Every Time I Convince Myself Cables Cost Crazy Money I Find I Cant Agree With Myself

Having acquired an integrated amp and speakers that I love as the core of my system, I find that I don't really have a high-end source. Having given up on vinyl years ago, my sources now are Tidal, Pandora, network radio, FM, and three old Sony 400-disc CD/DVD/SACD multiplayers. The latter are now awaiting belt replacement and out of commission, and are arguably my best sources.

Tidal is my main source, but I do also use my lightly-modified Sony XDR-F1HD tuner fairly often.

I've been contemplating a cable upgrade, but I don't see myself spending hundreds on one cable for these sources. However, I do think I should upgrade my speaker cable from the basic and generic OFC stranded wire I use now, as well as the IC feeding dual subwoofers. I'm talking neither cutting edge nor crazy money here, and in a perfect world I could ask about cables in another forum without hassle - which we should be able to do even in this imperfect one.

So what are the entry-level brands/models/types of cable I should be considering? Or does anyone disagree about my surmises concerning sources? Or should I just start my own thread? I don't want to hijack, but I thought perhaps this could be an on-point side trip rather than a full-blown hostage situation.

Well part of it depends on what you can find on the used market, and also how far you need to go, and what the budget is of course. Do you need a biwire arrangement or is single termination ok too?

From my experience with SS amplification, I have found that I like the Analysis Plus OVAL 9 speaker wire quite a bit, also several of the Wireworld offerings are quite good. Not as excited about WW interconnects though. Another very good wire is the Alpha Core MI series. Cardas and XLO are solid choices also.

If it was me, and it was within my budget, I would think about AP, Alpha Core, and WW.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Well part of it depends on what you can find on the used market, and also how far you need to go, and what the budget is of course. Do you need a biwire arrangement or is single termination ok too?

From my experience with SS amplification, I have found that I like the Analysis Plus OVAL 9 speaker wire quite a bit, also several of the Wireworld offerings are quite good. Not as excited about WW interconnects though. Another very good wire is the Alpha Core MI series. Cardas and XLO are solid choices also.

If it was me, and it was within my budget, I would think about AP, Alpha Core, and WW.

Regards
Mister Pig

Single termination is fine. Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Thanks again, Mister Pig. When I checked the Analysis Plus site, the prices scared me and made me run like a little girl. Used indeed seems to be the way to go.
 
Sony 400-disc CD/DVD/SACD multiplayers. The latter are now awaiting belt replacement and out of commission, and are arguably my best sources.
I have some of these as extra units, the 200, 300 and 400 models

my sources now are Tidal, Pandora, network radio, FM,
Hell half the time I'm in the bedroom surfing Youtube, it's fun and that's what it's about. If I where you and I know you like easy I'd work on combining your digital components into one DAC. I know the CDPs have optical out and one DAC will balance you digital sound.

However, I do think I should upgrade my speaker cable from the basic and generic OFC stranded wire I use now, as well as the IC feeding dual subwoofers.
You don't have to go crazy, two of my speakers in the main system are Audioquest Rocket 33. As far as signal to a sub, the frequency sound is so low just a good RCA will do.
 
Ok, a serious question here. Assuming your gear is equipped for it, wouldn't balanced cables of modest cost offer all the benefits of high-end unbalanced cables?
 
Thanks again, Mister Pig. When I checked the Analysis Plus site, the prices scared me and made me run like a little girl. Used indeed seems to be the way to go.

John entry point and mine are far different LOL

And yes buying nice clean used cables are the way to go, some are being sold in BT.
Also if your a subscriber at Audioaficionado those guy's change cables as much as I change my underwear. You can find stuff on eBay but a lot of the new stuff is counterfeit so you don't know what the used is as well.
 
Ok, a serious question here. Assuming your gear is equipped for it, wouldn't balanced cables of modest cost offer all the benefits of high-end unbalanced cables?

I'd use balanced cables to connect a balanced in to a balanced out.
 
I have some of these as extra units, the 200, 300 and 400 models


Hell half the time I'm in the bedroom surfing Youtube, it's fun and that's what it's about. If I were you - and I know you like easy - I'd work on combining your digital components into one DAC. I know the CDPs have optical out and one DAC will balance you digital sound.


You don't have to go crazy, two of my speakers in the main system are Audioquest Rocket 33. As far as signal to a sub, the frequency sound is so low just a good RCA will do.

