Speaker cable - Van den Hull or WireWorld

Grant

Grant

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which is the better of the 2

any ideas as to who in cape town has the best price on these brands.
need about 2 x 8m
 
Go to Builders Warehouse and get some speaker cable... unless you're running very high-end stuff.. you won't notice the difference... and even then you might not notice the difference.
 
For a household hifi setup, the chances are slim-to-none that spending thousands on the cables will improve the audio quality as perceived by human hearing. Unless your speakers were custom made for your multi-million-rand mansion's custom-built, hi-tech, soundproofed auditorium, just get some 16AWG copper from an electronics store, or BW. Assuming you're running less than 10m lengths, you'll hear no difference

A good article can be seen on audioholics.com, or try good old Wikipedia
 
flarkit said:
For a household hifi setup, the chances are slim-to-none that spending thousands on the cables will improve the audio quality as perceived by human hearing. Unless your speakers were custom made for your multi-million-rand mansion's custom-built, hi-tech, soundproofed auditorium, just get some 16AWG copper from an electronics store, or BW. Assuming you're running less than 10m lengths, you'll hear no difference

A good article can be seen on audioholics.com, or try good old Wikipedia
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i have some of my fathers stuff which is pretty much top end.
The cables at their house were chased into the floors.
There are 2 sets of speakers (different rooms) etc
1) MagnePlanar
2) Duntech

The Magneplanar's shouldn't present a problem, but the duntech I recall had cable that had about 2cm diameter

Will check out audioholicks link - thanx
 
Out of interest - what are you driving them with, and what source?
 
There is no special wire that is better than just plain wire. All you need to care about is the amount of current it must carry. For even a very powerful home amplifier you can probably get what you need at a hardware store. For something thicker there are cable suppliers that can sell you what you need. It'll be cheaper and better than any of that snake oil so-called hi-fi cable.
 
flarkit said:
For a household hifi setup, the chances are slim-to-none that spending thousands on the cables will improve the audio quality as perceived by human hearing. Unless your speakers were custom made for your multi-million-rand mansion's custom-built, hi-tech, soundproofed auditorium, just get some 16AWG copper from an electronics store, or BW. Assuming you're running less than 10m lengths, you'll hear no difference
Click to expand...
Even 30m. I've seen tests done at 100 feet where there was barely any signal loss with ordinary cable (needed equipment to detect it). And in no case did special expensive cable do better than normal cheap copper wire.
 
Love the topic. The public have been duped by the esoteric brigade and the "Monster Cable" companies are only too eager to supply.
Audio frequencies and it is all about frequency of the signal carried by the cable, are no more than 20 kHz or kilocycles/sec. In electronic terms that is nearly DC. Somehow the term High Frequency in audio has been equated to High Frequency in RF communications, such as 20Ghz, of course that is a million times faster. So forget about, Skin Effect or Oxygen Free copper, impedance and whatever other things they'll throw at you. It's all about resistance to the flow of current. High power Amplifiers can deliver 10 Amp peaks or more, so it is not to be ignored. Loudspeakers are generally of fairly low impedance (read resistance) such as 8 Ohms. A piece of thin flex could be a fraction of an Ohm and rob you of 10% of your available power. You may have enough to spare but there is something that could affect your sound and that is Damping, the ability to force the loudspeaker cone to return to rest when there is no signal addressing it. Like shock absorbers on a car, same effect. The more resistance in the supply line to the loudspeaker the less it's able to absorb the current generated by the loudspeaker on the bounce. Anyway you don't need to know all that, just buy all the copper you can afford, in square millimeters. Don't be fooled by the outside diameter of the cable as these Snake oil companies will put lots of PVC plastic around it, for no good reason, accept to make you think that you're buying copper. Have a look at ordinary Electrical wire for house wiring too, probably the most cost effective, get some 2.5mm stuff or thicker.
Of course some of the Monster Cables are prettier but it's your money, spend it wisely. The converted will tell you that even the Mains Cord should be special and that you'll hear the difference. I usually tell them, all very well putting a good cable to the wall plug but what about the bit all the way to Eskom you can't do anything about.
 
Pretty much any bog standard speaker wire will probably do and you won't notice the difference.
 
Love it! Good to see some practical advice here, I'm tired of the wannabe's trying to convince people that their R700/m cables sound better on their B&H/Bose/Jamo setups
 
Would you seriously spend R300,000.00 on hifi equipment and link it with rip cord?
 
Dolby said:
Would you seriously spend R300,000.00 on hifi equipment and link it with rip cord?
Click to expand...

As long as the rip-cord is installed correctly and provides the same discernible audio quality, sure.
 
Dolby said:
Would you seriously spend R300,000.00 on hifi equipment and link it with rip cord?
Click to expand...

If there is no difference in audio quality between ripcord and the R700 type audio cables.. yes.. without a doubt....

I would buy the ripcord first... then borrow some expensive cord and test it....
 
Ok - to each his own, I guess :/

You won't find me spending R300,000.00 and skimping on cables ... or buying a Ferrari and fitting retreads ... or buying a R30,000.00 camera lens to put a cheap piece of plasic filter in the front.

I couldn't hear the difference on my system with different cables, but I wasn't about to spend a fairly large sum on equipment to link everything with R20.00 cables. It just makes me feel better to have something a little more substantial - whether I can hear the difference or not. I'm not talking of R1000/pm extreme cables - but perhaps inbetween the builders electrical rip cord and the stupidly expensive cable.
 
Def each to their own, cos the expensive cables you bought... are pretty much exactly the same as the R20.00 cables.. except with more fancy coverings and marketing nonsense printed on the packaging.
 
I didn't buy expensive :/

But instead of buying R20.00/meter flex ... I'll rather buy R60/meter real speaker cable. I'd rather pay the difference of R160.00 on a R50,000.00 setup. That's not even three King Steer burgers at the end of the day.

By the way, I picked up a difference in a car changing speaker wire from the standard flex from the factory to Stinger cabling. Whether the difference was due to the width of the cable or having proper terminations/better contact, I don't know - but there's a difference in a small environment.
 
Ahhh ok then you aren't THAT mad... :p

Yes I would buy good quality WIRE just in general for something like this as well... but not specialist high end speaker cable...

As for the difference you picked up in a car, I would possibly assume that would be due to better shielding as well as better contacts and such....
 
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