QED Silver Anniversary Speaker Cable

[O'Shag]

I've been using Monster XP cable to connect my KEF Reference 107s, 104/2s, 103.2s and Polk Audio RT5000 HT system. The Monster XP may not be state-of-the-art, but its none too shabby. I recently decided to try out the QED Silver Anniversary speaker cables, which are very highly regarded in GB.
I received the QED Silver Anniversary and initially was struck by the small gauge of the wire, no more than 16 AWG. I was a little disappointed by this and figured it can't be that good. I also noticed that the wire was far less flexible than the Monster XP so harder to manipulate. I am assuming this is because all the copper strands are coated in Silver. It took me a while to measure and cut them to 24ft lengths (pretty long) and to terminate them with the excellent monster self crimping banana plugs that make for a sound connection. Honestly, after seeing the Silver Anniversary cables when I unwrapped them, I wasn't expecting that much, and felt that I'd wasted my money.

Well, I didn't waste my money, in fact its one of the best investments I've made. I was staggered by the difference in performance. The sound was so much more than I've been used to for the past several years. The Monster XP sounded soft, heavily veiled, and far less dynamic in comparison. With the QEDs, the soundstage opened up tremendously. They were more articulate with a lot more detail and transparency, without sacrificing tonal accuracy or the exaggeration of a particular frequency. Looks can certainly be deceiving.

If you are shopping for really good speaker cables, check these out.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I've been using Monster XP cable to connect my KEF Reference 107s, 104/2s, 103.2s and Polk Audio RT5000 HT system. The Monster XP may not be state-of-the-art, but its none too shabby. I recently decided to try out the QED Silver Anniversary speaker cables, which are very highly regarded in GB.
I received the QED Silver Anniversary and initially was struck by the small gauge of the wire, no more than 16 AWG. I was a little disappointed by this and figured it can't be that good. I also noticed that the wire was far less flexible than the Monster XP so harder to manipulate. I am assuming this is because all the copper strands are coated in Silver. It took me a while to measure and cut them to 24ft lengths (pretty long) and to terminate them with the excellent monster self crimping banana plugs that make for a sound connection. Honestly, after seeing the Silver Anniversary cables when I unwrapped them, I wasn't expecting that much, and felt that I'd wasted my money.

Well, I didn't waste my money, in fact its one of the best investments I've made. I was staggered by the difference in performance. The sound was so much more than I've been used to for the past several years. The Monster XP sounded soft, heavily veiled, and far less dynamic in comparison. With the QEDs, the soundstage opened up tremendously. They were more articulate with a lot more detail and transparency, without sacrificing tonal accuracy or the exaggeration of a particular frequency. Looks can certainly be deceiving.

If you are shopping for really good speaker cables, check these out.

I am wondering if there are any technical data available for this cable, such as resistance, inductance and capacitance?
24 ft is not a very long run if this cable is indeed 16 ga.

I am still at a loss to know what paramtere in a speaker cable affects soundstage? You can do interesting effects with phase shifting, but that takes an awful lot.
Diana Deutsch has an interesting CD on this: Musical Illusions and Paradoxes; Philomel Records.
Diana is a well known researcher from UC San Diego with many published papers to her name.

 

[O'Shag]

I am certainly no technical guru, so cannot answer appropriately. What I can say from my own listening perspective, is that the Silver Anniversary cable has had a significant effect on the soundstage that I hear through my loudspeakers. I believe this is a direct result of the improved signal transfer. If you go to QEDs website, www.qed.co.uk, you will find technical specifications.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I am certainly no technical guru, so cannot answer appropriately. What I can say from my own listening perspective, is that the Silver Anniversary cable has had a significant effect on the soundstage that I hear through my loudspeakers. I believe this is a direct result of the improved signal transfer. If you go to QEDs website, www.qed.co.uk, you will find technical specifications.

Thanks for the link; I found the tech page.
I don't see anything out of the ordinary from the specs. It is a bit less than a US 14 ga wire, about 13 1/2 ga
Ind .51uh/meter and 42 pf/meter.
Electrically it will perform equivalently to a 12-14 ga zip cord.

Perceptions are another animal altogether. That is why bias controls were introduced into human perception studies a long time ago because perception can be unreliable and one doesn't know when it is reliable, especially for small change detections.
Historically speaking, this cable will be sonically equivalent to 12ga-14ga speaker cables if bias controls are implemented in the listeing session.

 

[O'Shag]

Thanks for the link; I found the tech page.
I don't see anything out of the ordinary from the specs. It is a bit less than a US 14 ga wire, about 13 1/2 ga
Ind .51uh/meter and 42 pf/meter.
Electrically it will perform equivalently to a 12-14 ga zip cord.

