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Recommendation may be too strong of a word (long)

Posted by Jon Risch (B) on April 17, 2004 at 10:14:03

In Reply to: "Yet Another Home Depot" recommendation by TAS(long) posted by PeAK on April 17, 2004 at 08:25:21:

What I got out of the TAS cable article was that the Home Depot sounded OK, but was not a giant kiler or the ultimate.

I think it very relevant to note that the TAS reviewer who was most enamored of the HD wire was of the classic "wire is not that important" genre (Quote:"It seems as if the person (Paul Seydor) recommending them is from the "old school" as he rates wires near the bottom of things to try for system tuning."). If this person has consistently been regarding audio cables as low priority (perhaps because he does not hear all of what high performance cables have to offer), then it is not too surprising that he would also be prone to rate glorified zip cords (the twisted triad that these AC power cords represent are electrically equivalent to zip cord in terms of inductance and most of the other relevant parameters) as just as good as high end performance cables; in essence he has been doing this all along the way already.

Regards the THHN wires, anyone who has listened to a set of twisted pair wires made from 'Romex' has already heard the best of what they have to offer, and has in the vast majority of cases, moved on to better things. The 'romex' wires use solid copper, which generally sounds better than stranded in these gauges, and uses just a PVC insulation. Adding an extra layer of insulation will not improve the total dielectric situation, the added nylon sheath for instance will NOT obviate the PVC sonic signature, only add yet another colouration to the sonic mix.

The super large wire fad (6 ga.) has been cyclic over the years, and my own take on it is that the sheer amount of copper involved, the inevitable large spacing between the center of the wires, sometimes not even twisted together, but separated apart, leads to a RELATIVELY large amount of inductance relative to the very low DCR. This creates a situation where the LF's are very tight and powerful just due to the sheer amount of copper, but the HF's are not as well handled, ending up soft and rounded a bit. On many systems, this HF filter effect can sound very euphonic, and make the bass seem even more powerful than it is.

Add to this the almost inevitable presence of PVC insulation on such large wires (hard to find that size in anything BUT PVC insulated!), and the sonic signature of PVC, which can make the bass sound powerful and strong (at the expense of apparent pitch definition and overall clarity), then you have a case where the insertion of these kinds of wires as speaker cables makes the sysem suddenly sound as if it had been given a dose of testosterone, and an ever so smooth high end, and the overall effect can be quite beguling.

How much more does one get in the bass when going from say a 12 ga. to a 6 ga.? Again, this is highly system dependant, and for instance, a high output Z tube amp would not likely be able to show much IF ANY improvement with the 6 ga., while a low output Z SS amp into a Maggie might be noticable. The biggest factor is: how long are the cables? A typical 10 foot run is not going to show much, a 50 foot run will magnify the issue.

The fly in the ointment is that ultimately, there IS loss of bass pitch definition, loss of clarity, subtle loss of soundstage clues and transient definition, etc. that are temporarily overwhelmed by the seemingly huge increase in the apparent quantity of bass, and of the HF smoothness.

All audio components involve design compromises, audio cables are no different. You can not simply increase the sheer amount of copper without other aspects suffering due to the geometry that results, etc.
So as with all other audio components, there are design trade-offs, compromises, and it is almost inherently impossible to opitimize ALL apsects simultaneously. It is not impossible, but very difficult, and involves throwing a lot of money and engineering at the problem, hence the high end price tags for high performance audio components.

For folks who either NEED lots of copper (low DCR), or who like that kind of bass from their systems, I recomend trying the Quad version of the Cross-Connected 89259, equivalent to almost 10 ga. total, there is enough copper there to provide that low DCR aspect for the bass, yet the materials and geometry provide low inductance and greatly improved signal clarity, and no penalty in loss of bass pitch definition.

Is the Quad CC89259 the ultimate? Of course not. Will it satisfy the same as 6 ga. HD cables? Hard to say, as this is almost always somewhat system dependant, but it will provide a lot of copper, without so many of the other penalties that go along with glorified zip cords.

Jon Risch

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