Canare 4S11 Star Quad cables for speaker

First response by Olpet nailed it. I've used it with great results.

You aren't going to get any agreement here about whether any particular cable is good, or even whether cable makes any sonic difference, but the Canare Star Quad cables are worth exploring for some very practical reasons.

There is a range of sizes, 4S11, 4S8 and 4S6, meaning there is one to suit just about any application.

They're flexible and easy to terminate. The soft gray color is attractive and unobtrusive. The price is low enough that in the lengths most people need the difference between it and zip cord isn't worth the extra effort of driving to Home Depot instead of ordering the Canare through some place like markertek.com. The Star Quad configuration gives you the option to single-wire, bi-wire or use a single run to connect between an amp and the high-level inputs of a sub.

If you do any reasonable amount of swapping equipment in and out or helping friends set up gear, it's worth having some of the bulk cable around for experimentation. I finally bought 50' of both the 4S11 and 4S8 just to have on hand and it's a luxury to be able to make up a quick pair of cables on a whim, just to try something new.

Sfar said it best. So easy to work with, and a great price/benefit ratio.

Borrowing the quote from above:

"When conventionally wired, star quad speaker cable has the advantage of reducing the EM field around the cable, which will tend to diminish the effect of the signal in the speaker cable upon nearby interconnects--though this is not, in most applications, a significant concern."

Is that quote attributing EMI reduction to the starquad inner conductor geometry? Can someone explain why this would be true or direct me to a proper explanation?

I can accept that statement when the starquad is wired for balanced signals. I have trouble accepting that the starquad geometery has a significant effect on EMI when the cable is wired with the four center conductors as signal and the shield as return/ground as I have seen done for speaker cable applications. I would expect the quality of the shield to be the characteristic that influences EMI susceptibility in a single ended cable.

I just want to know if I'm missing something with respect to the governing field theory. I already know it's decent wire for speaker cables.

Mcmiller, this explanation of the advantage of star quad geometry is from the Canare website:

Speaker cable must accommodate relatively high signal levels, typically tens to hundreds of watts of RMS power. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) can radiate from these speaker lines directly into adjacent low voltage cables (i.e. microphone, video lines, etc.). Canare solves this problem by using a 4-conductor “Star Quad” configuration in all of our 4S Series speaker cables. Because every conductor is located the same distance from the center, the opposing magnetic fields are cancelled out. Attenuation of magnetic field radiation is superior when compared to a standard 2-conductor speaker wire.

Here is a link to the Canare webpage from which I copied this statement. It also includes two diagrams.