Cables in Italy

[teb76]

Dear CJ owners, my near-to-arrive CAV 50 deserves decent cables to drive my Fochal Chorus 816V. I was wondering if someone could suggest me some entry level but still valuable 5 meters long cable I can find in Italy online. I want to stay low with budget right now, I'm investing in the gear and other stuffs, there will be time to improve.
Thanks for your help.

[AnotherJohnson]

If I were watching the budget, I’d go with some plain old 12 gauge Oxygen Free Copper. In my opinion, you have to spend over $1000 to beat it. 5 M is a long run.

[teb76]

If I were watching the budget, I’d go with some plain old 12 gauge Oxygen Free Copper. In my opinion, you have to spend over $1000 to beat it. 5 M is a long run.

Thank you will have a look. Do you think it is crucial to buy a terminated cable or I can do by myself? I'm quite familiar with the welder since I was 12

[AnotherJohnson]

I would not solder or weld the terminations.

I use solderless banana plugs from Nakamichi or furutech. Solderless spades could be a good choice too. Depending on your amp and speaker binding posts, you could consider using the bare wire, but if you do this, be very careful to avoid shorting the circuit by a stray strand.

If you want commercially manufactured speaker wires, AudioQuest has a full range … although 5 M pairs of just about anything are costly compared to DIY.

Nordost is another brand that people like and they may have something affordable if you search.

I don’t know what is available in Italy, but AQ and Nordost are available in many parts of the world.

If I were you, I would probably go with the 12 gauge multi strand copper “zip wire.” It is really quite good as a starting point. It gives you a baseline for evaluating other options later.

[teb76]

Thank you, clearly I still need to learn a lot! I was pretty sure that solder bananas or spades was the better choice. I will follow your advice for now and use the 12 gauge wire.
As I have to share the speakers with my home teather system, I was searching for a switcher but couldn't find anything other than crazy-expensive and/or poor-built, thus at least on the amp side I will need to have bananas to quickly switch amp manually.

[admin]

Thank you, clearly I still need to learn a lot! I was pretty sure that solder bananas or spades was the better choice. I will follow your advice for now and use the 12 gauge wire.
As I have to share the speakers with my home teather system, I was searching for a switcher but couldn't find anything other than crazy-expensive and/or poor-built, thus at least on the amp side I will need to have bananas to quickly switch amp manually.

If you don't mind manually switching them manually, that would cut the cost in half, or conversely expands the number of potential speaker cables to choose from. From a pure audiophile standpoint, the less connections the better, so that is a plus.

[AnotherJohnson]

If you go the 12 gauge route, you can inexpensively try both soldered and solderless termination and see which you like best.

The 12 gauge route also lets you get started at very modest cost and it will sound very good.

Later, if you get the urge to try other things, you’ll have a good baseline for comparison.

I tried several different speaker cables over the years, but until I was up over $1000 for 8’ pairs, the 12 gauge were just as good or better. YMMV

[teb76]

From a pure audiophile standpoint, the less connections the better, so that is a plus.

That's exactly why I have decide to don't use a switcher by now, I want to keep the system as clean as possible. I will probably try some DIY experiment, I've already found some project nice to test. Double fun: hifi music and electronics DIY

[teb76]

If you go the 12 gauge route, you can inexpensively try both soldered and solderless termination and see which you like best.

The 12 gauge route also lets you get started at very modest cost and it will sound very good.

Later, if you get the urge to try other things, you’ll have a good baseline for comparison.

I tried several different speaker cables over the years, but until I was up over $1000 for 8’ pairs, the 12 gauge were just as good or better. YMMV

I will follow your advice and take a 12 gauge. I found an Italian company Recable that makes an affordable 12 gauge claiming to be OFC 99,999%
They have a good reputation for much more expensive cables i don't think they would mess up with poor quality 12 gauge. Perhaps someone of you had some experience with their cables?

[admin]

Is this what you are referring to? https://www.ricable.com/en/speaker-cable/

I've never used them but they look to be of high quality. But they all appear to be terminated. Are you looking at terminated or unterminated now?

[teb76]

Is this what you are referring to? https://www.ricable.com/en/speaker-cable/

I've never used them but they look to be of high quality. But they all appear to be terminated. Are you looking at terminated or unterminated now?

That's the company yes. They have a separate website for non terminated/DIY cables. The cable I mentioned you can find it here:
https://www.ricablecustom.com/en/prodot ... acustiche/

[admin]

Very nice. BTW, if you want to make it look "fancy and expensive", buy some techflex. It's cheap but makes it look like the 1000 euro cables!

Of course this is cosmetic and has no influence on the sound quality.

https://www.techflex.com/products

[teb76]

Woah! Fantastic!
Thanks for the advice