Perceptions are another animal altogether. That is why bias controls were introduced into human perception studies a long time ago because perception can be unreliable and one doesn't know when it is reliable, especially for small change detections.
Historically speaking, this cable will be sonically equivalent to 12ga-14ga speaker cables if bias controls are implemented in the listeing session.

'Mate',

in the context of this thread, your patronizing review of the specs from the website url I provided to you and your commentary on bias controls leads me to believe that you are either suggesting that I am a liar, or hearing/mentally challenged and unable to adequately percieve differences in sonic qualities, with the result that I am imagining things.

To be brutally frank, I find your asinine observations (which you've 'bestowed' upon me on another thread), to be a complete load of cobblers knackers.

I'm wasting my time and I really shouldn't bother responding to this, but here goes... Do you seriously believe that most every highly respected Audio publication and reviewer are perpetuating falsehood and rubbish when comparing the sonic qualities of cables and their synergies with different pieces of equipment? Have all these learned men been deluding themselves for more than 30 years or even duping the public with an elaborate hoax to line their own pockets? People such as Julian Hirch (God rest his soul), J Gordon Holt, John Atkinson, and Martin Colloms to name a very few of those who have dedicated their time and energy to the pursuit of audio excellence are not talking out their backsides, or imagining things when they review systems including cables and interconnects. Yes, there are snake oil products and marketing messages that are full of BS out there. You know this, I know this, we all know this. but that does not mean that all cables are created equal. That does not mean that when someone hears significant differences that they are BS-ing or imagining things. That does not mean we have to act like the Waffen SS at the first sign anyone notes they hear a difference in cables. Specs do not tell the whole story. You have to listen....Thats what AUDIO is all about. If you can fully and accurately judge a product's acoustic nuances by reading the basic specs on website, then you will only be the second to do so, after Madame Palm reader.

Anyway, I frankly couldn't care a pair of nuns knickers for your opinion.

 

[Audioholics]

in the context of this thread, your patronizing review of the specs from the website url I provided to you and your commentary on bias controls leads me to believe that you are either suggesting that I am a liar, or hearing/mentally challenged and unable to adequately percieve differences in sonic qualities, with the result that I am imagining things.

I didn't get this perception at all - and you have obviously not ready many of mtrycrafts posts or you would realize he is giving you some very helpful, technically-correct information which you are apparently misreading as an insult.

By your response you are more concerned with perception, history and your application of logic than science regarding this matter. That is fine and your prerogative - but don't try to claim antagonism where there is none - save for your unprovoked response.

 

[Rÿche 1]

I'm not even going to get in to differences (or lack thereof) in speaker cables....

 

[Aliixer]

QED availability

Is the QED cable available in the U.S.? looks like they have worldwide distribution everywhere except for the U.S.A.....................

 

[mtrycrafts]

your patronizing review of the specs

They are numbers, not adjectives up for interpretation.

your commentary on bias controls

I am sorry that bias is a fact of human life. It is out of my hand and control.

leads me to believe that you are either suggesting that I am a liar, or hearing/mentally challenged

Please, read the post, not between the lines that are blank.

unable to adequately percieve differences in sonic qualities, with the result that I am imagining things.

We don't know what you perceived. You explained what you perceived. Knowing the reality of human psychology, human bias, science that applies to the field of audio as well, perceptions are just that. They may be real, they may be not. I wonder why eye witnesses in court are so unreliable?
I place a stick in water and long and behold my perception is that it bent. Did the water bend it or just an illusion?
I wasn't aware that audio is immune from science and the physical world.

To be brutally frank, I find your asinine observations (which you've 'bestowed' upon me on another thread), to be a complete load of cobblers knackers.

Oh, my observation is asinine and you are exempt?

Do you seriously believe that most every highly respected Audio publication

Isn't that somewhat relative, who is bestowing this respect?
I would consider JAES, JASA more respected.


reviewer are perpetuating falsehood and rubbish when comparing the sonic qualities of cables and their synergies with different pieces of equipment?

No one knows, least of all the reviewers know what they are perpetuating with their biased reviews. I didn't create human bias, uncontrolled at that, but it is a fact of life. Well before my time, people much smarter than you or I combined, or most on the board, discovered the vagaries of bias, how it influences us, how our senses are so easy to fool that bias controls were implemented when humans are used to perseive that can be relied on, have real meaning to others.
Perhaps you heard of the double blind, placebo controlled protocols in medicine? Why do they use it? Why is audio exempt?



