Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone can tell me if upgrading to a more expesive speaker cable will actually make a difference in sound. Does the cheap home depot speaker wire and the High end stuff actually differ in sound quality? Did anyone try out bettercables.com speaker cables? I'm reading alot of good reviews on them saying they make a huge difference, such as better bass, wider soundstage, etc. Has anyone here used these cables with their outlaw? Do people think more expensive speaker cables actually sound better because they just don't want to admit to themselves that they spent couple of hundreds of dollars on some piece of wire and think they are actually hearing a difference?? I would really appreciate it if someone could clear this up for me. THANKS!

This is a hotly-debated topic. Very hotly debated. There is no definitive answer to it, and you will hear a wide variety of opinions -- so much so that I am always slightly hesitant to re-open the pandora's box of the discussion.

Yes, I have heard cables that improve speaker sound. I have used BetterCables speaker cables, and find them to be pretty good. They are a little expensive, but not unreasonably so -- and they also have a 6-month return policy if you decide they aren't worth your money.

Here's my experience, for what it's worth: I currently use TMC speaker cables to bi-wire my center and to bi-wire my mains along with a pair of Transparent MusicWave Super cables (TMC on high, Transparent on low). When I got my Paradigm Reference speakers almost a year ago, I bi-wired the Studio 60's and Studio CC with Home Depot 12ga wire. My father-in-law gave my wife a pair of older Transparent MusicWave Supers, which I used in place of the Home Depot wire for the Studio 60's. Now, those are very expensive cables (when you have cables that could potentially cost more than the speakers they are connected to, things may be getting a little out of line...), but they didn't cost me anything, which means there's no need to justify the purchase to myself. The difference was amazing, impossible to miss. I wasn't able to bi-wire the Studio 60's until I got the TMC Gold Label speaker cable, because I can't afford a second set of Transparents and nothing else I tried (some older, very large Monster Cable and the BetterCables speaker cables) could keep up -- it sounded absolutely comical.

I do agree with many people who say that a lot of the "high-end" cable market is obscenely overpriced, but my experience tells me that good speaker cables can make a difference in what you hear.

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Gonk

I'm using regular 16 gauge copper wire from Best Buy. $20 for 100 feet. Maybe I've got a tin ear, but it sounds great with my 1050. My cable runs aren't that long, though; my three fronts are only about 6' each.

I'll probably upgrade it to 14 or 12 gauge when I get a 770. At the time, though my 1050 was sitting in my living room and the thickest stuff I could find was the 16 gauge, and I didn't want to go store-hopping before I'd even powered up the 1050.

I think that cables, be they interconnects or speaker, make a difference. Ive test listened to equipment that sounded different when the cable was changed.

A little theroy to bore you all. In every cable that runs next to another cable or over another cable there is a capacitive charge and an inductive charge. These create noise and signal loss. One of the easiest ways to limit the noise is to have a cable that is twisted. This is much easier done at a wire factory than at home!

The reason a larger wire is better is to limit the amount of voltage drop going to the device. It also allows a higher current rating for the wire. A larger wire disapates heat better. This is more a concern in electrical supply concerns. Hope this helps out a bit.

How about allot of theory;
http://sound.westhost.com/cables.htm
You might justify the cost of expensive cables if your speakers cost as much as a new BMW, if not then put the cash into speaker. Speakers are the only part of the system that make a sound. If you can hear a difference from speaker cables then you've changed the frequency response of the system. If you like the change then that's great. I prefer to let the speakers "color" the sound of my system not the electronics. Some people like the sound of tubes with their 1-3% distortion but that's not accurate reproduction which is my goal.
As Gonk wrote, it is a controversial subject. You cannot measure the differences in cable in most cases.
Only esoteric cable manufacture that actually publish specs is Kimble Kable. The 4pr is as cheap as Monster cable. The specs are available online. Audioquest has a convincing line of BS but no specs, wonder why? You might consider the Canare star twist, very inexpensive. Twisting your own wire is easy and will get you within 99.99% of those expensive wires. Braiding is better but more difficult. Both methods reduce inductance at the expense of increased capacitance.
The Outlaw interconnects look very good and are reasonably priced.

At least from a mechanical viewpoint I kinda like the idea of locking gizmos. Pretty nifty.

I'm a skeptic when it comes to improving fidelity via speaker wires - altering the sound, sure, I buy that.

My choice - Carol plenum wire. 500 foot spool.

www.partsexpress.com


Charlie

Try this for fun.
Total layperson adding to Gonks great reply.
Complained to husband what a HUGH muck the wire decision was and mentioned the funny Blind test results occasionlly posted on web which fooled experts.
Bored one night, to see if all hype or no. In a unscientific kind of Mutt & Jeff way, we grabbed every bit of misc. wire we had on hand including zip, straight coax, wire off misc. Speaker systems around, etc. Took turns changing wires 2 speakers without the other seeing.
. Mind we were not comparing quality wire scraps of possible buys, -just wire in general, can it effect.
Definite difference to us.
Convinced me enough I went with basic decent/respected Kimber Kable 4VS & 8VS.
If you look to buy either Kimber or Silver Sonic wire go to www.welbornelabs.com out of CO. Complete line of both products. The bulk (non-terminated) price is very good, I could have puchased 4TC/8TC (more expensive) for effectively the same price I paid in town for the VS after factoring bulk order discount/no tax etc. Live and Learn.