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by A.H. Cordesman
Publisher's note: Readers are referred to AHC's more comprehensive survey in Vol. 8, No. 2 for a complete overview of the wire scene, especially if you want to know bow your cur rent wires rate, or if you want inexpensive alternatives to those reviewed below.
I find myself in more of a dilemma than usual in trying to update my wire survey.
About to tell you of several new Class A or B interconnects and speaker cables that can be excellent with given systems, I find that the variations in price between top-rated products remain as steep as ever. The problem of producing the ideal mix of cables in a given system expands with each new set of top-rated interconnects and speaker wires.
The price versus sonic value differences are illustrated by category A speaker cables, available as ten-foot pairs from $30 to well over $150. In one system, the 8150 pair may be worth every penny; in others, it may even be inferior to the $30 pair, or result in differences so barely audible that they are a major waste of money.
There is no guarantee that the same wire will give you the bt bass, treble, and mid range in any given system; there is a good chance that it will not. The intrinsic merits of a given cable in the upper octaves may be offset by the same cable's bass interactions with a given amplifier and speaker.
Every new interconnect or speaker cable I test leads me to emphasize my previous recommendation: with any truly expensive set of interconnects and cables, insist on a loaner. No reputable or competent dealer will attempt to sell cables at prices of $2.50 a foot or more without a home trial if you're willing to put down a suitable deposit.
I also repeat my warnings about listening carefully to cables. I have listened, with mixed degrees of patience, to audiophiles and reviewers tout various combinations of wire as the revealed word of God. Time and again, it has been obvious that God is busy with slightly more important matters, while the sound has gone to the Devil. It is obvious to an unbiased listener that such advocates of a given wire have been awestruck by the mere fact that one set of cables sounds slightly different from the previous one, or slightly more dramatic. They may have spent a great deal of time listening to minute differences, but they have failed to keep their perspective, seeming not to care whether the resulting sound is musically natural.
Let me remind you of the purpose of the exercise: enjoy music, not wire. A good set of wires can make a major difference in a good system, but the search for the perfect set of wires rapidly runs the risk of diminishing returns. If your cables are already really good, a new set will probably make only a slight improvement, if any.
It is easy to psyche yourself into believing that a slight difference in spectral balance, coherence, or transient detail is a major improvement; and far too many audiophiles err on the side of excess treble and bass energy as it is. True cable fanatics frequently end up with a "lively" but slightly hard system that exaggerates the problems of close miking and rising end on MC cartridges. There's nothing pure about their highs; there are simply more of them.
Selecting Your Wires and Getting Your "Ducks" in Order
• Ignore the kind of advice that makes the project an obsession. In this respect, evaluate audio advice according to Dan Rather's system of duck identification:
If someone looks like a nut, sounds like a nut, and acts like a nut, he is a nut. Wire claims that sound neurotic are almost certainly made by neurotics. The better interconnect and speaker cable designers in this business are committed to their work, but none make the kinds of lunatic claims t hear from some dealers, reviewers, and audiophiles.
• Listen to live music at some point during your efforts to evaluate cables. There is no greater shock than discovering how much the manufacturer may have sought levels of high frequency detail and soundstage information that are exciting, but simply do not occur, even in the front row of a live performance.
• Listen to the differences in cables with significant pauses between listening. Don't try to hear differences because someone else did, or get carried away with the fact that almost any new wire will initially reveal some additional information that another does not. The initial excitement often wears off, and the differences you hear at the end of a long, late-night listening session often have disappeared at dawn.
• Listen carefully to the speed and tightness of the bass; an initial impression of more bass very often turns into one of worse bass.
• Pay attention to coherence: Does the harmonic structure of a wide range of instruments and voices sound musically sweet and natural, as distinguished from ex citing and unusual? Is a sudden shift in dynamics and frequency response integrated, or are you faintly bothered by un usual changes in timbre, imaging, and low level transients?
• Avoid wires with upper midrange "punch." At least 70% of the systems around already have too much energy in the upper midrange (which most audiophiles call the highs), and too little in the lower midrange. Cables that seem to bring the imaging forward in a striking way almost never wear well.
• If the manufacturer, dealer, or fellow audiophile promises you that a new set of wires will give you the equivalent of a new $2500 preamp, or makes some other outrageous claim, he or she is either a fool or a liar.
• Obey one of the key principles of medicine: "First, do no harm!" If your system sounds worse or the same with new wires, don't buy them. Small subtle differences are only important if the result increases your pleasure in the music. Small, subtle differences are only worth a lot of money if you have a lot of money.
• Show a little common sense and honesty about your system. Most speakers don't provide significant high power response below 50-60 Hz, and better cables won't make a difference. Most speakers lack flat, fast, and extended upper octave response, and most moving coil cartridges have upper octave rises and some audible resonance.
