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View Full Version : What speaker wire do you use with your Ascends?



EngenZerO
08-27-2003, 09:55 AM
cheap 14 gauge wire from lowes...it works, :)

[he_who_dares_wins] - sas

BradJudy
08-27-2003, 10:06 AM
Canare 4S8 - four 16 gauge wires per cable adds up to two 13 gauge wires ($0.41/foot from Markertek.com). I'm not a big believer in cables making a big difference, but I'm always willing to listen with an open mind if someone brings some by.

Richie
08-27-2003, 10:48 AM
i ended up getting dayton speaker cables and rca's. kinda expensive, but they compare to things double the price. real cool looking too.

Ben_Wood
08-27-2003, 11:10 AM
I bought my speaker wire, sub cable, and connects from www.partsexpress.com . I've been pleased with all of them.

Quinn
08-27-2003, 12:30 PM
Onix SP-100. My equipment is in a 7' wide alcove in the family room and there is lots of wiring in two of those walls. One of the wall carries all the home runs and control panels on the otherside of it for the security, phone, and cable. So I wanted to be safe and use sheilded wire.

It about half as thick as a garden hose, burgundy red, and everyone notices it. ;^)
It cost about a $1 a foot.

subfree
08-27-2003, 12:53 PM
Partsexspress.com speaker cable 12Gg Dayton Brand. Good stuff.

Gman
08-27-2003, 01:09 PM
Partsexpress DIY dayton 12 gauge with banana plugs.
Especially while auditioning center channel speakers.

Gman
08-27-2003, 01:12 PM
Sorry the wire is Sound King 12 gauge. Good stuff. $29.95 for 50 Feet.

G out

BradJudy
08-27-2003, 01:33 PM
Quinn: Did you make sure to ground the shield of your speaker cable on the amp end (and only the amp end)? I've seen many people with shielded cables (including Onix SP-100 owners) that didn't know they had to ground them to actually get any benefit from the shield.

Quinn
08-28-2003, 02:58 AM
Brad I found that out due to the excellent CS at AV123. They called me twice to verify what I needed and advised me on the best ways to accomplish it and proper use of shielding when I was ordering it.

curtis
08-28-2003, 04:25 AM
I am using Home Depot 12 gauge with bananas, but I am thinking about changing to some different just for kicks.

-curtis

leszek1
08-28-2003, 04:42 AM
I use the 12 gauge Monster Cable Studio Pro 1000. 10' with dual banana plugs is $40 and 20' is $60. You can also buy it in bulk for $2 a foot. See http://www.monstercable.com/pro_audio/productPagePro.asp?pin=11 for info.

Leszek

ez-v
08-30-2003, 04:40 AM
Canare 4S11 Star-Quad (effectively 11G) from http://heartlandcables.com/. Not the cheapest out their, but I thought they were very well built and look like much more expensive boutique cables. Sigh... I'm such a victim of vanity!

BradJudy
08-30-2003, 09:49 AM
ez-v:
That place makes cables with the same things I do: Canare quad speaker and Canare LV-77S interconnects.

$75 for a ten foot pair, eh? To get the same thing with a bit of DIY would be (Canare 4S11 at Markertek 20x $0.70/ft = $14 + $18 for a 100 foot roll of Techflex + $5 for heatshrink + $16 for radioshack gold banana plugs) $53 (cheaper if you have a local place that sells Techflex by the foot). If you figure you spent less than $10 on Techflex that puts you under $45, so you pay a $30+ labor fee. Not too bad depending on your own skills/interest. Similarly the $30 for 1m interconnects would run you maybe $18 DIY and that requires special tools and a bit more work. That's actually not a bad deal if you don't want to invest more time/money in DIY.

ez-v
08-30-2003, 01:41 PM
BradJudy,

Agreed. I never said I was ripped off, just that I paid more than I needed to -- could have just gone the Home Depot, Lowes, Parts Express route -- just because I thought the techflexed Canare cables looked nice. Not much of a DIYer so to me, the price was more tahn worth it.

For those of you looking for cables or interconnects with the high-end look and probably better than most on the market in terms of construction and possibly performance if you are one of those who believe in differences between cables, I strongly urge you to check out heartlandcables.com or bluejeanscables.com.

AjayRav
09-02-2003, 10:34 AM
Hey Brad and others,

So 'techflexing' the Canare cable is purely cosmetic, right? I might just make myself some DIY speaker cables minus the techflex. Should be an improvement on my RadioShack 14 gauge wire.....On another note, I bundle all of my cables (sat, power cords, speaker) together with cable ties etc behind my stereo rack. If that is the case, how important is shielding of the individual wires?

