New to the club and looking for advice

[MarkNewbie]

Hello,

I just got off of the phone from ordering a new set of ML Ascent i's and then I joined this site. Did I need to wait for them to arrive first? <snicker> I am not going to be able to sleep for the next ten days!

On to my question. I am looking for good speaker cables for under $1000.00 and would not object to buying used. And are there any pitfalls in buying used I should be aware of?

I will be mostly listening to Jazz, some classical, and soft rock. I have a Pass Labs X-350 amp, Mac C2200 pre-amp, shanling T200 slightly modified, and transparent audio XLRs and interconnects. I have thought about going with transparent cables or MITs. If anyone has experience with these, I would be most interested in your opinions.

Da Really New Guy!

 

[Robin]

MarkNewbie,

First of all, let me be the first to welcome you to ML owner club!
Your once and future system will be awsome. I'm aready envious of your, Pass Labs X-350 amplifier... I love my Ascent i's, and am saving up for a powerful amplifier to really make them sing.

I would suggest: "Monster Cable Z2 Biwire", 15 foot speaker cables, for your Ascent i's... It is what, I use on my, Ascent i's, and they sound wonderful, also they were in my price range. I know there are more expensive, Biwire cables out there, but Monster cable's Z2's are excellent speaker cables, IMHO. I think, fifteen feet in calbe lenght is necessary, as positioning is always needed especially, if you have a large home theater. Ascent i's are supposted to be positioned 2-3 feet away from the wall... By-the-way, how big is you HT (room dimentions)? Will you be looking to add a subwoofer, on down the road? If so, I am curious, what brand would you concidering?

Again, good to have you as a ML club member.

-Robin

 

[MarkNewbie]

Hey Robin,

Thanks for the hearty welcome! The room I am putting them in is 17 wide by 24 long. I am just a two channel set up. No home theater. I am not a big one for watching the tele. Prefer to sit and listen to music and read. I have a 20 year old set of Polk SDA 1's that the ascent i's will be replacing. I actually auditioned the MLs when I bought the Polks and just could not afford the MLs back then. I have to admit, I almost did not order the MLs after hooking the X-350 and Mac C2200 to the Polks. I had no idea that it would make that much difference. Then I thought about how much better the MLs sounded when I originally bought the Polks and my mind was made up! Your system sound pretty awesome. I have the 42" Sony LCD HDTV and love watching my Yankees play in High Def! Of course the sound is always down as the music is playing!

 

[risabet]

Your dealer. . .

should arrange to loan you some cables to try with the Ascents. The Audioquest CV-6 with DBS are some exceptional cables.

 

[Spike]

DH Labs

DH Labs Silver Sonic speaker cables. http://www.silversonic.com
I have these cables on my reQuests and they are quite good. See my system #27 in the members systems page.
Other cables to try are: Blue Jeans Cables. http://www.bluejeanscable.com

Good luck
Spike

 

[garmtz]

Nordost Blue Heaven, or better yet: Red Dawn. Extremely transparant and fast, with very stable and large imaging and much air and detail. They are also very musical. You will love them!

 

[Reverb2009]

I started into the world of aftermarket cables with Monster Cables. I must say after trying other brands I will never buy another Monster cable as long as I live, they are good but over price for what you get. I changed from monster to Audioquest and have never been happier. I did try PS Audio statement cables or awhile there, and found them to have a very large open dynamic sound stage with lots of bass but compared to Audioquest there sound was a little too laid back for me. I like the way Audioquest’s cable focus the sound and create a very three-dimensional sound stage that is very lively and natural.

Ps Audio did come out with a new series of cables last month including a very reasonably priced solid silver cable I would like to try but I think I will stick to Audioquest and be happy with what I have. Transparent cables were another brand I tried but found no change in sound with them.

My recommendation would be audioquests DBS cables, the CV-6 with Jaguar interconnects are a great match up. Audioquest is replacing the CV-6 with the CV-8 that should be just a little bit better then this little brother for the same price.

My second recommendation would be PS Audios new line of cables, if they even slightly better then there last series of cables I would not pick out a set of cables before trying PS Audios. There stuff is definitely a high-end bang for your buck cable.

Hope this helps
Joe

 

[DavidG]

Ears. . .

Talk to your dealer, and borrow a range of cables for several days. Don't swap them madly, leave each pair running for several hours or even a couple of days. There are several good recommendations above, so you could start with those.

When you've had time to really listen to them all, then spend money. Trust what your ears tell you, not what the specification sheets say. Also remember, a cable that works well for one amp/speaker combination may not be so good for another - the sound is defined by the interaction between all of the components in the chain.

If your dealer won't lend you any cables, find a new dealer. When you're investing these amounts of money, it's only right that you be allowed to listen to what you're buying before spending the cash!

Cheers,

David

 

[SteveInNC]

Hey Robin,

Thanks for the hearty welcome! The room I am putting them in is 17 wide by 24 long. I am just a two channel set up. No home theater. I am not a big one for watching the tele. Prefer to sit and listen to music and read. I have a 20 year old set of Polk SDA 1's that the ascent i's will be replacing. I actually auditioned the MLs when I bought the Polks and just could not afford the MLs back then. I have to admit, I almost did not order the MLs after hooking the X-350 and Mac C2200 to the Polks. I had no idea that it would make that much difference. Then I thought about how much better the MLs sounded when I originally bought the Polks and my mind was made up! Your system sound pretty awesome. I have the 42" Sony LCD HDTV and love watching my Yankees play in High Def! Of course the sound is always down as the music is playing!

