Cheap Audio Cable Review

S

Stagger Lee

New member
Joined
Mar 29, 2021
Messages
25
Location
Los Angeles, Ca.
I tried to post this once and didn't make it. Don't know why. Here goes again. I did a lot of cable testing during he last year. Because of my previous business in high end cables decades ago, I am always interested in cables. This time I went for affordable cables that people who may want to experiment can do it without breaking the bank.
Your mileage may vary but this is my opinion.

SPEAKER CABLES: Gotham GAC SPK 2x4.0 mm. (11awg). $2.13 a linear foot from Gotham. I only see rolls of 100 feet listed so maybe you can find a retailer by the foot. This OFC cable is excellent. Buy a roll and sell the left overs to your friends. Terminating is easy using screw on banana plugs from Amazon.
This outfit sells Gotham cables by the foot all except SPK2x4.0mm for some reason.
I didn't like the SPK 2x2.5mm. Light in the base on up to midrange.


Acutek 14x4. This is an OFC cable. You pair two 14 gauge wires together for 11 awg. Maybe you can find it by the linear foot but at $.65 a foot, a 100 foot roll will only cost $65.00. (Amazon) CSS uses this cable for internal wiring in their excellent speaker kits.
.
Mogami W2921 is another OFC quad 14 awg speaker cable. Pair two for 11 awg. Available from Redco for $4.35 a linear foot.

DIGITAL COAX CABLES: Gotham GAC-1, Canare L-5CFB, Mogami 2964. All of these are available on Amazon and Ebay assembled for about $40 or less. All are very good digital coax cables. Mogami the most flexibe, then Gotham, and lastly Canare which is quite stiff.

INTERCONECTS: I found two very good interconnect cables available by the linear foot. You can terminate yourself with some quality RCA connectors from Amazon and be sure to use a quality solder like Wonder Solder (Ebay) or WBT 4% silver solder. (Ebay and Amazon) it makes a difference. By soldering your own, you can save enough to buy yourself a nice soldering station on Amazon for about $40. Gotham GAC 4/1 is an OFC Quad microphone cable for about $1.25 a linear foot. Mogami 2497, another OFC quad cable for about $3.65 a linear foot from Redco.
If you want to go cheap on a decent RCA try Canare F10 connector ($3.50 ea). You can also find the locking RCA connectors that Worlds Best Cables uses on Amazon for about $20.00 for four, and Cardas SLVR connectors on Music Direct for $20.00 a pair.
If you dont want to solder. You can buy either these cables on Amazon assembled by Worlds Best Cables with 4% silver solder and nice locking RCAS.
 
By the way I used about a $10k audio system to test these cables. I've worked all year to make a neutral and pleasant system with no obvious problems. My personal cables are Kimber 12TC speaker cable, their D60 coax and Audience Ohno interconnects. I thin these are better than all the cables above but for a fraction of the price, the above cables are shockingly good. People ask what I also tested. I listened to a lot of Blue Jeans cables but they are not OFC copper and I did not prefer them. I tested many digital coax cavbles, Monoprice, Pananga, Audioquest Carbon, Nordost Blue "something" etc. Not so many speaker cables. I did test other Mogami 12 awg cables but prefer the quad 14. I didn't like their 3082 coax speaker cable. And as I said, the Gotham 2x2.5mm is not as good as the Gotham 2x4.0. Oddly I could find no vendors except Gotham for the 4.0 except one source in China. For a lot less money, you could get a hundred foot roll from Gotham and share with your friends or sell it off for enough money to cover your cables. I did terminate and have superficially listened to Gothams GAC 1.2.3 interconnects and they did sound good superficially but the 4/1 I hav he most experience with. I made two 10 foot headphone extension cables with Neutrik 1/4" connectors. One with Gotham GAC 4/1 and Mogami 2534. Both were good with Gotham shading the Mogami by a bit.
 
I suggest checking the ytdy cable, e.g. 4x0.5, both as speaker and rca cable.
 
Thanks Maniek, but as you might guess, I'm a bit burned out on cable testing. I am now making a pair of CSS speakers from a kit for a change.
 
Duelund Speaker Cables recently had very favourable comments on this forum. Tin-coated OFC with a cotton and oil jacket. Available in 20, 16 and 12 gauges depending on length required and efficiency and impedence of speakers. Available as twin-cored in single jacket but both cores are black so care needed when connecting to spades or plugs. Not the easiest to strip off the insulation, but that's a one-time job.

By the meter from HiFiCollective in UK at £12, £17 and £27 per meter. Also from Partsconnexion in US - probably at half the UK prices!

They do interconnect cable too but I've seen less about this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top