Okay, now I've got a stereo question...

[Spook50]

I need some good speaker wire and signal wire. I'm a big Monster Cable fanboy (as I've conveyed before). Anyhoo none of the stores around here carry it anymore, so what's another good brand of cable with shielding as good as monster's XLN line? Twhole reason I put monster in in the first place was for their shielding because I had some nasty alternator whine.

 

[CardinalFJ60]

Radio Shack?

Maybe check with your local Radio Shack? They either carry M-Cable or have their own re-branded wires that may do what yer lookin' for.

HTH

 

[Spook50]

Maybe check with your local Radio Shack? They either carry M-Cable or have their own re-branded wires that may do what yer lookin' for.

HTH

Nah, Radioshack's cables = poop. They carry some Monster products but not the ones I'm looking for. I actually found some new signal wires that might do the trick. Made by a company called Cadence, which I've never heard of but was told they're outstanding wires (they better be for the price).

 

[Doc]

Go to the biggest, post popular stereo place in your area and buy what they have in bulk. You can specifically ask if they can order what you want as well.

 

[Spook50]

Go to the biggest, post popular stereo place in your area and buy what they have in bulk. You can specifically ask if they can order what you want as well.

Yeah that's how I ended up with the Cadence signal wires. I can use what I've got for speaker wire right now, but soon here I'm gonna need to redo the front sections of wire, and I want my XLN!

 

[60wag]

I don't buy the Monster cable hype. I read somewhere that the highest profit margin stuff in the electronic stores are the "premium cables." They are buying those cables for WAY less than you are. Some of the Monster RCA cables have directional arrows on them. Can anyone here give me a reason why a cable with an RCA connector on both ends is directional? I know that high purity copper has less loss than old corroded junk wire but I challange you to do an A/B test to see if you could actually hear a difference between the $60 BS and a decent $5 cable.

 

[Tinker]

60 -
Some of the better RCA cables have sophisticated shielding, which the cheapos don't. I think all the high $ speaker wire & power cables are BS, though.

 

[zcruiser]

I don't buy the Monster cable hype. I read somewhere that the highest profit margin stuff in the electronic stores are the "premium cables." They are buying those cables for WAY less than you are. Some of the Monster RCA cables have directional arrows on them. Can anyone here give me a reason why a cable with an RCA connector on both ends is directional?

The only thing I can think of there is to have the shield connected only to one end, so you have a common ground rather than carrying a ground between all your components and ending up with ground loops and hum. Since RCA is not a differential signal, you need to keep the noise from getting picked up at the far end and getting pulled back into the amplifier circuits. Just a thought, not an audio engineer but have fooled around with analog circuit design for a/v products... Always scared me what kind of noise might be coming back into my audio board from the "shield" ground on my cable...

 

[Spook50]

I don't buy the Monster cable hype. I read somewhere that the highest profit margin stuff in the electronic stores are the "premium cables." They are buying those cables for WAY less than you are. Some of the Monster RCA cables have directional arrows on them. Can anyone here give me a reason why a cable with an RCA connector on both ends is directional? I know that high purity copper has less loss than old corroded junk wire but I challange you to do an A/B test to see if you could actually hear a difference between the $60 BS and a decent $5 cable.

Loud alternator whine with the cheap stuff, and no alternator whine with Monster Cable's stuff. Same cable routing also.

 

[60wag]

I think you have a grounding problem.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newsletter/alternator_whine.htm

 

[Spook50]

I think you have a grounding problem.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newsletter/alternator_whine.htm

That was the first thing I checked (because it would've been the cheapest fix). I DID have a bad ground for my amp, but fixing it only reduced the alternator whine. It still couldn't get rid of it completely. I'm tellin ya, the thing that did the trick was good signal and speaker cables.

 

[60wag]

Hey, if you tried the easy things first withou success and the Monster stuff solved the problem, great. I just hate to hear people think the need the high bling stuff just because their dealer told them so.

BTW if you haven't already done it, ground both the head unit and the amp in the SAME place - that is phyically tie both the grounds to the same screw. Most of our machine tools are set up that way to minimze grounds loops and improve reliability.

 

[Spook50]

Hey, if you tried the easy things first withou success and the Monster stuff solved the problem, great. I just hate to hear people think the need the high bling stuff just because their dealer told them so.

BTW if you haven't already done it, ground both the head unit and the amp in the SAME place - that is phyically tie both the grounds to the same screw. Most of our machine tools are set up that way to minimze grounds loops and improve reliability.

I agree with you on the people always following the "bling" factor. The Monster cables I got were their lower end twisted wires, so I didn't need to spend extra cash on serious audiophile grade stuff. I like the idea of tying the head unit and amp to the same ground path. My setup now has a wire running between both grounding point. I guess it would be cleaner to just run a wire from the head unit's ground to the amp's ground. I'll do that when I install my new Kenwood tomorrow. Shouldn't be too hard to run a wire while all the carpet, seats, and console are out of my truck

 

[Tinker]

Spook -
If you still have problems, check this out: http://www.davidnavone.com/

 

[Spook50]

Spook -
If you still have problems, check this out: http://www.davidnavone.com/

Hey that's cool. a little homebrew work there it looks like (okay quite a bit more professional than homebrew). Hell I'd buy the Kenwood interface just for the black plugs since I've got the black iPod