speaker cable

[pwray]

Anyone know of any good deals on cheapish speaker cable at the moment? My system will be marantz 4200 and mission m71 speaker package. I need 22m total for the rears and 15m total for the fronts. Don't really want to pay more than £60 total! Have been thinking about QED micro all round at £1.25/m from hifistore, but wonder if I should perhaps spend more on the fronts and less on the rears?

Also what do people think of the Gale cable from RS? Any thoughts appreciated, and if anyone is aware of any mega-deals at the moment so much the better!

(Apologies if this should have gone to the bargain forum - as I don't have a bargain to report I assume it doesnt...)

[kcxdev]

or the supplier forum :)

If you do want to keep in your budget but don't want to compromise, then definitely spend a little more on the fronts than the rears.

[Radiohead]

Originally posted by kcxdev
or the supplier forum :)

If you do want to keep in your budget but don't want to compromise, then definitely spend a little more on the fronts than the rears.

I use QED Silver Anniversary at the front (biwired though) and QED Micro at the rears.

Spend more on the fronts but don;t go silly - cable is over-hyped.

[Bapapapa]

I've got QED Silver for my front three and QED standard for the rears (25m). Not worth spunking loads on rear cable as it's not like they are in constant use anyway.

[Just]

Same here, QED Silv Ann up front Bi-Wired and QED Original around to the rears. As said, if you think about the rear speakers in comparison to the fronts for both size and usage, it makes sense that you should swing the cash towards you fronts, especially if the system is going to be used for music too. I would even go so far as to say a 15/45 split would not be unreasonable.

[MikeK]

Personally, unless you want specialist stuff for real high end hifi, I would never again buy speaker cable from a hifi dealer.
The markups are ridiculous, typically 100-200% up to 500% and more in some cases.


As others have said though, I wouldn't go overboard if I were you. One thing you should watch, is to make the lengths for the FL and FR speakers the same (and also for the RL and RR speakers).
EG 3x 5m lengths for the front, and 2x 11m lengths for the rears.


CPC have the following

VanDamme 2.5mm OFC speaker cable CB04675 at £69.38inc VAT for 50m. (This is equivalent to things like QED original and CT3.1)
Works out about half the price you'd pay on the High St.
(you can also order this cable online in cut lenths from vdctrading.com, at £1.15+VAT+pp, so your 38m would come to £54.88)

They also do AR 16AWG speaker cable (1.5mm, equivalent to Gale XL189 for instance)
9.1m - £5.82, 15.2m - £8.29, 30.3m - £13.43 (all plus VAT)
(CB04489, CB04490, CB04491)

Puresonic 7845 (2.5mm, equivalent to QED original) at £6.13 for 5m, or £12.15 for 10m. (CB01874, CB01875)

Lastly, they do a 100m reel of 105 strand (1mm) OFC speaker cable for £17.45+VAT (CBBR4175). This is equivalent to things like Gale XL105 (it actually wouldn't surprise me if it was the same stuff).
The 315 strand (2.5mm) equivalent is £56.45 +VAT (CBBR4174)

Bear in mind that in order to get free postage from CPC, min order is £30+VAT (unless you can get tp Preston easily of course)



There are those who reckon that there are massive differences between cables - personally I don't buy into all that (any more :) )
One 2.5mm multistrand SC OFC cable will sound pretty much like any other IMO, despite the hype. I can detect no audible differences at all between CT3.1 and the Puresonic 7845.
Sure, I ain't got a £30000 hifi system (in which case you'd be pretty unlikely to care), and such a system "may" reveal any differences (although I doubt it personally).


What would I do?
I'd get a 10m length of 7845 (12.15) and a 100m drum of 105 strand (17.45). Add 5 Red GP banana plugs and 5 Black (for the amp connections) 84p each (AV00065, AV00066) - £8.40.
Comes to £44.65 altogether - usually delivered next day.
The 105 strand will give biwiring options for you as well, as you'll have plenty of it. (in fact you could just get that and enough plugs to take you up to £30+VAT - you'd probably find it's fine. I use it for the rears (4 speakers all biwired - although I'm not convinced about the sonic advantages of biwiring at this end of the market either :) ))

[robbiejm]

Originally posted by MikeK
Puresonic 7845 (2.5mm, equivalent to QED original) at £6.13 for 5m, or £12.15 for 10m. (CB01874, CB01875)


Puresonic 7845 didn't get a very good review here (http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/archive/perl/202_printreview.htm).

