I'd suggest not making any final decisions about a given cable until you've burned it in; I use 40 hours as a rule of thumb. I use a tuner, and do it without amplifier turned on, and it's interesting to listen to before and after without hearing the intermediate period.

It's a bit more complicated; I'm assuming a solid state amplifier. First, most speaker impedances are nominal values only; 6 ohms is a typical figure these days, but often there are dips to 4 ohms or less at certain frequencies. Decent amplifiers can easily handle a four ohm load, and often...

I also made "twin" cables with good Cardas Cu and Cardas' silver; rather than braided, I used one strand of Cardas teflon insulated "Litz" (21.5 ga??) copper each way, and on the other cable, one strand of 23 ga bare silver insulated with 22 ga Teflon tubing; wound teflon tubing around the...

I've heard spectral balance changes and level changes with cable changes too. Obviously any spectral balance change is usually very very small, and level change even smaller, assuming reasonable cables without bad solder joints or really dirty connections. Small cues modifying the brain's...

Was reading Nelson Pass' comments about locking bananas, and their tendency to lose their plating when inevitably twisted. Next day, a friend brought his Silver Lace Homegrowns over, with locking bananas, and the gold plating was completely removed in the contact area. And I suspect strongly...

This comment would have been more useful before you bought the second cable, but anyway... You could use something big and inexpensive for the woofer; 12 ga or larger, and the silver for the mid/tweet.

My two pair are sometime in the past, since replaced by DIY's. The smaller pair (2.1??) did like having a sub paired with it. Larger, 3.0 was fine on its own. From what I've heard of later models, in showrooms, the larger ribbon tweeter is still the one to get. The ribbons, being true ribbons...

It depends to some extent on the banana plugs. If they are designed for a crimp connection, AND you have the proper tool(s) I would carefully clean the mating surfaces and then crimp. A gas-tight, cold weld silver-silver connection is what I'd think best of all. If you have some sort of...

Might you move someday? Sooner? Later? If so, that's worth factoring in as well.

Awww; I like happy endings! Glad to hear that your search turned out so well. I enjoyed reading about your adventure.

Messy topic; polyester capacitors range from OK to pretty bad, depending on construction and materials. Also, sometimes the electrolytic can have euphonic benefits. I once changed an amplifier's input capacitor, (Citation 12 iirc) an electrolytic cap, to a well-reviewed polyprope. Change was a...

It may very well be satisfactory, but I really can't buy the explanation. The problems they describe with negative feedback without getting too picky about their description, would be the work of a fairly poor designer. But, it's an inexpensive thing to try, and, as has been said before, if...

Chuck Berry; He used the Steve Miller Blues Band that night. Duke Ellington twice, once with Dinah Washington as 2nd act. Several Rhythm 'n' Blues Revues in the 50's. Chambers Brothers. Jefferson Airplane Albert King Blue Cheer Tower of Power. Jesse Fuller Barry Tuckwell twice. Met...

Mahler's Second Symphony.

I've always received a notice from Amazon if an item will be delayed; and they request re-authorization of the order in that case.