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Contrarian view of WE 16g wire

Posted by Salectric (A) on July 28, 2016 at 07:18:15

As noted in some recent posts below, there have been a number of favorable, even over-the-top, comments about using vintage Western Electric 16 gauge wire as speaker cables. In the US this all began with Jeff Day's reports on his blog. I was one of the folks who was tempted by Jeff's favorable comments and I ordered several batches of the genuine WE16g wire from a reputable seller while it was still available on Ebay. In the 9 or 10 months since then, I have been able to use the WE wire in several systems and compare it to several commercial speaker cables. My conclusions about the sound of the WE wire (after being fully broken in) were the same in each setup. In a nutshell, the WE wire has some significant problems in my opinion. These are:

1. Tonal Colorations. The WE wire is midrange-centric in that it emphasizes the midrange to the detriment of deep bass and upper treble. In some systems this might be an advantage but in the systems in which I have used the WE it is an aberration.

2. Lack of Fine Detail. The WE wire acts like a sponge soaking up and blocking inner detail. This is true across the entire frequency spectrum but it bothers me the most in the highs. When I switch back to my regular cables (20-year old Wireworld Eclipse), I can simply hear more musical detail. There is more differentiation of individual instruments, better separation of background vocals into individual singers, and more truthful tonality of instruments, i.e. a clarinet sounds more like a real clarinet.

3. Soundstage resolution. With the WE wires, I do not hear the same degree of ambient reverberation in live recordings compared to the same record played with other cables. This is probably related to the fine detail issue.

4. Dynamics. The WE wire actually does ok with loud dynamic crescendos, which is a little surprising given that it is just a 16 gauge wire, but it does not reveal subtle micro-dynamic contrasts as well as my Eclipse cables. Again this is probably related to the fine detail issue.

To be clear, I am not saying the WE wire is terrible or that it is not a good value. For less than $100 for a pair, it's hard to beat. But if considered without regard to cost, the WE wire does have some serious limitations in terms of ultimate sonic quality.

Also, I don't want to discourage those who are so pleased with their WE cables. If you like the sound in your system, then that's fine. That's all that matters. I am only posting this to offer another perspective: not everyone who has actually tried the WE wires loves them.

And yes I have ordered some of the new Duelund wire to try. Again at the price it seems like it's worth trying, but honestly I do not have high expectations.

Edits: 07/28/16

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