Thanks,
Ajay

BradJudy
09-02-2003, 12:08 PM
Ajay:

Yes, TechFlex is purely cosmetic (it also hides the exact type of cable used for the shops that want to keep you guessing :) ). If your powercords aren't shielded (most stock electronics ones aren't), I would keep them in a separate bundle from signal cables. Speaker cables usually aren't shielded (some are), but most decent interconnects are shielded.

picasso
09-08-2003, 05:15 AM
Monster M2.2 Eight foot lenght at $400. Really brought out the low end.

picasso_04901@yahoo.com

curtis
09-08-2003, 06:22 AM
picasso,

Welcome to the board! You must really think highly of your Ascends! That wire cost more than a pair of CBM-170's!!

-curtis

picasso
09-11-2003, 03:22 AM
Curtis---

Thanks for the welcoming. Yeah, I know it seems absurd to drive a $328 per pair of speakers with $400 cables. What might be even more absurd is I'm driving them with a Lexicon NT 512 amplifier at a retail of $3500 (got a real bargain though at $1500 new).

But regardless of pricing, it's the music that counts and in my living room, the sound of the music is right.

[:D] BTW, I ordered a pair of 340's today for the L/R [:D]to match my center channel.

Wahoo! This is going to be fun. The 170's will go to the rear.

picasso_04901@yahoo.com

curtis
09-11-2003, 04:03 AM
Wow! That is the same set of speakers I have, but certainly not the same amp or wires!! And what a deal!

What speakers did you listen to before settling on Ascends?

-curtis

picasso
09-12-2003, 01:40 AM
Been through PSB's--(forgot model name) M&K LCR 55 (I think)-- certainly overpriced for sound quality Tyler Acoustics Taylo (nice product but not for me) JBL, **** (both long gone). Actually bought Ascends from David on Ebay when Ascend first started up. Wired them up when I first got them and right out of the box, I found musical nirvana. Maybe, it's the room but I think it's the aerogel woofers. I wonder why no one else is using that material to produce speakers. Don't talk to me about aluminum or paper cones. Other materials seem to color the music whereas aerogel seems to let it flow. Piano and vocals sound right on with these. Can't wait until the 340 L/R's get here. [:0]Nice tweeters too[:0] I've matured into a tweeter man.

picasso_04901@yahoo.com

azanon
12-07-2003, 10:00 PM
Interesting choice picasso. The majority of my $$$ are going into the speakers. I'll be driving my $1300+ 5.1 ascends i have on order with a 200 dollar Sony Receiver, and currently some aluminum speaker wire which i intend to replace - which brings my question:

Will i lose a lot of sound quality if i went with Monster XP 16 guage for my rear HTM-200s? I like that particular wire cause they have that flat white tape for wire which should blend into my white carpet nicely. I'm trying to be sensitive to the wife and go as small as possible, and i dont have a means of routing the wire though my roof (no attic). "surely" this isnt an issue of debate meaning hasn't someone objectively tested sound fidelity on various wire guages somewhere?

(edit) Hmm- Crutchfield is of the opinion that 16 guage is ok for runs of 80feet or less.

Quinn
12-08-2003, 12:38 AM
Azanon- I'd bet that accessories4less.com or partsexpress.com has flat speaker wire for less than Monster thru Crutchfield. Monster wire is a lot of marketing and name recognition. Crutchfield has higher prices on pretty much everything to pay for that great customer service of theirs.

curtis
12-08-2003, 01:55 AM
Ahh...good to see Quinn posting here.

Azanon, I would try to use at least 14gauge for runs that long.

I am also of the opinion that Monster is over priced, but I also know people that have had great results with them.

-curtis

Quinn
12-08-2003, 04:37 AM
Curtis is right. I should have made my post more clear. Monster isn't a bad product, I just feel it is overpriced.

msa12171
10-07-2004, 01:04 PM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by BradJudy

Canare 4S8 - four 16 gauge wires per cable adds up to two 13 gauge wires ($0.41/foot from Markertek.com). I'm not a big believer in cables making a big difference, but I'm always willing to listen with an open mind if someone brings some by.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

mike anderson

msa12171
10-07-2004, 01:08 PM
Hi I'm new to this board. I just bought Canare 4S8 wires for my front speakers and am pretty happy so far. I just hooked them up today, and still need to listen to them for a while, but for the price, I figured it was worth it. I didn't want to spend a fortune on cables at this time, and I've played with alot of different 'cheap' attempts to 'build' my own with poor cables. I'm going to techflex the wires (I like the look).

mike anderson

msa12171
10-07-2004, 01:12 PM
<font size="2"></font id="size2"><font color="black"></font id="black">Hi I'm new to this board. I just bought Canare 4S8 wires for my front speakers and am pretty happy so far. I just hooked them up today, and still need to listen to them for a while, but for the price, I figured it was worth it. I didn't want to spend a fortune on cables at this time, and I've played with alot of different 'cheap' attempts to 'build' my own with poor cables. I'm going to techflex the wires (I like the look).<font face="Arial"></font id="Arial">

mike anderson