Speaker cables other than Linn

Nisseman · Post by **Nisseman** » 2008-06-18 20:43

I know, if it ain´t broke -why fix it...
Right now I have two k400 running around the living room.
But now we are moving and my wife wishes for something less intrusive...

Anyone with good experiences?
Has anyone tries thes small 'flat' speakercables?

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-06-19 00:12

Hi Nisse,

No, so far none of the the really flat ones. I have tried a large number of different cables in an attempt to find something better than K400. I think in general cables fall into a spectrum where some are just dreadful and kill the music completely, others are quite ok and the termination starts becoming a bigger issue than the cable itself, and a few are really good.

IMHO the termination still matters more, so it's possible to make an ok sounding cable with optimal termination sound better than K400 with not as good termination.

Unfortunately for people like you, who want to hide the cable, all the good ones I have heard so far have been about as big as K20. But I haven't properly evaluated any of the wide+superflat cables yet.

Hopefully someone else can contribute.

Please remember that there is absolutely no relationship between price and performance in anything cable related. That means: Don't rule out the cheap ones, don't focus on the "exclusive" ones and don't compare within price brackets. Just regard them as if they had no price at all.

Music Lover · Post by **Music Lover** » 2008-06-19 01:18

lejonklou wrote:
Just regard them as if they had no price at all.

If only that was the case in reality as well. :mrgreen:
Even using K400's, speaker cables going to be expensive if you have active speakers.

cremona · Post by **cremona** » 2008-06-19 22:04

Im actually considdering replacing my kimbers with linn speaker cabels.

My speakers are singelwire so the obvious choice would be k20 havever as i read it the k20 is stranded wire design and the 400 is solid core , i alwasy seem to prefere solid core designs.

Enyone with a oppinion what to chose for a pair of full rangers with singelwire terminals only?

thanks

vicdiaz · Post by **vicdiaz** » 2008-06-19 23:28

cremona wrote: My speakers are singelwire so the obvious choice would be k20 havever as i read it the k20 is stranded wire design and the 400 is solid core , i alwasy seem to prefere solid core designs.

K400 is not solid core. I have both K20 and K400.

poppop · Post by **poppop** » 2008-06-19 23:34

Cremona

Im using Mogami 2972 - although its a bi wire cable. Im using it "single" wire between solos and shahinians. Having used it for about 1 month I do feel its an improvement on the K400 I was using. (the mogami is a round cable about 1cm in diameter.

Only cost around £50 for 2 x 2m lenghths, professionally terminated at one end.

good luck.
Steve.

Azazello · Post by **Azazello** » 2008-06-20 11:24

cremona wrote:My speakers are singelwire so the obvious choice would be k20

What you could do is buy on length of K400 and carefully cut it in half. K400 is quite a lot better than K20.

cremona · Post by **cremona** » 2008-06-20 15:56

Azazello wrote:
cremona wrote:My speakers are singelwire so the obvious choice would be k20
What you could do is buy on length of K400 and carefully cut it in half. K400 is quite a lot better than K20.

Why is it better ? i thourgt it was the same type of wire inside.

Moomintroll · Post by **Moomintroll** » 2008-06-20 17:51

[quote="cremona
Why is it better ? i thourgt it was the same type of wire inside.[/quote]

For one thing, in K400 and K600 the wires are twisted together along the entire length. I believe this has a big effect.

'Troll

cremona · Post by **cremona** » 2008-06-20 19:10

Moomintroll wrote:[quote="cremona
Why is it better ? i thourgt it was the same type of wire inside.

For one thing, in K400 and K600 the wires are twisted together along the entire length. I believe this has a big effect.

'Troll[/quote]

Ok so the way to go would be gettiung a pair on k400 cut one i half and sell the other.

Im on it

regards

rowlandhills · Post by **rowlandhills** » 2008-06-20 20:22

cremona wrote:
Moomintroll wrote:[quote="cremona
Why is it better ? i thourgt it was the same type of wire inside.
For one thing, in K400 and K600 the wires are twisted together along the entire length. I believe this has a big effect.

'Troll

Ok so the way to go would be gettiung a pair on k400 cut one i half and sell the other.[/quote]

Emil - You can just buy one length of K400 and cut it in half. That way you don't need to seel anything! :D

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-06-23 01:57

Moomintroll wrote:in K400 and K600 the wires are twisted together along the entire length

Yes, apart from the outer jacket being different (the thick black plastic around K400/600), the twisting increases the capacitance and lowers the inductance of the cable compared to K20. This makes it clearly better when using amps that can handle the capacitance.

K20 was a copy of Naims NACA4, which was designed for low capacitance to keep the Naim amps completely stable. Linn amps have no instability problems and are therefore capable of driving long runs of K400/600.

Originally there was a K200, I am not sure why Linn didn't release it.

Lego · Post by **Lego** » 2008-06-23 19:12

How about twisting interconnects?

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-06-25 00:48

Funny you should mention that, Lego. I made some interconnect protos that sounded quite good (in the same region as Linn Blacks) and they were made of two identical conductors that were twisted together.

With no proper shield they get slightly more sensitive to the electrical environment, but in most cases it works without problems.

When the cable is coaxial (a shield around the conductor/s), I can't see any point in twisting them.

cremona · Post by **cremona** » 2008-06-28 21:33

Enyone tried putting WBT top of the line speaker connectors on the k400 ?

