Interconnect issues

[VanDaRo]

I will be using the silver ICs for the CD to Pre. Yes, they can sound a bit brilliant on the very top end, but the midrange and bass are to die for.

My philosophy has been to avoid going all-silver from source to speakers -- this is a guaranteed way to impose a sonic "signature" on your system that may not jive with Logans and solid state equipment. Therefore, using a quality copper speaker cable or ICs elsewhere in the system improves fidelity. Now if you are a tube-guy, then all silver may be the way to go.

Nevertheless, I bought two 16' pairs of Zebra ZC-INTC cables with the blue jacket (matches the Siltech and TaraLab wires) with the Vampire RCA-808 jacks. I hope these sound as good as they look. I also ordered bunch of Vampire spades to redo the speaker cables with.

~VDR

 

[tonepub]

I've never noticed a problem with longer interconnects. I currently run a 16' pair between my amp and preamp, but my preamp does not have a problem driving them. A few do, but most don't.

You will know you have a problem if your high frequencies roll off.

The main reason I like the longer IC's there is that it allowed me to get two racks of gear out from between my panels! That did a lot for cleaning up the sound and getting better imaging as well as a wider soundstage.

One of my biggest suggestions for anyone if their room and decor will allow it is to get all that gear out from between your speakers if you can.

 

[Bernard]

I've never noticed a problem with longer interconnects. I currently run a 16' pair between my amp and preamp, but my preamp does not have a problem driving them.

Are they balanced, or not ?

 

[raygunn]

When I had monoblocks and various ML Hybrids,

I used them with Sequels, Sequel 2's, Quest z's, and ReQuests in a "docked" arrangement. In other words, I had 15 inch runs of Cardas Golden Cross "jumper" cables and the amps were placed directly behind the speakers. I had to use Target speaker stands as the amp stands in some cases. This worked incredibly well and, to my ears, laid to rest the argument of there being some loss of fidelity in using short speaker cable runs. I could never have afforded even 8ft runs of Golden Cross, but 15" jumpers were quite affordable!

Since changing to the Sunfire Series of amps, I have not been able to do this with my most recent two pair of ML's, but I have thought about running two of them in mono and doing the same thing.

FWIW, in today's system I have 4.5meter runs to the "master" ML Depth, a 6m run to Depth #2, then a 1.5m run to the Stereo Sunfire, and then 6 ft speaker cables to the CLS 2z's. All silver ribbon cables (except for 1) and not a hint of edginess or brightness....:rocker:

If you are looking for a reasonably priced cable that sounds fantastic, I emphatically recommend Zu Audio Gede. It has a lengthy break-in period, but afterwards it sounds like any cable 3-4x its price.

Cheers,
Ray

I am considering reorganizing my system such that each amp resides next to the speaker that it drives. This will allow me to use significantly shorter runs of speaker cable, but longer runs of IC. I am told that this is the preferred layout by the golden ear types. So --

1) Is this a correct philosophy ?

2) Where might I order 2 pairs of 10' IC cable that sounds good, but doesn't cost a mint ?

Thanks !!

~VDR

 

[DTB300]

If you are looking for a reasonably priced cable that sounds fantastic, I emphatically recommend Zu Audio Gede. It has a lengthy break-in period, but afterwards it sounds like any cable 3-4x its price.

I completely agree on the Gede - a great sounding cable for the cost. I use the Varial for my complete two channel IC path, and the Gede for the HT IC stuff.

For the OP: You can purchase the Gede on Flea-Bay all the time for around $110 (if you do some blitzkrieg bidding) instead of the $200 MSRP. Just search for Zu and you will find their products.

 

[VanDaRo]

Has anyone ever read a review on the Zebra Cables ?

~VDR

 

[ralflar]

Yes, you can access some from the Zebra web site. A few others, mostly forum posts, can be found if you google.

I bought several pair of RCA interconnects from Zebra. Basically they use Belden cables like Blue Jeans Cable, but treat them with TechFlex and heat shrink so they look good, and terminate with superior connectors.

 

[invenio]

This is a great thread. I have been looking to get new RCA interconnect cables (2 sets to go from my CD player to preamp (2 ft run) and preamp to amp (6 ft run)). I didn't want to spend a ridiculous amount of money as I really never heard much difference between $75 vs $1075 cables (I know many will disagree, and I respect their opinions). It seems like blue jeans cable offers a good product (lot of people seem to really like it) but they look a little "bland". I was considering getting their LC-1's and buying some braiding that I can put on myself to make them more attractive. I have signal cable speaker wire and I was thinking of going to their interconnects (copper vs silver [some people have commented that silver sound too bright/harsh]). I was also looking at zebra cable which seems to have a great selection of connectors [their Vampire Wire LRCA8 Locking RCA looks like it give a better contact than anything else]. So many choices! I think this will take some time to sort out... I just want to have a nice pairing with my conrad johnson preamp and amp and the ML Vantage's.

 

[papageno]

Advice of Bob harley as far as speaker cable length versus interconnect length

take it for what you consider worth but Harley, editor The Absolute Sound maintains that longer interconnects are preferred with shorter speaker cable length. He reports that his listening room is organized this way when he reviews material.

 

[babydoc]

Does length matter either way?

take it for what you consider worth but Harley, editor The Absolute Sound maintains that longer interconnects are preferred with shorter speaker cable length. He reports that his listening room is organized this way when he reviews material.

I have gone both routes: short speaker cables, log ICs, and vice versa. With today's high speed and well-shielded cables and interconnects, distance becomes less critical for frequency bandwidth unless you are talking about professional installations where the runs from electronics to speakers may be extremely long, say 50 to 100 feet or more. Balanced cables were essentially developed for these applications to reduce interference and noise. In most home set ups these distances are going to be rather small. I would recommend doing the testing by ear which is possible if you can get samples of different speaker cables and ICs to compare. There are companies like the Cable Company that would enable you to do that. Then your ears can be the judge.

 

[invenio]

Unfortunately, the cable co does not carry blue jeans or zebra cables. I think I'm going to try the BJC as the actual cable is similar to the zebra cables (both belden), interestingly, BJC prefers the LC-1 cable over the Belden 1694 which is used by zebra cable. Zebra cable did have the optional Vampire Wire LRCA8 Locking RCA terminations which looked interesting. I don't really think that would make any difference in the sound qaulity unless there is some major connection issue. Signal Cable's silver line was interesting but I seem to here about equal positive and negative comments about that (and it costs 3 times as much as the BJC would, a 2 and 6 ft interconnect cable set w/ optional Techflex covering plus S+H comes out to only $81 at BJC). I'll think about it some more but for now i'm leaning toward BJC. Luckily all these have pretty good return policies so I am not too scared with going with any of these. I put the three links in this post for quick reference if anybody is interested.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/audio/index.htm
http://zebracables.com/1694.html
http://signalcable.com/silverresolutionanalog.html