Re: Re: Advise on speaker cable

[Ho Yin Ng <yahoogroups@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave,

You know the only reason we have stayed away from the Naim is because of
the proprietary cabling it uses between the equipment.

Though I hear they are about to join the rest of the hifi group and
introduce phono sockets.

Ho Yin

At 10:13 13/05/2004, you wrote:
>--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Ho Yin Ng <yahoogroups@h...> wrote:
> > Tried it last night compared t&e vs my van der hul speaker
> > cables t&e works .. obviously and sounds ok, but when
compared
> > to the van der hul which are not that expensive the van der
> > hul brings out the detail and fullness that was not present in
> > the t&e cable.
>
>I find it odd that folks dont accept that there is a difference in
>using different speaker cables.
>
>An "ideal" amplifier is often described as a "piece of
wire with
>gain".  The implication is that wire has no possible influence on
>the music passing through that wire.
>
>But any "real" wire has a collection of non-desirable
>characteristics, including resistance, and much worse, capacitance
>and inductance, making it a reactive component.  As such, if
>analysed on its own, it has a frequency response, losses and all
>kinds of stuff.
>
>The result is that wire (which has characteristics) is interspersed
>between an amplifier (with characteristics) and a loudspeaker (with
>characteristics) or more usually a collection of loudspeakers with a
>crossover network in front of it.  Crossovers are particularly evil,
>full of inductors and capacitors.
>
>The real story though is what sort of amplifier is driving this
>collection of reactive loads.  A "stiff" amplifier will just
deliver
>voltage (and thus current) to the load, almost irrespective of what
>it looks like.  Other amplifiers are (much) less stiff, and will
>behave differently depending on the load it sees.
>
>For the last couple of decades my music listening amp has been a
>Naim, and it has delivered music to a number of speaker systems
>using different sort of cable.  At the moment its powering some old
>bookshelf Missions, through the same cable as the man from quad
>uses - orange 1.5mm twin core designed for outdoor appliances, and
>it sounds definitely OK.  Why this cable - its what I use on the PA
>for short or lower power (< 200w) speaker cable.  Above that I use
>2.5mm, usually four core.
>
>Theres no doubt though, the Naim sounds different with different
>cable.  Years ago I tried some (dont laugh) Tandy "hi
quality"
>speaker cable, and the thing sounded terrible.  This cable was
>parallel square braided section.  Although I've not had the lid off,
>I believe that Naim amps dont have a Zobel network on the output
>stage, and thus the cable and speaker load is responsible for tmuch
>of the output stability of the amp.
>
>It is easy to argue that these audible differences are the result of
>the amp's inability to drive the load "correctly" (whatever
that
>means), but it is my experience that many of these
"difficult" amps
>are just better a delivering an enjoyable listening experience than
>(for example) a Phase Linear (which I had several of years back)
>which will drive _anything_ but are really unexciting to listen to.
>
>I'm less able to tell the difference on low level signal cable.  I
>dont really think I can hear a difference between the nasty "free
in
>the box" phono cables, and upmarket stuff, so at home I tend to
use
>low end upmarket cables, mainly 'cos I like the engineering effort
>that goes into the terminations, I think these cables are better
>screened.  Today that means a Cambridge cable from Richer.  Cables I
>make myself I use Van Damme OFC instrument cable, which is good
>enough, has great shielding, and non-existent handling noise.
>
>Speakers in the house I tend to use generic 79 strand, which is
>again, good enough, given its generally driving adequate speakers
>from a fairly stiff amp.
>
>
> > But all in all it depends what you can hear. If you cannot
> > hear the difference...
>
>Then it doesnt matter.  Do whatever you feel is appropriate :-)



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