My First Post, I have a question about speaker wires

[LBrize]

Hi all. I recently purchased a set of 15' speaker cables. These are twisted at 90 degrees to each other, with a third strand that is dialectric (sp) designed for noise cancelling. Sounds great, right? The thing is, when I hooked these up, my midrange is shot.

The old wire I had was decent quality 12 gauge (the twisted pair are 15 gauge), basically plain ole Monster Cable-type, although not Monster brand. The highs didn't sound as good as the twisted cables, but the bass is cleaner and the mids are much, much better.

Can I reconnect the 12 gauge wire and the twisted cable, or will that cause some kind of resistance issues? Will I get the best of both wires?

Conversely, should I just use one or the other, but not both?

Thanks very much, I hope someone knows! -LBrize

 

[MDS]

Read this site: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

...then rethink the notion that speaker wires make a drastic difference in sound quality. The esoteric speaker wires you purchased probably have very high inductance and/or capacitance and actually degrade the sound more than 'normal' speaker wire.

 

[LBrize]

Thank you, I appreciate the article. It's odd, though that although neither of the cables I have cost more than $50, not only can I tell the difference in them, but my wife can as well, and she's definitely not an audiophile.

The other thing is, I'd love it if the twisted cables sound better, they really look better. I think I will have to go back to my cheaper fake Monster Cable.

If anyone has any further opinions about running these wires together, please do comment. Thanks again for the article.

 

[MDS]

It's odd, though that although neither of the cables I have cost more than $50, not only can I tell the difference in them, my wife can as well, and she's definitely not an audiophile.

Careful there but that is the kind of statement of 'proof' that gets shredded here.

Audioholics really got its start debunking cable myths and I'd suggest reading through the articles - good stuff. It's not that cables don't often create sound differences but more so that only poor cables are sonically distinguishable (to paraphrase the Audioholics mantra). Some extremely expensive cables actually fall into the poor category.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Thank you, I appreciate the article. It's odd, though that although neither of the cables I have cost more than $50, not only can I tell the difference in them, but my wife can as well, and she's definitely not an audiophile.

The other thing is, I'd love it if the twisted cables sound better, they really look better. I think I will have to go back to my cheaper fake Monster Cable.

If anyone has any further opinions about running these wires together, please do comment. Thanks again for the article.

What happened to both of you is that your bias is in control, subconsciously. It is part of human nature and there is no on-off switch for this bias.
Senses can be fooled rather easily. What do you see when you place a pipe in a 5 gal bucket of water? It is bent, but is it real, or just an illusion?

You need to do bias controlled comparisons to determine if there is any audible difference in anything, not just cables. This means double blind conditions where you don't know which cable is used and only rely on your ears alone. Scary thought which scares audiophiles out of their minds.

To answer your other question, there is nothing wrong with attaching both sets of wires on the same terminals to double them up. Your new wire gauge will be around 10ga. While you said your wires cost under $50 or so, it may still be more than you need to spend on speaker cable. You can get 12ga/14ga for about $.30/ft.

 

[fmw]

I went through the trouble of testing all of this for myself several years ago. A high end audio dealer friend of mine loaned me 15 pairs of cables (interconnect and speaker) so I could do some blind testing.

To make a very long story very short, all of them "sounded" exactly the same except one pair of interconnect cables. Those ($1500 per pair retail) cut high frequencies noticeably producing a warm sound. The reason was an unreasonable amount of inductance in the measurements. The expensive cables were designed to be a tone control. I think tone controls themselves are probably a better solution because they are easily adjustable.

If you have cables that produce a sound, you would do well to replace them with cables that do not. What we hear and how our brains interpret what we hear can be very different from each other as others have mentioned.

 

[B&W700guy]

There is a difference in sound between silver and coper speaker cable. I can hear the difference....cant you?

 

[avaserfi]

There is a difference in sound between silver and coper speaker cable. I can hear the difference....cant you?

How exactly did you test these differences. I am pretty sure the conductivity differences between copper and silver are not large enough to matter in the relm of human hearing...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

What happened to both of you is that your bias is in control, subconsciously. It is part of human nature and there is no on-off switch for this bias.
Senses can be fooled rather easily. What do you see when you place a pipe in a 5 gal bucket of water? It is bent, but is it real, or just an illusion?

You need to do bias controlled comparisons to determine if there is any audible difference in anything, not just cables. This means double blind conditions where you don't know which cable is used and only rely on your ears alone. Scary thought which scares audiophiles out of their minds.

To answer your other question, there is nothing wrong with attaching both sets of wires on the same terminals to double them up. Your new wire gauge will be around 10ga. While you said your wires cost under $50 or so, it may still be more than you need to spend on speaker cable. You can get 12ga/14ga for about $.30/ft.

Double Blinded means the person TAKING the test AND the person GIVING the test do NOT know which is which. So there are three parties involved.
For example, in a double blinded drug study, only the pharmacist making the drug knows which is which, but the nurse does not know and the patient does not know

 

[fmw]

There is a difference in sound between silver and coper speaker cable. I can hear the difference....cant you?

No, but there is no doubt in my mind that you believe you can.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

There is a difference in sound between silver and coper speaker cable. I can hear the difference....cant you?

Unless you actually did at least a Single-Blinded Comparison Study, which would require TWO people, you can only say that you "THINK" you can HEAR the difference.

