Your speaker cable recommendations, please.

Two excellent choices are the Townshend Isolda DCT as has been mentioned before. For speaker cable, you'd be hard pressed to beat QED Genesis Silver Spiral for the money they go for on the used market. My primary cables are Transparent MusicWave / Musiclink Ultra speaker cable and interconnects. If you can find the Genesis Silver spiral second hand it is a good value - it will deliver excellent performance for the money. The Kimber is nice also.

 

As I mentioned before - try Kimber (I know... I know.....) As Shrink said 8TC is fab but I'd give 4 TC a go - if you want more bass go for 8TC but I feel 4TC sells a lot for a good reason.......

 

agree totally and if you need to use a cable to EQ the system then there's something wrong with the system.

btw I use Towsnhend Isolda and it sounds detailed but neutral. I am also the last person on the planet who still likes the Nordost sound.

 

I've just ordered Anti-cables ( google it ) from the US - on recomendation of a guy who replaced Chord Signature with them and the tonnes of positive feedback / good reviews out of the US. The system I heard them in sounded great, not that there was an opportunity for comparison. 10 bucks a foot pair terminated with spades. Worth a crack.

 

i am surprised you like both, as the isolda is definitely not neutral. Its a cable i love a great deal, but its definately on the warmer and darker side of things. the treble is a touch muted and the bass is very strong. Great sounding, but neutral it aint. nordost is almost the exact opposite. Tipped up high's, crisp midband and on the lower end products, quite lean bass.

Even on the top end nordost, i would never describe the bass as "muscular"

so its odd to find you enjoy both, when sonically they are almost at complete opposites.

 

Well, I went ahead and ordered some solid-core speaker cable from Origin Live. Only £6.60 per metre and you can send it back for a refund if you don't like it.

This stuff is, frankly, a complete b*stard to fit. It's as thick as hosepipe, heavy as lead, and about as flexible as a frozen snake. Fitting the bare ends onto the teeny tiny terminals on the back of my speakers (2 out of 10, Mr Klipsch - see me) was a nightmare. It took the best part of an hour and a lot of swearing to get the damn things connected.

It was, however, worth it - Messrs Zanash and Colin2040, please take a bow. Solid-core is indeed the way to go. Compared to my old cable, I'm now getting more clarity and better soundstaging. It's not a huge 'night and day my god I've had a religious experience' kind of difference but it's certainly there and it's all good. Best of all, though, the BOOM has gone. Bass now sounds full and controlled and defined with none of that 78 stone wobble I was getting.

My best (admittedly ignorant) guess is that the old Chord Flatline stuff was simply not well balanced, with a decided bias towards the bass. Anyway, I am now a very happy bunny :JPS:.

BTW, re comments on speaker/room interaction causing boom, I heard this the other night on a mates setup. He'd moved his speakers to accomodate new furniture and turned a lovely sound into a big boomy disjointed mess. Fiddling with different cables did nothing at all to alter this, but fiddling with speaker placement and stuffing the ports with socks sorted it out a treat.

So, thank you to everyone who posted, and in particular to those who pointed me at solid-core cable and speaker placement. It's another winner from the gentlemen of ZG

 

nice one - you got a link..?

cheers

edit - found it...
http://www.interconnect-cables.com/solicore-cable.htm

you got any pics..?

 

I've sold all my Van Den Hul & Chord interconnects and speaker cables and am using these guys in the USA now.
http://www.ultimatecables.com

I've been running them in for about a month now and they just keep getting better !
Build quality is excellent , the speaker cables are about 18mm thick and beautifully finished too!
Shipped from Canada, loads of great French Canadian newspaper used for packing, fun reading if you speak good French !
Not expensive either.

 

Careful, careful, you're not allowed to say that thesed days

.....sorry, only kidding.

 

No pics, I'm afraid. I could try, but given my very ropey camera skills and the short gap between the wall and the rear of the speakers, I'm not sure it would be worth looking at. Might have a go tonight, though, if I can stay sober long enough - they've got Oakham's Inferno on in my local. Mmm.....

 

Glad you like the Origin Live I did say it was a bit of a b****rd to fit ,trust me I had fun with it as well.Bit like wrestling a python.
But well worthwhile.

 

ok - no probs..! can you describe what it looks like tho - does it have a coating etc? will it be ok if it's next to other cables like popwer cables etc?
how thick is it..?

cheers!

 

It's 1 inch thick, give or take a tad. The sheath is thick black plastic. Inside that, there's four solid-core copper wires, two lengths of very thin multi-stranded wire coated in crimson enamel (mm, nice), and a bunch of white packing material. The thin enamelled wires aren't meant to be connected - I don't know what their purpose is and the instruction sheet just says don't connect 'em, so I didn't. The cable is supplied unterminated - OL don't do terminations to keep the cost down. Fair enough, seeing as you're probably better off with bare wire - less gubbins in the signal path, and all that.

TBH, in appearence it's a cable only it's mother could love, but it sings sweetly and deeply .

I've got it running past several power cables and it isn't a problem.

 

Nice one .....

I suspect the thin cores alter the inductance ....?

I had the two core version many years ago ....that was mr piggy to fit

swiped a couple of ornaments off th mantlepiece and percied a tweeter [not all on the same day !]. It also broke the sprung terminals on the amp I had ....

by some accounts the company mentioned has made cables that seems to be similar to some off the shelf silver plated ptfe hook up wire......having been down that blind alley I can well understand the bloated flabby and toppy sound that silver plated multi strand can make.