Speaker Cable - How good is this?

FRom MAPLIN via news email

Air Bass Flex 1.5mm²
Bi-Wire Speaker Cable


• 4-core high performance cable -ideal for
bi-wiring speakers to transport the mid/high and low frequencies in separate pairs
• Solid core conductor produces outstanding bass response
• Silver-plated OFC conductors deliver increased sense of clarity and tightest bass
Code: N92CK

now £0.99
Save £9 was £9.99

 

Well, I don't know how good it is, but at £0.99 what have you to lose by trying it?

 

for the price ....it will work ...

I could not find the n92ck..but I did find the n90ck .... it did not appear to be silver plated. Which is good ....if you want an aggressively bright sound go for silver plated copper.

I would suggest you try 15 - 20 amp twin and earth as this will give you a solid core cable rather than the 150 plus strands of copper. In my system multi strand copper can be heard to blur the fine detail ..almost as if each strand is carrying the signal and the don't quite match up at the speaker end ...this can't be true but its what it sounds like.

 

I agree there seems to be a benefit in moving away from multi-strand. A cheap, and to my ears, very effective solution are the speaker cables based on Cat5 cable for computer networks. This base cable gives many you individually insulated thin strands. Depending how you terminate them, you can also get the noise rejection of twisted pairs, but the capacitance can upset some amps. Plenty of discussion on the TNT audio website.

 

give it a try!

I went from solid core Goertz (like Isolda) to a multi-strand studio cable, and it suits me just fine.

The sound is similar enough that I don't care much for the subject.

Sounded plenty good enough on my last few pairs of speakers at any rate.

I'm of the conclusion now, that the best speaker cables are a really long set that let you put your rack and speakers where you want them.

 

Really long cables - good idea, also endorsed by Ray Kimber ;-)

 

cat5 is pretty good, ffrc is not bad taking it a step further ...

but long interconnects are better than long speaker cables...if you can ...if not you do your best with what you have.

 

HMMM, MY OLD VDH D-352 DOES NOT SOUND AGRESSIVE OR BRIGHT NOR DO I FIND THIS WITH CHORD ! SORRY BUT IS THIS MORE INTERNET SHITE, OR JUST PERSONAL OPINION ?

I also think Cat 5 and Twin and earth makes poor speaker cable, to my ears, which are normal and on each side of my head, not on my chin or left elbow........

 

thats fine .....in your opinion

I only post if I have hands on experience .....so

I've built ffrc....I have used a variety of silverplated copper [sh*te] mascarading as aerospace technology, I have built better cables than all these mentioned....

I never said twin and earth would make the best speaker cable ever ....but set against its cost the performance is far better than your richer/maplin budget multi strand .....

I have several m's of gale xl315, qed silver anniversary,plus some so call "aerospace" teflon silverplated that I use to show what poor speaker cables sounds like in comparison with others.

Of course the comments are my own personal taste and opinion as are yours, who elses would they be ? ... but I think you will find that there are a significant number of people who hold the same view.

Bare in mind the d-352 is not and never was a budget cable and was about 5 times the cost/m than cat5 or twin and earth ...so I would be very surprised indeed if it was not better than the cables mentioned.....so I'm not exactly certain why you bothered to posted as it seems to me to offer no positive contribution to the thread.

 

Coaxial cable

dreftar, if you're running ELSs, shouldn't you be using stranded, low inductance coaxial speaker cable, like Mogami W3082?

 

Sorry Zanash, I should have added a smiley or a wink.

Your initial post just seemed to generalise all Silver plated as rubbish, Hence my tounge in cheek response in capitals. On a serious note though to generalise something as such does usualy lead to some sort of responce, hence the positive contribution is that I pointed out the generalisation may be wrong, or based on personal opinion and taste, the very backbone of equipment choice.

A for sudgesting Twin and earth or Cat 5 cable is the best ever, I didn't sudgest anything about it being best or whatever, I just pointed out what I thought of it in my system.

My own view of the VDH D-352 is that its a competent performer but system dependent, I still find with certain ancillaries I prefer Naim Nac 5. And at the moment I am again using Nac 5 in the sitting room and Atlas in the second system (due more to kids curiosity than anything to do with what I care or think better of).

