can anyone recommended speaker cables and interconnects for budget/mid range system?

[imparanoic]

can anyone recommended speaker cables and interconnects for higher entry level/mid range system?

It's for my friend's system, he has aquired good cd player dcd-1500, nad amp ( pretty good), tube ampilfier ( will test if sounds warm, may not use it) as well as ok rogers speakers recently, however, with mediocre speaker cables and interconnectors,

any recommended brands good at reasonable prices ( aroung HK$50/70 per metre ) and some inconnectors ( around HK$300-HK$400)

I think they don't mind japanese, austrailian, us or even euro brands

Personally, I'm using a cable talk monitor 2/3 ( cost 50quid, but discontinued as well as pricey in hk) as well as qed silver anniversary ( at 5.50quid per metre in uk , but u think its triple the price in hk) using marantz cd67 se, marantz pm67 se and mission 773i

They listen to light rock/indie, dance, all sorts, even canto pop.

[PDLM]

Are you actually sure you can tell the difference? I nearly got dragged into this whole scam years ago, but I decided that frankly any decent gauge bit of copper is fine - to my ears (even 20 years ago) the rest was pure marketing hype and totally undetectable.

[imparanoic]

yes, quality hifi, you can tell the difference whether the artist has a beard, brand of guitar, height of performance, layering of instruments whether it's behind or more forward

remember pure audio is faithful reproduction of music as the performer/artist intended, nothing added or hindered.

i believe all of the critics ( both web and magazine) give bad ratings on b&o systems as well as bose systems, (i'm not a troll) but i perfer individual compenents manufacturer/make, eg, mission, tannoy, arcam, marantz, nad, linn, onkyo, paradigm, h&K, b&W, etc..

[Skyhook]

If you are looking for affordable AWG8 directional OFC speaker cable, gold plated banana pins/spade connectors to bi-wire speakers with and well made RCA interconnects without ( going overboard), then NeoTech in my opinion, offers the best range, bang for buck....

http://www.neotechcable.com/ contact them to find a local HK retailer nearest you.

You'll notice a much tighter bass by hooking a quad shielded solid silver coaxial cable via your DVD's coaxial output to your digital receivers Coaxial digital input, than using the TOS-link fiber optic link. The NEOTECH NEVD-2001 is most excellent for this, for a fraction of the price of most other equivalents...

The only problem with silver cables is they oxidize over time, and best to be replaced every 18 months, if you want peak electron flow.....

Also if you are handy with a soldering iron, you can buy some military spec aviation grade silver coax cable ( US ), which make awesome balanced RCA leads with good quality gold plated NEOTECH 8mm RCA coonectors soldered on, which would blow most of the wankophile cable brands cables away for less than $9US a metre material cost, plus $6US worth of RCA plugs per lead....

[PDLM]

I know that. My question was specifically about the cables. Of course I can tell the difference between good and bad speakers and amps. But I have never been able to hear any change at all when replacing (in listening rooms) fairly straightforward copper cables with stuff costing hundreds of dollars a metre.

[jgl]

There's been some amusing testing that has shown no significant difference between high end cables and coat hangers.

http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coa...monster-cables

This meshes with some advice I recieved from an audio engineer years back- "just use power cable". I've also tried a (non-blind) test with my very modest Linn system using the bleedin' heavy cables (don't remember the brand) it came with, and super cheap power cables, and can't tell the difference. Admittedly I'm not a terribly discerning listener though!

There's one guy with an open $1M offer to cable manufacturers to statistically show that their cables are better than the cheap stuff... so far nobody has collected. There's an interesting little discussion here: http://www.mediacollege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3922

If you're going to be safe and go for 'audiophile' cable, just get something modestly priced and don't obsess over it.

[jimbo]

The only way to improve the sound of your hifi is to use these.

[imparanoic]

monster are renowned for not so great products, over hyped marketing, hence why they are marketed to heavy tactics( commission based) selling in circiut city, dixons, fortress ( falls under same category) of bose ( according to the net and magazine reviews, remember, i'm not a troll)

try google it!!!


however, quality manufacturers such QED, IXOS, cable talk, norst, audioquest should not be painted under same brush.

also digital cables (HDMI, Co-Axial, if it's short, eg, less than 5 metre) are affected by performance deficecy as much as analogue cable

so a budget digital cable is almost good as an expensive one.

you could argue that the (relatively pricey) apple cables as well as licenced belkin does that same job as a cheap one 5-10times cheaper generic one which you get from wan chai or sham shui po (pls also remember mp3 is not the best in quality music format anyway, though 320kps bit rate is not too bad)

[jgl]

Oh, I wasn't focussing specifically on Monster, so much as expensive cables generally.

[Stoob]

I reckon a lot of the 'Quality' cable argument is psychology, i.e. if you're told a cable will improve the sound quality then it probably will.... especially if you have spent *00's of dollars on them.

Also, I bet most of the advocates of buying high end cables also still have 'gramophones' as part of their hifi systems