This is a little long so please bear with me. This is a tough call as many above have stated with their choices. Personal preference drives this, however there are differences that I've found but not what I'd consider jaw-dropping. I went through many different cables over the past years, and settled on ZU-Event's. After doing some other equipment changes, I started looking for tweaks. I always wondered what CHEAP cables or wire would do the job as well if not better than what I have. Well, I did some experimentation with my audiophile friend on purchasing CHEAP cabling. Long story short, I ended up with Audio Envy NV-SP5. ($248.00 for an 8-ft stereo-pair with bananas) It noticeably beat the Events in every respect. Low bass strong, timed and detailed, great life-like mid-range and crisp, clear treble. Soundstage was slightly improved from a width perspective but not depth, but instrument placement was a little better defined. The clincher... Female vocals sounded the most REAL that I'd ever heard on my system. For what it's worth, if you're looking to make a noticeable improvement in your system, consider your interconnects too. I was using the ZU-Events however in my CHEAP cable quest, I tried the Blue Jeans Cable LC-1. 1-meter RCA for $34.00 ! ! ! Yes that's right ! I bought a 16-ft pair since my amp is that far from the preamp. That cost me less than $100 ! ! ! Noticeable improvement over my ZU-Events in every category, and a really noticeable in lower mid-range/bass ! ! ! I believe it's due to the very low capacitance of that cable. This to me is the unbelievable BARGAIN interconnect of the century. All the cables above are good copper not silver, and do not have that treble edginess often found with some silver/copper hybrids. I replaced all of my interconnects with the Blue Jeans LC-1's and bought a complete set for my audiophile friend too ! The cost for all of my interconnects was under $300 for the whole system interconnects !
I also tried the Duelund 16-gauge hook-up wire for speaker cabling. The Duelund sounded really good, especially in the upper mid-range and treble. Basically, everything was there including great sound-stage, depth, detail and realness of the music and vocals. Where it was lacking was in the lower mid-range and bass. The notes were there, however I think with the 16-gauge, the bass notes were noticeably less robust than the other cables. In fact, I am thinking about experimenting with bi-wiring my speakers with the Duelund as the upper-mid/treble, and the Audio Envy as the lower mid-range/bass.
One other speaker cable I tried since I had great results with the Blue Jeans LC-1 interconnect was their Belden 5T00UP 10-gauge with the locking bananas. An 8-ft set with the locking bananas is $38.75 ! These are built well and I LOVE the locking bananas. You need two sets for two speakers, so the total is under $80.00 ! While it didn't have the micro-detail and soundstage depth/width of the other cables, if you're just starting out with stereo and/or are on a tight budget, this would be a great first set of cables along with the LC-1's ! The Belden 5T00UP would probably beat out most any other speaker cable at 3X the price.
With the cable choices above, I just can't see spending mega-bucks for cabling... Save your $5,000 cable allotment for a nice piece of equipment or room treatments ! Experiment !
OK... Enough said. I hope this all helps you. Regards... John
