Here is the speaker wire I spoke of in the video. I have the 12 gauge, but if you have lower end speakers or AVR, the 12 gauge may be a bit thick and may not fit in the terminals. These are good quality cables that can run more power than I use, and aren’t as expensive as others with bigger names.
Monoprice speaker cables
This is the exact wire I have but I got the 300 foot version thinking I could share with my brother, but the wire was too big for his speakers and AVR, he has more of a budget system.
12-12-2015:
SVS recently released their new line of cables for 2016, aiming to bridge the gap of good cable qualities and features, while not charging extremely high prices. They are known for a tradition of strong value, and this appears to be right on par with offering audiophile quality at normal person pricing.
Their approach seems to be, rather than be forced to either go really expensive or no frills at all, offering an in-between, high performance, high value option. I like this kind of thing, making “high end” less painful for normal people. They started with subwoofers, moved to high end speakers in rather impressive fashion, and now they are doing speaker cables, again offering reasonably priced high end. I’m interested to hear what’s next.
They now offer well built custom length, (custom terminated in Ohio for odd lengths) speaker cable called SoundPath Ultra, (be sure to measure correctly!) with bananas or spades, or any combination. They also now have new bulk/spool 14 gauge speaker cable called SoundPath One, and separate banana and spade terminals for DIY.
I used to use bare wire, but considering how often I’m plugging in speakers, banana plugs are almost essential, and have made my life a little easier. I’m not as enthusiastic about spades as they tend to loosen easily.
Of course, I would prioritize putting money into speakers and subs first, good cables aren’t going to make weak speakers sound much better. That said, making sure the signal has as little degradation as “reasonably” possible is a good goal. Is “reasonable” $2,000 in cables? Probably not. I wouldn’t need solid gold cables, nor do I want to run 20 gauge (really thin) speaker cable.
Update 1/13/2017
After finally doing some actual A/B testing of the Monoprice, SVS Soundpath 1, and SVS Ultra cable, I’m able to say that the Ultra cable did offer an audible improvement. I was skeptical, even though I had been using the cable for a while. I was only using them on the Prime Towers and Center, while using the Soundpath 1 cable on the Prime Satellites. Since there was a difference in speaker performance, I think this is forgivable.
Hooking up just the Prime Towers, with no subwoofers in pure mode on the Denon and setting them to Large (full range) I did some listening with some very familiar songs, then zeroed in on 2 tracks that had what I decided would be good to test with, and also annoy my wife the least. She’s grown tired of my “go to” test tracks, so I get her annoyance.
I played the first 30 seconds of Truckin’ by the Grateful Dead. Then I changed cables, and played the same first 30 seconds. I did this quickly so my “sonic memory” wouldn’t fade. I had the amp turned to the side for quick access. Banana plugs were vital for this, bare wire would have been a nightmare with my fibromyalgia. All three cables were 10 feet long and banana terminated.
I think it’s important to stress that both the Monoprice and Soundpath 1 sounded great, and I don’t mean to imply that they are inferior. They had a similar sound, and I’m not sure I could pick them out in a blind test, which I pretty much expected.
What I did not expect, after years of reading arguments dismissing most speaker cable cable technology as snake oil, was that I could indeed pick out the sound of the Ultra Cable.
Again, I feel the need to stress the point that this was not dramatic or game changing, but the music did come through cleaner and warmer.
My wife, who was barely paying attention with a project at the kitchen table, also noticed the difference and was able to pick out the Ultra Cable, also citing the warmer, cleaner sound.
So how big of a difference was it? Don’t mortgage the house for cables. It was good and I prefer it, but I think there is a sanity limit.
The Ultra cables are very nice, well built, and offer what I determined to be a noticeable improvement over the well made, typically configured cables. They aren’t insane on price either, and SVS still offers their 45 day return policy with no shipping charges, even if you send them back.
That includes custom terminated cable lengths as well. If you don’t hear an improvement, SVS is very good about no hassle returns.
So how do I quantify it? I think such a thing is impossible, but I’ll go ahead an pull some numbers out of thin air to attempt to define it. If the SoundPath 1 cables offered 97.1% performance, the Ultra cables offered 99.2% performance. That’s more than 2 theoretical percentage points! I completely stand by those totally arbitrary, made up numbers. lulz…
But seriously, there was a slight difference, and it’s made me less judgmental of those who do value speaker cables. Here’s the video I did:
I’m not going to chase the speaker cable dragon, and I’m not super interested in covering the cable issue much beyond this. I certainly couldn’t advise spending $200+ for a single 10 foot cable. Nor could I advise spending that kind of money on digital cables.
One thing I’ve learned from the video above, and the hobby in general, is that there are some fights that are worth it, and other fights that will just leave you frustrated. The great speaker cable debate is not a worthwhile fight for me. Any improvement is going to be minor, and some may not notice it at all, which causes controversy.
10 to 14 gauge is good, and I would shoot for cables that are twisted pair rather than the more common side by side or parallel configuration. Twisting the positive and negative conductors around each other is something you’ll find in networking cable to reduce cross-talk and interference. Without arguing the point much further, the cables I preferred, including SVS Ultra Cables, are twisted pair.
Unlike analog speaker cables, digital cables either work or they don’t, it’s all about 1’s and 0’s, and there’s no room for influence like there is for an analog signal. For HDMI cables, Amazon Basics should provide just as much performance as the high end cables, assuming the same specs.
The SVS Subwoofer/Interconnect/RCA cables are well shielded, which in many cases can quiet annoying subwoofer hum, making it a worthwhile investment. It’s a problem I have been fortunate to have avoided, even with cheap cables, but it would have been just a few dollars more and reasonable to have better, more “subwoofer thoughtful” cables.