What would you pay for cables?

I really like the “no aftercare” point. Obvious when you say it but it had passed over my head until now. I’m sure that for an online seller it’s also less risky and costly in terms of shipping.

My own £1000 a metre range of cables will be ready soon. I will even post for free and give a 5 year guarantee against malfunction. Anyone want to pay a deposit to secure one of the first 50 pairs, hand signed by my good self?

Looks like TV aerial cable. Frequencies up to 6 gigahertz. Shouldn't have much trouble doing justice to a recording of a piccolo then.

You'd be an interesting artisan making and selling cables.

S.

Now that does look interesting. Might try it as a digital lead one day. All this 75 ohms needed is supposed to be boloxks anyway. 

Talking about digital cables, if and when I can find the budget, I’m getting a Coherent coax digital cable. It was very good indeed.

Interesting about RG316/u. They are all supposed to be the same but they aren’t. For one thing, it’s only a spec and doesn’t dictate exact materials, only how it should measure. And then there’s stuff that doesn’t even measure up because it’s fake crap. You can usually see the fake stuff by the jacket. The cheaper stuff has a crappy look when put alongside pics of the good stuff. It usually has sheen to it and you can see the braid more prominently through it. I can’t add anything in relation to how it fares as a digital cable though. If I’ve tried it, I can’t remember doing so.

There are catalogues of varous cables around and about but if you buy from a hopefully reputable supplier (Rapid, Mouser, RS, Farnell, Studiospares, Thomann) you can't usually go wrong.

That doesn't bode well for me then LOL

I think all cables have a detrimental effect on the sound. Those perceived as sounding good are the ones that are having the least bad influence on the end result.

Strangely, this applies to 'digital' cables too, although you'd expect them to be unaffected. I hear distinct differences. I actually make one of the best around, specifically for use between CD and DAC. It works well with jitter busters as well.

True for me too. But I don't get any consistency. I can try a speaker cable for a few weeks until some aspect of the sound starts to niggle, then swap in another and decide that is an improvement on the previous one, niggle is gone.

But then on swapping back to the original I no longer hear the niggle and wonder what the hell my problem had been with it to begin with.


I've got loads of sets of speaker cables and this seems to happen with all of them. I have one set that seems to ad to the bass end. Used with my Technics SLP1200 which has powerful bass it was too much, a visiting friend noticed this also, without any prompting. Swapped them out for something else, no longer too bassy.


Months later using a different CDP, swap the bassy cables back in. Then swap the CD player back to the Technics. No longer sounds too bassy, despite being the exact same combination of equipment and cables that two of us both agreed made the sound too bass heavy. Does my nut in. 

Never heard a good word said about it. That put me off trying it. I’m sure it was either What Hifi 5 stars airs Hifi Choice Best Buy too.

I was recommended rg316 which I used for quite some time I thought they were really transparent and had a really tight bass. I enjoyed them so much that I decided to make a loan pair which did the rounds on Art Of Sound. The reviews that came back were split, about 50/50 as to whether they were any good or not. I then decided that, as I was such a fan, I would have a look for a better quality rg316. This led me to finding some rg316 that was made by Sommer. This stuff was the best rg316 I found anywhere, including the Harbour stuff from America. It has a carbon layer under the dielectric which gives it the benefits of a solid core cable but still is fairly flexible. If I recall correctly.

This cable was eclipsed in terms of transparency, soundstage and balance by the new cables I now make.

I don't believe that the worse your system, the more influence the cable has. actually, quite the opposite. The more revealing your system the more effect the cable will have.

Also don't forget that capacity will have a larger effect than anything else. I tried Van Damme cables that were ultra low capacitance Vs standard Klotz MC5000 and the differences between those cables were very apparent. I'd wager that if I were to demonstrate to any listener, that they would hear them. Maybe we can do this at the Bakeoff.