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And what type of terminations do you use on those cables?
Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein
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Monoprice 12g Oxygen free T1D's, and 12QR
May He Who Watches Over Us All, Watch Over You And Yours.
Vintage Straightwire Maestro w/ spades . Using Monster Cable "X" Terminator Spade to Banana adaptor.
GR Research DYI premium cable (similar to kimber cable 24 strand 12TC). AMAZING and much cheaper than the 12TC.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjQJxeTANE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC0s6KqQz3g
Edits: 10/26/20 10/26/20
I have wireworld eclipse on my Maggie's. Like them a lot. Got a nice deal on them. I have spades at the amp and bananas at the speaker.
NAIM NAC 5; multi-strand copper wire, 4mm2 per strand (which works out to about AWG 11). No terminators, just bare twisted ends going into amp and 20.7
Can I suggest this spkr cable will not be letting you hear the full beauty of what your 20.7s are capable of.For one, it's stranded ... secondly, Naim designed that cable to provide some inductance to the output of the first Naim amps (I think JV decided to save a few pennies by leaving out a series inductor on the amp outputs! :-)) )
The two wires are spaced about 10mm apart; if they were next to each other - or, better, twisted - they would deliver much less inductance ... and as inductance acts as a brake on current flow, that would be a good thing.
Andy
Edits: 10/30/20
Thanks, that's an interesting point. I haven't paid any attention to my speaker cables for over a decade, so maybe this is a good time. Got any particular suggestions or recommendations?
.
Furez 12/4 wired star quad, terminated with copper spade lugs or banana plugs. Just slightly on warm side of neutral.
8ft runs of harmonic tech pro 11's, bananas.
To illustrate the range of variables that someone mentioned here, my system requirements were likely unique.
I had a cat who chewed through one of my Goertz flat cables. Sprays, hot sauce, nothing could keep the cat away.
The vet said, buy thicker cables and also, if it was too fat for its mouth, the cat will not enjoy chewing on it.
I set myself a price range of around $1k. The Harmonic Techs are hardy cables. You can step on them and they don't mind too much. I'm guessing a little over an inch diameter. I think 12 gauge?
Cat never touched them. So I recommend Harmonic Tech if you use Maggies. Absolute best cable, hands down.
/ optimally proportioned triangles are our friends
Version 2 of - https://www.audioholics.com/gadget-reviews/diy-speaker-cable-faceoff
To my ears significantly improved clarity over Belden 12ga speaker cable.
Belden 10Ga....Bananas.
Only interested in transparency. I tweak sound when I roll tubes.
JIB Titanium speaker cables. These German made cables were offered briefly on-line at an enticing discount around five years ago, so I took a chance on them. It's worth noting that I'd tried several modestly priced speaker cable types before these that didn't seem to bring out the best in my speakers.
Bottom line: To my ears the JIB cables seem ideally suited to 3.7i Maggies, Totally satisfied and haven't looked back. The JIB cables came with interchangeable connectors (spade, banana, etc.).
Cheers,
AuPh
Analysis Plus Crystal Oval 8, last ones I'll buy.
Top of the line original Cardas speaker cable.
Cardas used Magnepan IIIa's as the reference speakers in their design.
The golden cross cables have warm midrange, and are very detailed, with extended bass and treble IMO.
Gives the Maggie's "tube like'" sound qualities which I prefer.
Litz wire construction with 5.5 effective AWG.
YMMV
I'm using Canare 4S11 cables with Maggie 3.7i bare wire on amp and bananas to the speakers. Canare has everything you want and I can't see how spending more will get me better be results.
Joto
Canare 4S11
Blue Jeans Cable, terminated with banana plugs. That are ultra sonically welded to the wire, so no solder as a potential weak point. Which they offer as an option and they are 10gauge wire. Does it make a
difference sonically, I don't know. They use Belden wire which is excellent quality, and their prices are very reasonable.
I like what Nelson Pass say's, "the cables should not cost more than amp" and I would add or your car, house,etc... Some of these Ultra High End cable prices are insane, Audioholic's Gene DellaSalla likes Kimber for it's looks(eye candy), and they are one of the few that publish spec's on their cables.
