Question Analog Interconnect recommendations

barwell1992

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Hi all,

I’m in need of a fair few interconnects for my 5.1.4 system I’m setting up and I’d like a bit of a steer.

I’d be tempted to go lower end on the surrounds and heights and higher end on the front’s if someone can convince me to spend the money...

Due to the way my system is setup there’s quite a lot of interconnects especially up front!

So for the front’s and center I’m looking at 5 pairs of either
  • QED performance Audio 40, have one already, very well built. £35
  • QED Reference Audio 40, is it really worth £90?
  • Chord Clearway 2, very well reviewed. Really worth £90?
  • Blue Jeans LC-1, well reviewed across forums, well made, very low capacitance, some say sounds bland, good price point at £32
Rears/heights Im looking at 3 pairs of either
  • QED performance Graphite, well made, have two already, £20
  • QED Performance audio 40, have one already, £35
  • Blue Jeans LC-1 £32
Leaning towards Qed performance Audio 40 all round for £245

My system sound is on the bright side of neutral if that matters.

System specs below..
Speakers:
Front’s: Mordaunt-Short Performance 6’s
Center:Mordaunt-Short Mezzo 5C
Rear’s: Mordaunt-Short Mezzo 6
Height: Monitor Audio C265
Wire front: Qed silver anniversary XT
Wire Rear/heigh: Qed QX16/2

Pre’s/DAC
AV Pre-Amp: Denon AVR-X4300H
RCA Switch Unit: Beresford
Hifi Pre-Amp: Rotel RSP-1068
DAC : Beresford Caiman SEG 30 & Dorado supercap PSU
Digital interconnects: Fisual Hollywood Toslink, Blue Jeans 75ohm Coax.


Amps:
Power amp main: Emotiva XPA-5 Gen 3
Power amp heights: Emotiva A800 or A500
 
Nothing wrong with the QED range.

Remember, a cable can never improve sound, it can just make things a bit worse if the capacitance or to a lesser extent inductance is altering the tonal balance. Of more importance is good noise rejection and self cable noise. Any semiconducting element of the cable construction can add handling noise and microphony, which in my experience is quite audible as what I can only describe as "congestion" and a lack of clarity.

Good quality connections will avoid any impedance step, which at analogue frequencies matters very little, but you can get reflections, so a tiny proportion of the signal is sent back up the cable and either reflects back again or could slightly modulate the source amplifier. I think you would need golden ears to hear this and it's very hard to measure with any certainty as well. It is clear to see at higher frequencies - check out an analogue video signal sent through poor cabling and mismatched plugs. It's quite easy to see the reflected signal as diminishing echos of the image, causing smearing and loss of resolution. The same happens to audio, but to a very lesser extent.
 
Agreeing with Noiseboy,.. Cables cannot improve, they can only reduce disimprovement.
1. All your speaker cables can be basic thick wire... The advantages of anything exotic making a difference is tiny.
2. The digital cable going to an external DAC can have reflected noise due to impeadence mismatch.. but this will only matter if the runs are long. . The toslink cable will be immune.
3. There is no possibility of reflections causing audio problems with audio frequencies. These are never matched impedance anyway .. unless one is talking about the sound stage in a TV studio.,with 500 metre runs and XLR . Better thickness, more copper in the shield braid ,better milled connectors,rather than swaged tin plate ,reduce potential interference a little and give better lifetime
 
I've got two of the cables you've mentioned, the QED Audio 40 as a 2 metre feed from my receiver to my Rega amp for HT by-pass. I also have Chord Clearway interconnects between my Marantz SACD player and the Rega and a Lehmann headphone amp. I also have Clearway connecting amps to the front three speakers.

The reason for the Chord is that I blagged them when order other expensive bits of kit. I would not have paid £90 for them. As far as I can tell the cheaper QED does just the same, which I did buy.
 
Great feedback guys!

So based on the info above and going from the manufacturers figures (the two that actually have any cable data) the Blue Jeans looks to be a better cable over the Qed Ref audio 40 for capacitance and resistance.

Plug wise the Qed ref has locking plugs but the LC-1 has crimped on connectors rather than soldered on, from what i can find crimp seems to be favourable.

Capacitance
1) Blue Jeans LC-1 40.02 pF/m
2) Qed Reference audio 40 Capacitance: 76 pF/m

loop Resistance (Shield Resistance)
1) Blue Jeans LC-1 0.005 Ω/m
2) Qed Reference audio 40 0.072 Ω/m

Based on that i'd say the Blue Jeans are very good value at £32 vs the Qed at £90

Its a shame that the lower end Qed cables don't have the spec listed.
 
Read the delivery conditions. If they are delivered by a wizard riding a white unicorn and cost over a grand an inch then they are the very best.:)
 
I have several of the QED Reference Audio 40 RCA interconnects and I’m extremely pleased with them, much better than the 20 year old QED Qunex’s they replaced. If you shop around you can get them for less than £90; I paid £77 for my last one metre pair.
 

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