Have all these learned men been deluding themselves for more than 30 years

All learned men? Who bestowed that title on them? How do we know this? How are they exempt from human bias that they cannot control?
But, no one knows if they been deluding themselves. We know their observations are unreliable under sighted listeing conditions. I am sorry again if you don't like it. Not my invention but the 'real' learned men who make science a reality brought it forward for our benefit. Some don't like it.
No different from the creation/ID debates.




People such as Julian Hirch (God rest his soul), J Gordon Holt, John Atkinson, and Martin Colloms to name a very few of those who have dedicated their time and energy to the pursuit of audio excellence are not talking out their backsides, or imagining things when they review systems including cables and interconnects.


PLEASE, don't include Julian in the group with the others. He is nothing like them. He knew of bias and the precations to eliminate it. The others, be serious.


Yes, there are snake oil products and marketing messages that are full of BS out there. You know this, I know this, we all know this. but that does not mean that all cables are created equal.

Did I say all cables are created equal? I must have missed that. Please refresh my memory by a link, thanks.

That does not mean we have to act like the Waffen SS at the first sign anyone notes they hear a difference in cables.

Your implications are what?

Specs do not tell the whole story.

Oh, it is a pretty good indication of things to come. Real audio gurus know this.

You have to listen....Thats what AUDIO is all about.

Yes, you do have to listen. Numbers do not sing.
However, how you listen depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to determine audible differences, there is only one protocol that has any meaning, that can produce reliable outcome, bias controls must be implemented. Not up for discussion, incontestable, another fact of life. Not my invention but the 'real' learned men of the past.



Anyway, I frankly couldn't care a pair of nuns knickers for your opinion.


I didn't ask you to care or your approval.

 

[Mudcat]

I Tried really Hard to be Objective, But

WTF are cobblers knackers? The everlasting gobsmacker (Willie Wonka)

Hey O'Shag switch to decaf.

This is like the umteenth time in the past week where someone insists - contrary to all scientific data/measurements/proof that they heard something that in most cases is not present. Maybe they have poltergists (I do not have a handy dictionary for the correct spelling - but those ghost thingies) or alien abductions are common place in their neighborhood. Next thing, Elvis has not left the building. And when another poster makes a comment usually backed up by scientific processes a flame war starts. I came to this audioholics group because I felt that the people here did not insist on hearing things but wanted scientific proof. Even though there are alot of great people here at AH, there are also a lot of flat earth society members too. That makes it fun!

 

[mtrycrafts]

I'm not even going to get in to differences (or lack thereof) in speaker cables....

Some cables are 12ga, others are 16ga. Some are short, others are long. Some are black, others are blue

Oh, you meant audible differences

 

[Aliixer]

qed

are qed available in the U.S.?

 

[Rÿche 1]

Some cables are 12ga, others are 16ga. Some are short, others are long. Some are black, others are blue

Oh, you meant audible differences

Yeah, the audible thing... haha

 

[O'Shag]

Yup,

I guess the overwhelming consensus of many of the more active members of this forum is that numbers and specs tell the whole story. Any one who mentions anything otherwise is considered to be perceiving differences that are not there. I thought this forum was about pursuing truth. This means listening and valuing all opinions. Only by encouraging this can we all hope to learn the truth.

I was initially drawn to this forum by the review that Gene did for the Denon 5803, and it was a good review. I guess I was looking for a community that were interested in the same hobby as myself and open to fresh opinions. I certainly hoped to learn alot. I am certainly no expert. But I've been into audio as a hobby for 20 or more years and have invested in a good system despite the fact I'm not rich. I love music, all sorts of music.

As a boy I sang in Saint Patricks and Christ Church Cathedral choir in Dublin Ireland, highly regarded as one of the best choirs in the world, and performed Matins and Evensong seven days a week twice a day. I also attended practice three days a week. I learned to read music as a kid. I've played the piano since six years old. I've played the guitar since ten years old. I used to fall asleep to my father playing Chopin, Debussy, Bach or Cole Porter on the Piano. My younger sister was until recently the violin soloist with the Irish National Youth Orchestra. She was approached by James Levine conductor of the NY Symphony Orchestra to attend Julliard with full scholarship and now is training with a violin master-teacher in Florence Italy. I myself have been a member of three bands, one of them semi-professional.

My point is, I like the rest of my family, think I have a good ear for music and musical detail, and understand when something clearly sounds better or worse. I am generally not given to dellusions, unless I pop some acid or do magic mushrooms.