No cable can ever overcome such basic system limitations. A mediocre cartridge and/or speaker are critical limiting factors, and it is pointless to spend a lot of time and money trying to hear differences in wires that a system simply can't reproduce.
Above all, remember that this hobby is supposed to be fun, not an obsessive search for additional reasons to be unhappy about your existing system.
The New Candidates- Speaker Cables (listed in alphabetical order)
Distech Speaker Cable
Expensive at $6 per foot, but excellent with electrostatics, ribbons, and difficult loads.
The speaker cable retains the emphasis on Teflon coating and "oxygen-free" copper, but now uses three different gauges of wire and is more coherent in the upper midrange and highs. One of the best speaker cables around.
Kimber 4TC and 8TC Speaker Cable Kimber joins the Class A speaker wire club with a greatly improved Teflon composite dielectric which is easy to strip and which the manufacturer claims does not destroy or degrade the surface of the copper as does most Teflon insulation. The Kimber 4TC and 8TC use a mix of different gauges, with up to 10:1 differences in size. Both the 4TC and 8TC have been reduced in capacitance and resistance relative to previous Kimber cables.
The end result is two superb products that are widely compatible with many different brands and types of speakers and electronics. Bass, treble, midrange, depth, imaging, and soundstage are all excellent.
Coherence-your belief in the resulting musical illusion-is surpassed only by MIT cable and a properly "tuned" Straight Wire ribbon cable.
The differences between 4TC and 8TC are minor and system-specific. If you have to buy without comparative listening, and want to avoid tweaking, this makes the 4TC the new best buy in Class A. No other pro duct has given such consistently good results with so many different systems.
Livewire Type 10
An expensive top-of-the-line speaker cable costing about $6 /ft, or $150 per 10-foot pair (including prep charge). Uses high-quality polypropylene insulation and the equivalent of "linear crystal" copper. It is the first cable I have heard claiming to have such copper that offers significant value for money.
The highs are clean and extended, with out the tininess or loss of transient detail of most "LC" copper cables. The touch of hardness and treble overemphasis in most previous Livewire speaker cable designs are missing. The bass is excellent and deep, without excessive overhang. Midrange coherence is very good, particularly in the upper bass and lower midrange, where it's often missing. The soundstage is detailed but natural; there is no false excitement or exaggeration.
Definitely a Class A cable, but far from in expensive. Listen carefully to make sure it "locks in" enough on your particular sys tem to he worth the price.
Straight Wire Music Ribbon Cable
This is one of my reference cables, but it re quires considerable tweaking for best results. The product is a custom version of the flat cable used in computer wiring and comes in widths of 24, 12, and 8 conductors. Prices range from $1 to $3 /ft plus termination, which varies even more widely.
The thin, flat character makes it the cable for anyone putting speaker wire under a carpet; its also ideal for cars or vans.
The problem with the Music Ribbon lies in its considerable ability to alter the fine details of sound character according to the selected impedance option and how the various conductors are paired. This flexibility allows the cable to be adjusted to a given amplifier-speaker interface to get the sound you desire. On the other hand, few audiophiles are going to play around with their own termination mixes to get the best possible sound.
Without attention to the particular version and termination best suited to a given application, the Straight Wire Music Ribbon is a Class B cable with very good frequency extension and timbre, but variable sound stage characteristics and uncertain coherence. Properly tuned to a given system, it is Class A in all respects. Talk to your dealer and make sure he understands the product.
Alternatively, get advice "straight" from the designer by calling Straight Wire at 305 925-2470. Infinity RS-1B owners should make such a call mandatory. If you've suspected that the current wiring harness for the RS-1B contributes to a slight hardness or "analytic character" in the RS-113s, you're right.
Straight Wire now has a harness kit to replace the existing cable, and it sounds significantly better. Do, however, use Tweek and simply slide the clips on the EMITs and EMIMs. Soldering everything in sight is not going to help the sound, your warranty, or Arnie Nudell's temper.
The New Cables-Interconnects Distech Interconnect
The previously good Distech interconnect has been significantly improved, and now comes in two versions at prices of $50 and $75 per meter. The main improvements lie in more extended highs, slightly better balance in the lower midrange, and a slight improvement in depth. A very "fast" cable with exceptional transient information, albeit sometimes at the expense of musical coherence and convincing midrange performance. The Distech is suitable only for clean systems without upper midrange hardness.
Straight Wire LSI Interconnect
This expensive interconnect is the most consistently neutral interconnect I've heard to date. The manufacturer advertises this as the result of linear impedance over a wide band (± 0.001 ohm from 100-20,000 Hz), the use of special copper conductors, an air space dielectric, and custom Teflon-insulated plugs. Perhaps I'll leave the technology to others.