Waiting for Christine to get well to connect an optical out of a Chromecast Audio to the Levinson's built-in DAC, which is a fine one, I understand. We'll get there. Already had two of the multiplayers connected to the DAC inputs when the belts seemed to give up the ghost en masse. So I am working on that, if slowly. Yeah, easy. Like Sunday morning.
 
Ok, a serious question here. Assuming your gear is equipped for it, wouldn't balanced cables of modest cost offer all the benefits of high-end unbalanced cables?

As I just motioned to Hal, cables and opinions as to entry level will differ as will what someone calls high end. Using these terms are bad for communication, just like these threads. As soon as a cable is mention some guy comes in thinking it's $10,000 and lets eat the rich ensues, when in fact it cost $100 or $150. For me buying and accumulating components and then doing the work takes more time and effort than if I just earned $150 at work and bought cables made already.

XLR Balanced and RCA Unbalanced are two different animals. With your equipment you could find better results with either or. Most equipment has a lower noise floor with XLR than RCA. The signal passed can also be higher and thus louder in the over all system.

Again here you might want to try used first and cheap to see what the XLR will do in your system. Even Mic and studio patch cables can be used here that don't cost that much.

My system is fully balance and I have Tributaries Series 6, 7 and 8 throughout the system
 
Hi Todd Dodds,

XLR cables will have an inherently lower noise floor due to the grounding scheme that RCA cables made from the same wire. But there are other factors involved in controlling the noise floor and outside interference problems. In other words, you can find an instance where a $100.00 XLR cable will outperform a $1000.00 RCA cable, but usually not. Usually the wire and shielding in the $1000.00 cable will be better than the $100.00 cable, and the $1000.00 cable will have a filter network built into it. So the outside noise rejection, internal noise rejection, and overall noise floor level should be better with the $1000.00 cable.

But there is a big caveat will all of this. You can't go completely on price or brand. You have to ask the manufacturer how the cable is constructed or else cut up a cable and see for yourself. And I've done the former and spent about a year's pay doing the latter.

And there is another big caveat. At some point, in any given system, any improvement is going to be very minimal or go unnoticed. Much of the audible improvements with lowering the noise floor in a system are related to the soundstage presentation. If you, like most people, how to make your speakers fit where they will fit, you can't optimize their placement to get the best imaging from them anyway. So cables that may provide a very good improvement soundstaging and imaging may be blocked by the practicality of a living situation.

So the best thing you can do if you are interested is ask questions of the manufacturers and ask some dealers to loan you some cables to try out. We, like most dealers, loan out cables to people to try all the time. I've got cables loaned out to a dozen or more people right now, along with phono cartridges, amplifiers, etc. That's how business is done. If you're interested in buying just about any dealer will work with you that way. The Cable Company in Pennsylvania has a large collection of used cables that they loan out and that are for sale. If you want to spend less you can experiment with their inventory. This is how you can learn what will work best for your situation.

Happy listening.
 
Levinson's built-in DAC,
I was thinking you might have a nice built in DAC.

Sample Rates/Bit Depth: PCM: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz/up to 32-bit; DSD: Native, single- and double-speed.

Digital Audio Connectors:
1 balanced AES/EBU input (XLR);
2 coaxial S/PDIF inputs (RCA);
2 optical inputs (Tos-Link);
1 asynchronous USB input (USB-B)

Yep you have a digital hub to handle pretty much all your needs. I would get some decent strong optical cables and Tributaries are pretty good locking in tight.

Yeah, easy. Like Sunday morning.


See I told you

but this one is a much better vid, and I'll give it to you my friend this fine Sunday morning

 
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Hi Todd Dodds,

I forgot to mention another thing that can be important. Going back fifteen years or so ago, when the whole XLR connector thing went though a period of popularity, there were a number of low to moderately priced hi-fi components that hit the market that even though they had XLR sockets they did not have dual differential circuitry. In other words, the XLR sockets were wired in with the RCA jacks. In a case like that you are not very likely to get a lower noise floor simply by virtue of have XLR cables. In a case like that, having well shielded cables with a good filter network built in, whether XLR or RCA, would make more difference in performance in a situation where the performance difference could be heard.

So it's good to know how the component that you have are wired.

Happy listening.
 