I have just replaced my kimbers with k400 because in my system the clearly beat the kimbers.

More deep bass, and more tune every thing sound s more dynamic. and musical

I had my linn dealer install the neutrik speakóns for my solos , but in the other cabel end are some very cheap looking linn banana conectors .
my speakers speaker terminals works best with spades and there for im looking to replace the linn bananas UNLESS the are a must , but i dont see have since its not linn speakers the will be in contact with .

enyone with a oppinion ?

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-06-29 17:13

It doesn't matter what speakers you are using. The best sounding speaker cable connector that I have found (and I carefully evaluated a bunch of different models in december 2006) is the Linn Knekt bananas of aluminium. It is important that they are properly soldered.

There was a tip here from another forum member about a Van den Hul speaker connector that was said to sound even better than Linn Knekt. I still haven't listened to that connector, but I intend to do so as soon as I find time for it.

Nisseman · Post by **Nisseman** » 2008-07-04 06:42

So, is there no one who has tested any less obtrousive speaker cable (which does not degrade the tune completely)?
:oops:

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-07-04 11:47

Nisseman, how long are your K400's and how are they terminated?

I have a black mains cable that I have been using for various hideaway installations. It's cheap, 4x6mm and sounds quite ok - better than many other cables I have tried. Not as good as K20 or K400, but with the right termination not bad at all.

If your current K400's have screwed on connectors or something else less than optimal, there is a chance that four runs of my mains cable with optimally soldered Knekt bananas can actually outperform them.

Perhaps worth a try.

Music Lover · Post by **Music Lover** » 2008-07-04 13:00

Don't ever dare saying you have a decent small speaker cable to my wife

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-07-04 17:39

I wrote:It's cheap, 4x6mm and sounds quite ok

Just to clarify: the size 4x6mm is for one pair; + and -. Two of them replaces one K400.

ML: I won't say a word!

Seriously, considering your playback, I think this cable will be ruthlessly revealed as inferior to K400. Your wife wouldn't be happy.

monkeydevil · Post by **monkeydevil** » 2008-07-19 15:09

Hey guys.

I definitely think the K400 is the best speaker cable I've heard. I had it single wired before I went Aktiv and think that was a GREAT improvement over the cheap cable I had before.

So I told a friend about this. He's into Naim and has their entry level CD-player and integrated pre/power amp, fed into a pair of Royds of Katan size. He also uses Naims speaker cables. He was about to buy a second hand K400 to use single wired after all the fuzz I had made about this upgrade. So he borrowed my old split K400 to try it out. The day after he returned the cable and said that it was clearly worse than his Naim speaker cable!Wich really puzzled me, since I regard the K400 highly.

So this made me think about what his impressions actually mean. Either the Naim cable is a lot better than the K400. Or my friend is more into the Naim sound, if his cable now is more Naim sounding, I don't know. Or the K400 doesn't fit in a Naim system (but this shouldn't matter should it?).

Thoughts anyone? Jeppe, if you read this, please chip in with your impressions!

Music Lover · Post by **Music Lover** » 2008-07-19 21:51

15 years ago I compared Naim/Linn speaker cables as I then had both Naim/Linn systems (using Isobarik and Sara) = not tested the latest versions of Naim/Linn cables but here it goes...

Using a Naim amp the Naim speaker cable made it sounds more Naimish, after a Linn amp Linn cables...well you get it

As some remember I have a Nait II (in the office). I use K20 and silver IC's in that system.

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-07-20 08:45

Monkeydevil, I wrote this earlier in the thread:

lejonklou wrote:K20 was a copy of Naims NACA4, which was designed for low capacitance to keep the Naim amps completely stable. Linn amps have no instability problems and are therefore capable of driving long runs of K400/600.

I have not made any comparisons myself with K400 and Naim amps, but it's perfectly possible that the Naim amps start sounding bad with the load they get from K400. It's even written into the Naim manuals that the use of NACA4 or NACA5 is mandatory - otherwise you run the risk of the amplifiers oscillating and literally blowing up!

Music Lover · Post by **Music Lover** » 2008-07-20 12:32

lejonklou wrote:It's even written into the Naim manuals that the use of NACA4 or NACA5 is mandatory - otherwise you run the risk of the amplifiers oscillating and literally blowing up!

Not sure that is correct. (or I'm a lucky guy :mrgreen: )
As I wrote, I used Naim amps with both Naim and Linn cables and despite me running the system hard (high volume during long time) nothing happened.

And my Nait has served me in the office during 10+ years and still going strong.

Wolfie · Post by **Wolfie** » 2008-07-20 13:32

Music Lover wrote:
lejonklou wrote:It's even written into the Naim manuals that the use of NACA4 or NACA5 is mandatory - otherwise you run the risk of the amplifiers oscillating and literally blowing up!
Not sure that is correct. (or I'm a lucky guy :mrgreen: )
As I wrote, I used Naim amps with both Naim and Linn cables and despite me running the system hard (high volume during long time) nothing happened.

And my Nait has served me in the office during 10+ years and still going strong.

I'd agree, although with little personal experience - sounds more like marketing to me. If not, their amps must be very badly designed if the designers claim the amps would actually be damaged (rather than just not perform at their best) with any other cable.

Marketing bullsh*t, if you ask me!