what positive effects have cables had on your personal system..

banpe2006

banpe2006

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What really exciting and positive effects on their hifi have members on ZG found when changing any of their interconnecting or speaker cables? Feel free to post positive experiences where you clearly heard a difference that a cable made to your system. Feel free to expand upon how good it sounded and improved your enjoyment of hifi. Dont worry about including links or mumbo jumbo as that really cant explain the pleasure you may have felt from finding out about a really good product. Please keep it upbeat and positive, cause thats what hifi is about.. ...Should you be a person who has never had positive experiences of cables, thats ok, no reason to feel bad or left out you could perhaps - decide / continue on your own thread. This thread is purely for people to express their positive views that cable s have made to their system. (I have to be careful to be polite, should I be banned )If you do not agree that cables can make a difference then, This thread perhaps may not be the one for you.

My own, first, positive experience of cables, was changing some free cable (IC) for some VDH 1st ultimates. The bass was better, the treble better, the vocals better, timing better, in fact it made my system much better! ....anyone have any similar experience of cables making a real difference to their system.?
It feels great to be able to tell others about how good my small improvements make me feel, because I know that others who have heard / experienced such things will also feel positive about that they have heard.
 
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Couple of weeks ago, bought Ray Charles Sings, Basie Swings on CD, not the LP version. Sounded good, but harsh at the top, same with some older stuff re mastered to CD, and the soundtrack to the film death proof. Amp is sugden , cd is also sugden, speakers are S/F concertinos.
My mate visited , armed with a BASIS AUDIO mains cable (I/C is Isolda) , when his mains cable was plugged into the CDP the hash & harsh top end disappeared completely, the entire detail improved, images moved further out, but all without the fatigue, but retained the energy. the cable aint cheap by a long long shot (about £1 k) but it sounded truly brilliant, and changed my mind re changing the CD etc, so from that perspective, maybe it is. I heard the change it made to his system too.
 
went from copper to silver ics, obviously there were more than just conductor differences, and found i lost a little rosy glare to the treble.

swapped cat5 speakerwirefro twin and earth and got an increase in bass. swappedthat for ribbon silver and lost overhang in bass and gained some snap in the same dept.
 
Since I got my new hifi I wasnt happy with the presentation , I was pulling my hair out trying to sort out the correct balance of bass, mid and treble and failing badly.

the speaker cables I was using were either too sharp (nordost) or had no seperation between the instruments in the midrange - a big mushy mess (gale)

I was sent a pair of 3m anticables by a kind gent on wigwam forum and they rolled the treble off at about 10khz but added an amazing midrange clarity so I quickly ordered my needed length of 2x5m runs off the net - which strangely sounded better than the 3m runs I had (they didnt roll off much?)

After another few weeks of listening I noticed that the midrange was a tiny bit sucked out so I started tinkering with cables between the pre/power section of my amp (dussun/korson/levinson? v8i) I borrowed a pair of Qunex which sounded quite good but tizzy in the trebble , then I made my own silver ones which sounded really thin so I bought a pair of silvers off zanash and these sorted out the remainder balance out of my system.

I have tried to swap back the old cables and each time noticed the exact same traits that put me off them , this isnt some small alteration in sound , these cables make the difference to my hifi by either making it sound great or make it sound unlistenable to.

I await SM to give me shit :)
 
swapping out DNM reson for some cheaper Gale XL315... restored my whole systems balance.

Thats not to say i disagree with more expensive cables. Slotted some kimber 8TC into my system last night (an old favourite of mine) and it was excellent. Improved every aspect of my system to quite a noticeable degree. Or rather i should say it reduced the losses in my system to a greater degree.
 
MY opinions on Petes (zanashes) platalloys are now well documented; better focusing of instruments generally (in particular I remember a saxaphone taking on more realistic quality especially...more soul :cool:).


Proir to that I tried a cmparison of his silver and gold ....and his silver...

Very different effects;both had there virtues.







D.
 
A couple of examples come to mind.
Recently I bought one of Zanash's interconnects. Can't remember what it's called, but it's one of his more expensive brews. Compared to a far from cheap cable, it really did seem as though a veil had been lifted, with a general increase in detail and realism across the full range. For the money, awesome.

Possibly even bigger was when I first heard a Coherent power cable, when compared to a stock IEC lead. That was with both my existing amp, and a Meridian 500 transport. The effect was dramatic, and in the case of the Meridian, more effective than either the clock mod, or the move to the Meridian from a Pioneer DVD player used as transport. Nope, the cables weren't cheap, but they were so obviously better that the cost seemed a positive bargain in the context of the rest of the system.
 