Hi Todd Dodds,

I forgot to mention another thing that can be important. Going back fifteen years or so ago, when the whole XLR connector thing went though a period of popularity, there were a number of low to moderately priced hi-fi components that hit the market that even though they had XLR sockets they did not have dual differential circuitry. In other words, the XLR sockets were wired in with the RCA jacks. In a case like that you are not very likely to get a lower noise floor simply by virtue of have XLR cables. In a case like that, having well shielded cables with a good filter network built in, whether XLR or RCA, would make more difference in performance in a situation where the performance difference could be heard.

So it's good to know how the component that you have are wired.

Happy listening.

Thanks for good information, and that of @4-2-7 .
I asked the question in more of a general sense, rather than my own specific needs, and your examples of a $100 XLR vs $1000 RCA were what I had in mind...just a general difference, rather than some extreme example.

But, to carry the question a bit further, let me pose a situation:
If I have a preamp with no XLR, and a pair of MC-30's with no XLR, I may want to experiment with higher quality RCA's. Let's say your example of $1000 RCA's.
If I have a Mac C2500 preamp, loaded with XLR connections, and a Mac MC275 VI, also with XLR inputs, wouldn't the $100 XLR likely perform as well or better than the $1000 RCA's? Are there considerations that might favor the RCA's?

I guess what I'm driving at is, can you see a situation where money might be better spent upgrading the connection system, rather than the connection cables?
 
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But, to carry the question a bit further, let me pose a situation:
If I have a preamp with no XLR, and a pair of MC-30's with no XLR, I may want to experiment with higher quality RCA's. Let's say your example of $1000 RCA's.
If I have a Mac C2500 preamp, loaded with XLR connections, and a Mac MC275 VI, also with XLR inputs, wouldn't the $100 XLR likely perform as well or better than the $1000 RCA's? Are there considerations that might favor the RCA's?
Impossible to answer as you changed the base line, and I think you'v already been told about generalizing money as a product quality.

Oh and I'd go for the newer equipment...
 
Impossible to answer as you changed the base line, and I think you'v already been told about generalizing money as a product quality.

Oh and I'd go for the newer equipment...

Not sure there was a baseline to change, and the word "money" could easily be changed to "high or higher quality"...ain't "money" the term used in the thread title?
But I get your drift.
 
Hi Todd Dodds,

Every McIntosh product I've seen with XLR sockets had dual differential circuits. So you would be covered there.

Any $100.00 interconnect, regardless of connector type, is very unlikely to have either top notch shielding or a filter network. They are also likely to have lower grade conductors and bent metal rather than milled connectors.

The XLR cable would have the edge in eliminating any issue related to ground, if you had a ground issue to begin with. It's hard to know without some testing.

So it once again all depends upon the situation as a whole, not just the electronics in the system. And that's why dealers loan out cables for people to try. There is no hard and fast catch-all answer. The reputable companies the build cables can and do instrument testing on all this stuff. Ground issues aside, an RCA cable with better shielding and a filter network is going to test better at the amplifier outputs when those cables are in the test system than an XLR cable with lesser shielding and no filter network. But how that translates to what you or me or anyone else may hear in any given system playing through speakers is just a guess without some experimentation.

So I can tell you that the RCA with the filter network and top notch shielding is better. I can tell you that silver conductors will give a presentation that is "quicker" sounding than copper, or I can tell you any number of things that instrument tests show in a particular test system, but how that translates to any other system where the test instruments are ears and brains is not a consistent and given thing.

For example, I have customers who love Harmonic Technology silver cables. I have customers who hate Harmonic Technology silver cables. I have customers who love Harmonic Technology silver cables and hate Oyaide silver cables, and vice versa. At the end of the day, if everyone perceived things the same way we would all have the same system. In my over fifty year of messing with this stuff, and after hearing systems in many hundreds of peoples' home and having talked to thousands of other people about their systems, I have never met two people who had the same system.

So the science is only part of the equation. People can talk all day, and they do on the hi-fi forums, about what is best, how digital is perfect, etc., and it means nothing. That's why I suggest that you try for yourself. I suspect that you can find used $100.00 XLR cables and used $1000.00 RCA cables at The Cable Company that you can borrow. So anyone who might have the system that you mentioned should test the two choices for themselves. And I would be interested in knowing what they thought the results were and the conditions for the test.

