I am thinking about upgrading my speaker cables (cheap radioshack stuff). I have a NAD C320BEE amp and Boston Acoustic Speakers. What do you guys use and reccomend? under the $100 mark if possible.
I use magnet wire, just like the anti-cables by Paul Speltz available on audiogon. Big, big beefy sound. I got it for super cheap (bare wire) but if you have to have something premade, the anti-cables aren't that expensive. http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....pkr&1132667147
These will outlast your gear.
I too am taking the magnet wire route. Some years ago Jim Hess of Magwire had sent me a free pair of his in wall speaker cables. At the time they didn't work too well with my rig and they kind of got pushed into the audio junk drawer.
It is only recently since moving to SET amplificaiton and single driver speakers and noting the tendancy of a lot of people with this type of gear/the recommendation of my speaker manufacturer that I gave these wires a second chance.
They are now greatly outperforming the $1200 speaker cables I'd previously been using (Acoustic Zen Hologram II) being much more dynamic, with a better sense of pace and more accurate tonality.
The magnet wire won't work in every application (seemed to get harsh with high powered solid state) but they're absolutely wonderful in my application.
Give them a go in yours, with the money back guarentees there is nothing to loose.
Proved that despite its huge size the CD3000 can be shoved down one's throat.
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If you can find it, Carol Command, part express used to carry them long time ago, it is silver plated OFC very nice sounding cable indeed, and very cheap....
I've been using DNM speaker cables since February. I'd say they're very good, though I haven't done any recent comparisons. They're cleaner and more expressive than the entry-level nordost cables I was using.
I recently went from Paul Speltz anti-cables to Nordost Flatline.
The Nordost stuff has a more transparent top-end to my ears (it did take awhile to break in though), but the anti-cables had punchier bass and smoother highs.
Ultimately my decision to swap was based on the build quality of the anti-cables which I was very disappointed with.
Magnet wire is an absolute nightmare to rout through tight places particularly once it's already connected at one or both ends, and in my case this resulted in one of the spades acutally bending and snapping off.
It may be great sounding wire, but the build quality is about what you would expect of a product of that price I guess, the spades in particular seemed to be particularly soft & flimsy.
I would only recommend magnet wire to people with lots of space to work around, who don't plan on connecting and re-connecting their speakers too often given the wire's inherant durability and inflexibility issues.
I use Cardas golden Reference on my main system. I also use Cobalt Cables, which, quite honestly, I think are just as good. Highly recommend their speaker cables.
You can build your own magnet-wire cables. I've experimented a lot with magnet wire. The lower the diameter (and the more wires), the finer the sound. Also flexibilty isn't an issue anymore with diameters around 0.1 or 0.05 mm, even if you use 400 or 800 wires per conductor.
Originally Posted by JaZZ You can build your own magnet-wire cables. I've experimented a lot with magnet wire. The lower the diameter (and the more wires), the finer the sound. Also flexibilty isn't an issue anymore with diameters around 0.1 or 0.05 mm, even if you use 400 or 800 wires per conductor.
How would you go about building a set? Do you have a tutorial? Anybody know where I could find some pics of the anti-cables. The audiogon link has expired.
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