some replies to a post made about speaker wire stated than speaker wire bought at a hardware store worked as well as some expensive wire. Is the same true about interconnects? Are the ones supplied with the CD player sufficient, or as good as a more expensive one?

There becomes a point of diminishing returns on cables. While the included cables may be of good quality if you specified, or negoitated them, standard "throw in's" have poor construction, bad connectors with poor contact area materials. It is easier to "hear" poor cables in an excellent system, than excellent cables in a poor system.

If I remember the equipment you had on your list, you should not subject it to throw in cables. But you need to determine what you have been given. I would not go overboard, but you should be able to get suitable quality for less than $100 for interconnects for electronic equipment. Speaker cable is of the same mindset, but prices are dependant on the length you require.

Here are numbers I have seen advertised (this is not a recommendation, but a point of reference)
- Monster Cable Interconnects ($50-75 per metre - gold plated connectors)
- heavy gauge speaker cable (12g $1.50 metre)
- speaker connectors (gold plated $15 per 4 - you will need 8)

Regards,

BBIBH

Interconnects are a bit of a different story and not necessarily for any fancy electrical reason but for basic quality of manufacture and proper shielding. There are a lot of poorly shielded and badly soldered interconnect cables out there. I would suggest spending at least a little more getting some well made cables with good shielding, it is worth the money and saves the headaches of hums and equipment not working after it is all set up.

Ian Colquhoun
President & Chief Engineer

Here's an interesting document on interconnects and cables from Rod Elliott's site. It does however seem to be pitching the InnerSound products.

http://sound.westhost.com/cablewhitepaper.htm

adios

Having looked hard at the cost of some of the interconnects and speaker wires (including numerous DIY's) I came across the following information on the Outlaw Audio website. Basically the following sites state that more expensive does not necessarially provide significant increases in quality and in most instances provide no increase. Read for yourself if you like. Sorry, I don't know how to insert the link itself. If you care to, you can go to outlawaudio.com and find the links under the message board for interconnects. Good reading!!

http://www.oakland.edu/~djcarlst/abx_wire.htm
http://www.verber.com/mark/cables.html
http://www.vxm.com/21R.64.html
http://2eyespy.tripod.com/myaudioandhometheaterhomepage/id3.html

thanks. i'll take a look. also on goodsounds.com they review the bettercables wire and the reviewer notices a difference with both speaker wire and interconnects