Hi I have been reading a few theads on the forum. There was a thread on Wilson Benesch Square 1 speakers. A Lord Hillier thanked Pluto for his recommendation on a speaker cable from Maplin which is meant to be amazing and better than Chord Signature.
I would be grateful if Pluto or any other could tell me of this speaker cable, as I am thinking of changing my current cable and would be interested in trying the cable form Maplin.
If you are looking for suitable connectors, these short banana plugs are good quality and sensibly priced.
I would be very interested in your comments because, as you are probably aware, I really believe that cable quality bears no relationship to its retail price and that we, as punters, are being rogered by those who would have us believe that decent cable costs an arm and a leg.
I will pop to maplin at weekend and pick some up, for the price I have nothing to lose, I was surprised to find that the cable is made by "Shark" not Maplin. Having looked at Maplin's site the do other cable, have you tried there other speaker cable products or shoul I stick to the "Shark" make of cable? The have a flat conductor OFC silver plated cable which also looks interesting?
This is the only Maplin speaker cable of which I have personal experience. I must therefore confine my recommendation to the stuff I have tried. Maplin, of course, do not actually make anything themselves; the only difference is the nature of the branding. Most audio cable these days is OFC, so don't read too much into that. I'm a great believer in the old idea of using a lot of metal in speaker cables. Anything with flat conductors (to put under the carpet I assume) must, of necessity, be a compromise. For the sake of £15 for 10 metres, my advice is stick to the stuff that is known to be good.
Well Pluto what can I say? Except Thank You so much!!!!! You have just saved me an awful lot of money and if you are ever in the Liverpool area I owe you a few pints.
I was using Chord carnival silver plus which cost me £5-50 p/m. I was going to upgrade the cable to Chord Odyssey which would have cost me over £200. I now no longer need to ever consider buying another speaker cable.....ever!!!! I'm going to buy 3 more rolls of the stuff, just in case they stop selling it, just so I've got some for the next 30 years.
I went to Maplin on Wednesday and bought some of your recommended speaker cable. It was amazing and a revelation straight away without any burn in time. It has improved every aspect of the sound. Better soundstage which is now a lot more precise with better depth, tight and more bass which has greater extension, a lot more detail, I am hearing new sounds with better definition on all me CD's, smoother sweeter mid-range, I never knew I had roll off in the treble until I changed to this cable, now it is so sweet and extents a lot further.
This cable isn't just good, it's bloody amazing!!!! The construction is so simple but basically its like having a 4mm solid core OFC speaker cable. I compared it to the Chord I have which is just a few strands of OFC with a bit of silver coating on it. You can physically see why the Maplin cable is superior for the purpose.
This has confirmed some things for me.
1. The cable companies are ripping everyone off.
2. Cable does make a big difference to sound, just because the Maplin cable is cheap doesn't mean that any cheap cable would be as good, I feel Pluto that you have come across a true gem and amazing find.
I would be grateful of some more advice please Pluto. I have read in a few HiFi magazines and heard off a few people, that they advise that you should connect your speaker cable bare wired straight into the Speaker posts instead of using banana plugs or spade. They have said that banana plugs are useful if you are a HiFi reviewer or HiFi dealer as you will be swapping the cable around a lot to different equipment, but if you do not have to change your speaker cable a round a lot then bare wire is best. I would appreciate your feelings on this and any advice?
Many Many Many thanks again for introducing me to the best speaker cable in the world.
John....don't say that.....he'll never get his head through the door now....
(I'm convinced Pluto is on commission for Maplin.....)
Besides....if you tell everyone on this Forum that Maplin is the best speaker cable in the world you'll only end up being held to account to deliver rigorous Scientific proof !!
...Further to that you mentioned the dreaded B word/s (Burn-in)
SHhhhhhh .....!....or is it too late already ????
Being serious for a moment John I don't agree with the principle of Burn-in either, but I know it has it's adherents and it would be just as easy to point you to earlier discussions on this subject - even within the AVR Forum itself.....
John, I came across the same cable just by looking though the cats for something that 'looked OK' and got the same cable. No comparison but it does the job as good as any.
I agree that not using plugs can only be better, as 'metal/metal' interfaces are one of connectors great problems, so why have more.
You don't get off easily........'fraid you will have to qualify that one mate...
In what way are metal-metal interfaces a great problem for a connector ?
It is widely accepted within the electronics industry that a good crimped joint is even more reliable than a solder joint. So even my bog-standard spades - which admittedly have a higher intrinsic resistance than more precious metals will offer a decent connection. Also the tightness of a crimp joint will virtually eliminate the possibility of oxidisation of the copper and keep the wire in a tight organised bundle which is less likely to separate and work harden? In fact this extra resistance I describe might not even exist because the spade presents such a large uniform conductor area thereby maximising it's effect? To be honest, I don't seriously think they were invented for the convenience of Reviewers, but who may nevertheless appreciate the convenience
Are you possibly referring then to migration of metal? Again nickel - and some of the other materials used are a harmonious match for gold. As far as the industry is concerned, some thought goes into matching these materials so the customer is unlikely to fall foul of any "weird chemistry" when they are in use.....
On the other hand....I may have missed something....
Wow Bill, I now think I understand why you have Martin Logans.
The point I make is simply that creating more junctions is not the best, if a cable is put directly into a terminal and it is tightened then we only have one 'metal to metal' interface, whilst if it is crimped to a spade then we have two, cable to spade then spade to terminal.
How often would a user change cables, therefore the convenience is not an issue, I agreed with John on this one simply because I think clamping a cable in the terminal is the best option IMO.
Whilst a crimp on a cable is regarded as a 'gas tight' joint, the spade to terminal is not, again IMO a non gas tight joint. Maybe oxides etc. could be the greatest differences ever heard between cables, eliminate them and you eliminate most perceived cable differences.
