by someone who has now become a very good friend, but other than that, I have no 'feelings', as such, for any of my gear.
Marco.
P.S The only Yannis cable I've ever bought (and still use) is his superb tonearm cable, which has outperformed ones costing in their thousands, from so-called prestigious 'high-end' manufacturers.
Many professional audio cables (by professional I mean those used in broadcast and recording environments) are available in a range of colours. This is, I presume, so a particular cable can be distinguished from its companions in the tangle of cables snaking over the floor, or at the cable plug-patch panel.
I'm not interested in brightly coloured cable in my system - I fact I have arranged matters so that they are almost completely hidden from view. I certainly am not interested in the many so-called audiophile cables with stupid names, designed to impress the uninitiated printed along their length and often covered in woven nylon mesh steeving.
I make most of my own interconnects using no-nonsense cable used in the professional audio industry (Gotham, Proel, Klotz, Van Damme) or computer industry (Belden and Hubert & Suhner). And of those, the only cables having anything other than dark grey or black coloured insulation are Neumann and Van Damme cable, and the yellow clad Trompeter triaxial cable metioned by Marco.
walpurgis
24-01-2016, 21:27
I don't choose any items of equipment including cables for their appearance. If they look good, that's OK, but the sound is all I really care about. Fortunately, I rather like the understated looks of my system.
Speaker cable I made up recently is the best I've used. Not silly cheap but worth doing right. I did finish it in an outer sheath as it needed finishing
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160124/b402a2b2558bad9b69a053ff264a72b2.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160124/1b7162592a5df82d46a57542cf178f53.jpg
I don't choose any items of equipment including cables for their appearance.
Me neither; it's simply a tool to do a job. If equipment happens to look good too, then that's a bonus! Cables I care not a jot about how they look, although I'd probably be disinclined to buy stuff that was covered in gaudy colours. Give me the 'sober studio look' any day!
The only exception, in terms of the appearance thing, might be speakers, as generally being made of wood, they tend also to act as pieces of furniture. Having said that, my Lockies are no 'lookers' - big old 1960s wardrobes, but they're 'retro' and look rather 'purposeful', and I kinda dig that! ;)
Marco.
Audio Advent
24-01-2016, 23:38
Many professional audio cables (by professional I mean those used in broadcast and recording environments) are available in a range of colours. This is, I presume, so a particular cable can be distinguished from its companions in the tangle of cables snaking over the floor, or at the cable plug-patch panel.
I wish people would take advantage of that though! They never do... always a mass of black cables to untangle. It's been beneficial on a couple of occasions though because installers on an exhibition stand (for example) can't be bothered to untangle some cables so just leave them behind as rubbish. Have picked up a few good, long balanced cables that way.
Audio Advent
25-01-2016, 00:45
I don't choose any items of equipment including cables for their appearance. If they look good, that's OK, but the sound is all I really care about. Fortunately, I rather like the understated looks of my system.
Personally I don't get to find out what they sound like until I've already purchased them and got them home! And interconnects of mine are always hidden behind the gear so once they're plugged in they're forgotten, bling or no bling.
As an ebay buyer of secondhand items I use the photo to quickly trawl through things on there.. it's the photo which catches my eye first. So the very first thing I judge by is looks: decent plugs and some effort in putting them together in an aesthetically pleasing way. The minimum is the standard nylon mesh and heatshrink, the method used by many established sellers as well as one-man-band cable makers. By the time they become secondhand, the name of the maker may be forgotten and the wire used unknown, but go by the attention to detail on their construction for something under £30 and you're often on to a bargain and a no-brainer if the plugs are KLE or Eichman (IMO).
