Advise needed for subwoofer cable

[jabriel]

Hi,

I've got a budget of roughly £10 per meter for a cable for my sub. Length required is 10m. I haven't bought the amp or the sub yet but am renovating the house so running all the cables now.

Can you make some recommendations for me to consider? Looking to buy ASAP. Don't mind buying used. Might mean I get a better cable for the money.

I've already bought chord rumour 2 and c-screen for front and rear speakers.

Thanks in advance,
Jabriel

 

[MIKEVO]

I presume you will be running a screened signal cable, in which case an RG59 screened cable will be perfectly sufficient and you will not hear any difference in sound quality if you spend more.

Something like this will be perfectly adequate.

10m PRO RCA PHONO RG59 DIGITAL AUDIO VIDEO MALE PLUG AMP CAR SUBWOOFER CABLE | eBay

 

[jabriel]

Thanks mikevo.

Does that mean some/most of the blurb in this just marketing and the cable in your link is just good?

AudioQuest Irish Red Subwoofer Cable 12m - By Brand - AudioVisual Online - Home Cinema and Hifi Specialists

 

[MIKEVO]

The Audioquest is made of claimed exotic materials and has an extra earth termination, which should not be necessary, unless there is an issue with your system and then, where would you connect the earth tag to? Also, it claims to not use solder in its connection to the plug, but unfortunately almost every other component in your entire system does use solder, as it works perfectly well.

The Link I sent you is to an industry standard RG59 Specification Cable that maintains its impedance of 75 Ohms and will work with Digital and Analogue signals and I do not believe you would hear the difference in a blind test. The Audioquest will look far nicer though.

 

[jabriel]

Thanks again.

One more question, is the shielding (or anything else) better in the cable in the below link? Specifically the LC-1 cable.

Subwoofer Cables from Blue Jeans Cable

 

[MIKEVO]

Well, it claims to have a double shield, but doesn't have any graphs comparing it against RG59 standard cable. I get no hum from RG59 cables, but then you should keep signal cables away from mains cables if you can and cross over at 90 degrees if they have to cross over each other, which induces less mains hum.

In Theory a double shield may be better, but a well made single shield will also perform well and if you get no hum using a £6 cable do you need to spend more?

Ideally, you could put your cable inside a steel conduit and it will be impervious to external noise, but you have to be realistic and keep the WAF high.

I have used RG59 Cables for Audio Interconnects and subwoofer cables for years and compared them against some very expensive interconnects and have only ever had one cable sound 'different', it was made by made by a HiFi company (not to an industry standard), which made my system sound 'muddy' and less defined.
This was down to high capacitance that made my amplifier oscillate.

There is loads of blurb, but if you look at most Professional Recording Studio setups, they use industry standard cables, nothing fancy (unless they get it for free).

I have a Mark Levinson Preamp, Power Amp and Martin Logan Electrostatics and no cable sounds any different to me.

I also made my own RG59 cables (copper cable, not Copper coated steel or aluminium) for my dual Paradigm Sub1's and had no hum.

So, the choice is yours.

Blue Jeans Cables have a good reputation as do Audioquest and probably have better quality RCA connectors on the end, but how often are you likely to be reconnecting your subwoofer?