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What are the best Speaker Cables for Magneplanars?


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Magnepans are the closest to a purely resistive load of nearly any speaker. There is very little reactance in them. The load is 4 ohms or a touch under. Make sure you have large awg cable. Otherwise there will be very little interaction. The Blue Jeans suggestion is a darn good one. Probably go with the 5000 series as it is available in 10 or 12 gauge. The Canare is 14 gauge only.

 

Read the quote in your signature. Order up some Blue Jeans cable. Spend the money saved on something that will really help. Maybe some room treatment panels to go behind or around the panels. Or if you don't have it a few inexpensive bits for doing room measurements. REW is free and useful. Various calibrated mikes are $100 or less. Moving the speakers 6 inches will cause a change in sound that can be measured in room that is several orders of magnitude larger than any possible cable effects.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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Depends on your system, taste/expectations. I do like silver. QED makes good not that expensive copper-silver hybrid cables. Siltech can be fantastic but these are quite expensive unless you buy second hand ones (letter G means some gold in silver and sounds great but beware of Chinese 'versions' on e-bay)

 

Or ;) :

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/i-was-wrong-not-all-expensive-speaker-wire-simply-jewelry-be-put-display-31860/

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Blue Jeans uses generic Belden 5T00UP 10AWG wire. It's OK, but for a few cents more per foot, this is better:

 

Furez 10 AWG 2 Conductor Speaker Cable Raw

 

Blue Jeans uses cheap "gold" plated brass connectors. Bare copper or silver-plated copper has higher conductivity. Buy the raw wire, and do your own terminations: spades, bananas, or bare wire, whatever works for you.

 

Douglas Connection has everything you need to make your own cables. I have dealt with them several times. Good people.

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Magnepans are the closest to a purely resistive load of nearly any speaker. There is very little reactance in them. The load is 4 ohms or a touch under. Make sure you have large awg cable. Otherwise there will be very little interaction. The Blue Jeans suggestion is a darn good one. Probably go with the 5000 series as it is available in 10 or 12 gauge. The Canare is 14 gauge only.

 

As an owner of a lot of Magnepans (see my signature), Dennis' (Elsdude's) advice is spot on. I strongly disagree with those suggesting silver cables as they tend to sound bright (which is the last thing you want on Magnepan's).

Synology NAS>i7-6700/32GB/NVIDIA QUADRO P4000 Win10>Qobuz+Tidal>Roon>HQPlayer>DSD512> Fiber Switch>Ultrarendu (NAA)>Holo Audio May KTE DAC> Bryston SP3 pre>Levinson No. 432 amps>Magnepan (MG20.1x2, CCR and MMC2x6)

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Maggie 3.7i - will use a SS amp

 

Maggie's are the least fussy about speaker cable of any brand of speakers I know (and I've had FIVE different pair, including the eight panel Tympani 3Cs). l4 Gauge lamp cord would work as well as anything. I use Sewell 12 Gauge Oxygen-Free Copper "Silverback" with 259 strands and terminated in extremely high quality banana plugs on both ends. A pair of 6-footers are just $9! They are superb quality. I have a pair of Maggie 1.7s in my listening room #2 (does;t that sound so very HP of me?). Actually it's my home office... I use a pair of 6-footers from Sewell simply because they come already terminated and I couldn't buy the wire and four high quality Banana plugs for $9. You can spend a lot more, thousand and thousands of dollars more, but on Magneplanars it won't make ANY difference at all. They are pretty much a simple restistive load to the amp. IOW, the impedance of the speaker does not change with frequency so the impedance and the DC resistance are the same. Easy peasy.

 

https://sewelldirect.com/hometheater/speakerwire

George

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To give you an idea of what I mean by the other post, here is Stereophile impedance plot of some B&W 802 speakers. Your basic multi-way box speaker.

 

1205802FIG1.jpg

 

And now the Magnepan 3.6R (sorry they haven't tested the 3.7).

 

magfig1.jpg

 

Notice the impedance (solid line) of the box speaker varies wildly between 3 ohms and 20+ohms. Plus notice the dashed phase angle curve which varies between +50 and -45 degrees. Sometimes a high phase angle and low impedance can require ghastly amounts of current with modest sound levels. In this case the B&W is only a moderately difficult load as there are much worse loads out there.

 

Now look at the Maggie. Impedance is a gentle slope from 5 ohms to about 3.5 ohms with one wrinkle where the cross over to the ribbon is reaching 8 ohms. Below the xover the phase is almost purely resistive with 0 degree phase angle. Above the crossover you see it depart though gently over a wide band eventually reaching about 35 degrees.

 

So the box speaker has more reactance which is non-resistive impedance as in capacitive or inductive loading. The Maggie is a resistor below the xover and a mildly reactive load above it. The chance of interacting with the speaker cable to alter frequency response is very low with a load like the Maggie. The Maggies that don't have a ribbon are almost entirely resistive. Very much like having a 4 ohm power resistor for a load as far the amp and cabling is concerned.

 

So of all the speakers that might somehow react with a speaker cable in some way the Maggies are the least picky I am aware of and certainly not very much effected by cabling. FWIW, I have owned a few Maggies though the most recent were 3.3Rs from way back when.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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I agree esl - it may be helpful to others to see those plots...

 

George, for $10 I am very willing to try those cables

 

BTW, there is a legendary guy in the desert with several Maggies used in different buildings. I hear he has 4 sets of 20.1s set up in a large warehouse like building, and the small desktop set on a.... er... desk. He just bought a pair of 3.7i speakers from the local dealer. I am going to find him next time I head to the other side of the mountains -- I've never heard a Maggie 20.1 surround system before...

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I agree esl - it may be helpful to others to see those plots...

 

George, for $10 I am very willing to try those cables

 

BTW, there is a legendary guy in the desert with several Maggies used in different buildings. I hear he has 4 sets of 20.1s set up in a large warehouse like building, and the small desktop set on a.... er... desk. He just bought a pair of 3.7i speakers from the local dealer. I am going to find him next time I head to the other side of the mountains -- I've never heard a Maggie 20.1 surround system before...

 

For what it's worth, neither have I. I have, of course heard 20.1s, but not in a surround system.

George

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After demoing a bunch, I preferred Transparent.

 

 

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