Right spades were not invented for reviewers they have been used for years in the electrical industry. They are totally reliable, they do clamp all the conductors together and they do their job, as for resistance that is insignificant as a spade is only some 10mm long, whether the larger area of contact makes a difference I really don't know.
The Maplin cable referred to only just fitted the terminal, so it filled the space, so long as all strands got in that space then I can't think of a lower resistance connection, a good terminal properly tightened is 'sub milli Ohm', can it get better.
As far as the industry is concerned, some thought goes into matching these materials so the customer is unlikely to fall foul of any "weird chemistry" when they are in use.....
That is one of the reasons for the preferred perception of gold, it is a noble metal and as such it doesn't corrode or react with anything, but then neither does nickle, however nickle never did look so pretty or expensive. Now silver is a good contact material, but it does oxidise and the oxides look black and that is not pretty, but it does conduct just as well as the base metal. Whereas silver is one of the best conductors on the planet, after a time it does not look that good. Note here that gold is far down the list of 'good conductors', but it does look good.
In reality many of our perceptions and beliefs come simply from what looks good, that is what marketing relies on, and they can because we all fall for it.
Many Many Many thanks again for introducing me to the best speaker cable in the world.
You're most welcome. I'll let you know when I'm likely to be in the land of Scouse to claim my pints
I first tried this cable for no other reason than seeing a roll of it on the shelf, and thinking that this stuff appears to meet all the engineering criteria I bleat on about. So unless the materials are rubbish, it ought to be good. At work I did a quick check on the resistance from one end of the reel to the other which confirmed the high quality of the copper. The rest, as they say, is history.
As far as your connection is concerned, my suggestion is to do whatever you can, within reason, to make the contact as tight as possible over the largest possible area. A type of connection with which we are all familiar (and rely on in the coldest winters) is found on the humble car battery where we need a connection which carries a couple of hundred amps with minimal losses. A large contact area and tight. I like the banana plug. Provided you are using decent quality plugs and sockets, the contact area is quite large, the spring steel causes a nice stiff fit and they are easily cleaned by rotation. One problem with spades is that unless the post design is very good, you can easily end up tightening the screw and pushing the spade away from the conductor, onto the insulating part of the post. You get a tight fit but less contact area than you'd like. Bare copper wire wound two or three times around a post and screwed down tight is hard to beat.
As in all things, you understand the mission - to get the maximum possible contact area, a nice tight contact and keep it clean (copper does oxidise but this is easily dealt with by the use of common household cleaners every few months). The rest is nothing but common sense.
Think of all the money you've saved and what you can do with it
Small point here, most 4mm terminal connectors come with a hole though them, the idea is to put the cable though the hole and then tighten, the Maplin cable only just fitted so, a massive area of contact. I guess a good match between cable and connector. Personally I don't that think adding a spade could possibly improve matters.
My concern was that if you put bare wire into binding posts and over-tighten they have been known to spread then break the wires? (as do screws by focussing on certain wires) Problem with copper is that being so malleable, no matter how much you tighten, it's possible to revisit 5 minutes later and get another 1/10th or 1/20th of a turn on it (probably because we've just broken the wires )
(This is beginning to sound like the debate on the excessive use of relays in the signal path - all those extra spring loaded metal-metal interfaces)
Pluto's experiments have highlighted something of real interest. I remember (what seems like years ago) mentioning that phonos with adjustable clamps seemed to sound better than the push-fit variety.
The overriding impression is that we may be in danger of trying to "re-invent the wheel" on this Thread? The predominance of BNCs (and Gerald's "Cannons") in the professional Sectors suggests that the problem has been known for some time.
I used to be a dedicated Naim user and for many years Naim swore by the use of DIN connectors -contrary to virtually the rest of the market - but like John says, this wasn't so daft a notion. Later they were constrained by their marketing dept to use RCAs against the better judgement and advice of the Engineers who designed the equipment...marketing won out in the end.....
"Bare copper wire wound two or three times around a post and screwed down tight is hard to beat..."
I applaud the simple economics of this approach but a simple test for the average person is for them to grab a spade terminated speaker cable and try to turn or loosen it using the wire as a lever...it will not happen....they will not be able to move it without damaging the cable itself...
But if they've adopted your bare copper wire method they will most likely watch it loosen then unravel, with strands of copper wire falling off as they do so?
Sorry to sound like a dog with a bone here but the advantage of the spades is that if you need to unwire at any point you save yourself the trouble of re-stripping the often heavily oxidised and broken wires...thereby further shortening the cable run (which you may not wish to do for practical reasons)
I bought packets of 2 dozen of these things in Maplin for virtually pennies and the crimping tool cost only a few pounds and comes in very handy. Never been happier.
Hello All,bare wire connection to speakers,to me,sounds like sheer stupidity,what happens if one of the wires touches the other one,it shorts out,right???thus damaging your amp,and at nearly 15K for replacements,i think i,ll stick with my Mitchel banana plugs..............Dave
Come on guys, if I spent £15K on an amp and it could not handle a short circuit then I would want my cash back anyway. I have said it before but will repeat here, good design is about things not going bang.
But if all the strands fit though the hole then none will 'escape' and tightening a terminal to the point of breaking strands is simply too tight. Everything in moderation!
Speaking of things going bang, many years ago I designed and built a serious 200WPC disco transistor amp, first listening tests sounded good, into the Quad ESL. All sounded great but at the end of the first album I attempted to clean the stylus with a little brush. Major design error here, one wipe of the brush destroyed every output transistor in milliseconds, and there were eight of them - back to the drawing board - as they say. I had not appreciated just how low impedance ESL are at very low frequencies, my mistake.
