Cable recommendations ?

[dc007]

Looking to upgrade my crappy old monster speaker cables...

I've been recommended ixos silver, at around £5 a metre - anybody got any thoughts/opinions/recommendations ?

Is flat cable any good ? Must be convenient for under the carpet - not too keen on burying into the walls if I can avoid it....!

[bananas]

Yeah, flat cable is good..
My friend has the Nordorst Flat Line, its TOTALLY flat, so great to go under the carpet.
I think youre getting confused with Manufacturers..its QED that do the flat Silver 12 cable, not Ixos although Im not sure of cost.
Ixos have a flat bi-wired cable, the 6004, but its not a 'proper' flat cable like the Nordorst or QED.
Check www.qed.co.uk, (http://www.qed.co.uk,) www.nordost.com (http://www.nordost.com) and www.ixos.co.uk (http://www.ixos.co.uk) for details.

If youre interested, Nordost also do flat interconnect cable...for those tricky components!

Remember that the difference speaker cable makes in a system is very subjective..some people swear by super expensive stuff, and others cant tell the difference, but ive always gone for a 'sensible' approach. i.e get a good quality cable, with well terminated ends...(in other words, get a good shop to terminate it for you)

In your application youre limited to the fact that it has to go under the carpet, so the QED silver 12 would be a good choice, as well as the aforementioned Nordorst stuff..they should be about the same price/quality.

Hope this helps!

[GaryG]

"i.e get a good quality cable, with well terminated ends...(in other words, get a good shop to terminate it for you)"

Ideally, you want a plug that uses a mechanical weld for the termination. Something like bannana plugs with the screw in the side with solder at the end of the plug where the lead enters. The idea is that the screw gives you the best electical connection and the solder at the end prevents air entering the plug and oxidising the cable (assuming it's copper or silver). This method avoids the degradation of passing the signal though a solder connection.

Regards
Gary

[bananas]

Gary, could'nt agree more..Soldering really isnt hard, but its good to get a good shop to do it for you...they've had the experience after all (plus they should shrink wrap the ends too).

Another thing to watch out for on the flat cable, is that it can get a bit 'brittle' at the connection with the banana plug. This happened with my DNM speaker cable, and I broke one off...bit of a bummer.

[ReTrO]

Decent cable termination uses the QED system that fuses/clamps the cable and the plug together. This ensures that none of the cabel becomes corroded.

If you were to do this at home it would cost you around £400 just for the clamping gun.

We offer the service on any speaker cable, for bananas or the Arcam wotsits.

Rick

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