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Mark, You've Been Nothing But Gentlemanly...

Posted by Doug Schroeder on November 27, 2014 at 19:27:08

In Reply to: Thanks Doug... posted by Mark Man on November 27, 2014 at 15:16:58:

and I think you're quite well balanced in your questions and attitude. I think Magnepan is a good company making a terrific product.

Marketing dictates a lot of what happens in this industry, and there's no getting away from it. That's not saying the marketing is dishonest; it's merely the way a company wishes to make, promote and protect its sales, which is all legit. But it can make it hard to do comparisons.

Regarding double cable runs I am always surprised at how efficacious it is, and it's not just the cat's meow with the King III, but every speaker I have ever used, regardless of type (dynamic, panel, omni, etc.) has benefitted similarly by doubling the speaker cable runs.

Yup, it can cost a lot, but the efficacy is on the order of a component of a couple thousand dollars, to find an illustration to help you peg the performance boost. It also seems to work with cables of any price point, so this is definitely not something only for the upper crust cables. I think I recall some discussion of doubling cables potentially presenting problems for very low power amps and high efficiency speakers, but I have never heard of an actual case of it. Perhaps SET amp and HE speaker aficionados could discuss that. I typically work with speakers having impedance between 2-8 Ohms and sensitivity between 83 and 96dB, and there has never been any hint of issues in doubling cables.

The one thing you MUST be absolutely careful about is matching terminations; one false move/mismatch and you blow up an amp channel. It's not for the mechanically challenged or the in attentive! I typically check the connections three times prior to firing up an amp. It's a bit like a plane's pre-flight checklist; if the engine blows in the air it's too late to reset. I remember one time going over to a friend's house who was adding components. He wanted me to do the hook up, and he was so nervous he went outside when I turned the system on! I played a good joke on him by taking advantage of his being absent to turn the balance on his preamp all the way to the one side, so that when he returned and we fired up the rig (I had already tested it) the effect was as though something had blown in one channel! He was aghast, but I didn't let him suffer too long. :) Yes, we are still friends.
If you're scared about it, have someone who knows systems backwards and forwards do the connections.

If I had no money to work with, I'd get double runs of the best sounding older, inexpensive speaker cables I could afford. There are those here who are much more knowledgeable than I am, but my understanding is that doubling the gauge lowers the impedance that the receiving component sees, while elevating the capacitance. These two things seem to bring a beautiful benefit in transmission of the signal. One can do the same essentially with a cable having higher total gauge conductors.

There are others who disagree vehemently about this, so it's open to debate. I also will be working again with some small conductor wires soon, as I like to retrace my steps after a period of time to see if new technology, etc. brings a new revelation.

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Crux Audio

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