I didn't think much of Gale speaker cable either, and this has been relagated to a system at my work, along with some RS catalogue unjacketed mains and earth steel wire off reels. (IE not copper, I think its steel, but never bothered looking)
I have relageted more than a few hundred ft of Cat 5 back onto its drums and into storage in the loft (I have thought about giving this another go), along with DNM, old Exposure ? (black figure 8 popular years ago), Chord Signature, Chord Oddyssey (jacket and install) Chord Rumour, Cable Talk 3.1, Naim Nac 4, Naim Nac 5, Atlas, Van Den Hul, Vanne Damme, Mains Flex, QED 79 strand etc etc. I have tried a few brands and types of speaker cable and interconnect, and made some up with what components and cable are available from the catalogues, though never actualy produced or built my own copper or silver strands, nor plated copper or wove a coax sheild around a central core and sleeved them with dieletric though.

As you said though your sudgestions are worth a try, and at the end of the day, what choices are there for 99p per metre ?

Of course I highly recommend the DIY aproach, plenty of cable and plug choices and the choice of crimping or solder, it can save money and it is fun to make up your own cables, of course how they will sound will depend as much on the system, speakers and amplifier as skill at constuction, terminating stripping and soldering.

Of course some amps may not be happy with large amounts of wire woven into say a 5m pair, and some speakers may respond better to solid core than multi strand ?

 

At the moment Im using CAT5 - what is Mogami W3082 and where can I get it. My amps are all of 50cm from the speakers so I'm not sure how relevant speaker cable in this set up is.

My original posting was just to draw attention to the price and a ? re quality.

Thanks for your posting and Id like to check out Mogami W3082

 

In my experience ...if you like what the cat5 is doing ....you may not like mogami . With such a short length of speaker cable you could easily build a link from say 8mm micro bore copper heating pipe. You would need to squash and cut the ends to make spades to fit the amp and speaker connection ..then insulate the pipe with heat shrink. The ammount of conducting material will be many times even the very thickest gauge cable. I have the 8mm tube but I found it very difficult to do my 3m runs....so if you want a couple of m of 8mm pipe I can post it on.

Why would you want to use coax as a speaker cable ?
you have an ac signal why treat the positive and negative parts differently ?
Rfi/emi will not be shielded as your not screening both conductors . To me it appears it will just injected into the negative side of the amp and speaker [if rfi/emi actually have any effect at audio freq's]

 

You can get it online at any pro audio Mogami stockist:
http://www.performanceaudio.com/cgi/product_view.cgi?products_id=5636

Because it features extremely-low inductance, which is a prerequisite for ESLs: http://sound.westhost.com/cablewhitepaper.htm
It's good with regular speakers too, because high frequencies migrate to the outside perimeter of the cable, improving upper harmonic response (corona effect?) - so, no HF rolloff like a lot of speaker cables. LF response is excellent too.

 

I second the choice of professional studio quality studio speaker cable.

Made, measured, tested for electrical characteristics, longevity and quality for studios.

I use something just like the above.

 

As always different cables will complement different systems...

If you want to use thick multistranded thats ok ...but do try solid core type cables to get a feel of what else is out there ....but I'd advise against the use of silverplated copper ...but hey what do I know !

 

are you suggesting that silver plated cables make music unlistenable ?

whats wrong with this type of cable ?

what is technically wrong with silver plated cables ?

cheers.

darryl.

 

A little bit of history.

before they started using teflon co-extruded over the wire, there was no silver plated copper. it virtually didn't exist. the main reason they use it is because copper reacts with the hot teflon during the co-extrusion and silver doesn't. and now low and behold it's the low price wire to have for sonic reasons, what a marketing coincidence.

 

why does it sound bad with music playing thru it then ?

i thought teflon is supposed to be a superior dielectric ?

can someone explain in detail please.

 

Silver plated copper wire should in theory give you the benefits of both metals but mostly you end up with the worst traits of both and it sounds let's say "unsophisticated".

Whenever you have two different metals in contact with each other they need effectively to be fused otherwise a form of bimetallic electrolysis sets in and the two metals react with each other. In some instances an interplating layer is used to prevent that, which makes the sound even worse. Dielectric material too plays a major part in the final sound characteristics.

A good well made silver plated copper cable sounds absolutely fine, but it doesn't come cheaply as far as I'm aware. A badly made silver plated copper cable will savage your ears in no time and you would be much better off with a plain copper cable in that instance.