Speaker cable recommendation, please.

Some background to this request: I'm using Kimber 8TC at the moment and am quite happy with it. However as I've recently replaced my Kcag interconnects with fairly cheap (albeit still silver cables) with no real degredation in sound quality I wonder if I can do better, for less cash, on the speaker cable front. In the past I've had Kimber monacle (sounded the same as 8TC to me), a fairly pricey Nordost cable and DNM Reson - both were a little "thin" sounding (I had some Reson cable lying around and swapped it over for a week recently but the 8TC was better in terms of mid/low bass.) I had and quite liked Townsend Isolda. I wonder if anyone could recommend say, a pro audio cable to suit the bill - I've a studiospares catalogue lying around and am tempted to try something from them. Amp is WAD KiT 88 with a few mods, Speakers are Merlin VSMs. Thanks.

 

Experiment, and sell whatever you prefer to not use? Buy second hand or Cheap and you will not lose much, though I wonder if its worth bothering with if you are happy with what you hear already?

Some of the cables mentioned by others in this forum sound good and are available here, may be worth a try?

http://www.bluejeanscable.co.uk/store/balancedaudio/index.htm

 

Thanks very much for the link, - I am trying to liquidate a little capital just now, hence the enquiry.

 

i actually recently held a bakeoff and we compared 8TC to isolda, chord signature and some cheap gale cable.

Overall preference for me was definately still the 8TC. It was at least as competent as the isolda and the signature but to my mind was more balanced than either. The isolda was a little too soft at the top end and the signature was just far too bright and in your face.

You have an excellent cable, and one that has stood the test of time. Personally its probably one of my favourite ever speaker cables. Unless you have a desire to change the sound you have, i would stick with it.

 

Thanks, Shrink. Its a cable I've always "come back to" - I'm trying to see if I can do much the same for less money - I'm interested to see if eg 10m of Van damme cable at ~ £40 can do what some claim. I'm sure someone has had a go at the same thing.

 

well i swear by the gale XL-315 at only £2 a metre and it has always been to me a marvelous balanced cable for the cash... now 10m of that would come in at about £20 plus terminations.

The kimber still trounced it. It was very obvious you had taken a huge step up when you plugged it back in. We also gave the next kimber down a shot.. the 4VS (technically 1.5 steps down i guess) and the 8TC still had a cleaner more open and listenable sound.

If you do decide to sell.. im scotland based and would be interested in having it off ya. But i definately think you will do hard to replace it for much less cash.

 

I am not sure the Van Damme is all that great, competent yes but, I don't know, it seems uninvolving and lacking at times, was rather light in the bass and thin sounding via a pair of CV-152 with a 15" bass driver.

I was thinking it is because I was using the thinner gauge, so maybe the 4mm would be better. At the moment the Van Damme has been replaced with Cable Talk 3 and this did seem to slightle improve body and bass weight? (I only used this because it was laying about and it was thicker)

I also prefered Atlas Hyper 2.0, but I cannot explain why nor provide any evidence

I think the Chord being over bright depends on the system, it is nothing like bright forward or bass heavy in my system?

 

After much expensive cable swapping i have been more than happy with NVA LS5 for fifteen years now. Fit and forget bliss.Cheers.

 

I recently swapped from 8VS to Chord Epic X on my centre (Thiel CS3) and fronts (Thiel 0.5).
It sounds a little better straight up and will probably round out a bit after burning in.
You can improve on Kimber but you'll be paying similar or more for the uplift so I dont think your going to realise much cash from them.

Maybe look around your system and sell off the stuff you dont use first