I mean if you THINK you can HEAR the difference, and that difference is worth the extra money to you, then that is cool.

But for almost all of us, I doubt that we can hear a difference at all.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I tried some Kimber Kables. For a little while, I thought I might have heard a difference. When I tried switching back to Home Depot 14 gauge, though, I could tell that there had actually been no difference at all.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I tried some Kimber Kables. For a little while, I thought I might have heard a difference. When I tried switching back to Home Depot 14 gauge, though, I could tell that there had actually been no difference at all.

Same here. When I first got into this Audio hobby 12 years ago, I bought Kimber Kable speaker wires and interconnect wires. I convinced myself that there MUST be a difference because I PAID for that difference and I'm not a fool. But I was a fool when I had enough guts to actually compare some cables.
My little brother is now getting into this A/V hobby. So I just gave him my Kimber Kable wires and told him how expensive they were. He thought it was cool

 

[LBrize]

What happened to both of you is that your bias is in control, subconsciously. It is part of human nature and there is no on-off switch for this bias.
Senses can be fooled rather easily. What do you see when you place a pipe in a 5 gal bucket of water? It is bent, but is it real, or just an illusion?

You need to do bias controlled comparisons to determine if there is any audible difference in anything, not just cables. This means double blind conditions where you don't know which cable is used and only rely on your ears alone. Scary thought which scares audiophiles out of their minds.

To answer your other question, there is nothing wrong with attaching both sets of wires on the same terminals to double them up. Your new wire gauge will be around 10ga. While you said your wires cost under $50 or so, it may still be more than you need to spend on speaker cable. You can get 12ga/14ga for about $.30/ft.

I know what you are saying, but my wife had no idea what wires I was using. She didn't know I was changing speaker wires, she thought I was hooking up a dvd recorder. When I turned the system back on, she said "It sounds different." I know people like to debunk wire myths, and I love it. The thing about it is, the wire I was using was about 20 bucks for 50 feet of wire, and I'm in agreement with the mythbusters here; the expensive wire I hooked up last night does not add any sonic benefits. Where I stray from the pack, though, is that I believe the "good" wire I hooked up last night actually does not sound as good, and I don't believe it to be psychological at all, because I don't care which wire sounds better (I just thought twisted cable with the non-conductive extra strand was supposed to sound better, so I thought I'd try it).
I was just wondering if I hooked them both up, what the benefit or consequence would be. I think I've not only had my question answered, but inadvertently opened up a can of worms.
I read a lot of video game related news, and I've seen this kind of passion about certain topics in the past; I guess there's hot button issues like this within any topic of interest.

So, basically, I'm getting that it really shouldn't matter what type of wire I use as long as the wire is of decent quality and is the proper gauge for the length I'm running. Does that seem to be the general consensus? --I can still hear a difference in the wires though, but thank all of you for the input.
:0) -LBrize

 

[avaserfi]

So, basically, I'm getting that it really shouldn't matter what type of wire I use as long as the wire is of decent quality and is the proper gauge for the length I'm running. Does that seem to be the general consensus?

That would be right.

--I can still hear a difference in the wires though, but thank all of you for the input.
:0) -LBrize

As said before the "better" wire you are listening too might actually be causing harm to the signal in some way so it sounds worse as you have heard. Good wire stays the same across the bored, but bad wire can effect a multitude of things.

 

[B&W700guy]

Unless you actually did at least a Single-Blinded Comparison Study, which would require TWO people, you can only say that you "THINK" you can HEAR the difference.

I mean if you THINK you can HEAR the difference, and that difference is worth the extra money to you, then that is cool.

But for almost all of us, I doubt that we can hear a difference at all.

No it is a fact...You can hear the difference between Silver and Copper speaker wire.....you listen to my 703 speaker with silver and they will shreek on silver cables... The silver cables cost more money, and I did a blind testing with more then two people. Go and try it and see what you THINK. Also...I THINK you are wrong...it would cost me more money for something I don't want. You THINK?


PS: Really like your BP7000 for HT

 

[mazersteven]

No it is a fact...You can hear the difference between Silver and Copper speaker wire....

Try wrapping your speaker wire with Teflon Tape. Awesome stuff for audio sound quality.

 

[B&W700guy]

I tried some Kimber Kables. For a little while, I thought I might have heard a difference. When I tried switching back to Home Depot 14 gauge, though, I could tell that there had actually been no difference at all.

I would not suggest buying Home Depo 14/12 or 10 gauge lamp cord if you live by the beach! the copper turns green! now... some people will dispute this and say it is black.

That is why I spent $350.00 on PS Audio speaker cables. For me the 2nd time (I know I am stupid) I replaced them was the last. I purchased these for Double Biwire and they will last forever and if I want to Biamp in the future, I can do it.

For How much I make the $350.00 was cheep compared to buying, installing, removing, buying, installing and removing.

And yes you could hear a difference...but I didn't do a double blind study

 

[B&W700guy]

Try wrapping your speaker wire with Teflon Tape. Awesome stuff for audio sound quality.

well I have some...can you recommend a thickness

Where you the one who tested it on Audioholics?

 

[mazersteven]

well I have some...can you recommend a thickness

Where you the one who tested it on Audioholics?

Teflon tape performance is determined primarily by the level and balance of tensile strength. These factors, along with the combination of thickness and density are crucial to the effectiveness of the tape.