Thin magwire about 28g. I redid the mags to have actual binding posts and was using spades. YMMV.
Cut to razor sounding violins
Glad to see someone still using magwire, or at least willing to admit to it.
Yep. Not sure what the stigma is. I consulted with a worldwide expert on cables and audio and he basically said that thin cable would be ok with magnepans:
However, with Magepans as with electrostatic speakers, it is my understanding they tend not to depend strongly on electromagnetic damping.... so as a consequence, resistance in the loudspeaker cables as well as the output impedance of the power amplifier are not strong factors in controlling the low frequency response that relate to damping. In fact they may work quite well with current drive where the electromagnetic damping is for all practical purposes zero. The main effect of using thin wire is to introduces resistance (inching towards current drive...) but this will attenuate the signal reaching the loudspeakers (potential division) especially if this resistance becomes comparable with the input impedance of the loudspeaker. So if the input impedance was around 4 ohm and the total wire resistance was 4 ohm there would be a 6 dB signal loss. So for ''tis reason the wire resistance needs to be significantly lower than the loudspeaker input impedance. However, I do not think electromagnetic damping is a major factor in your case.... of course there are loudspeakers where this is important. So I suggest you enjoy your thin wire loudspeaker cables but do check you are not loosing too much signal... if this is a problem you can always add some additional parallel strands of enamelled copper wire. Keep any signal loss to less than 1 dB.
Cut to razor sounding violins
'wire resistance needs to be significantly lower than the loudspeaker input impedance'
easily achieved and then some
'wire resistance was 4 ohm'
where the heck are these speakers placed & what kind of wire is this?
*jeez* 12G annealed copper is nominally 0.15880 ohm / 100 feet!
be well,
28g magnet wire
Cut to razor sounding violins
nice ... I've seen you comment on your set up before but it's been awhile ... are those in a ribbon configuration?
regards,
Life dealt me some cards that mean i havent had speakers in like 8 years. Headphones these days
Ribbons is where i was headed
Here is what i was running
Cut to razor sounding violins
Too bad Rat Shack isn't still around. I think it (magwire) was easy to try because all you had to do was bop on down to your local store and hand over seven bucks for some.
True!!! Though Amazon is pretty easy too. Thats where I got my magwire last time I made cables
Cut to razor sounding violins
For whatever purpose, I still use original 12 gauge Monster Cable (bought in 100' reels). The wire connects to both my Maggies and amplifiers via their bare ends.
Why ask?
Curiosity, survey or reference?
Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein
Ok, I can understand curiosity and survey, but as a reference there's not much value in the reply's, too many variables come into play.
Termination is a different story though, in every situation "bare wire" is the ultimate option. In the old days, big chunky gold plated plugs were the fashion, then came the low mass hollow plugs followed by nylon body's with a minimum of high quality metal as a conductor. Of course, for marketing reasons cable manufacturers still put "pretty" plugs on their cable ends, bare wire ends are not exactly"eye candy".
There is a certain cable manufacturer, who is light years ahead of everyone in the audio cable business, that will only supply their speaker cable with bare ends, but they have taken every aspect of cable construction to a completely different level.
The big problem with bare wires is oxidation, copper oxidizes rapidly causing loss of conductivity, so you can't just cut off the connectors and shove them in you're speakers and think you're done, but there are methods to prevent this.
Don't silver or silver clad cables not have the oxidization issue re bare wire termination?
"Don't silver or silver clad cables not have the oxidization issue re bare wire termination?"
Yes, they do. Silver has the highest conductivity of all metals, thats why some cable manufacturers use it, but copper is a close second and much cheaper. Silver is often referred to as "bright sounding" and copper as "round" or "soft" sounding, but those days are long gone, cable development has evolved so fast since then, conductor material is just one of so many variables involved.
Gold + palladium are also good conductors but immune to corrosion, thats why connectors + pins are often plated with these metals.
I tried 5-6 different options with blind testing over the past few years.... and Kimber Kable 12TC biwire cables shined all the way to the top and I haven't looked back. Excellent match with my 3.6s.
Good luck with your search
Jim
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