I ran into a wee problem with my interconnect cable of choice.

I can't buy them, have them, or borrow them indeffinitely. This leaves me having to buy my own cables new, or seek other sources of interconnect.

Just to recap my experience with interconnect and speaker cable in my system:

Certain interconnect has made a huge difference in SQ.

Higher end speaker cable did have a good effect on SQ, but not nearly as dramatic as the interconnect.

Best bang for MY buck: Upgrade interconnect.

The problems:

1.) No budget for new interconnect
2.) Other interconnect is hurting my imaging horribly!
3.) In the middle of completely rebuilding my trunk area, so installing new cable will have to be engineered into the design.

So for those that are constantly chasing the weakest link in their SQ car audio system, test the cable in your system before you buy it.

I'm a frustrated car audio guy right now because I bought product somewhat blindly. I've got 4 fairly expensive runs of interconnect that look really pretty and sound....

BAD!!!!!

I hope I can save other people the headache that I have now.

Adam

Have you thought about trying your hand at making your own? You can experiment with various styles of cables and it can be done for pretty cheap. [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

Yes I am looking at that. Although I can't say where I get my materials from...

Thats fine, I was just interested in the results of what a "home made" cable would be against these spendy cables.

I'm going to define spendy.

Kimber Cable pure silver interconnect - $350 US per meter plus terminations (I had a 4 meters in my car for the test)

"Home Made" cables in the works. I'll do a direct comparison with the Kimber Silver and Monster XLN-Pro and post my results.

Considering I'll have all of my system working at that point, I'll be a lot more in depth with my evaluations. For example, I'll use some CDs that everyone is familiar with, and I'll walk through the entire frequency spectrum with pro's and con's of each cable.

I'm also open to testing other cables if people are interested in sending them to me.

Adam

^ Someone tell Dave that Adam is gunning for his Job! :D

Where is Dave?

I haven't seen him on the board lately.

Have you thought of using some Zapco Balanced ones? I have everything but the receiver so there's no use in me sending them to you...

For all those that don't know.

Audison offers all VRx amplifiers with a balanced input. It is a true 3 wire balanced connection, with a special connector that is compatible with both normal RCAs and Audison's balanced line cables. The cables are special order from Audison, and there is a special box similar to a line driver that you must use on the head unit side. Truely high end stuff.

Adam

Hi Adam, I found your findings on the interconnects very interesting, thanks for sharing your findings [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

Were the Monster XLN cables the ones causing you grief ?

I know how expensive those interconnects can get, good luck finding something you like within your budget [img]smile.gif[/img]