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Post by pauld on Jul 18, 2018 8:55:24 GMT
Some companies are clearly taking the piss. Chord, for example, used to sell cables at not-unreasonable prices (and still do, at the lower end of their range). Then they introduced the Signature range, at £500 a metre pair. Then Sarum, at £1,000 a go, then Sarum TA at £2,500. Now there's Chord Music, a mere £3,800 a metre pair. I reckon they're seeing how high they can go before people say 'Enough!' Agreed and their cable is nasty horrid stuff too. |
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Post by savvypaul on Jul 18, 2018 9:10:11 GMT
Some companies are clearly taking the piss. Chord, for example, used to sell cables at not-unreasonable prices (and still do, at the lower end of their range). Then they introduced the Signature range, at £500 a metre pair. Then Sarum, at £1,000 a go, then Sarum TA at £2,500. Now there's Chord Music, a mere £3,800 a metre pair. I reckon they're seeing how high they can go before people say 'Enough!' Agreed and their cable is nasty horrid stuff too. I've heard several Chord interconnects and speaker cables and thought they were all dreadful. Nice colours and slick marketing, though... |
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Post by pauld on Jul 18, 2018 9:11:59 GMT
Agreed and their cable is nasty horrid stuff too. I've heard several Chord interconnects and speaker cables and thought they were all dreadful. Nice colours and slick marketing, though... Oh yes, the marketing is fantastic and I used to think they were the best thing since sliced bread, until I learnt otherwise. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2018 19:02:49 GMT
Well James (Sovereign)made his on cable with my help, I will see if I still have the notes on how and why.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 28, 2018 19:43:36 GMT
Cheers, Colin. He was a lovely bloke, I remember reading about his cable exploits. Even though he wasnt well, he still found the time and inclination to build them.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2018 19:59:36 GMT
Aye Sov was a good lad, he loved his hifi and done me a couple o favours.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 29, 2018 4:50:07 GMT
So does anyone else feel like it’s a rip off to make up cables out of stuff readily available cheaply off the reel, stick your own monicker on it and charge a big premium? It’s been common for a long time and people still buy it.
Make your own or get a forum mate to help out. It will save you a fortune.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2018 4:52:18 GMT
Cs122
Best cable
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 29, 2018 5:09:55 GMT
Well at least they make their own, or at least get it made to their own special recipe. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2018 6:38:50 GMT
my favourite ever speaker cable...did tons of testing and research on cables back in the day..cs122 was the one that always stuck with me ...tried some exoctic stuff aswell..
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 4:52:26 GMT
Well TQ and EWA make there own cable the moulds are to my designs specs and the conductors is Litz wire covered in PTFE and 7 off 0.3mm * 3 for UB etc, but TQ never developed the webbing in between any further than PVC the EWA webbing is not just PVC a much better material conceived by me is used and would have been given time and my stupidity have been the TQ's new flag ship.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2018 5:58:08 GMT
Hi Col, hope your keeping well.
I think I'm right in saying Dicky does not approve of using Litz cables in his NVA gear.
Why would that be ?
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Post by nonuffin on Jul 30, 2018 7:33:45 GMT
Well TQ and EWA make there own cable the moulds are to my designs specs and the conductors is Litz wire covered in PTFE and 7 off 0.3mm * 3 for UB etc, but TQ never developed the webbing in between any further than PVC the EWA webbing is not just PVC a much better material conceived by me is used and would have been given time and my stupidity have been the TQ's new flag ship. I had a play with the TQ Ultra Black speaker cable and not heard a cable like it since.
Superb treble detail with no sting to it at all and the bass was fulsome without being overblown or artificial. Made other high end speaker cables sound a tad highly strung in comparison with it's smoothness of presentation.
Too pricy for me, but one day . . . . . . .
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Post by dsjr on Jul 30, 2018 7:35:35 GMT
Very high inductance though, wasn't it?
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 30, 2018 9:09:10 GMT
Well TQ and EWA make there own cable the moulds are to my designs specs and the conductors is Litz wire covered in PTFE and 7 off 0.3mm * 3 for UB etc, but TQ never developed the webbing in between any further than PVC the EWA webbing is not just PVC a much better material conceived by me is used and would have been given time and my stupidity have been the TQ's new flag ship. The sort of setup costs associated with making your own cable must be pretty steep. I get why companies just get an existing one rebadged, but it would never get me to buy it. If I can make it myself find the unbadged equivalent, why pay more? At least your cables were proper designs Colin. I can respect that far more, |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2018 20:44:30 GMT
I use Silver Arrow cables for interconnects and power They are or were made by a chap in Worthing Keith Parker ? and some hi-fi companies including Tact used them at shows.
I had used some Kimber Kcag silver and went over to the superior Silver Arrows made with 100% pure silver foil the Power cables are made from silver coated woven cable at 1.4 metre lengths
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 10:57:28 GMT
Paid 15 quid for my Chord interconnect & 25 quid for my Chord speaker cable, both second hand & do the job nicely.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Sept 26, 2018 14:22:37 GMT
Paid 15 quid for my Chord interconnect & 25 quid for my Chord speaker cable, both second hand & do the job nicely. That’s more like my kind of budget for such things. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 11:58:37 GMT
Having seen the work that goes into assembling decent cables, I can understand a few tens to a hundred pounds or so for the labour to do that, and decent plugs cost a few quid, but the cost of boutique cable is just Veblen goods pricing at its most blatant
And as for mains cables - hundreds of pounds on the last 3 feet of a supply that is without fail the cheapest cable to hit spec and most likely a £2 M&K socket - I really wonder what makes people think it can possibly be worth it
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 12:45:58 GMT
As little as possible I am a registered fully paid up member of the tight ass club.
Scored some Audio Technica Cables, inters and speaker, for a song a while back, and boy was I surprised they are very good.
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Post by karma67 on Mar 9, 2019 13:06:22 GMT
my amount so far is £150 for a pair of audioquest colorado ic's
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Post by sq225917 on Mar 9, 2019 14:20:30 GMT
I have a box full of LEMO connectors that are eye wateringly expensive, but they're also the international broadcast standard plug adopted worldwide. What runs between them is just wire...
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Post by karma67 on Mar 9, 2019 15:48:48 GMT
says the man who winds pure silver coils  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 18:11:16 GMT
I would spend whatever it takes to get the quality i want. I know most people like to think that their £2 per meter stuff is as good as anything but it just isn't.
I have just invested heavily in a few different pairs of speaker cables and a few bulk cables. It was obvious that each of them were different except for the cheap stuff that all sounded the same-ish. Honestly, i can say hand on heart that all the cheap stuff (under £10pm)sounded much of a muchness.
I have cherry picked the cable i want for my Spotfire Reference speaker cable. If you were to buy this cable, terminated and dressed by Chord, Rega or anyone else, using the purported 400% markup they do, they would cost between £1000 - £1200 for a 3.5m pair.
Is that mad? Well, for £1000 - £1300 its bonkers but i have to be honest, once you hear what you've been missing..............you'd be bonkers to not try and improve you speaker cables even if you don't go that big.
Just my opinion, thats cost me hundreds to qualify.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Mar 9, 2019 18:21:08 GMT
I would spend whatever it takes to get the quality i want. I know most people like to think that their £2 per meter stuff is as good as anything but it just isn't. I have just invested heavily in a few different pairs of speaker cables and a few bulk cables. It was obvious that each of them were different except for the cheap stuff that all sounded the same-ish. Honestly, i can say hand on heart that all the cheap stuff (under £10pm)sounded much of a muchness. I have cherry picked the cable i want for my Spotfire Reference speaker cable. If you were to buy this cable, terminated and dressed by Chord, Rega or anyone else, using the purported 400% markup they do, they would cost between £1000 - £1200 for a 3.5m pair. Is that mad? Well, for £1000 - £1300 its bonkers but i have to be honest, once you hear what you've been missing..............you'd be bonkers to not try and improve you speaker cables even if you don't go that big. Just my opinion, thats cost me hundreds to qualify. I saw a reference to this on an AOS thread recently. I knew nothing about it until then and I don’t know much more now. I’m a speaker cable believer although I have found it to be system dependent for many cables. |
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Post by dsjr on Mar 9, 2019 18:35:30 GMT
I have cheap cables I've made here that 'sound' just fine and I'm STILL reluctant to use them because they look cheap and not posh as some others do. Appearances and posh looking plugs are the thing and who gives a Sh#t that 'phono plugs' are total pants really, whoever makes them. How this Sh#t connector came to be in domestic audio I've absolutely no idea, when pro's were using 1/4" jacks fifty years ago and then XLR's for balanced form.