Here's another welcome . I've been reading this board for about two years. I ordered my Ascents about two weeks ago. Still not here, but the US holiday was in the way and the dealer was closed yesterday, so I'm hoping for good news today. I'm also replacing 20+ year-old speakers (see the "Joining the fold" thread on the 2nd page of this forum). The similarities struck me as funny.

 

[Kruppy]

PS Audio Cables

Just a quick PS Audio comment to go along with Zip's:

I currently use PS Audio Statement bi-wires and have been quite happy with them. I picked mine up at a huge discount from AudioAdvisor, roughly $400 new (still a lot of money ), while they originally sold for $1300 new (for 3m pair). Even though they've been discontiued you can still find a new stock here and there in the $300 range for a 3m pair. That's not too bad of deal, if you're looking to experiment. Don't want them any more, throw them up on ebay or audiogon for a little less than you paid.

Warning: the Statements are extremely stiff cables.

 

[SugarMedia]

Nordost Blue Heaven, or better yet: Red Dawn. Extremely transparant and fast, with very stable and large imaging and much air and detail. They are also very musical. You will love them!

I second the Nordost Red Dawn (or blue heaven). Flatline cables work great with ML's

 

[DavidG]

I second the Nordost Red Dawn (or blue heaven). Flatline cables work great with ML's

Yup, after hours of listening, I went with Nordost. I found nothing out there to beat them, - **for my system**

Cheers,

David

 

[Neshamah]

Welcome to the Club, MarkNewbie !!! I'm a newbie too, technically speaking.

I just wanted to mention some cables I've found to be outstanding for my purposes. I'm talking about the so-called "Anti-Cables," by Paul Speltz. I have used just about every kind of mid-priced cable known to man -- but after one listening to the "Anti-Cables," I was hooked. But, I don't want to sound like a salesman; I'm just sharing an opinion. You can look at the info here: http://www.anticables.com/

Good luck !!!

Neshamah

 

[kach22i]

Talk to your dealer, and borrow a range of cables for several days. Don't swap them madly, leave each pair running for several hours or even a couple of days. There are several good recommendations above, so you could start with those.

When you've had time to really listen to them all, then spend money. Trust what your ears tell you, not what the specification sheets say. Also remember, a cable that works well for one amp/speaker combination may not be so good for another - the sound is defined by the interaction between all of the components in the chain.

If your dealer won't lend you any cables, find a new dealer. When you're investing these amounts of money, it's only right that you be allowed to listen to what you're buying before spending the cash!

Cheers,

David

Good advice David G.

Also; try several dealers and brands - be sure Nordost is one of them.

If you have issues or lack of choice with local dealers, these guys (The Cable Company) will mail you stuff - and great service/prices as well.

http://www.fatwyre.com/

 

[jolen1aub]

Welcome!

Hello,

I just got off of the phone from ordering a new set of ML Ascent i's and then I joined this site.

Just wanted to welcome you Mark to this wonderful and helpul ML club website. I'm sure you will have lots of fun exchanging infos and experiences as you grow into building your system as I have.

I am also a newbie and have had my ML Ascents for 2 years now. All I can say is all the guys here makes you feel at home.

Cheers and enjoy!

 

[Jean-Marie]

Yup, after hours of listening, I went with Nordost. I found nothing out there to beat them, - **for my system**

Cheers,

David

Same for me, I use red dawn. Very great an opened result

 

[MarkNewbie]

Wow

Talk about making someone feel welcome! Thank you to everyone.

I was hoping to learn something with my original post and I have. I have actually learned a couple of things. 1) You folks are really willing to help each other out and eager to do it, & 2) Experiment, experiment, experiment!

Thanks for giving me a place to start. As I go through this, I will keep checking this thread for more ideas. You folks are great!

 

[DavidG]

2) Experiment, experiment, experiment!

Yup - it's the only way to be sure that you've spent your money in the best possible way. And, a good specialist dealer will be happy to help out with this process (if they won't help, they're no good!).

Cheers,

David

 

[Reverb2009]

Talk about making someone feel welcome! Thank you to everyone.

I was hoping to learn something with my original post and I have. I have actually learned a couple of things. 1) You folks are really willing to help each other out and eager to do it, & 2) Experiment, experiment, experiment!

Thanks for giving me a place to start. As I go through this, I will keep checking this thread for more ideas. You folks are great!

Yep,
We can tell you what works and doesn’t work for us, and hopefully that will help give you a direction to go in. But in the end you just have to try different cables and see which ones work for your system. Every system is different, and that’s what makes this hobby fun.

 

[MarkNewbie]

Testing MITs

My Ascent i's were suppossed to be delivered Friday but BAX called and only one made it to their Indianapolis facility and the other is in Chicago. Now they are delivering them both on Monday...

My dealer is giving me MIT AVT2's to demo for a couple of weeks. Then he wants me to try the Shotgun2's. I figured that the Ascents would take at least a week of constant playing to get broke in. I have been told that I should play a musical FM station through them at low volume 24 hours a day for 3-4 days before they would really start to be broken in. Can someone tell me if that is the best way to break them in? And, if anyone has any experience with the MIT line, I would love to hear your opinions.

Thanks folks