Speaker cables what are you using for your system?

Hey David!

I use Nordost 4 flat speaker cables.

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Very good cables for sure :+1:

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Yes, I also use their Norse 2 speaker cable jumpers and their White Lightning interconnects too. Other than power cables, my system is all Nordost.

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The great thing about Nordost is that they offer a trade up program from time to time…
giving a credit on your current cables new upgraded cables…however might not
be applicable to all Nordost lines…

Another great thing about Nordost …is that should your cables need reterminating,Nordost
will do it under their lifetime warranty free…

Best wishes

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I have the Ansuz Speakz A with my Stenheim Alumine 2 and a Norma Ipa 70.

A friend and I sometimes share audio things because we’re both curious and we live walking distance away…
For the last three weeks, I’ve been using his Audience Front Row speaker cables. He hadn’t used them for nearly a year. His cable of preference is Nordost Valhalla.( When I tried the Valhalla’s, I strongly preferred my Iconoclasts)
I didn’t like the Audience at first but after a couple days, they’re really nice. They’re thin, supple, easy to deal with, seem like very high quality and sound amazing across the full range. They seem to let more of everything come thru; bass weight, reverb, imaging is very specific, notes seem to trail off longer, leading edge detail. If it makes sense, there seems to be a lot more ambient information.

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Anyone have any experience with Verastarr Grand Illusion Evo Series Speaker Cables…?

They are a foil design and I am thinking about picking up a set off of Audiogon to see if they are a good match for my Emotiva XPA-1 (MK I) mono amps and my Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference 3.1 speakers.

Here is the A-gon listing for reference:

TIA.

I’ve got VeraStarr 2” silver for my Maggie’s, and love them.

Physically they look like the Magnan Signature speaker cables from years ago. The Magnan also used copper foil and were about 5" wide.

Care to opine on what a fair price might be for those I linked to?

I can’t find much info on this particular model out there.

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I can’t say, but I will tell you that Mikey at Verastarr is very approachable, especially by email. If you want to get a sense of him, look on YouTube for “OCD HiFi Guy”

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I sent Mr. Powell an e-mail through the contact link on the Verastarr website.

Maybe he will see fit to answer. It would certainly be as a courtesy to me.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Scott

I’ve recently changed from Harbeth to Wilson, similar tonality, more bass and much larger soundstage. With the talk of Kind of Blue on a thread recently, I was listening to the Bernie Grundman re-master and the soundstage was about twice as wide as the speakers. My system is certainly not lacking in detail, I’ve rejected speakers for being too detailed. I use a pair of 4m flat cables that I bought new for about $1,000 (£800). They have been in production for almost 40 years.

I’ve used cables that cost $20 and had people bring cables here that cost $25,000. I wouldn’t get cable inferiority complex because someone has $10,000 Nordost cables and there are better ones to be had (I used Nordost for many years, not $10,000) and as @aangen points out, there are great cables to be had for $400 or less.

Personally I would avoid any purchase based a trade-up program. It like saying “these cables are OK but you don’t earn enough for the real super-deluxe unobtainium cables, so get these, save up and we’ll take more money off you later”.

Reading this thread, the fact that almost everyone has a different favourite (most of which I’ve not heard of) says to me there is no consensus what cable is better than any other. I checked out @Tinears1’s Grover Huffman’s “Empress” cables, apparently as much because the maker is a nice guy (as a good a reason as any) and, he says:

A New Revolutionary Design, pure copper, silver and aluminum ribbons suspended in air tubes. Eliminating all skin effect.

That’s about as revolutionary as toilet paper. Ribbons have been around for ever and when I wanted to try solid silver cables I bought 24’ of solid silver wire and stuck it in a teflon tube for an air dielectric, with a sheath, total cost off Amazon $300. Were too bright so I sold the silver wire.

I take solace in the fact that the first cable the signal ever travelled through was probably 50’ or 100’ of Mogami microphone cable. The link provided for the Mogami speaker cable is interesting as it shows that doubling from 4 to 8 conductors you halve the capacitance and the inductance is still OK even for speakers like Quad ESL that require low inductance.

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Transparent MusicWave Super BiWires in living room between Vandersteen 2Cs and SimAudio Moon W5. Transparent MusicWave Plus in 2nd system between Vandersteen 1Cs and Linn Majik 2100.

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I have been using AQ Robin Hood Speaker cables for 6 months, but then I replaced them with Silversmith Fidelium Speaker Cables. The sound is a bit warmer compares to AQ but I like the overall presentation better. Also, I used two pairs instead of jumpers so there are four ribbons on each side. These cables are 2.5 inch wide so I also use their adaptors, this way they would not jam into each other.

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Their Binding Post Adapters at $50 for a set of 4 seem quite reasonably priced.

Back in the day I had Magnan Signature speaker cables which were also quite wide. David Magnan would recommend that the speakers cables be placed on edge next to each, not touching and not on top of each other like my photo below. Does Silversmith have any placement recommendation for their speaker cables?

MagnanSignatureSpeakerCables

I remember those, I also used them shortly. Fascinating looks. I also remember the sound, but so much was different, it doesn’t make sense to make a statement. What I can say is, most of my audio live I used solid core and flat profile cable. In retrospect he first seems essential (for me), the latter probably less.

Use adaptors helps a lot since most of the amps and speaker binding posts are too close to each other to fits these, especially Fidelium is very thin. That is the main reason they make the adaptors. I will highly recommend using them.

No, you can place Silversmith cables right on top of the other. Absolutely no impact on sound. They’re most forgiving (and neutral!) cables I’ve ever heard

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That’s a convenience. I always had the room to run the Magnan side-by-side but still…