Should i buy expensive wires?

[stampax]

If i buy expensive wires for my home cinema set up, will i notice the difference? Bear in mind my set up is only about £500 - so we're not talking fortunes - so is it worth , spending 1 or 2 quid a metre rather than the cheap stuff?

[juan_schwartz]

A general rule I was told you should spend 10% of what you spent on amp + speakers on cable.

I have a similar set up of £500 for amp and speakers and I bought speaker cable at £2 per metre. Didn't break the bank and you certainly won't have to worry about losing any quality. If you've spent that amount on kit then you don't want to sell yourself short by not getting the best out of it.

Also, remember that speaker wire should be the same length for respective speakers, e.g. if you need 7 metres for one rear speaker and only 5m for the other, make them both 7m to ensure the signal gets to each at the same time.

[Baz]

Originally posted by juan_schwartz
Also, remember that speaker wire should be the same length for respective speakers, e.g. if you need 7 metres for one rear speaker and only 5m for the other, make them both 7m to ensure the signal gets to each at the same time.

Is that right? Sounds a little far fetched to be honest. CAn't imagine the difference a few metres of cable run would make to a few electrons travelling as fast as they do.

[Phayze]

Originally posted by Baz
Is that right? Sounds a little far fetched to be honest. CAn't imagine the difference a few metres of cable run would make to a few electrons travelling as fast as they do.

It does, although at £2 a meter, you probably won't hear much of a difference anyway.

[Bonzo Banana]

I personally think you can go over the top with speaker wire. As long as your not using bell wire it shouldn't make much difference to systems of a £500 value. I would say its far more important how you mount the speakers.

[Brozyniak]

Originally posted by stampax
If i buy expensive wires for my home cinema set up, will i notice the difference? Bear in mind my set up is only about £500 - so we're not talking fortunes - so is it worth , spending 1 or 2 quid a metre rather than the cheap stuff?

No.

Unless you have bionic ears you will hear no difference. Save your money for new speakers or DVDs.

If you don't believe me some AV places will lend cables in the hope of a buy. Go get some oxygen free silver cables at £20 a metre.

[Sairs!]

I recently replaced my bi-wire QED cable (not silver anniversary) with a set of single wire stuff from Richer Sounds (the £2 per metre stuff) and it sounded better.
The difference was marked enough for my wife to notice as well, and she normally professes little interest in this sort of thing.

Also - the new wire was of different lengths, unlike the old stuff.

This was with everything else in the system remaining the same, including the location of the speakers.

Now this may have been down to the ends of the wire being cleaner, but I can' think of any other factors that may have affected it - the old stuff was certainly clamped hard in the binding posts, so it should have been making good contact.

My system consists of - Sony 725 DVD player, NAD C370 amp and B7W DM603 fronts.

(drat - just realised I've typed this under my wife's account!)

[Bapapapa]

Originally posted by juan_schwartz
Also, remember that speaker wire should be the same length for respective speakers, e.g. if you need 7 metres for one rear speaker and only 5m for the other, make them both 7m to ensure the signal gets to each at the same time. :lol:

[Bonzo Banana]

Originally posted by juan_schwartz
Also, remember that speaker wire should be the same length for respective speakers, e.g. if you need 7 metres for one rear speaker and only 5m for the other, make them both 7m to ensure the signal gets to each at the same time.

I don't think the reason for this would be the sound arriving at the same time rather matching the load/resistance on each channel. Its well over the top to me though and money spent on high end cables would be better off being spent on better av equipment in the first place.

[Flimber]

Someone around here used to derive inordinate pleasure from posting this (http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=%25Xk16.18357%24bw.1481343%40news.flash.net), don't recall who though...

Mike.

[Radiohead]

:lol:

Superb!

[aliflack]

I upgraded the cables that came with my Yamaha HTIB45 package to QED Silver Anniversary cables - noticed a HUGE difference in sound quality!

Bought at just under £5 per metre, which did work out at about £100 for the whole system, but in my opinion it was well and truely worth the money...

[jayok]

Originally posted by juan_schwartz


Also, remember that speaker wire should be the same length for respective speakers, e.g. if you need 7 metres for one rear speaker and only 5m for the other, make them both 7m to ensure the signal gets to each at the same time.

I'm afraid you have believed some sales blurb to get you to buy more wire/cable. Please show how the signal travelling the 2 metres of extra wire will be out sync with the other one.

Resistance increases as wire gets longer but the resistive increase of speaker wire over 2 metres is negligable. The current that makes the speaker cones move will be the same (for our ears anyway). The time taken to travel the extra 2 metres is negligable.

It is more important to have a reasonable gauge wire than some thin stuff. The reasonable gauge wire is also reasonably priced therefore you do not have to spend a lot of money on you speaker cable. The longer the speaker run, the bigger the size (not gauge number which decreases to signify a bigger CSA) of the speaker wire.

[Mr Chefs Salad]

you don't have to spend alot at all - you could use mains cable or if you feel adventurous Cat5 cable with excellent results :thumbs: