Top Ten Speaker Cables of all time?...

Again, it would be the same as my vote for interconnects... Transparent Reference XL. But different systems work better with different cables.

Based solely on my personal listening experiences, I'd have to rate the Kimber Kable 8TC as the best moderately priced speaker cable I have owned or heard. Expensive stuff? Probably the Cardas Golden Cross.

I think, MIT-2 had set the standard for the audio cables!

Magnan Signature is the best I heard and used.

Kimber Select 3038

While I have never had the opportunity to play with them, the Kimber Black Pearl HAVE to be number one. Waaayyyy out of my budget at $50,000! The Kimber Select technology is based upon Black Pearl.

Trelja you don't have an extra 50K, he he he. The best cables will never be heard by most of us, in TAS last month most of the $100,000 plus systems they recommended had NBS Monitor and Siltech speaker cables at mind boggling costs. I can just imagine the look on some guys face though when he drops $10k on speaker cables and a month later hears a $1k pair that blows them away........some sanity and prespective is required, Sam

Nordost SPM Reference. Listen to them and you'll know why! I also am very impressed with JPS Superconductor 2 NC. Both are very revealing with clean detailed high frequency and great tight bass.

Megasam, 10k is insane but have you compared 10k cables to 1k cables? This doesn't count if the 1k set was yours because you will automatically want to pick them, and in your mind they will sound better.

Has anyone seen "Fabio's" hifi setup, it was on some news show a while back? One planar speaker (of the pair) was quoted as being $80,000.00 I beleive. I wonder if $50,000.00 cables would be condidered overkill.

"considered"

I've seen Fabio's setup and he uses transparent with the modified Martin-logans. It was in a stereophile about 4 years ago. Hard to tell which are the best because my system changes and probably my ears do too. I've spent a lot of time checking different cables with help from the cable co. With my system the Transparent were laid back. The nordost spm were great but after 2 weeks they sounded a bit on the bright side compared to the JPS superconducter 2. I have used the JPS for 2 years and have changed to the Audio Tekne cables which have been excellent. All these cables are excellent choices. The changes on all these cables were more on the subtle side and could live with any of them.

DeKay has been at the Temple Ball again!

Any one ever hear the old LiveWire Red? About the same price per foot as freeway and has great sound. This stuff is way too big to terminate though. I have some, anyone interested?

Still using vintage 10 gauge Monster Cable from 1982. Not made anymore by Monster Cable,or at least I cant find them in current catalog. Probably better out there,but still satisified with these.

I have compared several of these cables, and as usual, my vote goes to Purist Audio. The Dominus RLS being first choice. Next would come the standard Dominus (non RLS). Yes, I have heard them. I own them and they are worth what they cost, at least in my system.

Would love to hear the Purist cables. Can one demo these ultra expensive cables without purchasing first.

Snook, Don’t know if you were kidding or not, but The Cable Co has Purist Cables. I have a couple of Digital cables coming my way from them. If you are willing to pay 5% of the retail price (non-refundable, but applicable toward a future purchase) and shipping, then you should be able to audition the cables. In my case I needed two balanced digital cables to go between my dCS gear, so I have three different sets coming. I purposely chose a cable outside my price range for comparison purposes. Cheers, Dan

Thanks Dan I wasn't kidding. Most of the top dogs in the business of reveiwing are using this cable. Would like to see what its all about.

Regarding Fabio's "stuff" the article mentions the pieces, piece by piece. Much to my surprise: much/most, mid fi;not the speakers or cables tho.Till my speakers and amp go beyond 10grand ea,I'll stick with Syn. Reasearch;Res. Ref 2 /with the active sheilding;best I have ever owned (8 grand/their speaker wires inc) Albert: love to hear what you use,even if I can't afford it now.

In regard to Fabio's other gear, he can't believe that it's not hifi.

Avguygeorge, all the cable in my system, including the balanced and single ended interconnects, Power cords, and speaker cable (including the Dolby 5.1 surround sound) is all Purist Audio. The two channel is all top of the line Dominus, with the 38 foot long run (Preamp to mono amps) being Dominus RLS (Radiant Light Source). The surround sound is Proteous, which is the next line down from Dominus. The only exception is the power cables (Omega Micro) on the Walker motor controller for the Walker turntable. These were supplied by Lloyd Walker, and I have not ordered two more Dominus power cords to see if they work better than these. For me to describe the Purist, they really don't have a personality, at least not like most of the other cables I have tried. A reviewer friend of mine just recently got a full systems worth of Dominus, and when compared to other cables he has owned (a lot of them!) he described the Purist to me as one of the finest cables he has ever heard, with his only objection being that it seemed to slow the music down just a bit. I personally do not know how music can be "slowed down." I think of that description when speaking of an error in speed in a turntable. I guess if he means that the Purist has no "bleeding" edge or brightness, or sticks out any place in the audio spectrum, then I agree with him. The sound is not exciting, just accurate, liquid, ULTRA low distortion, VERY black (due to screening against RF and EMI) and very phase accurate. If I had to complain, I guess the dynamics seem perhaps a bit compressed, but that is usually a normal perception in sonics when a cable removes the hash and bright bits from the musical spectrum. If your system happens to sound better with one of these artifacts, then the Purist could perhaps sound lacking. Personally, I have found that it is easier to have a beautifully accurate cable, and get the desired tonal balance changes with isolation devices, tubes and other tweaks, rather than give up the really special qualities that the Purist delivers. Just my opinion, works in my system, but you need to try it for yourself. By the way, I don't guess you live close enough to me to borrow cable? I have at least one run of Dominus single ended interconnect that I am not using right now, it is about 10 feet.

Albert, a question: How would you describe the difference between the Proteus and the Dominus, particularly with regard to RF and EMI screening? I'm happy with my Full Spectrum cables, but they're no longer readily available and I've got additional cable needs with my now bi-amped setup. I live in the NYC area, so I have to protect against RFI in particular. Dominus seems much more unwieldy than the Proteus, and may be stretching the budget too much, so I'm curious about Proteus (I use a Proteus digital cable which I like a lot and is similar to my Full Spectrum in tonal balance, data retrieval, etc. in that application). Thanks for your thoughts.

If you order the Proteous new, and let Jim Aud at Purist know where in the system it is going, be can fine tune that cable so there is very little difference between it and the Dominus. The advantage in the Dominus is that no matter where you put it, in about three weeks, it will have "figured out" what is the best signal path and broken in to whatever it is connected to. Same story when it is moved to new components, just give it time to adapt. The Proteous will work very well in every situation, but ultimately not up to the absolute level of the Dominus. Primarily the difference is in the signal to noise and dynamics. The tonal balance is extremely close, with the Dominus having a slight advantage in the deep bass. However, I cannot tell any difference in the (perceived) distortion characteristics at all.

I have used the SILVERSMITH AUDIO speaker cables for some months now. Itts the best cable I have ever heard and they lifted my Audio Artistry speakers to a new dimension. Several of my frinds now use sILVERSMITH and the cable outpermored PAD and Transparant cables in every AB test we have performed. They must be regarded as "cheap" giving the best avalably sound for around 2500§.

One would be remiss to not include XLO Limited Edition. If the purpose of a cable is to stay out of the way,this one's absence is deafening.

...and now, for best simile by an audioholic, the envelope please ........MAXGAIN!!!!!!!

Fulton Gold. Why? Because Fulton was the only, and I mean only high end cable available for years before Monster cable finally emerged. Is this cable good by today's standards? , not even close! But, when you are the only guy on yhe block, it isn't very hard to be the best. Some younger audiophiles probably don't realize, that there was a time, when expensive interconnects and speaker cables, were not even available to the consumer!

Antone had experience with a product called Gut Wire? I'd appreciate your feedback regarding this. Know nothing bout it but the name has come up from time to time. Thanks.

Audioquest Everst Speaker and Amazon Interconnect

Iam very happy with my synergistic designers ref. along with the designers ref.ic with acticve sheilding.
I would like to try THE ONE from tara though.

Best speaker cables I ever used were the capacitor and inductor coil leads from my rebuilt MGIIIA crossovers that I connected to the tube monos sitting right behind the panels. Incredible.

Stealth Ultimate ribbon

Jim, Gutwire is a Cnadaian cable manufacturer located just north of Toronto...I have their 2nd from top power cord (lucious red in colour), excellent build quality, and comes with a unique alligator 'ground' clip! Their other cables include interconnects & speaker...I have not yet tried any. You can read several reviews of Gutwire in "The Inner Ear Report" a Canadian glossy publication. The owner and lead writer, one Ernie Fisher, is respected as having 'golden ears', though his writing style has a sameness to it over time. The mag is very well turned out, though. Gutwire is now advertising in most of the main audio mags. also. Good luck!