At the end of the day, hi-fi is just like anything else that you would buy. Buy what you like, what you can afford, and what will fit in the space that you have for it. I can tell you it's a fact that 99.9% of my customers do just that. They don't fret over what anyone recommends or what someone says is best.

Happy listening.
 
Hi Todd Dodds,

Every McIntosh product I've seen with XLR sockets had dual differential circuits. So you would be covered there.

Any $100.00 interconnect, regardless of connector type, is very unlikely to have either top notch shielding or a filter network. They are also likely to have lower grade conductors and bent metal rather than milled connectors.

The XLR cable would have the edge in eliminating any issue related to ground, if you had a ground issue to begin with. It's hard to know without some testing.

So it once again all depends upon the situation as a whole, not just the electronics in the system. And that's why dealers loan out cables for people to try. There is no hard and fast catch-all answer. The reputable companies the build cables can and do instrument testing on all this stuff. Ground issues aside, an RCA cable with better shielding and a filter network is going to test better at the amplifier outputs when those cables are in the test system than an XLR cable with lesser shielding and no filter network. But how that translates to what you or me or anyone else may hear in any given system playing through speakers is just a guess without some experimentation.

So I can tell you that the RCA with the filter network and top notch shielding is better. I can tell you that silver conductors will give a presentation that is "quicker" sounding than copper, or I can tell you any number of things that instrument tests show in a particular test system, but how that translates to any other system where the test instruments are ears and brains is not a consistent and given thing.

For example, I have customers who love Harmonic Technology silver cables. I have customers who hate Harmonic Technology silver cables. I have customers who love Harmonic Technology silver cables and hate Oyaide silver cables, and vice versa. At the end of the day, if everyone perceived things the same way we would all have the same system. In my over fifty year of messing with this stuff, and after hearing systems in many hundreds of peoples' home and having talked to thousands of other people about their systems, I have never met two people who had the same system.

So the science is only part of the equation. People can talk all day, and they do on the hi-fi forums, about what is best, how digital is perfect, etc., and it means nothing. That's why I suggest that you try for yourself. I suspect that you can find used $100.00 XLR cables and used $1000.00 RCA cables at The Cable Company that you can borrow. So anyone who might have the system that you mentioned should test the two choices for themselves. And I would be interested in knowing what they thought the results were and the conditions for the test.

At the end of the day, hi-fi is just like anything else that you would buy. Buy what you like, what you can afford, and what will fit in the space that you have for it. I can tell you it's a fact that 99.9% of my customers do just that. They don't fret over what anyone recommends or what someone says is best.

Happy listening.

Thanks again...great and helpful post.
 
Ok, a serious question here. Assuming your gear is equipped for it, wouldn't balanced cables of modest cost offer all the benefits of high-end unbalanced cables?

Thats a good question, and I have never been able to make the comparison. Now as I understand it, there are different levels or grades of balanced input/output designs. There is a true circuit designed for balanced connections, and I am not sure that it responds well to single ended inputs, so I don't know if the comparison is fair on the same components. Also there are balanced inputs that are really just a single ended design with a third wire going to the ground connector, so its really not different in terms of comparing to a conventional RCA input. There are advantages to Balanced inputs and outputs, and I certainly wouldn't mind having equipment with that option. However the stuff I use doesnt do that, so I cannot comment.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Hi Todd Dodds,

I can report on one comparison that I have made with an instrument test. I've got a demo system with a Unison Research UNICO PRE linestage and UNICO DM power amplifier where both components are dual differential designs on the XLR side and they also have RCA jacks. I compared the Harmonic Technology Melody Link III XLR vs. RCA cables between them and made a spectrum analysis at the binding posts on the DM. Both version use the same wire, same shielding, same filter network, etc. They only difference between the two is how they are wired to the connectors and the connectors themselves. The cables are identical otherwise.

In that system, located here, on this electrical service, the analysis showed identical results with both cables. With everything else being the same one may expect the XLR cables to produce a lower noise floor. They didn't here because there is apparently no ground issue in that system. So some people would take from that that it doesn't matter, where others are adamant that XLR is better. Thing is, I could take this system to a different location with different wiring in the building and on a different electrical service line and a spectrum analysis would be different. And I've seen that sort of thing happen before.

So you will rarely hear me speak in absolutes when it comes to how hi-fi systems will work. You'll get mostly generalities from me, and encouragement to experiment.

Happy listening.
 
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