Frankly, and I mean no offense to Gene and crew in saying this because their intentions were in the right place, but reading through the threads in this forum and seeing the opinions, how one-sided they are, how uninformed when compared with a bigger picture. For a start that eejit MTCraft doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, contrary to Clint's defense of him. MTCraft, he thinks he's a professor like and knows more than others who dedicate there lives and profession to audio. he likes to make others feel they don't know what their talking about - it makes him feel more important. A good example is his comment on the reviewers I made mention of. Most of these reviewers I've mentioned and many more on the Hi-Fi periodicals are REAL Engineers. Yes they have degrees, some of them including John Atkinson have Masters Degrees. He can build Amps and Preamps from the ground up. They love music and reproducing it. They even go to the trouble of making their own hi-fi recordings for limited releases to others that appreciate high fidelity in recording. They do not make money one this. Its purely for the love of it. To put all these people down as a group as MTCraft has done displays ignorance of the highest order, and this is something he should think on.

Oh and by the way MTyCraft, contrary to your comment, the signal that goes from the amplifier outputs through the speaker cables to the speakers is not digital or 'numbers' as you say, but analogue.

Mudcat, Cobblers Knackers - a Cobbler is a person that mends shoes, Knackers are a slang word for Balls. Perhaps I was a little too expressive, and perhaps I do drink to much coffee.

But you guys probably don't give a hoot what I think more's the pity. I believe I'm probably in the wrong forum. Signing off................

 

[Mudcat]

Yup,

I guess the overwhelming consensus of many of the more active members of this forum is that numbers and specs tell the whole story. Any one who mentions anything otherwise is considered to be perceiving differences that are not there. I thought this forum was about pursuing truth. This means listening and valuing all opinions. Only by encouraging this can we all hope to learn the truth.

I think, for the most part that members of this site do seek and value all opinions. But the key word there is opinions. And we all know about opinions. The problem is when opinions are stated as facts without a scientific basis for existence. It is my opinion that Jupiter is the flatulance from a gigantic interstellar being that got caught by the suns gravity. Prove me wrong, you can't do it effectively. But were I to say the Jupiter is 90 percent methane, not only does it sound scientific, but is easier to prove right or wrong because of spectrum analysis or whatever NASA does to analyze things.

As a boy I sang in Saint Patricks and Christ Church Cathedral choir in Dublin Ireland, highly regarded as one of the best choirs in the world, and performed Matins and Evensong seven days a week twice a day. I also attended practice three days a week. I learned to read music as a kid. I've played the piano since six years old. I've played the guitar since ten years old. I used to fall asleep to my father playing Chopin, Debussy, Bach or Cole Porter on the Piano. My younger sister was until recently the violin soloist with the Irish National Youth Orchestra. She was approached by James Levine conductor of the NY Symphony Orchestra to attend Julliard with full scholarship and now is training with a violin master-teacher in Florence Italy. I myself have been a member of three bands, one of them semi-professional.

My point is, I like the rest of my family, think I have a good ear for music and musical detail, and understand when something clearly sounds better or worse. I am generally not given to dellusions, unless I pop some acid or do magic mushrooms.

My wife is also a professional musician. My best listening experiences are not when I'm listening to my music through electronics but listening to my wife practice or listening to her and her friends jam. I can hear the differences when a string quartet is playing in my living room compared to listening to the same piece on CD. But it is still subjective to the point that listening to something live and comparing to something else live or electronic is valid. But comparing two electronic listening experiences without bias controls for the purposes of comparison is invalid. I asked my wife about some chords I was hammering out on the piano, she said it sounded brown.
???



Well now that that is perfectly clear WFT does brown sound like.

Frankly, and I mean no offense to Gene and crew in saying this because their intentions were in the right place, but reading through the threads in this forum and seeing the opinions, how one-sided they are, how uninformed when compared with a bigger picture.

Yeah they can be one sided. But like I said earlier, controls need to be exihibited for proper comparisons. It is hard to take with more than a grain of salt an uncontrolled comparison.

For a start that eejit MTCraft doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, contrary to Clint's defense of him. MTCraft, he thinks he's a professor like and knows more than others who dedicate there lives and profession to audio. he likes to make others feel they don't know what their talking about - it makes him feel more important.

You obviously have not gotten into an arguement with jnuetron yet.

But you guys probably don't give a hoot what I think more's the pity. I believe I'm probably in the wrong forum. Signing off................

I would advise you to stick around and contribute in a meaningful way with opinions and facts when you have them, and to be a little more thick skinned when someone attacks your opionions or facts. Keep in mind that you personnally are not being attacked, but what you put into these forums is open to attack from all angles by anyone who does not agree with you, whether those doing the attacking are unknowledgable gits like me or people smart enough to make Stephen Hawking look like Gomer Pyle. Just ask Gene, Steve, and Clint about Sunfire TGIII.

