Speaker cable and Interconnects advice needed

Ronnie,

Just my personal opinion - I think this "investment" in cables is stretched a bit too far, with people even quoting figures to invest as percentages of total speaker budget!

For the CDP and DVD, go in for any coaxial digital connection - almost any RCA interconnect should give exactly the same reproduction as any other interconnect; or even optical. A thicker (more shielded) wire would be better if you are worried about audible dropouts due to electrical interference.

For the sat receiver and set top box, I guess there is no choice but to use analog connections - just use a fairly good quality local RCA cable - Beyond this you wont hear any difference in sound, the source itself limits performance too much in this case, nowhere close to hi-fi.

For the speakers, I would use ANY copper wire of 12 or 14 gauge, including electrical wiring. Only criteria is the resistance should be less than about 0.1 ohm or so (if you can measure it).

RCAs for CDP and DVD - Rs. 150
RCAs for worldspace and STB - Rs. 300
Speaker wire - 25mts - Rs. 250

I guess your current setup would be alright already as long as you were not using the kitchen sink for interconnect

Any budget beyond the above is more to satisfy an audiophile's craze than to hear any better sound.

I would say get decent interconnects for the cdp to the avr connection and speaker cables. Forget about the worldspace, cable box etc.

BTW what AVR and cdp and dvd do you use ?

Speaker cables 12-14 guage are good as mentioned above.

If you have an entry level reciever and cdp/dvd then hop across to cinebels jamo shop, ask for vivanco interconnects and jamo 14 guage OFC speaker wire. Very nice entry level stuff for the price.

I believe there is alocal brand called MX which makes interconnects and other cables....someone on the forum was swearing by them and their performance so maybe thats an option too.

Manek.

Thanks Manek,to tell you the truth i used to read articles and reviews about speaker cable with a pinch of salt. It didn't really cut too much ice with me. So i decided to check out some cheap cables for myself before actually taking the plunge.

I hopped across to an audio shop today and picked up a Taiwanese 16 awg wire for Rs. 75 a metre. I get 10 metres and hooked them upto my Onkyo speakers(B). I kept the original wires on the A speakers(Which happen to be the same ones as the B speakers).

I switched on the music and listened to a wide variety of stuff ranging from classical(Schubert's trout) to vocal(Jagjit singh and Ghulam Ali) to rock(Pink Floyd) and pop(Lionel richie). At first the difference was not very perceptible but once i heard the songs on A/B comparison, i could make out some differences

1. Earlier the recordings felt as if they were coming out a box right below my TV(IN stereomode with centre, surrounds and subwoofer switched off). with the new cable the sound was much more dispersed. I could feel the ambience of the recordings as if they were sung in a stadium or concert hall.

2. The vocals seemed to become sharper and more musical. Earlier they sounded dull, flat and suppressed.

3. With the earlier cables the singers were on my face right there. with thenew cables, they seemed to be on a stage with their vocals dominating but the other instruments could now be clearly heard.

Maybe this could be attributed to my been psychologically tuning myself to believe that i would feel the difference but the transformation after hearing for some time was slight but the impact that the music is now making is amazing.

BTW the earlier cable were thin flimsy ones that came with the onkyo speakers.

Can cables actually make some much difference or is this just my alter ego trying to convince me?????

I can't stop smiling.....it sounds so much better now with all speakers connected