Apologies for not proof-reading my post above...two finger typing and all...sorry.

"the best" in re: to class. The Straightwire Crescendo II BW Speakercable for mains & Blacsilc BW for theatre are exemplory. All balanced via ARC LS10pre for 2ch. & Anthem AVM2 theatre. Pair of Gray TPC400 line filters.

To date, the FIM GOLD wins in my system hands down.

does anybody know the setup "fabio" was actully using like what company brands and what not? pretty sweet setup i seen it was on tom green and was wanting to know every since what kinda equipment can cost that much. Its gotta be good if "Fabio" listnes to it ,"Fabio oh Fabio!" doesn't deserve it anyways. lol maybe i'm just jealous. maybe?

I currently use NBS Monitor II. I chose them over the NBS Statement line because of the better dynamics and detail (the tradeoff is less lush and smaller apparent soundstage). What I like about the NBS line is that it is rational in the sense that there are different lines with different emphasis and the higher in price you go, the better the stuff sounds. The bad news is that all of their cables are somewhat delicate and cannot be twisted or moved around excessively.

I've had a chance to hear the crazy expensive NBS Black label cables and that stuff is really, really good. Other fantastic cables that I have extensive listening experience with are the XLO Limited (sounds good with just about anything) and the Audionote's Sogon (?)(heard only with Audionote speakers and SAP speakers).

Transparent Opus for those who can afford. I had an opportunity to listen to these speaker cables through a pair of approximately $4,000 Respons speakers at Transparent about two years-ago. With non-networked cables, the Respons speakers sounded like good $4k speakers. Adding cables that cost about eight times the speaker cost transformed the speakers into another relm. This demo was clearly designed to demonstrate what is possible, rather than a likely combination of components. And, BTW, I believe Fabio uses Transparent Cable in his system.

In case anyone is interested, here is the Fabio system people above are referring to. Unfortunately article was done in 1995 so surely there have been changes, but this should give you an idea of his level of system:

http://www.transparentcable.com/products/reviews/full_reviews/ref_scottwilkinson_avinteriors.html

This was posted at Transparant cable website.

In no particular order the BEST speaker cables I have heard/used:
1. Jena Labs(symphony, Valkyre and Pathfinder- I have not heard the Dreamdancers yet, I am not sure I can afford to listen to them!)
2. Transparent opus mm
3. Nordost Valhalla(hey they do somethings very well)
4. Purist(I am not familiar with the line, however there higher end cables always sound great)
5. Siltech I think the model was Compass Lake, they are real good.

I will leave my list as top 5, they are all different and depending what you want and what your system is maybe none of them are for you! But they are what I like.

btw this is a REAL old thread, I wonder if some of the posters from 2000 would change there answers now!

I have a rotel int amp 1060, B&W 602 series 3 speakers what cables would anybody recomend for my system? Would QED silver spiral cables be any good or to bright sounding? Comments please?

I like the audience Au24 a lot.

It's interesting that this thread started in October, 2000, and is still getting new posts. Since my original post, I've changed my speaker cable from Kimber 8TC (which was recently rated by TAS as one of the top 4 cables in their review of more than a dozen models) to Alpha-Core Goertz MI2, which now gets my vote for best budget speaker cable. The one caveat regarding the A-C Goertz cables is that with some amplifier / speaker combinations, they can cause amplifier oscillation -- which can be cured by the use of a Zobel (resistor-capacitor) network.

I haven't tried a ton of cables, but so far, my fave is Cardas Neutral Reference. I don't see myself swapping these out of my system for some time to come.

Tom.

I have changed from this to that but still kept my Apex ICTL. Apex closed, and you don't see much of their wires reselling. One reason, they are good!

The best speaker cable is the ones speaker manufacturers use in there adverts, the ones that never seem to intrude or are so fine you can't even tell they're there:)

It seems to me that cables invariably act as frequency tone controls with the specifc effects determine by inductance/resitance/capacitance.

If this is true, it would seem that there can be no best cable as it becomes almost totally system dependent.

I would think that given source A, pre-amp B, amp C, and speaker D we might be able to answer what is the "best" cabling for this particular system.

Beyond that, I think universal claims of which cabling is "best" are close to impossible.

Home Depot standard copper 14 gauge insulated house wire. Twisted pairs( I buy red and black). Clean, dynamic clear sound. Best for less. Try it.