Steve Deckert
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Interesting observation... I replaced the speaker cables, a thinner gauge version of the ZSTYX, with some test leads that were nice and flexible, something the ZSTYX are not, especially when they are only 1 meter long as is the case here. So the test leads were the same length.
To put this in context, the test leads are copper stranded, super thin strands in a fat silicon jacket. The smaller version of the ZSTYX is first of all about 10 gauge rather than 18 gauge like the test leads. Also it is silver coated copper and the jacket is Teflon.
Anyway, for about well, all day, I have been listening to these speakers waiting for them to sound good. How can something that looks this good sound bad? The wood was super light compared to normal exotics, and maybe it just sucks? I kept waiting, and waiting... why is it so lean, so dry, to etched, so mid-fi?
A sense of dread started to build as I began to accept something is actually wrong here... these really don't sound good. This is the first pair that I didn't like.
Then I remembered the speaker wire... test leads... that has to be the problem. SO I put back the good ZSTYX 10 AWG clones (ZSTYX are 8 AWG about twice as thick) and bang, there we are. The density is back. The liquidity is back. The dryness is gone. The image is 3 times the size. Not even the same speaker. Seriously.
So this is a reality check. Since it is the only speaker wire I ever use (for a reason) it is all too easy to forget how the speakers might sound in another system without good speaker wire.
I can tell you that using the test leads, which are similar to regular cheap speaker cable, made these speakers sound like a con job. Seriously. It's scary. Don't treat Tiny Radials like toys. That is the lesson.
I have enjoyed the sound more in the last hour since I changed the wire, than I have in the past 24 hours with the wrong cables.
Learn from my mistakes. No doubt someone with Tiny Radials hasn't heard them yet. The difference was on a scale of 1 to 10 like comparing a 4 to an 8.5
Of course the EXACT same thing happens in the listening room with big speakers. I believe cables are as important as the speakers themselves, in fact they are probably the biggest choke point in audiophile's homes world wide so far as I can see.
It's another discussion better placed elsewhere, but surface it to say, good speaker cables are not an option. Zip cord is not acceptable. In fact most speaker cables are not acceptable. You have to go outside the playground to find the right stuff. Silver plated copper, heavy gauge, Teflon jacket. Simple. Get one wire for each polarity.
I've said it over 60,000 times so far, and that is that you only hear your system rise to the weakest link in the chain. In the hi-resolution work of single-end triodes with zero feedback, you can't and don't want to use regular speaker wire. It is a filter. You don't want a filter.
Here's a closing hypothetical example... Person buys a Decware amplifier, a great DAC, perhaps even a power conditioner, really awesome speakers, and left over speaker cables from a mainstream hifi system. Left wanting, he sends the amp back in for anniversary mods. After getting it back , he hears a 10% improvement and is happy. Now, had he been running proper speaker cable, the improvement would have been in this case 40%. That means that with the right cable he was 30% ahead of where he ended up after spending money on anniversary mods. So following this line of thought a bit further, had he had the right cables to begin with, he would have been 40% better than he was with the wrong cables, and then after doing the anniversary mods his money would have bought him another 40% improvement over where he was, totaling 80%, not 10%.
The hardest part of hi-end audio is accepting and identifying the weak links in the chain. But the rewards of success are always well worth the extra effort.
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As a followup, now having several hours back with the good cables, the sound is back to sounding like it is coming from the speakers in the listening room. I've talked about this before. It has already happened three times in the past hour that I have been fooled into thinking I was listening to the main system in the other room, not Tiny Radials in this room! With the test leads for speaker wire, the sound was coming from the speakers, and there was ZERO chance of being fooled into thinking the sound was coming from the other room. ZERO. The density and the imaging are essential giveaways.
This really worries me... I might have to get on a mission about ZSTYX. I think it might be time to offer them in 10 AWG at probably half the price (just guessing) with 90% the performance... should have done this years ago.
Have a great night!
Steve
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