The main point is that the LSI interconnect produces no apparent discontinuity all the way from the upper bass to the extreme highs in a very wide range of systems. The coherence of fine musical harmonics and transients is also very good to excellent, although more system-dependent than the performance in other areas; a reference quality product. (Some rivals will, of course, "lock in" better on some systems.) A further recommendation: the DIN terminated phono lead is a major improvement over any manufacturer-supplied tonearm cable I've yet encountered, including some expensive silver "linear crystal" cables. It also is a joy to use with the fussier turntable suspensions.
Straight Wire Flex-connect 90% of the Straight Wire LSI's sonic performance, but at less than a third of the price.
The nickel plugs sound just as good as the gold after a mild touch of Tweek; the Flex connect is a best buy.
The Anti-Tweak Solution
If you don't want to play around with wire, cope with all this system confusion, and pay a small fortune, there are alter natives: Kimber Speaker Cable The inexpensive versions of Kimber Cable work in almost any system and always pro duce very good to excellent midrange, though the level of bass and treble performance and coherence varies with given components.
Straight Wire Flex-connect
This interconnect is very neutral and reasonably priced; it gives good results in almost every system combination I've tried.
The DIN tonearm cable is also very good.
Monster Cable Interlink 4 Interconnect; Powerline 2 and 3 Speaker Cable
The Powerline speaker cables give smooth, coherent results with most systems, al though some of the competition does better at the frequency extremes and in pro viding a neutral transition from midrange to highs. The interconnects are not top-ranking, and are a bit dramatic, but can be found everywhere (not true of many of the pro ducts reviewed here); they're quite good for medium-priced systems. The "drama" adds a bit of punch to the upper midrange, which won't set well with systems having a bit of "transistor hardness;" the speaker cable is better than the interconnect.
I should, however, add cautions about other Monster products. First, it may be tempting to get the Monster Cable Interlink CD cable. Don't. This interconnect pro vides marginal help with some older CD players, but does nothing useful with the Philips machines or the newest Sony’s. Second, good as the Interlink Reference may be, the "Special" does not seem a significant enough "halfway point" to justify the extra price. Stick with the Interlink 4.
Third, the Monster Cable "Supertail" phono cable is no improvement on most stock tonearm cables, and usually makes things worse. Get a full tonearm-to-preamp interconnect or leave things alone. Adding another set of wires, plugs, and jacks into the front end is absurd. I have increasing reservations about such efforts, even when it's the manufacturer who provides an RCA "box" to fit on the turntable, and uses the same wire as the tonearm. Use Tweek religiously with such devices.
Esoteric Audio Banana Plugs --These excellent banana plugs outperform the competition in reliability, and sound at least as good.
These four choices will not optimize the wires to your system, or make you the envy of true wire snorters, but they will certainly provide a major upgrade over cheap wires, as well as over lower-quality specialty cables (some of which can be very expensive). These easy, reliable recommendations are what we in the anti-tank missile world call "wire and forget" systems.
Linear Crystal (LC), Monolithic Crystal (MC), Silver, Etc.
One closing word of warning: I've gotten in more than a few prototypes of so-called linear crystal cables, but few of those who submitted them seemed able to provide any evidence that their product embodied any real differences in this respect. My discussions of this particular "technology" with people involved in wiring defense electronics produced a mixture of skepticism and hilarity: "Great, a wire that's the hi-fi equivalent of a $500 toilet seat." Others felt that, whatever the merits of the raw stock, virtually all of the improvement would be lost after the wire was drawn, except in very specific applications: for example, phono cartridge windings of a narrowly defined gauge where it will not be flexed after it is drawn. I do not pretend to be able to distinguish between linear and non-linear crystal. Also, some cable claimed to be linear crystal sounds quite good. What bothers me is that most people selling such products put their name on someone else's wire, having no evidence at all that they are actually selling what they claim.
I would ignore all claims regarding linear crystal unless the manufacturer or importer provides clear, written evidence in the form of comparative microphotography that the actual product sold (as distinguished from the state of the copper or silver before it is drawn) is physically different from most competing wire. (Many manufacturers who are trying out such wire find that it's brittle, and speculate that the crystal structure degenerates if the wire is flexed.) The same goes for buying silver qua silver. There are some very good silver wires appearing now, including one excellent silver linear crystal cable I heard in Britain. There also are some very bad ones.
Paying more for the material in a wire does not make it sound better, and it may well make you poorer.
--
[based on a Feb. 1986, Stereophile review article]
Also see:
THE ELECTROCOMPANIET PREAMPLIWIRE 1a PREAMP; THE ELECTROCOMPANIET AMPLIWIRE 100 AMPLIFIER
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