Speaker Wire at Fry's vs. PartsExpress

[Cory J]

First off let me thank each of you for this very informative site. On Thursday I purchased a Musical Fidelity X-150 preamp & today I am picking up a set of Martin Logan speakers to go with it. The sales person highly recommended I purchase a $400 pair of Transparent speaker cables and a $200 dollar component cable. He told me not to listen to anybody that tried to talk me out of buying them & that the rule of thumb was to spend an equal amount on cabling as the main system. Already over budget, I told him no thank you & left the store. I immediately did a Google search on Transparent cable & noticed the Snake Oil article on Audioholics. I felt immediate relief in not only realizing that it was unecessary to spend so much on cabling, but that there was science to back it up. Anyway enough rambling and on with the question.... I would like to hook up my system as quickly as possible, and wondered if the following 2 speaker wire types from Fry's are as good as the ones shown on PartsExpress? I would buy from PartsExpress but I'm a bit anxious to hook up my system, & Fry's is just down the road.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/942771?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

or

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/944311?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

The second one, listed above, is 10 AWG with a higher strand rating. Is that better?

Thank you very much,

Cory

 

[Leprkon]

Well, Cory, get on down the road to Fry's. I'd use the 10 gage for your mains and the 12 for any surround you might have. Those will meet your needs every bit as well as what the salesman was trying to gouge you for.

 

[Cory J]

Thank you very much my friend! I will be handing him a card with a link to this website on it. He claimed he had the same system as I do & spent 800 dollars on his cables. I guess he could use a little education from this site!

 

[Leprkon]

I guess you will just have $ 750 more worth of DVD's and audio than he does !!!

 

[jaxvon]

Yeah, I'd go for 10GA wire, especially considering the Logans tend to like juice. Good call for not buying into that salesman's BS. Just out of curiosity, did you see the article where someone took apart a Transparent cable? If you search around, you'll that one, and it's really funny. However, I'm still not sure if MIT cables are any better, but it's still entertaining to see what you get for 10k when you buy Transparent.

Also, if you ever decide that you need to add some *BLING* to your system, you may wanna check out some cables from:

River Cable
Cobalt Cable

If you need more cabling, but don't need fancy looks, then I'd look into getting some stuff from either:

Blue Jeans Cable
Impact Acoustics

Many of the products offered by River Cable and some by Cobalt are actually identical to those offered by Blue Jeans, but simply not as pretty. Lastly, if you want make your own speaker cables from the Canare 4S11 cable (the same one used in the River Cable StarFlex SPX), I'd suggest that you head over to Westlake Electronic where you can get it for $0.63/ft, as opposed to $1.05/ft at BLue Jeans. Be aware though, because the 4S11 uses PE insulation, it shouldn't be used for in-wall installations.

Hope you enjoy your new system!

 

[Cory J]

LOL I will defiantely have some money to pocket. Maybe I can buy a nice CD player with it instead.

jaxvon: thank you for your useful information as well. I didn't even think about Westlake. Excellent idea seeing as they are just down the road as well. I was thinking about going with the Cobalt Cables as well, if nothing else they seem much more ethical than some of these other guys like Transparent. I will check out that article you mention.

 

[jaxvon]

Here's the link to that article and corresponding thread:

Clicky

And just make sure that you're shopping at Westlake Electronic and not Westlake Audio. The latter is another snake-oil marketer like Transparent!

Oh, just to justify what I said earlier about cables being identical....

Clicky II

 

[mtrycrafts]

First off let me thank each of you for this very informative site. On Thursday I purchased a Musical Fidelity X-150 preamp & today I am picking up a set of Martin Logan speakers to go with it. The sales person highly recommended I purchase a $400 pair of Transparent speaker cables and a $200 dollar component cable. He told me not to listen to anybody that tried to talk me out of buying them & that the rule of thumb was to spend an equal amount on cabling as the main system. Already over budget, I told him no thank you & left the store. I immediately did a Google search on Transparent cable & noticed the Snake Oil article on Audioholics. I felt immediate relief in not only realizing that it was unecessary to spend so much on cabling, but that there was science to back it up. Anyway enough rambling and on with the question.... I would like to hook up my system as quickly as possible, and wondered if the following 2 speaker wire types from Fry's are as good as the ones shown on PartsExpress? I would buy from PartsExpress but I'm a bit anxious to hook up my system, & Fry's is just down the road.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/942771?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

or

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/944311?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

The second one, listed above, is 10 AWG with a higher strand rating. Is that better?

Thank you very much,

Cory

Strand count may help in flexibility, not much more, so don't let that dictate decisions.
By the less expensive cable. If the distance to the fronts are short, even 12ga will be more than enough.

Now you have been introduced to the audio world of BS, hype, voodoo, and marketing Be careful and try not to be rushed into on the spot decisions in the market place. You will regret it most of the time.

 

[aspaceintime]

more dyi stuff

I too am building my own cables. In addition, I ordered the 10'' sub kit from parts express. Should be delivered Wednesday. I'll let you know how the cables worked out.

 

[mustang_steve]

I used that stuff for my computer system, and although the insulation is a bit thick, it's a nice cable for the buck if you don't want to wait for the sound king stuff (I'm impatient to a fault...somehow I manage to get impatient with myself more often than not....)