 

[av_phile]

This hobby is mostly about perceptions. It carries to such extremes as to say that one's man's junk can be another's treasure. If all that is about cables used in this hobby are resistance, inductance and capacitance, so be it. But even such attributes can result in infinite possibilities of combinations in varying lengths from different manufacturing and metal extrusion processes that their responses to differing amplifers and speakers may result in sonic differences some ears can hear. And some ears are more sensitive than others. I doubt if anyone can prove sonic differences exists as accurately as they don't. All that these tests can reveal are numbers on how a signal passes through differing resistive, inductive and capacitive values. Blind ABX testing may render most of the claims to be insignificant. But blind ABX is NOT how the hobbyist enjoys or listens to his music. Listening requires perceptions, biased, prejudiced perceptions in the comfort of homes and not under sterile clinical and pressured confines in an ABX testing laboratory.

So if a listener prefers one set of cables, branded, exotic or zip, having heard improvements from his previous cables, I find it pointless, if not borderng on the opinionated, that anyone should question such a personal and subjective perception, resulting from using a cable that could, for all we know, be different from your ordinary zip cable by virtue of the very cable characteristics that can define inifinite possibilities on their own. I can relegate those hyped claims from vendors about skin effect and crystaline molecular structures affecting the signal to the realm of snake oil. But I wouldn't question an experience that was honest and straightforward. Is the opinion being stated as facts? I don't think so, the poster was merely relating an experience. HE heard differences, He wasn't looking for any. In this hobby, experiential evidence often takes more value than facts. While facts as revealed by lab measurements may say that all cables and amplifers sound the same, I wouldn't discount the possibility that some people can honestly and genuinely hear differences under their own personal listening conditions. Human nature and its sensibilities as they are, this world would be one boring world if indeed all cables and amplifers sounded the same. What would be the point of having choices in this hobby?

 

[sanathan]

Qed cable interesting post

Hi All ,
I came here to get some info to buy qed cable in US following a google search result...
this thread is interesting ...

so similar spec cable will have same performance ? it would be interesting to expereince that...

is this what some people are meaning here?

Becuase i did a blindfold test a while ago between a mass market cd player and a "good" model and clearly could identify a sonic difference ......

Both had the same specs on the paper ....

Similarly i could identify sonic differences between a pair of cables a while ago ...

one was the Xtube XT350 and the other a generic cable with oFC copper ..
i dont know wether the second one was specced ......

so i would be interested in what an "unbiased" test is???
what are the bias controls ....

secondly i think it would be more objective if anyone has actually done this unbiased tests on the monster Xp and the qed silver anniversary before coming to any material conclusion .

this is because of teh following possibility generally applicable...

HOW DO WE KNOW MEASUREMENT ENCOMPASSES ALL THE qualities of good music..
How do we knwo for sure that all the qaulities of musical repoduction are mapped completely by the set of measurements we have now of the electrical measurements ?

is there a possibility that some parameters are still hidden and not yet dicovered?

I am raising all these because these kind of hidden variables also occured in quantum mechanics ...so how do we know for sure ?

If not the above is there an example in which objective test of both biased and unbiased (on the same pair of equipment) have shown a variance greater than due to random errors to sufficently prove that bias had a great role in that particular test...

do we have a conclusive proof that ALL similarly speced components sound the same ?

i am highlighting "ALL" because we also do not know wether the specs quoted by the manufacturers are sorerct in the first place...

So the conclusion "QED silver anniversary " and "Monster XP" sound the same because they have the same spec is also amenable to bias unless the following we know for sure that similar speced components sound the same and a formal experiment shows this...


please mind my big mail i want to elicit more objective and meaningful responses and sharing from the forum ....

 

[Spiffyfast]

Honestly I think if he can hear the difference to each their own and if he thinks the purchase was worth it great. If they are actually made from silver they may have a better sonic transfer than monster cable and it's possible that a well trained ear could pick up on it. Personally I don't think I'd spend that kind of money on speaker wire, probably the only limiting factor is that I dont have that kind of money to spend on speaker wire, if I did might be a different story. there has to be something to using higher quality wire versus just basic run of the mill bulk stuff from home depot, whether the difference justify the price increase is up to personal preference.

 

[Buckle-meister]

No different from the creation/ID debates.

What's I.D.?

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Intelligent Design. ie, Divinely guided evolution. Its what creationism evolved into (heh heh heh) after several decades of repeatable studies finding evolution, does in fact, happen, and all of Scope's monkeys can't undo it.