How much have you spent between...

[mtrycrafts]

I made my speaker "cables" from 99.999% 22awg solid silver, encased in a Teflon dielectric w/bare wire termination. About $75 bucks for two 10' runs. I'm about to replace my Silverline Audio [copper] interconnects with a DIY design by Steve Huffman that uses a coaxial design with very fine gauge silver ribbon conductor flowing through a Teflon air core with hollow plug vintage connectors. $75 bucks for 1m.

MikE

Now that would be a good cable to DBt against a RS cheapo.

[maxg]

I was doing very well on my cables until the point I went for Synergistic silver speaker cables and then tried biwiring ending up with 4, 3 meter lengths.

Funnily enough I no longer use any of them - I switched to Van Den hul D-352 hybrid cables which gave a smoother sound to my ears.

(Actually that is really bizzare as I used a pair of the Synergistic cables inside the speakers I built. I was expecting that this would mean the Synergistic would be a better match but I still prefered the VDH's to connect speakers to amps - go figure!!)

As it happens I just ordered a couple more pairs of interconnects (Van Den Hul D - 102 III HYBRIDs with special connectors - cant remember the make now) of 1 meter and 2 meter lengths.

I'll use the 1 meter cables to replace the existing locally made cables from the phono stage to the pre-amp and the longer pair to go from the pre-amp to the power amps.

I dont know how much I have spent altogether on interconnects and speaker cables - I guess I have about $750 in the cupboard not being used and another $1000 in use (including the new ones which I will hopefully pick up in the next couple of days).

[happy ears]

I have a silly question, if wire does not make a difference how come 12 or 14 guage wire is the best. Why would it be the only wire with a flat frequency response. Best price that I understand, but I bet you it cost more than the stuff supplied with most equipment.

[Beckman]

I have a silly question, if wire does not make a difference how come 12 or 14 guage wire is the best. Why would it be the only wire with a flat frequency response. Best price that I understand, but I bet you it cost more than the stuff supplied with most equipment.

Short Response

12 or 14 gauge is cheep

Its not the only wire/cable with a flat frequency response. In fact there are cables that cost hundreds of times as much with the same frequency response.

I have yet to purchase equipment that comes with speaker wire.

Long Response
Wire does make a difference. Expensive cables attenuate (lower the magnitude) of the signal at certain frequencies. So when someone says that they can here more details with a certain cable, all that cable is probably doing is attenuating the signal at lower frequency, then to compensate for this the consumer turns up the sound level a hair and high frequencies stick out(just like turning up the treble).

If you are like me and want the sound coming out of the speakers to sound as close as possile to being in the recording studio 14 gauge is the smallest gauge that produces no audible attenuation in the audio frequency range.

[Rockwell]

Long Response
Wire does make a difference. Expensive cables attenuate (lower the magnitude) of the signal at certain frequencies. So when someone says that they can here more details with a certain cable, all that cable is probably doing is attenuating the signal at lower frequency, then to compensate for this the consumer turns up the sound level a hair and high frequencies stick out(just like turning up the treble).

If you are like me and want the sound coming out of the speakers to sound as close as possile to being in the recording studio 14 gauge is the smallest gauge that produces no audible attenuation in the audio frequency range.

Good point. The is no magic property inherent to expensive cables. All they are left to do is degrade the signal, even if that manipulates the customer into thinking the signal is enhanced.

[E-Stat]

Expensive cables attenuate (lower the magnitude) of the signal at certain frequencies.

By all means, please share with us the empirical data that supports your supposition. Especially since you lump perhaps dozens of different designs into one category.

rw