Haha - if cables for sale are fitted with Eichmann plugs then it's a no-brainer for me to dismiss them. RCA phono connectors are a lousy design and the 'bullet plug' development, IMO, makes them worse. :sofa:
Knowing you, "worse" will mean in terms of how YOU consider plugs should be designed - and nothing to do whatsoever with how effectively they might preserve the integrity of the audio signal (i.e. how they 'sound', or rather don't), and IME, Eichmanns do that better than most :)
At the end of the day, with plugs, all that should matter in audio applications, is the latter, not the former, since the goal is to reproduce recorded music as believably as possible, not win an engineering award! :eyebrows:
However, I'm with you in that RCA plugs are a 'less than ideal' design, but unfortunately it's what most of us are left with. And if you were to use something that was 'electrically superior', or more elegant in an engineering sense, it's not guaranteed to 'sound' any better, so what's the point, other than achieving the satisfaction of appeasing one's objective sensibilities? ;)
Marco.
I knew my comments would be provocative, hence the 'sofa' emoticon.
I'll see your bullet plugs and raise you Neutrik 'Profi's. :D
Lol.... I've used them before (as you know), and sonically, I prefer the Eichmanns. Quite simply, I dislike plugs that use brass conductors, as I can hear the sonic degradation that they cause, so I'll only use ones with either solid-copper or solid-silver ones.
S'ok, I know exactly where you're coming from, Barry. However, for me, it's ALL about the sound - nothing else really matters :)
Marco.
awkwardbydesign
25-01-2016, 16:29
You people are so boooooring! This is what cables should look like. Apart from the lousy job I made of the heatshrink. :o
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161228_zpsstbwg1nz.jpg
Get to your local boat chandlery, buy some bright mooring rope, strip out the centre, and cover your drab cables.
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161444_zps0x0bffgx.jpg
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161455_zpsljbaewro.jpg
:D
anthonyTD
25-01-2016, 17:56
Nice! :D
You people are so boooooring! This is what cables should look like. Apart from the lousy job I made of the heatshrink. :o
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161228_zpsstbwg1nz.jpg
Get to your local boat chandlery, buy some bright mooring rope, strip out the centre, and cover your drab cables.
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161444_zps0x0bffgx.jpg
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161455_zpsljbaewro.jpg
:D
Do they come with matching jumpers? :eyebrows:
Marco.
Firebottle
25-01-2016, 18:16
Looks like something I'd find in the grass in France, particularly the first one.
Like the alternative thinking for coverings though :clap:
awkwardbydesign
25-01-2016, 18:58
I'm off to town tomorrow, and I'll buy another 2 metres of the green. To cover my boring Klotz MC5000 cables.
BTW, my speakers aren't bi-wireable, so they don't need jumpers. :rolleyes:
Audio Advent
26-01-2016, 17:29
You people are so boooooring! This is what cables should look like. Apart from the lousy job I made of the heatshrink. :o
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161228_zpsstbwg1nz.jpg
Get to your local boat chandlery, buy some bright mooring rope, strip out the centre, and cover your drab cables.
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161444_zps0x0bffgx.jpg
http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m604/awkwardbydesign/Mobile%20Uploads/20160125_161455_zpsljbaewro.jpg
:D
Very nice! I quite like them. I hope they use man-made fibres else you could get moth or other creatures in your cables!
Audio Advent
26-01-2016, 17:41
Haha - if cables for sale are fitted with Eichmann plugs then it's a no-brainer for me to dismiss them. RCA phono connectors are a lousy design and the 'bullet plug' development, IMO, makes them worse. :sofa:
So ... if a cable easily sellable for £1000/m secondhand was for sale for £30, you'd dismiss it if it had Eichman/KLE plugs on?
I know some people don't have money on their minds - and that is a good thing I guess - but reality says to me that it would be financially foolish to dismiss purchasing such a cable.
By having KLE/Eichman plugs on, it means that no matter how the cable sounds, it can pretty much be sold on for no loss, the plugs themselves being enough of a pull for buyers. When you're unable to try before you buy in your own system, each mistake not costing you a packet each time is vital. Therefore, financially it's a no-brainer. Replace Eichmans with Profigolds and you increase the chances of the cable not selling multi-fold..
If the cable turns out to sound good and you're going to keep them THEN you could put profigolds on instead and sell the Eichmanns on for almost the price paid for the cable.
