Oh no, not speaker cables again...

No - I was considering buying after hearing about them on this forum - I borrowed a pair from my brother who had purchased but was going to sell after a couple of months (no complaints about the anti's , he just wanted to change) and found the sound similar - tbh i couldn't tell the difference - to the reson cable. I was interested to compare as they are both solid core.

 

Anti-cables look good, solid core copper works well for speakers IME. It is neat, stays where you put it and doesn't alter the sound.

You can get the same type of stuff to that used in Anti-Cables from RS components. It is enamelled solid-core copper wire (AKA 'Magnet wire' or 'Transformer winding wire')

www.rswww.com
RS Stock number - 357-930

About £15 for 30m all in. You will need some banana plugs for the amp end since you have Cyrus but if you scratch off the insulation on the speaker end of the wire you can just pop it in the binding posts.

 

I have just ordered a roll of that RS stuff. I intend on trying it in bi-wire configuration, so to try and keep thing tidy I was going to twist four runs together or should each length be kept away from each other.

 

Do also consider some studio cable. There are lots of makes - starquad, canare, mogami etc.

If it's good enough for a mastering studio...

 

Good advice from Tenson .....

Solid core is a must ....imo

 

I've been through quite a few sets of speaker cables in my time and differences between them were miniscule or subtle between most of the copper variants.

Silver plated copper just sounds uncouth and brash to me.

It's not until you hear what pure silver speaker cables can do that it starts to get exciting. So you try a couple and you get pretty similar results between the silver wires as you did with the copper, albeit at a higher level of performance. Everything's rosy in the garden until your mate comes over with some cable that "you really should listen to". He thrusts into your hands this roll of grey coloured nondescript wire with a set of plugs on and beats a hasty retreat saying "too busy now, gotta dash". B'stard.

Plugged it in, switched on the system and listened. Naysayers, hoot with all the derision you can muster my friends because you haven't a clue what you are talking about when saying "all wires sound the same". Utter bollecks. The cable I heard was an Audio Note (Japan) QSSC silver speaker cable which was at the bottom of the original AN silver range. It changed the character of my system, not by a tiddly little crane your neck play the same track 3 times to make sure sort of difference but the sort of transformation a jump from a £50 CD player to a £5,000 CD player would make. This cable has provided the single biggest improvement I've heard from any one cable type on it's own. I bought a set of the AN (UK) ones and to me they sound better. If that's what the bottom of the range cable can do, I can't image the results from the very top of the range. Cost? Don't ask

 

I personally wouldn't use twin and earth on your system. I use it on my old plasma screen to the smallest speakers I could find at short lenths, only because I didn't want to chop up any pre made cable just so the kids could watch Cbebies.

I have had untold exotic cables from purist audio dominus @£15K down to DNM.

I personally didn't like the over the top purist audio. My recomendation for Audio Phyics at the price you are asking is Silver Arrow intro. I used Silver Arrow at the April Hifi show and I think I had a good sound. ( I don't want to appear over confident as there is always someone ready to shoot you down)

But the best advice I can give is to borrow as many cables as you can get and try them. perhaps set up a bakeoff on cables.

 

You've got to pick your way through the advice ....but the common factor appears to be ....theres no simple easy fix ...you have to get different cables into your system and listen....

I'm hearing the same things as effem ....so I'd personally avoid any silver plated copper....

try twin and earth ...its cheap and not going to dent the bank balance... the 20 amp stuffs a pig to work with but sounds better than 15 amp ....What you get for your trouble is a cable that has a slight rosey tint that is fairly even handed across the freq spectrum [as much as copper can] If your using thick multistrand and switch to solid core you should losse the bloated upper bass but gain a little in the lower freqs. What you will hear is a clarity to the sound almost as if the multistrand is causing a slight distortion.. this can be heard on vocals mainly but I've no doubt its across the whole performance.

Switch to solid core silver and your then starting to get a sound where the cables appear to allow your precious music signal through with minimal interference....the downsidfe is of course the cost.

As I said don't get temped by silver plaited copper on the thought you get the best of both ..... you don't you get the worst of each .... this is relatively easily demonstrated for those that are not convinced.

 

£450 ? - I'd spend a lot less than this on Gotham 4mm cables - available on eBay - just search on 'Gotham'. I think the seller will quote for any length. Single core 4mm copper. Smooth, open, detailed but not harsh.

I'm mainly into classical music, including harpsichord, and this stuff works a treat for me.

 

Another vote for solid silver. Certainly the most musical I’ve tried – seems to remove a layer of ‘hifi’. You get the best results though with silver interconnects and speaker cable – what I think is called a “consistent wiring loom”. And these days you don't have to pay megabucks...

Hey JANDL100 Bruckner and Shostakovich – great stuff. I love the Bruckner 6th – probably the least played, but tremendously exciting – and the Shostakovich 8th totally compelling and again tremendously exciting!

 

There's a DIY recipe for speaker cables and ICs half way down this page:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/zigmahornet/zigmahornet.html

not tried but it looks very easy.

I made a set of the Venhaus CAT5 speaker cables (took weeks) and they are very good - fantastic mid-range and good image depth. Also got suprisingly good results using just 2 runs of the CAT5 - not twisted or anything - just one CAT5 cable for + and one for -.

I'm in the the solid silver (ribbon) camp - great focus.

Don't Nordost use silver plated copper? (I've only heard at shows...)