Question Arcam AVR850 - cabling recommendation to Ceiling Speakers

[BAnderson]

I've enjoyed my AVR750 for about 4 years now and have absolutely loved it, it has met all of my requirements for music and home movie listening. Now the 850 has arrived with improved sound and features, especially the connectivity for Dolby Atmos and DTS X, I'm looking to buy a couple of B&W ceiling speakers to compliment my current 5.2 setup and re-cable to the rear speakers.

Current setup:

Arcam AVR750
Naim NDX Streamer - linked to Synology 215J NAS
Primare BD32
Speakers: F: B&W 803 Diamond, C: B&W HTM2, R: B&W 805D, Sub F: B&W DB1, Sub R: REL Habitat, Ceiling: B&W CCM65 (To purchase)
Cables: Front speakers - Chord Sarum, Rear Speaker: Some nasty £3/mt flat cable (to be replaced)
Interconnects: NDX & BD32 - Chord Sarum

The question is what cabling do you recommend for the ceiling and rear speakers? The run for the rear speakers will be about 5mt and about 8-10mt for the ceiling speakers. I've spent a lot of money on cables for the front mainly for listening to music, so I'm looking for suitable cables for rear and ceiling without braking the bank. My budget for both will be in the region of £1000 tops (do I even need to spend this much?)

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[larkone]

Copper is just copper - spending a fortune on the marketing claims for expensive speaker cable will only make money for the sellers and not improve the sound you hear. The only thing that is important is cross sectional area for the length between amp and speakers and resistance of your speakers.

Speaker Wire

 

[sounddog]

Personally I like VanDamme cabling.

 

[spl23]

Frankly, I'd say that the £3 a metre cable you're currently using already cost more than you need to spend. As larkone says above, whatever the marketers might claim, copper is just copper. Spending a quarter of the cost of your amplifier on 30-odd metres of cable makes no sense at all.

I have an AVR 750 and £5000 of B&W 5.1 XT speaker system, all connected with QED 79-strand at under £2 a metre...

 

[crypticc]

Interesting reading on cable theory

::Welcome::

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

The QED 79-strand is 2.5mm2 OFC, which is already a good match for 10m to £10K ESLs, and will therefore more than meet your requirements for the ceiling speakers.

Cross-sectional area - 2.50mm2
Loop resistance - 0.016 Ω/m
Capacitance - 58pF/m
Inductance - 0.66 µH/m
Dissipation factor - 0.0900

Unfortunately, Chord don't give the specification of the Sarum on their web site (Chord Sarum speaker cable), making it difficult to determine if the QED is "better" than the Sarum.

 

[larkone]

Unfortunately, Chord don't give the specification of the Sarum on their web site (Chord Sarum speaker cable), making it difficult to determine if the QED is "better" than the Sarum.

But they say this and QED doesn't

The aim of any speaker cable designer is to produce a cable that allows as much information through as possible, and at the same time ensuring that the cable has a neutral tonal signature. In other words it’s a speaker cable, not a tone control.

So it must be better because the marketing says it is and it costs way more which of course is a sure sign of audio(fool) excellence as we all know.

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

I guess QED don't pay their marketing staff well enough to get the same sort of flowery descriptive text, so they just give the technical details from which we can work it out.