B&Q sell speaker cable to Quad

AT THE UK's annual hi-fi show, held recently in two hotels at London's Heathrow airport, several exhibitors were selling exotic cables to connect amplifiers to loudspeakers. The price of these cables was staggering. A 6-metre length of oxygen-free copper could cost as much as £30,000 - and no, those four zeros are not a misprint.

We cannot comment on whether these cables really do make music sound better, because none of the exhibitors offered a controlled blind test - switching the same music between cheap and expensive cables without the listener knowing which was which.

But now that the show is over, we can reveal a secret.

One of the most popular demonstrations at the show was staged by British company Quad, to mark 50 years of making its world-famous hi-fi equipment. Recording engineer Tony Faulkner demonstrated Quad's latest loudspeakers. He explained how he used them to monitor the sound while making a recording of Saint-Saëns's complete works for piano and orchestra, which recently won the coveted Record of the Year award from Gramophone magazine.

As hi-fi buffs enthused over the sound, we spotted that the speakers were connected by some orange wires that looked strangely familiar.

"Yes, they would look familiar if you have a garden", Faulkner told us. "Before the show opened we went over the road to the DIY superstore and bought one of those £20 extension leads that Black & Decker sells for electric hedge-cutters. They are made from good, thick copper wire, look nice and sound good to me. The show's been running for three days and no one in the audience has noticed".


link

 

LOL

I think you'll find that the B&Q extensions were for the 240vac power which each speaker requires, not for the connection between the amp and the speakers...

Yet another case of a journalist misrepresenting the facts to create an interesting story.

reg

 

They were probably using 79 strand speaker cable from Maplin @ 69p / m

 

birkett,

that is absolutely the best avatar I have ever seen! good work fella.

 

Are you sure?
Power cable will also make good speaker cable. In fact power cable makes quite a lot of speaker cable
Either way it is, of course, quite revealing in a non-audiophile way.
Could always ask TF himself I suppose.

 

The speaker cable I took along to Dino bake of was Power cable , cheapo 79p@m stuff, I know a few guys who use 30amp consumer cable as speaker cable, Nice bass though

 

mention no names eh Tone

Im very proud of my 2.5T&E

if you stick heatshrink on it, it even looks like expensive cable

 

I have a m8 who has a largish recording studio and they have always used 30amp consumer cable as speaker cable. Swears by it!!

 

i find it gives quite a compressed stage, but for 30p/m what the hell

 

it's an apocryphal story that naim's naca 5 is in fact fairground lighting cable. designed to be strung around attractions and then lights spiked through the 2 conductors. it's certainly strong enough. but who cares when it sounds as good as it sounds and is damn cheap.
cheers


julian

 

No, because I wasn't there. But if you're going to shop for speaker cable from B&Q, why get a pre terminated extension cable rather than a length of cable off the reel.

Perhaps we should ask Quad/TF.

reg

 

My mate uses MY t&e cooker cable with my old Audiolab 8000A/Epos ES14s and it sounds pretty damn good - well, as good as a system using an Audiodrab 8000A anyway

NACA5 = fairground cable? First time I've heard that, but I'd not be surprised - sounds good to me too though!

 

Yes ......many years ago I chatted with a Quad rep at a long gone Hifi shop in Ilkeston called Listen Hear. The rep was enthusing over the latest speaker cablethey had found, guess what its the self same orange cable ...now he said it had to be the black and decker orange and no other.

I'm a Quad user, but have never stooped ? to try this.

Its one of those stranger than fiction things maybe someone else can shed somelight on to it.

 

In the Quad dem Dom and I attended last weekend, they were using Quad branded cables!! Apparently Quad use to sell their own brand of cables according to the sales guy, speaker cables and interconnects, is this true? The speakers cables connecting up the ESLs didn't look orange to me though.

Bet it sounds better than any Nait system I'm ever likely to hear!!

 

I have to admit I've done the same thing. In a real hurry to connect up a Naim system on a Sunday with no hi-fi shops open in a 20 mile radius, I went and brought 10m of bright orange thick 'mower cable, and I'll be damned if it didn't sound damned good. I've still got it in a box in the loft, I never did a back to back dem with the NACA5 that replaced it on Tuesday, but it sounded far better than it had any right to.
Simon

 

And the crowd doth cry out "do the back to back! do the back to back!"

 

NACA is indeed fairground cable, just as Naim started off as a company making fairground lights. We all have to start somewhere.

 

how much do they charge per meter then?
festoon lighting cable- £1.20/meter avalible in black or a rather nice green,or get a 10 meter length comple with 20 coloured lamps for the diy disco look