Now This Is A Speaker Cable!

[MylesBAstor]

[banditcat200]

They are violently big, what kind of make is that ?

[JackD201]

It's still digesting the alligator.

[Johnny Vinyl]

And you thought you were worried about tension on your connections now.

[MylesBAstor]

Yup!

[Rob]

the 14 inch tonearm has arrived (do I hear 16?) and now this...what do you expect from a male dominated hobby

[Rust]

Rob - 14 inch arms have been around for awhile, saw that back in the 80s on an old transcription turntable that could play 16" discs. The owner of that table, one of a few, researched old recordings for commercial purposes, film, TV and what not. Haven't seen a 16" arm but suspect if you research antiques you might find one.

[MylesBAstor]

It's still digesting the alligator.

When does it shed its skin?

Does anyone remember the Sahauro cables?

I can't really find a good picture of the ICs or speaker but here is the AC and a system with the speaker cables.

[Rust]

I have to wonder at the capacitance of those cables, depending what the internal construction.

[Johnny Vinyl]

the 14 inch tonearm has arrived (do I hear 16?) and now this...what do you expect from a male dominated hobby

Apparently my 9-incher is more than adequate....just sayin'.

[Garth]

And people honestly ask why are their so few women in the hobby

[Ki Choi]

There's nothing like NO speaker cable or close to it. One of my audio buddies had actually soldered very short pieces of speaker wires from monoblocks's terminals to his speakers long time ago. I have 12" short wires to the Maggies with mono amps backed right up and butted as close to the Maggie's crossover terminals as possible and still be able position the amp. It's working beautifully without needing the man-killing speaker cable bundles with lumps.

[theaudioanalyst]

I just saw this... Are you aware that many cable manufacturers, including Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) and Serguei Timachev (Stealth) do NOT recommend using cables shorter than at least 8 feet. Really short cables demonstrably sound worse than an 8 foot length of the same cables. I've heard a number of possible causes for this -- primarily that it is a resonance issue... The suggestion is that it may be an impedance based ringing issue... But, it IS clearly demonstrable. I've tried it and I vastly preferred a 8 foot set of Harmonic Technology Pro-9 Plus bi-wire to an 18" set of Pro-9 Plus bi-wires on Hafler mono's back in the 90's... The shorter cables sounded more ragged, grainy, and edgy than the longer length of the same cables, with the same amps, and the same speakers.

[MylesBAstor]

I assume you are talking about speaker cables?

MIT and Transparent are the same. Nothing less than 8 feet speaker cables.

[theaudioanalyst]

Myles, yes, we are talking speaker cables...

[bpw]

Compensating for small hands

[theaudioanalyst]

Brian, do you need a time out? Always in the gutter... ;-)

[Bill Hart]

That can't be real, right? Photoshopped? It's Jurassic !

[Kingrex]

I'm gonna take a stab at this snake cable. Haha. Looks like ribbon conductor going to the spades. The huge wrap is an isolator to reduce injected vibration. Possibly also some sort of drain attached to reduce static. No standoffs required.

[Alrainbow]

A buddy has cables that are woven like a ships chAne if I remember they are woven two awg gauge speaker wires. Wonderful to look at and his system sound great too. But I do pause and simply use 8 inch 12 gauge super strand wire nothing to do with audio in making the device .
Here is a thought how do sound and are they direction sensitive . That direction thing is one I cAnnot get my head around

[Johnny Vinyl]

A buddy has cables that are woven like a ships chAne if I remember they are woven two awg gauge speaker wires. Wonderful to look at and his system sound great too. But I do pause and simply use 8 inch 12 gauge super strand wire nothing to do with audio in making the device .
Here is a thought how do sound and are they direction sensitive . That direction thing is one I cAnnot get my head around

I can't either. Is it just a marketing thing or does it actually matter?

[theaudioanalyst]

Cables can be directional for a number of reasons, including the crystal structure of the chosen conductor, and the inescapable influences of the insulation and/or shielding used. Some are directional as the result of their design or implementation, such as the geometry used in their construction, or when the shield has been grounded only at the load end to ameliorate noise.

Further, such labeling also assures that, if you remove a cable (for contact cleaning or to try other wires), that you don’t inadvertently reverse the direction of flow in which they have been run-in when reinserted, thereby forcing a longer re-run-in time in that opposite direction. You can test this yourself…reverse a set of interconnects you’ve had in play for a long time. You may notice that the tonal balance has shifted, and the musical timing is somehow off.

The short answer is that if your cable is labeled with arrows, then the manufacturer clearly feels it has an impact on how it should be oriented, so you should follow that direction – out from source into preamp, out from preamp into amp, or out of amp into speaker.