Hmmm, though they do rate all the cheap Gale cables!

[scjunkie]

The more I dig into home theatre the more surprised/bemused I become. I had more or less settled on the Yamaha VS-10 package and I am using a Yelo player (I know but it works great). Now not by any stretch can any of this be considered high end. In fact £450 all in. Is the cable supplied with these kits not really up to the job or is it just the job? Is it really worth spending another £60 on cable given the cost of HTKs?

If it makes a £300 system sound like a £500 then I can see the point but does it and has anyone compared the original supplied cable to a more high end product?

Thoughts welcome, I am new to this so if I look a prat forgive me :)

Cheers
SimonD

[Alanok]

scjunkie as you know I have the Yamaha VS-10 and I use the cable supplied. I do use Cable Talk 3.1 for my stereo setup Tanny speakers but don't think it's really worth shelling out £60 for speaker cable for such small speakers as the Yamaha uses.

I have to say though I have not listened to the Yamaha with more expensive speaker cable but I find the supplied cable do the job.

[scjunkie]

Thanks.

There seems to be no end to what you can do if you have a fat wallet, and I am sure once I get this all set up I would probably upgrade at some point to a better player etc but for now I'm sticking with my choices.

it would be interesting to find a reveiw of cable on HTKs such as the yamaha, Sony or videologic sub £400 systems.

Do the job, good enough for me, thanks Alanok.

SimonD

[Alanok]

Originally posted by scjunkie
and I am sure once I get this all set up I would probably upgrade at some point to a better player etc but for now I'm sticking with my choices.

Wise decision mate, thats what I am going to do hopefully by the end of the year. The Yamaha though is a perfect system until then.

Do the job, good enough for me, thanks Alanok.

My pleasure mate and e-mail me if you have any probs with the Yanaha, don't mind helping out:)

EDIT just noticed that homecinemaheaven have a forum offer on here (http://thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33495&pagenumber=1) for the VS-10 at £280. Don't think that includes delivery plus they only seem to have black which is a shame as the silver colour is damn nice.

[MikeK]

Originally posted by robbiejm


Puresonic 7845 didn't get a very good review here (http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/archive/perl/202_printreview.htm).

Hmmm, though they do rate all the cheap Gale cables!


Was that a review?? :)


I wonder how much of that has to do with Puresonic (or whoever markets the cable under that name) not spending on any advert space in their magazine - I suspect that Gale will have done around the time of the reviews or give or take a few months. Or they were launching them on some overseas market which are heavily influenced by the UK hifi press (strange but true). I guess over the years I've become a bit more cynical about all this than some. Is it just me, or do the hifi mags only seem to give 5star ratings to cables from manufacturers who tend to advertise in their magazine ;)

I'm not saying there are no differences in speaker cables (although being different doesn't necessarily mean better)
What I am saying is that two similar sized cables, constructed from the same materials in a similar configuration, will not sound any different. What could cause any differences?
The only things that could cause any difference are skin effect, inductance, resistance and capacitance - and in similar cables, values for these will all be very similar - in fact so similar as to be practically identical. Manufacturing tolerances on speaker drivers can be several orders of magnitude higher than this, yet you don't hear of people complaing that each one of their speakers sounds different to the other - that's becuse the differences are still very small, and when used as a stereo pair, are undetectable by anyone except maybe those who deliberately look for it.

There is an interesting (if heavy going) paper on this subject here
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/audio/skineffect/page1.html

Sure, change the cable completely, ie use different construction materials in a different configuration, and the results may be different - otherwise IMO it's all hype.

Still, CableTalk 3.1 features SRFS technology (Signal Return Flow System - whatever the hell that is) so it must be better - right ? :D

As an aside, I'll wager £50 that nobody (inc that HiFiChoice "reviewer") could consistently identify Gale XL315 when played alongside Puresonic 7845 in an average budget system (CD-AMP-SPEAKERS), with me picking up £50 from anyone who tries and fails. (I'd expect 20/20 on the basis that a chimp will get it right 10 out of 20 times, and the person taking the bet is stating that there is a difference which can actually be heard :) )