Speaker Cable - Do you need to spend a lot?

riverboat2001

Coming to the end of a major house refurbishment, and mights treat myself to some new speakers and cable.

Assuming i'm just an average bod, for watching HDTV and playing on 360, would i really notice the difference between cheap and expensive speaker cable?

rygon

you do if you buy the really cheap stuff. I had some 1mm JVC cable for my sound sytem to start off with, changed it to 4mm (i think) cable from maplins and found the tones much better. Would pay £100s of pounds for it though. Just remember you should keep the speaker cable the same size on both sides to stop sound distortion

Empty_pockets

You need to match your cable to your speakers.

You need to decide what type of sound you want.

Not necessary to spend a huge amount.

Check out AV forums for more detailed info.

Gloomendoom

I have found that ordinary 2.5 mm mains cable is a pretty good alternative if you want a good sound on a budget. The downside is its lack of flexibility.

paulpud

I've always wired my speakers in 2.5mm 322 strand cable and got very good results. Unless you want to elevate a system to audiophile standards you shouldn't need anything better and it's widely available.

I bought 100m from ebay a couple of months back for 40 quid with next day delivery from this seller:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/100m-Loud-Speaker-Cable-Quality-Oxygen-Free-322-Strand-/280295271331?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item4142e66ba3

maryke

If you're not some audiophile, you wouldn't notice the difference between a decent cable and a top-end one.
Your ear's bottleneck would more likely come from the type of speakers you have and your amplifier.

There is something you should pay attention to though - If you're talking about long cables, signal attenuation can become a factor.
In any cable the signal's amplitutde becomes lower for each unit of length (this is attenuation), but in cheap cables this can become significant so keep that in mind.

Jaynne

Audiophiles have a tendency to believe that gold plated oxygen free cables hand spun by blind monks make a great deal of difference to audio quality yet will usually never go near a blind test.

Maryke has a good point about attenuation, if you're going to be doing very long runs and doing a whole house audio system this may become important if it's a single room then no (unless you live in a mansion and it's your 200 seater ballroom that is - in which case you're probably on the wrong forum).

moonrakerz

Jaynne wrote: »

Audiophiles have a tendency to believe that gold plated oxygen free cables hand spun by blind monks make a great deal of difference to audio quality yet will usually never go near a blind test.

Just goes to show how little you know ! The best cables are hand rolled by Cuban virgins on their thighs in the 10 minutes after they have spent all day hand rolling cigars the same way................:cool:

To be a little more serious - most people's hearing is so damaged by modern technology that they would not hear any difference between solid gold cable and a piece of wet string.

mkaibear

riverboat2001 wrote: »

Coming to the end of a major house refurbishment, and mights treat myself to some new speakers and cable.

Assuming i'm just an average bod, for watching HDTV and playing on 360, would i really notice the difference between cheap and expensive speaker cable?

No, categorically not. There's a tale told by one of the reviewers from What Hi-Fi? where they were at a trade show in a listening room, listening to a £2500 pair of speakers hooked up to a £10k+ sound system and marvelling at the sound quality.

They noticed the bright orange speaker cables and said to the rep there "wow, those are amazing cables - what make are they"?

The rep refused to answer, but when pressed he said "look, we forgot speaker cables so we went to B&Q, bought an exterior extension lead, and cut the ends off it - two cores, thick shielding, they work perfectly".

...hence the bright orange cable :rotfl:


Buy some reasonably thick cable, make sure your connections at each end are sound (pun intended! :beer:) and you'll be fine with anything.

Of course, wire it with 1mm^2 bellwire and it won't sound as good