I have one 'posh' cable I'm going to take out for a few days and see if it matters. It did before when I did it or so I thought, but let's try again...
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Post by macca on Mar 9, 2019 18:49:57 GMT
I am using some nondescript cable with cheap connectors, doesn't seem to be holding anything back but you never know.
I have chequered history with speaker cable. For a long time I used Cable Talk 3. Then decided to 'upgrade' and spent a week's wages on some Chord Odyssey 2 with super -fancy chord gold banana plugs. Could not detect any difference at all. Carried on using the Chord for several years until I got hold of some NVA LS5. That was about as different to the Chord as you could get. Chalk and cheese.
The interesting thing about the LS5 is in some set-ups it gives too much bass power to the point of distortion. In others where the balance is a bit too toppy it sounds like you just added a subwoofer. So no doubt in my mind that there can be quite obvious differences with some speaker cables and some combinations of equipment.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 19:14:01 GMT
I would spend whatever it takes to get the quality i want. I know most people like to think that their £2 per meter stuff is as good as anything but it just isn't. I have just invested heavily in a few different pairs of speaker cables and a few bulk cables. It was obvious that each of them were different except for the cheap stuff that all sounded the same-ish. Honestly, i can say hand on heart that all the cheap stuff (under £10pm)sounded much of a muchness. I have cherry picked the cable i want for my Spotfire Reference speaker cable. If you were to buy this cable, terminated and dressed by Chord, Rega or anyone else, using the purported 400% markup they do, they would cost between £1000 - £1200 for a 3.5m pair. Is that mad? Well, for £1000 - £1300 its bonkers but i have to be honest, once you hear what you've been missing..............you'd be bonkers to not try and improve you speaker cables even if you don't go that big. Just my opinion, thats cost me hundreds to qualify. I saw a reference to this on an AOS thread recently. I knew nothing about it until then and I don’t know much more now. I’m a speaker cable believer although I have found it to be system dependent for many cables. Normally I'd be very open about my endeavours to find suitable cable, to the point of sharing the materials used of the ones I wasn't going to use under the SPOTFIRE name. Problem is, there's been a wave of negativity on AoS towards my "frequency" of posting and my motives for doing so, so I am now really only posting on my "Trade" page (hilarious) so if anyone wants to see what I am up to they can, but I'm not filling up the (AoS)forum with my HiFi activities. I now don't share what doesn't need to be shared. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 19:17:37 GMT
I am using some nondescript cable with cheap connectors, doesn't seem to be holding anything back but you never know. I have chequered history with speaker cable. For a long time I used Cable Talk 3. Then decided to 'upgrade' and spent a week's wages on some Chord Odyssey 2 with super -fancy chord gold banana plugs. Could not detect any difference at all. Carried on using the Chord for several years until I got hold of some NVA LS5. That was about as different to the Chord as you could get. Chalk and cheese. The interesting thing about the LS5 is in some set-ups it gives too much bass power to the point of distortion. In others where the balance is a bit too toppy it sounds like you just added a subwoofer. So no doubt in my mind that there can be quite obvious differences with some speaker cables and some combinations of equipment. Your NVA LS5 Sounded great at the Bakeoff and again at your house. I'm looking forward to putting my cables up against them and the Original Chord Epic Twin. They were the cables that really pushed my to make some effort before my operations to get the speaker cable situation sorted. |
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Post by sq225917 on Mar 9, 2019 19:22:54 GMT
says the man who winds pure silver coils Damn, you've seen through my poorly conceived get rich scheme involving the replacement of 30 sets of phonostage output boards inductors. Damn, damn and damn. |
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