Best cables for B&W 803 (1 Viewer)

[Mike_Jo]

What are the best cables for B&W 803's help please

 

[Mike Butny]

Try audioquest(highend stuff) or Monstercable M series.

 

[Mark C.]

Just go to any B&W dealer in your area. I'm sure they'll sell you something pricey. For what it's worth, I use DH Labs Q-10 biwires for my Nautilus 804s. I would buy them again. There should be a post any time now saying any zip cord from Home Depot will do the trick.

 

[Mike_Jo]

Ha ha ha... that is why i am asking people with first hand expirience about what cable to buy and not the dealer

Heard that MIT Terminator 2 is good for the 803's Hmm... what else?

 

[Shane Martin]

Best is a pretty subjective term that nobody will agree on.

Your best bet is to check with some local folks and see if they have a good in home trial or return policy you can utilize and do some listening. FWIW, The B&W dealer here uses Kimber Kable.

 

[Joel()Les]

I won't suggest zip cord, but in the connections and tweaking forum you'll see some good debates as to whether you can hear the difference between a budget priced 12 guage speaker wire and a high priced 12 guage speaker wire.
I would suggest that you probably can't hear the difference between a good no-name 12 guage wire and a high price, brand name 12 guage wire, but you need to buy what will not leave you second guessing your decision.

 

[cabreau]

Don't listen to them. What you need is 24 Gauge steel wire.

 

[Mike Sloan]

you can't tell the difference...save your money and go with 12ga. Carol cable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Phil Rose]

Personally, I'd avoid any cable that employed a matching network like the plague. As for what is best?? The sky is the limit. Nordst, Kimber, Cardas, Analysis, Audioquest, etc are all good. I, like Mark C., use the DHLabs Q-10 wires.

 

[Pete H]

I think Kimber matches very well with B&W. You could get a loaner set from fatwyre.com and try for yourself.

(Another good possibility would be Discovery cables.)

 

[JamesDB]

Honestly, when it comes to cables I think its like buying the coke with the Big Mac. The coke only costs them 8c/cup but they sell it for a $1.20 making the profit.

Yes to be fair I paid decent money for my monster cables but most of it is psychological making me feel like I am not running a multiple $1000 setup with 20cent cables.

When it comes down to it copper, no matter what is still copper with the same conductivity and other properties. Yes braiding it helps for many physical reasons including lowering the resistance of the wires, timing correction is bogus because of the speed at which the current travels though the medium, but the emf shielding is important especially for nonbalanced cables.

When you pay $2-300 for a cable you would be better off going to a bank, buying a bar of 99.9999 gold and melting it down to make you own wire. Copper does better than aluminum, but then again its not as good as gold.

James

 

[KevinCa]

There's no such thing as "the best cables", because it's very system and user dependent.
For instance, I have a Rotel RSP1098/RMB1075 with N805's, and i've tried several cables both expensive and cheap.

-Normal 13Ga zipcord: Makes everything sound dull and lifeless, no highs what so ever.

-Nordost Flatline Gold: Huge improvement over the standard cable, but not for bass loving people. Very good treble extention, well defined but lean bass, accentuates the higher mid frequencies.

-Kimber 8TC/4TC bi-wire: Best one I've had so far, though expensive.
Very smooth and detailed sound, no harshness/brightness/grainy treble what so ever, very good bass reproduction, non fatigueing cable, you can listen to it for hours and hours

So in my system the Kimber worked very well, but that doesn't guarantee it will do so in yours.
It depends on your amp/sources/interconnects as well, and your own taste.
Cables can be expensive, but the most expensive one isn't necessarily the best (ironically the Kimber was both the best and most expensive one i've tried so far).

btw JamesDB, gold is a far worse conductor then copper.
Relative conductivity for gold is only 65 in comparison to 100 for copper, aluminium is even worse at 59, silver is superior at 106.

 

[Marc_E]

I define the best as the best by your taste within the price range you can stomach. That being said, I used to have MIT T2s with my N804s and switched to DH Labs Q10s and loved the improvement. I would highly reccomend the Q10s as a great value with fantastic sound. I love mine.
Marc

 

[JamesDB]

KevinCa,

Sorry, you are right hahaha.. and I'm a Chem major too. Should have paid more attention. Silver is the best. However I think my point still stands as to the cables.

I really think that the only difference a cable can make over another is the rf and emf shielding quality. I have yet to see a double blind study that demonstrates a statistical difference between the subjective sound quality of two different priced yet same gauge cables eliminating the shielding. I may be wrong but I’d have to see some concrete evidence both in sample group hearing and physical data on a scope and not one person listening to the speaker (professional reviewer or not) with two cables knowing the price difference, and other data and having their judgment colored by that fact.

I call for a double blind study, same cable gauge and length, both using industry standard weave and braid, discount the emf/rf shielding by doing it in a emf/rf free zone. Then see if the scopes and people really don’t choose the $12 cable or the $120 one! And I’m not arguing that they may be objectively the same, I am arguing that there is actually no subjective difference that can be heard either even by someone with perfect pitch. The only subjective difference comes from our psyche knowing the price, manufacturer and other data.

That being said I know the psychological comfort I take in feeling like my cables are better than some other cheaper brand. I know I get ripped off a bit by these hocus pocus cables but I still oooo.. love the feeling hahahha...

Any thoughts?

James

 

[KevinCa]

Well, i too believe that RF/EMI susceptibility (hope i spelled that right) is one of the factors that makes a good or bad cable.
But that's certainly not the only one, cable capacitance and inductance also play a large role, as does cable geometry.
Every cable i've tried so far sounded completely different, but it's hard to say which one is better.
And even harder to say if the improvement a certain cable makes, is worth the money they're asking for it.
I strongly believe that a carefully sought out cable can make quite some improvement in a system, as well as a poor one can really make it worse.
I'm not saying everyone should go out and buy $1000 worth of cables, but at least try a more expensive one and compare it with their standard 12 gauge zip cord.

 

[Robert Cowan]

being a B&W dealer, if you bought some 803's from me, i would recommend either audioquest CV-6 with the new DBS pack (yeah, all your non cable believers can groan now), or the synergistic research alpha quad.

i personally would bi-wire with the cv-6, or get pike's peak in a bi-wire configuration.

 

[Joel()Les]

I'm skeptical.
A cable's job is to transmit electrical energy from point A to point B without making any change in it. Therefore, it seems that the "perfect cable" does just that and any cable that doesn't is less than perfect. Does anyone have some objective proof of the difference? Rf shielding, inductance, signal loss, frequency shift, delay, and capactance are all subject to measurment. Has anybody run test signals through various wires and measured these to show that there is variations among brands?

I can beleive that there could be variations bewteen brands, but I would like to start with something objective. In the most basic case, it is just wire - there's no connector or assembly to introduce variation. Unless you have a controlled test that allows for the switching amoung cables in a matter of seconds, I find it hard to rely on in home testing and testing by individuals with an interest in hoping to hear a difference.