Arkless Electronics
26-01-2016, 17:48
Give it a try. Cables don't have to be big and hefty to sound good. I have many thick fancy speaker cables, but the best sounding are some skinny Transparent Audio items that look like mower lead.
On the contrary.... it's all that matters! Thin cables can affect the sound if too thin. Remember those DNM ones that were really thin single strand? A mate bought some and I measured its loop resistance as 1 Ohm for a run of about 4 metres! That means a maximum damping factor of 8 or 4 depending if you have 8 or 4 Ohm speakers.... You can imagine what it would do to frequency response when used with a bit of a difficult speaker! All that inaccuracy and "SET effect" may be liked by some but accurate it ain't.
By having KLE/Eichman plugs on, it means that no matter how the cable sounds, it can pretty much be sold on for no loss, the plugs themselves being enough of a pull for buyers. When you're unable to try before you buy in your own system, each mistake not costing you a packet each time is vital. Therefore, financially it's a no-brainer. Replace Eichmans with Profigolds and you increase the chances of the cable not selling multi-fold..
That's a rather novel (and valid) way of looking at it :)
If the cable turns out to sound good and you're going to keep them THEN you could put profigolds on instead and sell the Eichmanns on for almost the price paid for the cable.
Now, you see, I wouldn't do that, as in my experience, the latter (Eichmanns) are sonically superior, so I'd want to retain the use of the best ('sounding') plugs, and sell the inferior ones! ;)
Marco.
awkwardbydesign
26-01-2016, 19:38
Very nice! I quite like them. I hope they use man-made fibres else you could get moth or other creatures in your cables!
Polypropylene, I think. And I didn't go and buy any more today cos it was cold and raining. I'm nesh, me.
Audio Advent
26-01-2016, 23:03
That's a rather novel (and valid) way of looking at it :)
Now, you see, I wouldn't do that, as in my experience, the latter (Eichmanns) are sonically superior, so I'd want to retain the use of the best ('sounding') plugs, and sell the inferior ones! ;)
Marco.
It's what hifi on a budget it all about. Well ok, I'm not really on a tight budget as such and sometimes spend too much but I still try to make sure the asset value down the line is at least the same as what I bought it for... Just say NO to depreciation!
Neutric ProFi are not a bad idea to be honest - I like their sensible sprung earth collar idea, connecting earth first and last when plugging them in and out. Apparently, technically, doing so with a regular phono could damage some equipment by creating a voltage somewhere innadvertanly (someone technical, perhaps John Westlake? said so on a forum once..).
But in terms of feel in use and feel of quality, black Eichmans or KLEs are great (the original blues appear to use a softer plastic and aren't so nice).
I'm not into "the sound of plugs" ... I've bigger degrees of sonic change to spend my time on I'm sure!
It's what hifi on a budget it all about. Well ok, I'm not really on a tight budget as such and sometimes spend too much but I still try to make sure the asset value down the line is at least the same as what I bought it for... Just say NO to depreciation!
Lol... I get that, but I prefer to operate along the lines of trying to get it right in the first place, then you won't need to sell it on, and thus worry about depreciation! ;)
For me, the equipment will always simply be a means to an end; the end being to enjoy music, not arse around with the gear. It's probably why the key components in my system have remained virtually unchanged for years... A' box-swapper' I am not. These days, I tend to just tinker with the 'infrastructure'.
I'm not into "the sound of plugs" ... I've bigger degrees of sonic change to spend my time on I'm sure!
Absolutely, but for me (at the stage my system's at now), it's all 'icing on the cake', and so cumulatively, all the 'subtle little improvements', such as those obtained from the use of certain types of plugs, all add up! :)
It's interesting to note that some friends, who are into music/hi-fi and know my system well, but live far away, and so only visit around once or twice a year, completely unprompted, generally always comment about how the system has improved (often significantly) since their last visit - yet all the 'boxes' and speakers remain unchanged.....
Getting, what I call your 'system infrastructure' right (stands, mains, cables, etc), outside of course of using inherently good gear in the first place, is where the real magic lies. In my experience, it can often mean the difference between having merely a good system, and a great one.
Marco.
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