Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Speaker Wires

Well I dont mean to start a big thing here, but this is the story:

Epic 60 Axiom System (with VP150 center) (all thanks to Mark @ Audioshop - great guy)

When I first got the system and after reading these forums, I bought Phoenix Gold 12g speaker wire. Sounded good.

I started reading over at the audioasylum.com forums under cables. I read alot about the John Rish cross connected Belden 89259 speaker cables and decided to give them a try.

http://www.tubeaholic.com/projects/page.view?RowId=66 - check this link I made the fancy cables with blue tech flex. I made 5 cables and two jumpers. CF, RF, & LF are all 8 feet - RR 32 feet - LR 38 Feet - two jumpers 6 inches each - The finished cables are really nice looking and took me about 15 hours to make took my time did a professional careful job - cost $325

I first removed the gold metal jumpers on the M60's and replaced with my DIY Belden jumpers.

Then I carefully removed Phoenix Gold & installed my new speaker cables.

All I can say is wow what a difference. The soundstage really opened up, big increase in detail, bass is tight and kicking, no edginess at all, very fluid sounding. All this in first 15 min of listening. I honestly didnt expect such a sound improvement.

I have read these forums start to finish before I bought my Axioms and I know a lot of your views on speaker cables but all I can say is a big wow.

Steven,
(Sorry for the long post)

Great to hear that it made such a difference for you; I have to wonder though in making your connections if you did not inadvertently correct some other pre-existing problems with the original connections or jumpers. Good quality wire is wire, you will see all kinds of articles and testimonials to the effect that it makes such a difference. That our cables are 99.9% oxygen free. And the best ones I have seen to date are the companies that have arrows on the cables to make sure that you connect them in the right direction since the cable is designed that electrons flow better in one direction. However in any independent lab tests none of these claims has ever shown to make the slightest difference. In my own personal experience when I built my room, and was sourcing my components I came across a shop that I went into looking at high end DVD players. The topic in-variably came around to what wires and interconnects was I going to use. To make a long story short the guy was so insistent that the wire would make all the difference to my setup that he agreed to come and install this QED Genesis Silver Spiral cable at $45.00/ft (http://www.qed.co.uk/cables/speaker/genesis.html) plus the cost of the connectors and installation since which had to be done by them to ensure proper routing and wire terminations. I agreed with the understanding that if there was no audible difference and they would be present for the tests, he would take it all back. If it made the difference they claimed then I pay for the wire the installation and I would buy the DVD player fro them. It made absolutely no difference! The guy spent 2 days running cable and making the “proper” connections. When we did blind tests, a friend of mine made the cable switches so that neither one of us would know which cable was which. He could not tell the difference, he even picked the normal wire a couple of times trying to guess which one was the QED. Well out it all came, the best part was what came next. The reason we could not hear any difference: The Axiom speakers were not good enough to be able to discern the difference such high quality wire would make to a good set of speakers. He was very disappointed since he thought the M80’s were much better then that. I’m sorry I had to laugh.

Lol that is a good laugh. It must have been embarassing for the guy to not know which wires were which. He prolly went home and figured out how much money he wasted on his home system. lol
Ayien

I wouldn't trust anyone's opinion if their pockets will get much deeper if you agree with them...

45 dollars per foot. Wiring for a HT with cable like that is enough for a whole new smaller Axiom HT or a very very good DVD player.

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your kind words.
I've been leery about recommending wires on this board too for fear of flames.
I like to match up the Kimber Kables on the Axioms. It DOES sound better than regular wires and the Axioms are high enough resolution to show off the differences.
In the shop, I put Kimber 4PR on one speaker and 16g regular wire on the other speaker, put the pre-amp in mono mode and then flip back and forth with the balance control and let the client decide for himself. The difference is quite readily apparent.
For those who doubt, please keep an open mind and try some premium cables if you have the opportunity.

Marc,
How about if you use a standard 12g wire in place of the 16g like most people have recommended. How big of a difference is that to the Kimber 4PR? (I suspect it costs much less)

Michael

my friend bought some of the expensive wire for his house-dont want to say the brand, it was no better than the 12 ga x3 power cord i use(79cents a foot not 8.00 a foot)i just cut off the 3rd wire it looks great when its done, sounds good also.

Ayien, It was amusing to say the least.

Marc, maybe i should clarify a bit the wire I use is a high grade 12 gage fine strand copper signal wire. We buy it in bulk spools for use in some projects that we did in my company. I think that we paid around $2,000 for 1000 ft spools. I have yet to try any wires even the Kimber’s you mention that make any difference to my system.

In general terms using one cable on the left and one on the right is generally not a good method as your ears, right and left do perceive sound differently. I would like to see it done with 2 pairs of the same speakers on a switch box then switch the source between the 2, again positioning will effect how you perceive the sound from each set. So you would have to switch the wires around and do it again in reverse without knowing which was which.

I would be interested to find one scientifically done independent test to show that there is some difference in cables. Too date I have not been able to find one. And lets face it high performance cable sales make the store good money (I am not trying to imply that you or your shop specifically do this) but to generalize audio places love to sell you high end wire and interconnects because the margins on them are tremendous. You can potentially make more profit on the wire sales then you did selling the customer the speakers.

Well I am a very particular and careful (one step shy of a perfectionist) and I know for certain that my first setup with the Phoenix Gold 12g speaker wire and M60 standard metal jumper straps was totally setup correctly. It all sounded very good!

These cross connected Belden 89259 wires sound fantastic. I just got home from work and turned on the FM radio and the clarity and soundstage is unreal.

Just so you know I am not a kid here. I am 49 with a graduate degree from a major university. The Axioms must just gel with this Belden wire. The sound is tremendously improved.

Steven,

I hope that you did not take my post to imply that you did not know what you are doing. I understand your thoughts and you sound a lot like I do. I design precision measurment systems for coating applications, and even with our most basic systems we measure to 1 micron accuracy. So believe me I know what being fussy is all about.

I am really pleased to hear that this worked so well for you. After all being happy with your system is what it is all about. Just for your interest the wire I used in my system is made by Belden.

Happy Listening!

Cheers
John.