Decent speaker cables.

zepp76

Hopefully by the end of this week I should be the proud owner of a JTM45, when using it at home I will be using an attenuator and was wondering what the best cables are to use? I have some cheap speaker cables but would like to upgrade to a decent make, they only need to be 2/3ft long, so what are your recommendations please? As always your input is much appreciated.

ICBM

The best speaker cables are Neutrik NP2 (C or X) plugs with 2-core round-section cable, either 'proper' speaker cable or power cable. They're the most robust and reliable and there is no difference in sound no matter how much you spend more than that.

If you have something like that already (the Neutriks are the important bit) then don't buy new cables. If you don't, just look for anything with Neutriks and 1.5mm2 cable, you won't do better than that at any price.

Like this:

http://professionalaudiocables.co.uk/epages/eshop927201.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/eshop927201/Products/TS-15SP-TS

If nothing else, avoid anything with moulded plugs.

Tones

I found this to be v good in use:
http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/headtocab.html  

zepp76

@ICBM  Ordered, many thanks for the advice. It's all slowly coming together.

Telejester

zepp76 said:

@ICBM  Ordered, many thanks for the advice. It's all slowly coming together.

After all this time and countless thread bumps you do know a youtube clip of how the amp sounds is compulsory.

ICBM

Tones said:

I found this to be v good in use:
http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/headtocab.html 

£70 for a 1m 1/4" speaker cable?!

fretmeister

Tones said:

I found this to be v good in use:
http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/headtocab.html  

Ha hahahahahahahahaha!

Nope. That's for Russ Andrews level fuckwittery 

Tones

fretmeister said:

Tones said:

I found this to be v good in use:
http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/headtocab.html  

Ha hahahahahahahahaha!

Nope. That's for Russ Andrews level fuckwittery 

And the same goes for you

Telejester

I used a 1m length of 2 core mains cable from b&q which cost a pittance, worked just fine.

ICBM

ICBM said:

Tones said:

I found this to be v good in use:
http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/headtocab.html 

£70 for a 1m 1/4" speaker cable?!

Wait - it gets better! I actually clicked on the listing and saw this…

http://www.thedenkeighley.co.uk/images/theden/chordpremierheadtocablead.jpg

If ever there was an object lesson in how not to make a speaker cable, there it is.

No cable retention whatsoever. Even more ridiculous, that silly big cable which won't fit in the plugs is completely pointless because the cores are a perfectly normal gauge.

For £70?!! It would be overpriced at £7.

Sporky

I like that they charge £30 more for 1/4" jacks than for Speakons.

If that doesn't tell you the contempt they have for their customers...

fretmeister

Ahhh!

"By the Chord Company"

that explains it then. Audiotards moving in on guitar stuff.

mr-mac

Nothing wrong with any quality copper cable... Some neutrik connectors and something like Van-Damme cable would be ideal for pa speakers or guitar cabs alike (a lot of high end recording studios use nothing more exotic).

Sporky

Ah - the Hucksterites selling "audiophile" CATx cables... they don't state what category, what gauge the conductors are, whether they're stranded or solid, the pair bandwidth, the shielding... complete bollocks.

monquixote

mr-mac said:

Nothing wrong with any quality copper cable... Some neutrik connectors and something like Van-Damme cable would be ideal for pa speakers or guitar cabs alike (a lot of high end recording studios use nothing more exotic).

Indeed I've worked on studios containing many hundreds of thousands of quids worth of kit and all the internal cabling will be standard stuff out of the Canford catalogue costing a few quid a meter.

Rocker

Not much happening on the forum today guys, a good time then to dump on audiophiles.... 

Sporky

Rocker said:

Not much happening on the forum today guys, a good time then to dump on audiophiles.... 

If they stopped posting stupid things then there'd be no need.

mr-mac

We'll if you wanna talk audiophile digital cables the only thing the expensive ones actually do is act as a filter to noise of freq not to do with the data...  So 1 they do something but 2. There are better ways to get rid of noise than a silly expensive cable.  speaker cables are a funny one, they can alter sound slightly but not because the were frozen between the arse cheeks of a virgin on a fool moon..... Length, resistance and capacitance are mostly all it is... Ie they will fine tune the camping factor reaching the driver and that's about it.  So they make a difference but again not because they are exotic or expensive but because that particular cable fine tunes the amp to speaker requirements slightly so can be heard or high end systems but you will likely get same similar benefit effect by trailing different gauge and capacitence of cheaper cable

ICBM

With speaker cable even the capacitance is irrelevant, it's purely the resistance that matters. For signal cables it's the other way round.

fretmeister

And then when you move the rig into a new room for a performance you have to re-EQ anyway.

And even if an old man with dodgy hearing could hear the difference in a properly conducted test, the chances of still being able to hear those differences when the drummer starts playing are exactly fuck all.

And the choice of cab mic and mic position makes far more difference, and that's before we get to the FOH dude EQ-ing it differently on the board.

And then there are those who buy speaker cables like that when they are using a DI to feed the board. Heh.

professorben

So there's no issue slapping a couple of decent plugs on some flex I've got laying around??