Hey, Solidstate, isn't this your post from 11-25-07 on this forum? It is somewhat verbose, I hope you don't mind my quoting it. Oh, and I made bold the interesting parts so you won't miss 'em.

Quote begins here:

"Greetings,

I was curious if others can post experience with the Belden 13xxA series speaker cable. The various versions of the cable are as follows:

1313A 10AWG 259x34 OFHC speaker cable
1311A 12AWD 168x34 OFHC speaker cable
1309A 14AWG 105x34 OFHC speaker cable
1307A 16AWG 65x34 OFHC speaker cable

I am a small upstart home theater/automation installer and have modeled all of my cabling from Bluejeans and Audioholics testing/suggestions. In other words I use Belden products across the board for most every interconnect. I have been using Belden 5T00UP 10AWG 65x28 ETP speaker cable in combination with WBT knockoff locking banana plugs. In reading posts on other various sites regarding Belden 1313A speaker cable I had to bring some in for testing in my home system.

I first have to comment regarding OFC/OFHC vers. ETP copper. I live in the Gulf Islands on the west coast of Canada. This is a coastal area obviously and a temperate rain forest. It's very humid here and the air is "salty". With that being said I have to post experience with 5T00UP oxidizing RAPIDLY. When I was replacing the 5T00UP with 1313A I was shocked when I looked at the amount and rapid nature of the oxidization on the ETP 65x38 strands. In some places it was almost going green! wow what an eye opener. In looking at another install where I used a big box brand OFC speaker cable using the same WBT knockoff also in an ocean front location I noticed WAY LESS oxidization…

After replacing the 5T00UP with 1313A I gave the system a listen. Hmmm... I won't post any adjectives/BS lingo to describe the difference. In a word... BETTER another word... CLEANER perhaps one more... LOUDER (higher SPL per same location on AVR4306 volume knob). In wondering if it was oxidization on the conductors inside the WBT knockoff locking bananas (GLS audio clones) I in-turn swapped them out for solid copper/gold plated bananas found at monoprice. Again no more adjectives/BS lingo in a word IMPROVED... I could actually hear an improvement listening to tracks I know intimately with changes in banana plug and speaker cable.

With this experience in hand and a hacksaw I cut through a WBT knockoff only to find the thing is made of CHEAP BRASS. I can’t help but wonder what affect the termination (banana used and it’s materials) has on the performance of a speaker cable segment. In my experience it does make a difference. I wonder if Audioholics testing regarding speaker cables had taken into consideration the materials used in the banana plugs and it’s affect on performance. To my ears it does make a difference. I also wonder if any testing can be done regarding the strand count. Belden 1313A is 259x34 while Belden 5T00UP is 65x28. In my experience 1313A sounds better than 5T00UP while using the same solid copper gold plated monoprice banana.

All tests where done with Denon AVR-4306 with Axiom’s flagship theater package. Also of note is the solid copper gold plated monoprice bananas can be stacked. This allowed me to replace the thin bridge plate to the second set of posts on the M80 v2 used for bridging when not bi-amping with a 3” piece of 1313A to another monoprice banana. Again an improvement. I wonder if anyone has even considered the materials (cheap brass/gold plated aluminum) used for banana plugs and binding post bridging plates.

Other please post experience regarding ETP oxidization, cable strand count and banana plug/binding post bridge plate materials and their affect on their system and “audio palate” LOL

Solid-State

PS ok sorry I had to post at least one line of that bourgeoisie fartsy BS "smoothsaying" "

End quote.

Oh, never mind. I probably quoted it wrong, I'm old... and deaf and I don't understand how these here complicated internets work.

Last edited by jollo; 08/23/09 04:42 AM. Reason: Come to think of it mud don't hurt