I have Petes IC platalloy also...Ive compared ot to a number of interconnects and have found that it does make a considerable difference to vocals and realism of instruments...I use a welborne pre amp which is battery powered into 2x avi monoblocks. The platalloy was great between the pre and the monos, but not as good between the cdp and the pre. i tinkered a lot with cables to try and get the synergy I wanted, which was really good vocals and a toe tapping rhythm and found that the best cable between my cdp and pre was a fairly cheap IC £20, but with the platalloy of Pete, between pre and power ( monoblocks) Im really pleased with my gear and feel that Ive been honest to myself, as one set of cables is really cheap, the other really dear. However the result, is a really good involving sound. IMO.
 
Wickfut said:
I await SM to give me shit :)
Click to expand...

I don't give people shit, I merely point out that no one is really using their ears as they think. I had similar experiences to all of yours some years ago and was particularly taken with Cardas Golden Reference if my memory serves me right. Hell I even bought cables from an internet seller (ZG!-Tony Sallis). And I reported enormous system improvements and attacked the likes of Tones and one or two others for being deaf.

It was only when I relied on my ears (ironically as that was what the suggestion was to the scientists!) and tried to identify the differences under controlled conditions (Blind - so that I personally was unaware of what cable I was listening to), that the differences pretty much disappeared and I realised it was all in my mind. I had no idea how powerful the imagination could be . I guess it takes guts to admit you were wrong and to post the truth. But I've saved a large amount of money since the realisation - money that I have put to use with real improvements to what is a very high resolution system. I do hope some of you are able to learn from my mistakes.
 
I can't say I have really played with cables in my current system (that may be to come), but when I got my 3rd system, (1st "real" hifi), the dealer changed the CD-Amp IC's from I don't know what to Van den Hul D102's and there was a marked improvement.

Treating the room makes the biggest difference!
 
Without the cables though, you probably get a very good inky blackness. For an audiophile that's a very important thing to have.
 
Let's hope you can banpe. It would make for a far more harmonious place.

Another positive experience was buying some 5 metre interconnects recently (Profigold for those who care about such things). The extra length allowed me to enjoy both my Television and PS3 through the hifi representing a serious upgrade compared with the built in speakers.
 
One of my positive experiences was when I changed from VDH D-352 to Naim NAC5 within a particular amp/speaker combination.

I have a Technics SU-MA10 amp, which for a while I used with my Kef R107. I suffered from clipping every so often when not carefull with material content and volume.
Plus, this combination suffered from a slightly soft presentation, a lack of punch.

One day when moving furniture around I replaced the VDH with some Naim I had, I was pleasantly suprised at the bass performance as it was better than with the VDH.
It was also interesting to note that I could increase the volume slightly to a point where the VDH in use clipped.

Of course this I attribute to a better interface between the amp and speakers, the Kef are difficult to drive and the amp just does not have the control, maybe the load presented with the Nac5/Kef combo was slightly easier than that of the VDH/Kef combo?

Though I do think the treble is better with the VDH?
 
Another experience, which is bewildering.

I was compairing two digital cables, Chord Pro Digital and Eichmann Express 75ohm digital.

It was some time ago. The equipment was varied, but mainly consisted of items such as Kef R107, Audio Research Pre/Classe Power, DAC was a Teac D-T1, and transports used were Teac VRDS T-1 and a Meridian 206 around that time.

The Dac had two well used Co-ax inputs, which made switching easier, and over a few days I was quite happy with the amount of music and variables I played with. And yes I was using one transport at a time.

It was intriguing, at it always seemed the Eichmann was painting a smaller lower picture which sat between the speakers, as opossed to the Chord (and some of my other digital cables) which seemed to offer a larger more realistic presentation with more apparent height and width?

Suffice to say, I didn't buy into the Eichann cable philiosophy (though I do like the plugs) and I bought the Chord instead.
 
SM telling us he can now hear cable differences ....its a miracle

I don't believe a word its just another of his flip flops once he's found himself out on a limb and no body agrees with his view.
 
banpe2006 said:
wickfut, where can you get anticables? i hear they are very good
Click to expand...

Ive just sent a 3m pair to a bloke on wigwam , he says they arent for him , pm me your address and Ill forward the address to him and see if he sends them to you.

if not...buy em direct

http://www.anticables.com/

they look like basic enameled wire - but before I bought the anticables I also bought the stuff from maplins and they do actually sound very different. Magnet wire sounds thin and bright , anticables sound a bit rolled off
 
Just obtained some STEREOVOX COLIBRI cables they replaced my Townhend DCT300 Interconnects

Im one very happy man :)
 

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